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The men all stopped talking and listened. She sang in a soft, gravelly voice that sounded like it should come from someone else.
“She’s hidden that talent well. I went to school with her and never once heard her sing,” Luke said.
“Her dad was an entertainer, I think,” Jack said.
“Yeah?” Luke whistled softly.
She lost some of her tension as the song grew; she even looked away from her aunt, and her eyes caught his. Ted felt the breath lodge in his throat.
“You all good there, bud? You look like someone stole your Velcro sneakers.”
“Sure,” he replied to Dylan. But he wasn’t. He was deeply disturbed by Mandy Robbins and the emergence of the woman she was becoming. She was smiling now, and it was so sweet it hurt something inside his chest. Ted made himself look away.
“Anyone need a drink?”
There was a chorus of agreement, so he headed to the bar while Mandy sang. The applause when she finished was loud, but he didn’t turn around or join in. In fact, he didn’t look at her again until he felt a trickle of awareness. Looking around the room, he saw her leaving A.S. Ted guessed not for long, as her aunts were still here.
When she hadn’t returned ten minutes later, unease travelled up his spine. Excusing himself, he followed. This was Ryker Falls, he reminded himself, but there were bad people everywhere if you looked hard enough.
The streetlights showed him she wasn’t out front, so he looked left and right. Still no sign of her.
Heading around the back of Tea Total, he found her beside her aunts’ car. As he approached, he heard her talking into her phone.
“Why are you calling me? Hello?”
“Mandy?” She turned so fast, she fell back against the car. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just needed to get something out of my car for Aunt Marla.”
“Who are you talking to?”
“No one.”
“Then why did you ask who was calling you?”
She looked down at the phone clenched in her hand, then back up at him.
“I had five missed calls in a matter of minutes. I was ringing the number back to see why.”
“Give me your phone.”
“I can handle this, Ted. Some kids obviously decided to prank me. It’s all part of being strong, right? Mentally tough.”
She was panicking, he could tell by the little rasps of breath she was exhaling between words.
“Let me see the number. We’ll give it to Dylan, and he can get it traced.”
“No. That’s ridiculous. This kind of stuff happens all the time.”
She let out a shaky breath.
“Just when something happens to make me feel strong, something happens to remind me I’m not.”
“You don’t think things happen that scare me? That I still get shaken up from time to time?” Ted jammed his hands in the pockets of his chinos so he didn’t touch her. “We all have weak moments, Mandy. It’s how we deal with them and move on that makes us different.”
“What scares you?” Her eyes searched his face.
How I feel about you.
