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Maybe I’d put it a little further away.
Every time I turned off the app, I’d leave my camera open and nudge it toward her hopefully. I knew I had a lot of work before I caught up to Drake. But still, I could use just one measly—
I cut off as Vex jumped to her feet and set down her glass of wine (second of the night). “This is my favourite!” she exclaimed.
She liked Heart’s music, so I’d left it playing in the background.
Next thing I knew she was dragging me up to dance, and I wasn’t going to say no—though I managed to snag my phone before she did. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and let me hold her while she sang along.
Fuck she was mesmerizing.
I don’t think I’d ever seen her this comfortable before. Was this what she was like with Drake?
I wanted to be safe for her. I wanted it so badly.
When the song ended, I wasn’t ready for it to be over, but she was already singing along to the next one.
Her voice was a lyric mezzo soprano, and her lower notes were full and rich. The most impressive part was that sometimes she’d waver, or‘cheat with the tongue’as my mother always put it, showing that she wasn’t trained at all. Her voice was incredible without the training or money put behind mine.
She didn’t mimic Heart, either, she sang her own harmony beside him, giving a different meaning to the words.
“Wait, wait,” I cut her off, unable to stop myself. “That was good, the middle part, just hold that a little longer, you can slip into the next verse easily.”
She nodded, a frown on her face.
“Sorry. If you don’t want me—”
“No.” Her smile was genuine, if still a little anxious. “It’s okay.”
“It was the…” I tapped an imaginary piano key before humming an E3, which made Vex smile. “That one. Try drawing it out right before you stop phonating, and try the three note riff like you did before.”
She bit her lip, blinking up at me.
“Instead of the two note riff, I mean.”
“So uh…” She was pink in the cheeks. “I mean… I mostly just watched internet videos and sang with my mom.”
“Oh, like…” Shit. My mother was an opera singer, there was no musical stone left unturned when it had come to my education. “Right before you drop into the whisper, last time you…” Again, I tapped imaginary fingers on ivory, dusting off old skills I hadn’t touched in a long time as I mimicked what she’d done, shifting through the three notes.
She grinned. “You don’t think that’s too much?”
“You can pull it off.”
“I totally didn’t realise you could sing.”
I shrugged. “My voice is all paid for. No passion. Doesn’t have soul to it like yours.”
“Oh right. Your parents… Your mother! I totally forgot. Shit. I’m going to have to work hard to make them proud.”
I felt my heart clench as I stared down into her twinkling eyes, bright and golden in the outdoor fairy lights around us. Eyes my family would never accept. Eyes that glowed in every video I’d seen of that moment in the arena, when she had turned on two alphas—a growl in her chest—to protect me.
I shook my head. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I mean, I’d like to, family is—”
“Here’s the thing about my mother.” I cut her off before she could be even sweeter to a family that didn’t deserve it. “Firstly, she wouldn’t have the capacity for pride unless you were Diana Ankudinova herself. Secondly, she’ll never meet you, so it’s a nonissue.”
“You don’t want me to meet your parents?” Her face fell.
