He wasn’t completely correct about the first part. He didn’t know that Glory often used sass when things scared her a little. And she cranked sass to eleven when things scared her a lot.
“A dozen, huh? Most men single out just the two.”
No one but Eli fully understood that she did indeed get scared. That she just powered through it.
Francone laughed. “Okay. I like what you just said. I like your laugh. I like your sass. Iloveyour blue eyes, so that’s two more things. I like your swagger. I like that you’re a surprise and a little out of context in a town like this. I like that I suspect you’re nobody’s fool. I kind of like that you’re either hard to get or playing it.”
He stopped.
It was, indeed, a flattering list. But a lot of it was just what she chose to show the world. Not who she really was.
“I might not have gotten ‘A’s’ in math, Franco, but even I know that wasn’t twelve things.”
She was a little uneasy now, because she was starting to believe Franco Francone—theFranco Francone—wasn’t just flirting. He actually genuinely wanted something from her. Even if it was just to do her while he was on location.
On the one hand, it was like a window had suddenly opened between her life here and the one she wanted, and in he’d flown, like an exotic bird. The way sailors long at sea knew they were close to land when shore birds started visiting their ships. That longed-for sign of land.
And given that she hadn’t done anyone for going on a year, she suspected burning off a little steam in the sack wouldn’t kill her.
So tremendously odd, then, that someone like him should at the moment feel more like a consolation prize. A TV dinner, when she wanted Thanksgiving.
Or like a substitute. For something real.
Someone laughed from over in the adult area. Coincidentally, it sounded like Bethany. Glory’s spine stiffened.
“Substitute.” Now, that was a killer song by The Who. Maybe she should consider adding it to her set.
And all at once it occurred to her she could create a whole story arc using songs, the way Eli and Franco had sniped at each other with song titles.
And suddenly she was thinking of that, instead of Franco.
If Franco Francone was serious, he could damn well do a little more work to prove it, she decided.
“Franco, I’ll leave you here to think up the rest of those reasons. I have to get up on stage. Glenn runs a tight ship.”
“I hope you’re good, Glory Greenleaf.”
She stood. “I’m never good,” she assured him over her shoulder. “But I amalwaysamazing.”
She put a little more swing into her hips on her way toward the stage. Because ambivalence about a guy had never stopped her from enjoying his admiration.
She gave a start when a guy slumped over a table sat bolt upright like a jack-in-the-box.
It proved to be Mick.
“I bought a kajoo.” He brandished it. “At the mushic store. Gonna play it.”
Boy, was he hammered.
“Goodfor you, Mick. Music is very healing. And it’s called akazoo. With a ‘Z.’”
She crossed the floor away from him, past Marvin Wade, who was poised at the edge of his seat, tense as a harp string. He would start doing his languid swirly dance the minute the music started unless she ordered him to sit.
She pulled her guitar out of its case, buckled her capo on, draped the strap around her neck, and settled it against her rib cage.
And now she felt complete. It was her version of a space suit. The guitar was what she wore into orbit.
Right on schedule, Glenn swooped over and twisted the mic stand up to his height.
