Avi looked wrung out, sweaty and triumphant under the lights. Leah pulled out her phone to capture the moment and saw he’d texted her right before he’d gone on.
Avi
I might be a little preoccupied by the time you see this text, but I meant what I said.
I want to keep the road trip going. I don’t care where.
“If you fell asleep somewhere on the boat, that was your alarm clock,” Avi rasped into the mic. Pockets of laughter ricocheted. “Almost time, people! How about a massive round of applause for Jay Katz and his team at Katz Event Concepts, yeah?” The whole ballroom erupted.
“This one’s called –”
“TRUE LOVE FOREVER!” Someone screamed from the crowd. It got a few claps and whoops in response.
“If you’re gonna request a song of mine, at least get the fucking name right.” He laughed, and the masses joined him. “Seriously though, that song is called ‘True Love For Now,’ and my band and I agreed, we’re going to retire it.” There were a few boos but mostly shocked silence. “For now,” he added, and the drummer hit the rimshot on his punchline.
Avi strapped on his acoustic guitar and strummed a few chords to get the crowd’s attention once more.
“AmpBeat magazine recently asked me,” he said, voice rich and warm in the mic, “If I believed in true love.” He strummed thoughtfully, teasing the crowd to hang on with bated breath. “Forever, for now…I’ve learned the time frame isn’t the part you focus on.” This got some whistles.
His gaze took him far beyond the ballroom, out the doorways leading to the deck where the night held limitless promise, stars winking reminders like inside jokes. Friends and familiar faces dotted the edges of the crowd as he brought his view back to the front.
A perfect sightline.
Leah, in a borrowed dress and shoes, with a smile all her own.
Avi’s heart buzzed like a hundred watt amp cranked to eleven, and he smiled back before raising his face to the lights once more.
“The bravest thing you can do is love someone in the moment. Enjoy that fucking moment, people. And the road it takes you on. It’s guaranteed to be magical.”
The entire boat seemed to reverberate with applause.
“Now, here’s what you’ve been waiting for. This one’s called ‘Silver, Blue and Gold.’ Happy Hanukkah, all you Matzo Ballers. We’ll see you next year.”
He loved everything about the classic song, and the Baller crowd had come to expect it. It represented the celebration of one’s own heart, its colors made him think of Hanukkah, and it was the perfect gift he could think of to give back to the boat.
Chapter Thirty-One
“You left me on ‘read.’”
The crowd was surging in two different directions – a mass exodus to leave the boat and another swarming the stage, but its star attraction had already left it. And he was standing right in front of her.
Avi’s hair was wild, his shirt clinging to him, and his eyes—God, his eyes—were so earnest it almost hurt to look at him.
“Never leave a rock star on ‘read’, Gellman.”
Leah folded her arms tightly across her chest, as if to hold herself steady. What he had said in his text – and just now on stage – wasn’t lost on her.
He nudged his toe against hers. “Jonah said you found Doctor Whatshisface.”
“I can’t believe Jonah’s still standing, let alone talking.”
She nudged his right back. “But yes. And I wrote down his grandma’s recipe for him, to make his own damn rugelach.”
To make as a surprise for his Hollywood screen actress girlfriend, actually. Now Leah understood what Hersh had meant when he texted he and his partner had demandingcareers, and why they were keeping it on the down-low from Grandma Tilly.
“So if he’s still off your wish list…am I still on it?”
“Avi… it’s only been three days. I feel it, too. I do. But it’s happening so fast, and that terrifies me. We haven’t even had arealfirst date yet. Technically.” She let out a nervous laugh, shaking her head. “Lay some science on me, Wolfson. Help me understand why this feels so…right.”
