Page 79 of Time Out

“What do you need?”

He came to me slowly, settling his hands at my arms and holding me while keeping his distance, peering at me like whatever he’d asked for, he’d hand to me on a newly polished silver platter.

I was falling for this guy, right then… right there. Because my comfort would always be more important to him than anything or anyone else, and he’d never once not shown me that’s what he’d give me forever.

“Davis—” I rasped his name, my throat dry and so many emotions racing and tumbling their way through me.

“What do you need, Maggie.”

“I need to sing.”

“Sing?”

“Not now. Not tonight, it’s late and nothing’s open and…”

Whenever everything got to be too much for me, I sang. In the shower, in a park, on a jog, while cleaning. It was the one place where I could be me. Be free. I could stand in front of a church and belt out the hymns and it never mattered if there were a hundred eyes on me, all I had to do was close mine, feel the beat and the rhythm and the passion in music, start singing, and I was transported somewhere else. It was my escape, one I hadn’t taken in far too long.

He chuckled. “It’s Nashville, Maggie. There’s always something open.” He grabbed his keys off the counter and pocketed his phone. “Let’s go.”

“I don’t… I’ll be okay. We can wait.”

“Nope.” Snagging a ball cap off the table near his entryway, he tugged it down over his forehand and then spun it so the bill was facing backward.

And suddenly, I didn’t need to sing anymore.

I needed to see Davis in nothing but that backward cap. He went from a ten to a full knockout with that thing on and wasn’t that the way with men.

“I’ll text my dad on the way, and bonus for me, I get to finally see you doing something you love. Only fair with you getting to see me do mine.”

Well, when he put it that way.

“Your dad won’t mind?”

“He’ll be asleep in twenty minutes anyway. Man always goes to bed before nine.” He held out his hand, palm up, and wiggled his fingers. “What do you say?”

Chapter 24

Davis

I could die a happy man.

Which was not the song Maggie was currently belting out at that hole-in-the-wall karaoke bar she insisted we head to, but I was enamored.

Totally knocked onto my ass as soon as she took to the stage, still wearing the jeans and shirt she wore at my game earlier. With a curl of her fingers around the microphone, all the fear I’d seen simmering beneath the surface of her most of the day vanished and a calmness and confidence I didn’t often see from her poured forth.

She currently had every person in the bar captivated, drinks frozen halfway to their mouths and all conversation ceased as she belted out the song lyrics to “Shallow.”

Her tone gripped everyone, arm flung out wide to the side as she squeezed her eyes closed and sang about crashing through the surface. Goose bumps rose on my arm as I watched her, standing near the bar, unable to move to a chair or move closer. No, I was rooted to my spot.

This was not a young woman who should have been busting her ass, waiting tables or sleeping in her car.

This was a woman who was destined to take a stage much larger than this, singing songs meant for her to deliver to the masses who would be utterly destroyed by her strength and her beauty, and the emotions pouring off her.

The song slowed, she quieted her voice as she sang the rest of the “Shallow” chorus. Quiet rang through the bar. Not a clink of a glass on a tabletop. Not a click of a fingernail and not a whisper until every single person, man, and woman, burst out into a round of applause.

Maggie jerked, eyes opening wide, and she scanned the bar in surprise until a smile broke out on her face and a blush stained her cheeks.

Beautiful. She was so damn beautiful and innocent and devilish all wrapped in one, and more importantly…

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