“This is my new friend, Bea Blackhouse.”
Her head perked up, and she glanced at me and then back at the woman. “The manager?”
“The one. Bea and I were just discussing your brother’s band, but we can’t tell Pierce because you know how he doesn’t want to share the group.”
Loretta tipped her head at me and I swear she winked. “He is possessive of the band,” she said and then turned her attention to the woman. “They are going onstage in ten minutes. Would you like to go with us and watch?”
Bea shook her head. “No, thank you I have a few issues of my own to deal with, but I will look them up later. I’ll try to pop in before the end of their set.” It didn’t sound like a lie.
“I’m sure you’ll love what you hear,” I said and then turned around taking Loretta with me. I didn’t worry about her attacking the woman any longer, but I set up a good lie and didn’t want her inadvertently outing my untruths.
“Come on, I saved us a spot to watch your brother,” I whispered into her ear as we walked in the opposite direction of Bea.
Loretta laughed. “You know no one sits to listen to these things. Right? The crowds only get rowdier as the night goes on.”
That might be true for some people, but we were definitely going to watch her brother’s band play somewhere alone. I wasn’t against dancing with her again, but not anywhere her brother could glance down and see us.
I led her to the top of the hill where we stopped earlier in the day before she pulled me to the other side and danced against me like we were having sex with an audience. Before I’d gone in search of her and found Bea, I laid out a large blanket from my hotel room and two bottles of water. Thankfully the items were still there when we crested the hill.
“Do you think Bea will consider repping my brother’s band?” she asked as I motioned to the blanket.
“I am persuasive when it comes to the female population,” I replied taking a seat beside her. She rolled her eyes but chose not to respond. We had plenty of room to spread out on the blanket, but I sat myself as close to her side as possible. “I might have laid it on thick, but Pierce told me if I saw her to name drop.”
Loretta stared at me rather than her brother and his bandmates as they took the stage. “Thank you. I think my brother has what it takes to be big, but there’s no way to get these connections in Maine.”
“That’s why Pierce wanted them here.”
Loretta laid her hand on my knee. “You’re an okay guy, Reggie.”
“For an old man, you mean?”
She tightened her fingers together, squeezing my knee until I forced myself to move it away. “Yeah.”
The stars made their presence in the night sky and twinkled high above us as a deep silence settled on the area. People close to the stage waited for the band to play their opening song. They stopped talking as the guitarist strapped his instrument over his head and stepped into position. The stage lights turned on and Loretta faced me, her eyes drilled into mine, and I didn’t breathe waiting for what happened next.
Seconds ticked by and the air grew warmer. I leaned closer wanting to be as near as possible, but not sure how to do it. As I searched for the perfect words to say, Loretta’s lips found mine with nothing spoken. She tasted of sweet bubblegum and sunshine.
The first guitar note shimmered through the air and Loretta wrapped her arms around my neck. I wiggled my body closer, resting my hands on her hips. The need to touch her clawed at me as I fought the urge to grab on and never let her go, to make her mine.
She kissed the same way her body moved and her voice sang—sweet yet soul intoxicating, as if she reached in and claimed me for herself.
My free hand traveled up her thigh at the exact moment the drums kicked in and the beat picked up speed. We pulled away, each of us sucking in a deep breath, our wide eyes watching one another. Loretta smiled and then lay back to stare up at the stars.
I matched her position, putting myself close to her and laying my arm out giving her space to lie beside me and use it as a pillow. She did and my heart relaxed in happiness. The band played at the bottom of the hill, their songs loud, but not the screaming music from the afternoon. Her brother sang about a love he’d lost in childhood, someone he could never replace. My breathing relaxed as I relished spending the moment with her.
He finished the deep heart-felt song and Loretta laughed.
“What’s funny? That song was so sad it could have been country.”
She shook her head. “I knew that’s what you thought. The song is about our dog. Everyone thinks he wrote it for one of his old girlfriends, but it was our poodle with the curly hair and big brown eyes.”
I laughed and brought her closer.
We lay together on the blanket as her brother started a new song, this one about wanting to stay out all night and party but having to work. It seemed there were a few universal song topics in the world. My phone rang, and I slipped it from my pocket, checking the screen to see Roxie’s name. Then I quickly turned it off so the noise wouldn’t interfere with my enjoyment of the band.
“Be honest with me, Reg. Are you hiding a wife? There has to be something hiding in a closet, right?” Loretta drew out the e sound in the even shorter version of my name. I hated the new nickname more than Reggie.
“What?” I rolled toward her and put my arm on the other side of her body, caging her in. “Why do you think that?”
