Page 15 of Perfect Blend

He sighed. “‘Stand by Your Man.’ The duet with Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette.”

It was hard to imagine Dave lip-syncing to such a twangy tune. “Did you at least get to be Dolly?”

He shook his head, but his lips quirked.

I was determined to help make the drag show a good experience for him. I wasn’t sure how long they’d been divorced, but it seemed fairly fresh. The months after my divorce had been brutal. If Dave wanted me to wear tassels on my nipples and tuck my junk, I would do it. After some thorough googling about tucking safely first, obviously. “What song would you like to do then?”

Dave looked over at me, surprise written all over his face. “I’m not sure.”

A memory jumped to the forefront of my mind. I smiled. I knew exactly what we could do.

I turned to him. “Remember that time we paired up in drama class for the monologue assignment?”

Dave’s cheeks reddened. He cleared his throat and looked back at the parade. “I do.”

The memory was so vivid. Dave’s shy smile when I’d asked him to be my partner. The way his blue eyes had gone wide after I’d suggested we add a lip-sync of “The Boy Is Mine” by Brandy and Monica as the conclusion to our assigned scene performance about a woman discovering her husband was cheating. Anything for a laugh and extra credit. And if I remembered correctly, we’d sure gotten the laughs and the extra credit.

Dave had been charmingly hesitant as he’d agreed to everything I’d suggested. The hours we’d spent working on our performance and the standing ovation we’d gotten from our classmates were among my greatest memories of high school.

“Do you even remember the words and moves?” Dave’s lips twitched.

Got him.

I stood and planted one hand on my hip, studying the cuticles of the other in the pose I’d started with all those years ago. “It’s gotta be like riding a bike, right?”

He leaned back on his palms and looked up at me. “Just don’t fall off the roof.”

I inhaled deeply and began a terrible rendition of the song as I moved in a loose adaptation of what we’d done back then.

Dave tilted his head back and laughed before I got to the chorus. “God, you weren’t kidding about having a terrible voice.”

I kicked his foot. “It sounds better after a few drinks.”

We smiled at each other. The moment stretched and wrapped around my heart like bubble wrap. Protecting and smothering it at once.

“So, how about it? A one-time encore of our infamous Spruce High performance?”

He grinned at me. “You’re on.”

Music to my ears.

CHAPTER5

DAVE

JavaJackOfAllTrades: My ex came to visit me today [grimace emoji]

Bricker: Finally hit him with your car? [clap emoji]

JavaJackOfAllTrades: Lol. The downside of living in a small town is there’d be too few suspects. They’d be onto me right away.

Bricker: The joy of living in a big city is I never drive or see my ex, so the temptation to run him over isn’t there. I doubt I could get a Lyft driver to do it for me.

JavaJackOfAllTrades: Haha, thanks for making me laugh. I needed it.

Bricker: I aim to please. Obviously better than your aim in a car. Care to share what happened? I’ve got time.

JavaJackOfAllTrades: Basically, he bailed on me for something to chase another opportunity.

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