Elena texted back:
Sure is. You go for it chica. He’s a nice guy and HAWT. You deserve happiness.
Rachael came to the end of “Blackbird” and started over again as she kicked off her heels. She moved to the office door and turned around, projecting her voice back into the room. Rachael wasn’t sure this would work, or how far she could get down the hall before he suspected anything. Stretching out the pauses between the song’s lines to give herself time, she walked backwards quietly while modifying her voice, hoping it would create the illusion she was walking the other way toward the front stairs.
She was almost to the back stairs at the end of the hall when he said, “You’re on to me, aren’t you?”
Rachael yelped, jumped, and turned. Jake stood at the top of the stairs looking red-faced.
Before she could say anything he went on. “I am so sorry. You probably think I’m a creep. I am so embarrassed right now.” He ran a hand through his hair, tousling it in the best way. He’d already changed out of his white uniform and into tight jeans and a button-down shirt tucked into his narrow waist, the sleeves rolled up to expose his tan forearms and stretched taut against his muscled biceps.
Rachael crossed her arms. “I was sort of wondering what you were doing.”
“All I can say is, you have the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard, I swear.”
Rachael tried to ignore the flush of happiness that built in her chest and spread out through her body.
Jake held up his hands, palms out. “I wanted to listen without making you self-conscious or uncomfortable. Which I’ve just done in spades, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
Jake closed his eyes and breathed out. “I’ll never do this again if you promise me one thing.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
He opened his eyes and looked at her with the most serious expression she’d ever seen him make. “Promise me you will never stop singing. It would kill me to know that I robbed the world of such a beautiful voice because I was a dumbfuck. But worse than that,” his voice grew quiet, “the only time I hear any happiness in your voice is when you sing. I really,reallydon’t want to be the reason why you stopped being happy.”
Rachael’s arms dropped to her sides. Her voice quieted to barely a whisper. “You think I’m ever happy?”Besides when I’m talking to you.
Jake gave her a sad smile. “Honestly, I don’t think you are.” He looked around the hallway. “I don’t know how you could be, working in this place, everyone treating you like shit. It isn’t right, Rachael, and it bothers me. A lot. Which is why I’d hate to be the one who stopped you from singing, kept you from the only joyful thing I’ve seen you do. And my God, you have a gorgeous voice.”
She bit her lower lip. “Daddy doesn’t think so.”
Rachael watched Jake’s jaw tighten. She’d set a trap for him, a small one, but significant. She didn’t need another posturing Hank in her life. If Jake badmouthed Daddy, threatened him, offered to protect her, she’d walk away and never look back. Jake Spiro would be the meatpacking plant’s latest ex-employee if she could manage it. But, what was the right answer here? Did a right answer exist at all?
Jake spread his arms in exasperation. He shook his head as his jaw relaxed. “I guess there’s no accounting for taste, is there?”
Rachael felt her shoulders drop from somewhere around her ears. She didn’t even know she’d been tensed up until she wasn’t anymore. She also realized she’d been hoping against hope that there was a right answer and that Jake would find it.
She laughed and shook her head, because against the odds, he did.
His face broke into a gorgeous smile that warmed the fluorescent-lit hallway and made her stomach do jumping-jacks. “I’m not going to assume I’m off the hook, but I just want to say, it’s so good to hear you laugh.”
Rachael covered her mouth automatically. She dropped her hand. “You’re not on the hook. But you’re not,noton the hook, either.”
Jake’s head dropped as his shoulders raised. “Fair enough. What can I do to get entirely off the hook? Because,” he gestured with his thumb to the floor below, “I know first-hand being on the hook is bad news if you’re a steer, and probably worse if you’re a person.”
Steer. Rachael cringed at the memory of that word slithering out of Daddy’s mouth. Jake had no idea what getting close to her meant.I should stop this, stop him from thinking we can be friends. Or anything else.
But she couldn’t. Not when he was standing right in front of her with a look on his face that said she was the only woman in the world who mattered.
“I have an idea though,” he said, “if you’re game.”
Rachael simultaneously felt her stomach drop and her heart flutter. “That depends. What is it?”
“Well,” Jake drawled, “there’s this bar—”
Her stomach dropped further as she cut him off. “I don’t go to Muddy’s.” She touched her cheekbone before she could think about it.
