I’m in a dream as I follow the sound of Trish’s voice. Like the others, I’ve already been so programmed to follow her orders that I immediately move. “Now, every single one of you is scheduled. So let’s not get behind, shall we?”
First up, Klaus lumbers onto the tiny stage and blows us all away with a very brisk soft-shoe performance.
“Next! Remember, everybody goes! Nobody skips it. I’ve got you all on my list, and I know your talents, people.” Yeah, Trish is frightening.
It’s a long night, featuring such amazing talents as Dorothy’s bizarre crying baby imitation and one of the younger guys spinning a pen over his knuckles for a solid minute. By the time my name is called, I’m ready to present the very rare talent that Trish convinced me is worth sharing.
I sit on the edge of the stage and apply lipstick with my toes to a loud round of applause. I can be a bit of a show-off like that.
Grant, of course, goes last, and I have no idea what to expect. What’s obvious is that he’s not thrilled to have to step up onstage.
Trish hands him a microphone, and someone plucks a few chords on the piano, and then—holy shit—Grant opens his mouth and sings the first line of “My Way,” like the gruff, stern Sinatra the world didn’t know it needed.
I am floored. We all are. For the first time all night, every single person here is utterly silent, and a lot of those who’ve spent all day glaring at him suddenly soften. Such is the power of a good song. I know this in the depths of my soul. I know it when I think about Mom and the way she’d sing me to sleep before my sisters were born. When I remember Dad singing us all out of some of the deepest, darkest moments of our lives.
This man is a triple threat. And I don’t mean in the usual theater way of act, sing, and dance. That would be my dad. No, the problem here is that Grant is kinky, smart, and he can sing. My father would love him. Okay, not the kink part, per se, but the musical part? There is literally nothing my family loves more than karaoke. Their one biggest disappointment is that I am tone deaf and can’t sing my way out of a paper bag.
This man, however, with his low, rich voice, could sing the pants off… well, anyone here, judging from the expressions on most of their faces.
My skin breaks out in goose bumps as he croons about approaching the final curtain, and then—good lord what witchcraft is this?—he ups the tempo and intensity, and something happens in my chest and my throat, and I am so close to crying again that I have to get up and leave before I do it in front of everyone.
I hear the thunderous applause through the hallway wall, and all I can think is,No. Please, no.
But it’s too late. Obviously. I wouldn’t be hiding here behind a suit of armor, crying into my hands, if I didn’t feel this way about the man.
And when I say this way, I’m pretty sure it’s more than like. Or lust. Or kinky curiosity. Yep. I’ve finished falling, and I am solidly in love with a man who’s got no interest in the long term.
So basically, I’m screwed.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Grant
IKNOCK ON THEdoor to Rae’s cabin, listen to a scuffling from inside, and then knock again.
She opens it a crack. “Hey. What’s up?”
“You alone?”
“Yeah. My roommate got fired.”
“Got a second?”
“Oh, um… I was going to sleep.”
“Ah…” I lift blankets and a bottle I pilfered from the open bar. “I was hoping you’d come out. With me.”
“Where?” She sniffles.
“Are you sick?”
“No. No, I’m fine.”
Unconvinced, I watch her for a few seconds. “You see the lake out there?”
“Yeah.”
“Thought we could take a boat out.”
