“Show me.”
He turned the phone to face me, showing he didn’t have any pictures or videos of Lena.
“Delete it from the cloud.”
I held firmly onto his wrist while he deleted the images from any storage. “Now, make your friends do the same.”
They all tried to push back, but I twisted their friend’s wrist harder.
“Unless you want to see his bone pop out of his wrist before the night’s over, I’d do as I asked.”
He begged his friends to listen, which, eventually, they did. Once I ensured that they deleted any pictures of Lena from their phones and cloud storage, I released his wrist.
“Learn to respect people’s privacy, dipshit,” I growled as I pushed him away.
“I’m calling the police,” the other guy, who’d primarily remained silent, said as he backed away.
“Do it and see if I don’t stick your phone up your ass.”
His eyes widened, and he elbowed one of the women out of his way to get to his car.
They all scurried into the car behind him. The tires squealed as he peeled out of the parking lot.
I returned to the table to see Micah, Jodi, and Lena laughing.
“Hey, Lena was about to show us her party trick,” Jodi said.
“I’ve got to see this.” I retook my seat next to her.
Lena’s eyelids fluttered, and she turned away slightly. “It’s not a big deal. Just something I can do.”
“Then I need to see it,” I said.
She shrugged. “I can’t. We don’t have any music.”
“Yes, we do,” Jodi insisted. She pulled out her phone and placed it at the center of the table. “Hm, let’s see.” She tapped a few buttons, and a song started playing. “Go.”
Lena smiled. “Easy. Linkin Park, ‘Numb’. Came out in 2003 off theirMeteoraalbum.”
“Okay, that was an easy one to get you warmed up.” Jodi scrolled through her phone again. “I don’t even know what this song is.”
She played another song.
Closing her eyes, Lena let out a small moan. She swayed a little in time with the melody.
“Jessie Ware, ‘Say You Love Me’. Released 2014 off theTough Lovealbum. Fantastic album, by the way.”
Lena swayed a little more before she opened her mouth, and the most beautiful sound came out. I didn’t typically describe shit asbeautiful,but that’s what it was when she began singing the words to the song.
Her voice embodied a slightly deeper level of soul than the original singer, but it sounded almost as heartfelt.
I about stopped breathing while I listened to her. It was as if she was in another world. I was confident I could spend an entire day watching her in her element like this.
I came close to snatching Jodi’s phone off the table and hitting replay when the song ended.
“Sorry, I get carried away sometimes,” she murmured, tucking her chin and pushing a stray curl behind her ear.
“No apologies needed,” I said.
