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Chapter 8
Trenton
TheminuteI’dinvitedAli to rehearse at my house, I wondered if I was making a mistake. My house was my sanctuary, and other than close friends, I didn’t have people over. I couldn’t discount the sensibility of the decision, though. The studio where the show was filmed was busy and oozed stress. My house would provide a relaxed environment, and we wouldn’t have to work our rehearsals around other people’s schedules.
But having her here made me wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t sneaked out of the hotel room. Maybe I would have taken her home the following night. Asking to see her the very next night might have come across as too forward, but I wouldn’t have cared. I liked her, so what was the point of playing hard to get? Now, though, it didn’t matter. As long as we were partners in the competition, it was best to remain professional. We seemed to be on the same page as far as that was concerned.
Ali held out a list of songs that had been scrawled on a cheap hotel notepad.
I quickly scanned it. “These are all duets.”
She looked at me like I was an idiot. “Yes, because we’re supposed to perform a duet.”
I was learning that Ali was a by-the-book rule follower, which made her actions to go with me to the hotel shocking, in retrospect. That was probably one of the craziest things she’d ever done. Part of me wanted to ask, but the smarter part of me knew it was best to leave it alone. “Just about any song can be made into a duet.”
She frowned. “I hadn’t considered that. The audience will be expecting traditional duets, though. I have no idea what the judges want.”
I eyed her. “What do you want?”
She met my gaze, her eyes steely. “To win.”
I nodded in appreciation. “Good. How do you plan to do that?”
“For now? I think we need to play it safe,” she said. “At least in the beginning while we get the lay of the land.”
I stifled a laugh. To hear her talk, we were going into battle. Well, the show was calledSing Battle, so perhaps it was an apt comparison. I was glad she was determined to win. A competitive nature ran in my family, and I understood it. “Okay,” I agreed. “We play it by the book for now. It’s better this way, anyway. It gives me time to rearrange other music. And if I need to, I can call in some favors from some people who are way more talented than I am.”
She blinked. “You would do that? Use your favors for me?”
“Yes,” I said simply. Lest she think I was a better man that I actually was, I amended my answer. “Don’t forget we’re partners in this. If you go down in flames, we both do.”
She lifted her chin, that confident gleam that I admired the first night we’d met present in her eyes. “If we go down in flames, it won’t be because of me.”
I grinned. “Is that so?”
She nodded, not backing down. Damn, I liked this girl. I wished she’d stayed in my bed that morning instead of scurrying away. I wished we weren’t on this show together so it would be okay for me to make a play for her. But I wasn’t a fool who spent his days wishing for things that couldn’t be.
We went back and forth for a while, taking way too long to decide on a song. I got the impression Ali was looking for the perfect one, and I didn’t want to be the one to tell her it didn’t exist. At that point, we just needed something good enough to get to the next round. Unfortunately, by the time she sent our selection in to the production team, it had already been taken, which put us back to the drawing board.
“What about ‘Senorita’?” I suggested. The song hadn’t been on her list, and I hadn’t realized why until her cheeks flushed. We’d danced to that song at the club. “It worked for us before,” I added shamelessly. Though I didn’t think it possible, her cheeks turned an even deeper shade of crimson.
“It’s probably already taken,” she said. “And anyway, Shawn and Camila’s performance at the AMAs was legendary and not too long ago. I don’t think we could top that.”
I knew the performance she referred to. Their chemistry had been off the charts. Half the audience had probably felt like they needed to smoke a cigarette after watching.
“I think we could.” God knew we had chemistry. Giving in to it, even for a performance, would be playing with fire.
She shook her head, so I let it go. It was probably for the best. If we came out of the gate with that, we’d be hard-pressed to top it. If Ali would let herself give in to the heat that sizzled between us, we would kill it. That was a big if, though, and I wasn’t going to force something that clearly made her uncomfortable.
I was growing impatient with our inability to decide. I tried to bury the feeling—I didn’t want to be insensitive. I’d made plenty of decisions in my decade-long career, most of them good. Aside from auditioning for the show, it was the first major decision Ali had made for her music career, and it would be the first time audiences got a taste of her.
“You could always go with a Disney song. Those movies always have duets, right?”
She cocked her head. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a Disney fan.”
“I’m not particularly. Just throwing it out there.” As the celebrity partner, I was supposed to help guide her, but how much? I didn’t think I should simply try to call the shots. She was the star of the show—my job was to complement her.
“I have a feeling they’re going to do themed shows later on. Disney might be one of the themes, so we should probably hold off.”
