“Nothing,” he yelled back. “I just can’t get over how amazing you look tonight.”
His eyes raked down her body again, and his thumb circled the rim of his beer bottle in a way that shouldn’t be suggestive but was somehow the hottest thing she’d ever seen another human do. And just like that, her heart launched into overdrive. That dumb organ in her chest had no chill. She was officially No-Chill Mabel, and No-Chill Mabel wanted to reach out and take what was right in front of her.
Then he made it worse by straightening in his chair and leaning toward her, bringing his mouth close to her ear. “And my God, you smell good.”
She choked back a small moan as all her southern parts clenched in anticipation. She leaned in, eyes fluttering shut, and—
“Mae Bell! Where are you? Somebody find that woman and tell her it’s time to sing!” It was Dave, slightly drunk and yelling into the microphone.
She jumped away from Jake and said shakily, “Can you hold that thought? Dave will pester me until I do this.”
“Do what?” Jake sounded confused.
“You’ll see.” She flashed him a grin, drained her glass, and bounced from her chair.
Ten
Jake watched transfixed as Mabel climbed onto the stage. His curiosity over what she was planning to do up there fled when her step up pushed that already short skirt even higher, making it look like she was at least 80 percent leg. She walked behind the drum set and grabbed a spare microphone from the kit stashed there, then turned around and winked at him like they were the only two people in the bar.
“I know nobody here needs any introductions, but what the hell, I’m gonna do ’em anyway,” Dave yelled over the cheers. “This is Mae Bell. Lots of you know her as that horrible woman who badgers me on the air every morning. Well, tonight she’s gonna be our backup singer. How’s that sound?”
The whole place roared as Mabel performed a straight-faced beauty queen wave. The lights illuminated her hair, turning it into a golden nimbus, and her silvery top glittered under the stage lights as it hung off her left shoulder, which he’d been fighting the urge to kiss, to lick, to bite, all night long. His mouth went dry.
Dave counted off the song, and the band launched into the B-52s’ “Love Shack,” with Mabel doing her best girl groupie impression, shimmying along and belting out the chorus. The song reached its peak when everything came to a dead halt as Mabel squinched her eyes shut and belted, “Tiiiiin roooooof! Rusted!” and the audience went nuts.
At the end of the song, she dropped into a small curtsy and started to set the mic back down, but Skip caught the back of her shirt. “Not so fast. Dave, you ready for a break?”
“You know it,” he said, mopping at his sweaty face with a handkerchief. “Fill in for me, Mae?”
She stepped up to grab the mic from him with afauxshocked expression. “Me, pass up the chance to torture an audience? Never.”
The laughter from the crowd was drowned out as the band launched into the opening strains of the Kings of Leon’s “Sex on Fire,” and Jake’s brain stopped working entirely. He forgot where he was, forgotwhohe was. Forgot he was the guy with no room in his life for relationships. It was all he could do to keep from turning into a cartoon wolf and unfurling his tongue across the table while Mabel performed.
Was a visiting record-label exec going to steal her away from her radio career because of her singing? Probably not. But the joy she exuded with Dave and his bandmates was infectious; she was having a blast, and that energy was what the crowd responded to.
Dave’s wife caught his attention during a short break as Mabel conferred with the band. “Isn’t it crazy how comfortable she is in front of a crowd?”
He rested his elbows on the table and gestured toward the stage. “I had no idea she could do…that.”
Ana nodded sagely, then leaned closer to him. “She likes you, you know. She’s been completely closed off to any relationships since her last one, and she’d kill me if she knew I was telling you this, but it was a relief when I noticed her blushing every time she talks about you.”
She talks about me.Jake wanted to pound the table in triumph. Instead, he stayed still and waited for Ana to deliver some kind of warning about not hurting Mabel, which he assumed was coming.
“And?” he prompted when Ana didn’t continue.
“And nothing.” She blew Dave a lazy kiss when he saluted them from the stage. “I just wanted to tell you I appreciate your resurrecting her optimism in men. Or her libido at least.”
Libido.Jake’s eyes fluttered shut at the thought that Mabel might harbor libidinous feelings for him, and he didn’t open them again until Mabel spoke into the mic one more time.
“Thank you all so much!” She strutted across the front of the small stage. “We’re going to wrap up my portion of the night with something a little slower to make sure you’re good and ready for Dave to come back.”
She nodded to Dave, who made a few quick gestures to the rest of the band, then held the mic close to her lips. “My last song tonight is dedicated to…” Her voice trailed off as she looked right at Jake with a private smile on her face, and everything—the crowd, the band, the lights, all of it—receded into the background as her gaze held his. Then she snapped out of her reverie, apparently remembering she was onstage in front of hundreds of people, and tossed her hair back to expose her bare shoulder before turning to the crowd at large. “To all of you, for letting me have the stage for a few songs!” Then she counted off her final number, Sting’s “Fields of Gold.”
“Ooh, I haven’t heard this one in a long time,” Ana whispered. “It’s one of my favorites.”
Jake could see why. Mabel’s voice soared over the melody as the stage lights played across the wistful expression on her face. He felt his heart twist. If this woman was willing to let him into her life, he wouldn’t hurt her for the world.
And then the song was done, and Mabel held out her arms as if she could embrace everyone in the crowd as they roared their approval. Dave announced a fifteen-minute break for the band, after which they’d play their last set. Before Mabel exited the stage, that underwear model they had playing the drums slid out from behind his kit to spin her around and dip her so low that she squealed and laughed as her hair brushed the floor. Jake hated him for the entire fifteen seconds it took.
