Page 99 of The Unfinished Line

Sam curled a lip. “They say love is blind. Apparently, it’s deaf, also.”

The Geordie turned a quick smirk to Dillon, awaiting some riposte, but Dillon’s attention had detoured. Behind Sam, a flatscreen on the wall was showing highlights of Manchester City vs. Chelsea. On the silent footage, Kelsey was blasting across the pitch, drilling a ball through City defense, putting Chelsea up 2-1 in late minutes. Dillon had forgotten, almost, the joy with which Kelsey played. The happiness the game brought her. It made her wonder—not for the first time—if she still loved her sport the way Kelsey embraced football.

Did she still crave that first blast of cold water on pre-dawn swims in the winter? Did she still love the burn in her legs or the nearly hallucinatory collapse that came toward the end of a run, when her body was propelled on nothing more than stubborn will and a refusal to surrender? A sport that had her sleeping in a hotel bed two hundred fifty nights a year, disallowing her from putting down roots as insignificant as a houseplant.

Or, when she left in the morning for Montreal, was it someone else’s dream she was chasing?

“Bloody Chelsea on their way to another title,” Sam huffed, glancing over her shoulder to see what had caught Dillon’s interest. The match highlights ended and a news story flicked on about an American Senator who’d been found guilty of arms trafficking. She turned her attention back to the table.

“Do you sing, Kam?” Kyle was asking.

Kam gave an noncommittal shrug. “A little.”

His pale eyes brightened. He’d spent the last two days regaling Georgina and Harry about the events of Hana, and how if he hadn’t been a complete tosser, Dillon never would have given Kam a bell.

He could keep that claim to fame, Dillon had assured him.

“Right, then!” Kyle thumped Kam on the shoulder, grinning from ear to ear. “Up you are, let’s have a song!”

Taking a quick inventory of the nightclub and its rough and rowdy crowd, Kam smiled her decline. “I think I’ll pass tonight.”

“What about tit-for-tat?” he pleaded, half-risen from his chair. “I sing one, you sing one?”

“Only if you singGirls Just Wanna Have Fun.”

”Oh, lord,” Georgina moaned, “you’ve just challenged the wrong bloke. His favorite isMan, I Feel Like a Woman.”

“At least that one fits him,” Harry teased, all of them protesting as Kyle sauntered toward the stage, where the mic hung invitingly open.

Dillon leaned across the table as Kyle falsettoed his way through verse after miserable verse of Cyndi Lauper. “You know you don’t really have to sing. They’re just taking the piss out of you.”

But as the music faded and the audience cheered Kyle’s swishing departure from the stage, Kam shot Dillon a covert smile. “Oh, one song won’t hurt, I suppose.” She took a final sip of her whiskey and offered Kyle a high five as she passed him on her way to the mic.

“What’s your name, love?” the DJ asked, eyeing her approach through black-rimmed eyeshadow as he carefully smoothed a misplaced hair back into his lime green mohawk.

“Kam.”

“And what’ll it be tonight, Kam?”

Standing in the center of the raised platform, Kam detached the mic from its stand, looking out over the crowded room ascalm and collected as Dillon had ever seen her. She didn’t seem to mind the lights, or the focus of the empty stage, or the dozens of eyes turned in her direction.

“Well, given that it’s Eighties’ Night, how aboutI Wanna Dance With Somebody?”

“Here here,” cheered a ruddy-faced, bearded lad leaning against one of the high-top tables. “I’ll dance with you!” He blew a shrill catcall. Kam ignored him completely. Her hip was cocked, her stance relaxed, one hand tucked into her jean pocket. It was clear being in the limelight didn’t bother her at all.

It was a side of her Dillon had never seen. One more piece of a puzzle bringing her into focus.

“Out of your league, ya wanker,” Sam shot off to the heckler as the DJ cued up the song, the opening lyrics appearing on the monitor. The audience, still keyed up from Kyle’s hamming performance, had their full attention facing front. It didn’t hurt, Dillon imagined, that Kam—despite her casual attire—simply looked like a movie star. That she looked like she belonged up there.

“I love a woman brave enough to take on some Whitney,” the DJ hummed, settling back in his chair as the snappy percussion beat slid into the familiar synthetic intro. Kam’s eyes skimmed across the crowd until she found Dillon, offering her a subtle wink and a smile, and then her attention was turned to nothing more than the song, with its soaring verses and chorus.

“A little?” Sam hissed as Kam effortlessly tackled the pop anthem, her voice rising above the music with a velvety warmth and fullness. “She calls that alittle?”

“Shhh,” Dillon shushed her, unable to peel her eyes from Kameryn. She was—there was no other way to put it—remarkable. All signs of the sometimes shy, often self-deprecating girl who, not so many months earlier, had allowed the entire Hallwell family to walk all over her were vanished.

This was the woman who had caught the attention of some of the most powerful kingpins in Hollywood. The woman who had beaten out literally tens of thousands of others to earn one of the most coveted roles in movie history. This was a person Dillon had yet to meet—and as much as it thrilled her, it was also a little unnerving.

As Kam sailed through the bridge, onto the final chorus, and into the outro, the boisterous patrons cheered and whistled their approval, chuffed by the unexpected brilliance of the performance.

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