Cheyenne gives me the face she reserves for when I get attached to a feral cat. “You don’t have to prove anything. You don’t have to run away from liking someone by chasing someone else.”
“I’m not running,” I lie. And then, because Dylan is doing a drumroll on the table with two chopsticks he absolutely stole from a sushi plate, I stand. “I’m…singing.”
The sign-up sheet is a mess of hearts and illegible handwriting. I pick a duet—“Shallow”—and sign up myself and an imaginary man—Herb Davis—because I’m a woman with a plan. A humiliating plan, but a plan. The emcee, a woman with glitter eyeliner and the confidence of a thousand open bars, calls the performer before me. The crowd whoops. Stage lights warm the cheap carpet. The ship hums under my feet.
When I turn from the clipboard, I nearly collide with a barrel chest.
“Sorry,” I blurt, hands up.
His hands are already out, not touching, but ready to steady. Blue eyes, close now. Freckles across the bridge of his nose like someone dusted him with cinnamon and forgot to blow it off.
He takes me in, like he’s making an inventory of me, making sure he didn’t break anything. “Yougrand?” His voice is a low Irish burr, different from Sean’s quick lilt. Slower. Weightier. Like a bass note you feel in your ribs.
“Grand?” I ask, confused.
“You all right?” he clarifies, his ginger eyebrows knitted together.
“Grand.” I chuckle breathily, then say, “Perfect,” which is bold for someone whose heart is trying to sprint a 5K.
His mouth doesn’t smile. His eyes do. The effect is disarming. “You’re up next. You nervous?”
“You keep a schedule for strangers?”
“I watch the room. I noticed you.” He tips his chin toward the stage, where a man is currently performing a power ballad like he’s rescuing it from a burning building. Then he leans toward me, practically bending in half, and whispers, “I noticed you watching my friend last night too.”
Shooting him an innocent smile, I stand up on my tiptoes to whisper back, “I don’t see him here now.” Because it’s true. Sean’s gone off somewhere, almost as if the stars aligned for me to flirt my butt off with his friend. Oh, I am winning this dare.
He looks around overtly, pretending to check under chairs. “Nor do I.” Then he holds out his hand. His fingers are big, blunt, a worker’s hands in a doctor’s crowd. “Declan,” he adds, as if offering a tool rather than a name. “Murray.”
“DoctorDeclan Murray?” It slips out before I can catch it. I see him swallow a smile as he tongues his cheek.
The emcee calls my name. My stomach flips. Declan steps to the side to let me pass and somebody behind us jostles with a slosh of beer. Before I even register it, Declan’s hand is at the back of my elbow, firm, guiding me out of the splash zone, placing hisbody between me and the spill. It’s nothing. It’s everything. I feel…tucked.
“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it more than it warrants.
He studies me a beat. “You really are nervous.”
“No,” I say, because pride, and also yes, I am nervous.
“In for four, out for six. Go on now.” The numbers arrive like a steady metronome. “Head up. Don’t lock your knees.”
“Are you…coaching me?”
“A bit.” The corner of his mouth thinks about a smile.
“What are your credentials? Do you sing?”
“Only when I have to.”
“And what constitutes ‘have to’?”
A beat. “When someone dares me.”
“What about if I dared you?”
His eyes hold mine until heat crawls up my neck. He doesn’t answer, and the emcee calls my name—“Willow Abel! Abel? Willow Abel?!”—so loud it feels like the building is made of my name.
“You’re up,” Declan says with a small smile, leaning just close enough for me to catch the faint trace of salt water and cologne clinging to him.
