Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply and let the breath move out of my body with ease, calming me down. It was a practice I learned early on in my surgical career whenever I got jittery. I hadn’t had to practice it in a long time since I no longer got nervous before surgery. But sitting here, in an audience of about fifty to sixty other people, with no one’s attention on me, I felt anxious.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage Grace Young!” the host, or whoever the hell she was, yelled into the microphone. The room swelled with cheers and applause from the audience. I kept my body rigid. I didn’t want to miss a second of Grace from the time she emerged from behind the curtain.
“Thank you,” she crooned into the microphone, smiling.
The dimples in her cheeks were evident, causing my gut to clench as if I’d been sucker punched. And when she slowly closed her eyes and began humming the notes of whatever song she was preparing to sing, I knew I was indeed sucker punched.
She inhaled, her lips parting, and she began singing.
I obviously wasn’t familiar with the song but that didn’t matter because she held my rapt attention. This was a different type of song than the first time I saw her perform. That one had a jazzy feel to it. This one was a pop song. But her delivery of the song gave it the backbone it needed so that it didn’t go too far into thoughtless pop territory. My more reasonable mind tried to persuade me that I might be just a tad bit biased in my assessment of her delivery of the song, but as I heard the cheers and singing along from some of the audience members, I knew that was bullshit. She was as every bit enthralling as I thought she was the first time. Hell, even when I spotted her shaking her hips to Whitney Houston in the produce aisle, she held my complete attention. And she wasn’t doing it for anyone on a stage then. She was just enjoying herself.
She belted out the lyrics of a woman telling her love not to try to satisfy her with empty platitudes. And at the height of the song, our eyes collided for the first time of this performance.
Her shock when she realized I was sitting there, blatantly ogling her as she did her thing on stage, filled me with a surge of energy. And just like the pro she was, she quickly recovered and continued with the rest of the song without missing a beat.
I found myself clapping as loudly … no, louder than anyone else in the room.
“Thank you. That was a little Fifth Harmony for those of you who aren’t familiar with the song.” Her eyes dipped to meet mine and I knew she was speaking directly to me. I didn’t give a damn about the name of the original artists who sang the song. As far as I was concerned, once Grace performed it, it was hers.
A second later I heard the distinct sounds of a string instrument playing from behind Grace. Again, she began humming before opening her lips to sing. The words coming from her were covered in some sort of magic because I slipped into an enigmatic trance that I didn’t want to escape from. It was almost like an out-of-body experience watching her on stage as she closed her eyes for the parts you could tell she was really feeling.
And just when I thought I couldn’t sink any further into this spell she had wrapped me in, a dark figure emerged from the corner of the stage. A deeper voice began to meld with hers as a man dressed in a dark pair of jeans and black T-shirt, holding a microphone, started harmonizing with Grace, filling out the male part of the song.
I recognized him.
He’d been on stage since I arrived, playing the saxophone for the other songs. His nearness to Grace pissed me off. My body rebelled against the way she turned to him as they sung the lyrics in unison, bouncing off one another. I remained in my seat, though it proved difficult. More difficult than it should’ve been for a woman whose lips I’d still yet to feel on mine.
I released the breath I was holding as the song ended and Grace turned away from the man, smiling toward the audience. She pressed a kiss to the tips of her fingers and blew on them toward the audience, taking in their applause. Her smile dropped a little when her eyes landed on me again. There was a smoldering gaze behind those hickory irises of hers and I was certain it mirrored the gleam in my own eyes.
“Thank you, everyone! Please enjoy the rest of your evening,” Grace said into the microphone before waving and placing it back into the stand.
I was on my feet before I even had a chance to think too much about it. My hand extended toward her, to help her down and off the stage. She looked at me, hesitating for a moment before placing that delicate hand of hers into mine, allowing me to assist her. Instinctively, my free hand went to her waist. She was wearing a semi-long, puffy skirt that held her waist firm as the cream-colored bodysuit she wore outlined the top half of her body.
“Do you want a drink?” were the first words that came to me so I went with them. I was also well aware that I still held onto her hand even though we’d left the stage behind. She didn’t need my assistance to walk, but releasing her hand wasn’t an option. Nor did she try to pull away.
“I shouldn’t.” Her voice was soft, not like the confident nurse who could run circles around all the residents and most of the attendings in the OR.
“You’re not on call and you don’t have to go to work tomorrow,” I said as we moved closer to the bar. I paused to turn and stare at her. Her hair, which was normally kept in a neat bun at the back of her head while at work, was down again, flowing freely around her shoulders. I had the strongest urge to reach out and finger one of the tightly coiled curls to see if it would bounce back in place.
That was an odd feeling for me. I wasn’t a touchy feely guy. In fact, I didn’t like to be touched at all. So when I glanced down and still found Grace’s hand in mine as if that was where it belonged, I remained baffled.
“How do you know my schedule?”
“I looked it up,” I stated honestly. It wasn’t exactly difficult to find out the nursing staff’s schedule if I wanted to. However, I had never wanted to in the past.
“One drink.”
I nodded. “What’ll it be?”
“Margarita.”
“Salt on the brim?”
“Of course.”
Hiding my grin, I turned toward the bar to order her drink. Reluctantly, I released her hand as I took the margarita to hand it to her. But not so cautiously, I watched as she took her first sip of her drink. Her eyelids fluttered, I assumed from the tartness of the drink, but soon she released a deep sigh of satisfaction.
“That’s good.” She took another sip before peering up at me. “You’re not having a drink?”
