“I chew my food rather than inhale it and I don’t know what else you have to do this evening.” There weren’t any scheduled events until the next morning.
She tapped her fingers doubly fast. “Are you done yet?”
I laid my napkin on top of the burger. “I’m finished.”
“Good.” Her smile turned megawatt. But before I had time to admire it, she stood and pulled me off my stool, dragging me toward the karaoke machine.
I tugged her back with little effort. “No way am I singing karaoke.”
She pouted. Literally pouted. She crossed her arms over her chest, stuck out her bottom lip, and made her eyes look dopey. “But it’s a duet.”
“I won’t know the lyrics.” She hadn’t told me what song she expected me to sing, but there was a ninety-nine percent chance I didn’t know it.
For some reason—probably because she had inherited the crazy gene—she saw my denial as acceptance to her half-thought-out plan. “They put the lyrics on the screen. I’ll take the hard part. Come on, Reggie. It’ll be fine.”
“I’m not singing karaoke with you, blue.” I planted my feet firmly on the ground, but her expression didn’t waver.
“If you don’t, I’ll have to tell Pierce you were a horrible representative of the Kensington family. He knows how important this weekend is to my brother and he has a vested interest in the band. You don’t want to upset the lead singer before they get their big break. Do you?”
“Are you blackmailing me?” The little minx. What else did she have up her sleeve?
Loretta shrugged. “Just one song, Reggie.”
“I hate that nickname.”
“I’ll stop calling you that if you sing the song with me,” she said, but I didn’t believe her. She would never give up the name now that she knew it annoyed me.
“Fine, one song.” I’d barely finished my sentence when she hauled me to the stage. “You better pick something easy.”
She nodded enthusiastically and spoke to the person manning the karaoke machine before grabbing two microphones and turning around with a sinister smile. So not something easy then. She probably planned to make me sing a Justin Bieber song or something.
We stood side by side on the stage, looking out as doubts and fears crawled up my spine. Loretta shifted smoothly back and forth in peace. The ends of her skirt swayed in the breeze and showed off her trim legs. Any man would find her gorgeous, even if there was more than a six-inch height difference between us. She was so small yet fiery. And also young.
The song started, and I crinkled my nose. Rather than a musical beat, a man’s voice over a radio spoke. Against what I’d led myself to believe, Iknewthe song Loretta chose for us to sing, and it wasn’t a duet… or easy.
“Sublime?” I mouthed to her, and Loretta shrugged, but her smile grew.
She was in for a surprise.
I placed the microphone to my mouth and grinned back. I’d need the lyrics on the screen to help, but “April 29, 1992” bySublimewas a staple in my childhood. My older cousins played it on repeat for an entire summer and had rap battles against one another on my parents’ back deck.
I had a surprise for the redheaded vixen.
3
Loretta sang karaoke into the wee hours of the morning. We worked our way through the first pitcher of beer and then a second. Her brother may have been the musician in the family, but Loretta’s voice wove magic around the room. She sang as if the music carried her whole soul with it. Thankfully she only made me do the one song, and then I’d been content to sit back and watch each time she took the stage.
The woman confused me. Nothing about her should have piqued my interest, yet I couldn’t stop thinking of her—the way her dress moved when she sang, how her piercings glittered in the lights of the stage, and most importantly how she looked at me with a smile I swore she made just for me. It felt as if no one else in the world existed except for the two of us. Every time she walked off after finishing her performance only to be met with an array of catcalls from the other patrons, I saw red. I wanted to get up and knock them on their asses.
Last night she caught me off guard at the bar. I hadn’t expected to spend my quiet weekend in Colorado with a temptress, but now I understood who I battled against, and time came to turn the tables on Loretta James.
That’s why I knocked on her hotel room door as loudly as possible. A good thirty seconds passed, and she didn’t swing it open to yell at me. I couldn’t guarantee Loretta was in her room, but from the way she’d stumbled in as I walked her to it the night before, I didn’t think she’d be going anywhere early this morning. In fact, I’d bet hard-earned money she had the covers wrapped around her.
I knocked again, this time using more of my fist.
“Loretta, open up,” I said, putting my mouth as close to the door as possible without touching the disgusting wood.
“No,” came alongside a strangled moan from inside the room.
