Little did I know it was going to be my last day singing.
That is until tonight.
Tonight, I didn’t just take my song back. I took back a part of myself that was long forgotten about.
“What… huh. ” Maddox takes a few deep breaths, which I find pretty endearing. “Can I ask a follow-up question?”
His delivery makes me smile. “As many as you’d like.”
“Okay, for starters, is your ex-husband a fucking tool?”
Laughing through the tears. Exactly what I needed. “Yes. He is. Though in my defense, he wasn’t when I met him. Then again, we were sixteen so what did I know?”
“We’re all tools at sixteen, myself included, but that’s neither here nor there. But now, my second question is a series of questions.”
How he’s taking a pretty depressing statement and turning it into something that’s making me smile is quite impressive. “Fire away.”
“First of all, why? Follow ups to that are: had he heard you sing? Were you too good? Too powerful? Did he want to sing, couldn’t, and was jealous of your talent? Did he have an ear worm where things that sounded good he thought sounded bad? Did he hate fun and joy?”
“Is that all?” I say with a smile.
“Probably not, but yes for now.”
“Well, the answers that I know are, yes, many times, and he hated it. Called it a racket. Rolled his eyes whenever I did it. Don’t know if he thought I was good or not. He couldn’t carry a tune, so maybe. And no clue about the ear worm, but it’s not a bad theory.”
“I’m baffled,” Maddox says, shaking his head before bringing his eyes back to mine. “If you were my wife, we’d be having concerts every day.”
“You’re sweet,” I say as the tears finally come to a stop.
“Can I ask one more question that I think I know the answer to?”
“Of course.”
“What we just sang? That was the song, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” I say with a nod, pushing back the last tear I refuse to shed.
“What a fucking asshole.” Maddox says.
“He was,” I say. “But even when he posts shitty things like he did tonight, I remind myself that we’re no longer married and he’s out of my life.”
Maddox smiles. “He is. And as I see it, you got the last laugh. Because what you did up there? Now knowing the story about it? You gave a lyrical fuck you to him while simultaneously taking yourself, and your life back. And that’s fucking badass.”
“I don’t know if badass was what I was going for, but I’ll take it,” I say. I’m done crying. My breathing is back to normal. But yet, I can’t make myself leave the comfort of Maddox’s lap. “Even with the unexpected emotional roller coaster I went on, I will admit, this was fun. Tonight. Singing. Being on stage. Hanging out with you and your teammates. You’ve made this night unforgettable. Thank you, Maddox.”
“You’re very welcome, Gabrielle.”
A hush falls between us, and even though the bar is still loud as hell, somehow, in this little corner we’ve carved out for ourselves, it’s silent. I feel every inch of him around me. His hands on my back. His thighs holding me up. His heart beating underneath my hand on his chest. I don’t know if I ever had a moment with Justin that felt so connected. That in a room full of people, we’re the only ones here, and I don’t care if everyone or no one is looking at us.
I don’t know what this feeling is. This pull. This connection. But I do know one thing: I want to kiss him. Or him to kiss me. Either way, I want to taste his lips and know what it feels like to have that kind of connection with someone. Maybe for the first time in my life.
I wanted this earlier, too. Before Justin’s social media tantrum, I’d almost talked myself into it. Well, Shelby and Hannah did, but that’s basically the same thing. In fact, Shelby tried to convince me to sleep with him tonight, but that’s too much.
Right?
Would he even? Sure, the look he’s sending me right now is that he wants to kiss me too. I think. I don’t know. It’s been yearssince someone has looked at me with any sort of desire or want, and the only person who has ever looked at me like that quit looking at me this way a long time ago. And even then, it wasn’t like this. It didn’t make my body heat. It didn’t make me bite my lip because of the way his hand is slowly trailing up and down my spine. It’s not making my body clench, because I’m pretty sure Maddox is hard.
For me. Maddox is hard for me. A thirty-five-year-old divorcée who has only ever had sex with one man in her life and almost forgets how to do it because of how long it’s been.
