Page 3 of Sounds Like Love

The suave smirk on his face fractured a bit. He leaned against the railing, studying me. I wondered what he saw—obviously a woman who didn’t actually belong up here. Dark hair pulled into an orderly fishtail braid, a worn band T-shirt paired with an Alexander McQueen skirt delved from the dregs of a consignment shop, hand-me-down Manolo heels that made her feet blister. He admitted, “I can’t decide if you’d be fun to flirt with or not.”

“Wow, if you have to think about it, I think we both know the answer,” I replied wryly. I could tell him that we had a connection—that my mom once sang with his dad’s band a lifetime ago—to alleviate this sort of cat-and-mouse conversation with something relatable, but I doubt he cared. Backup singers must be like bugs on a windshield to guys like Sebastian Fell.

Halfway through the next song, he scooted over two stools, leaving one between us as if it was a safeguard. “Maybe we can start over,” he said over the song, though it was easier to hear him now that he was closer.

Or maybe the acoustics were just really lousy up here.

I didn’t deign to give him a glance. “Oh, where you believe me?”

“That you don’t want my autograph or … ?”

I snapped a glare at him. “Wow. You really are a piece of work, Sebastian Fell.”

“So I’ve been told. Though I have a feeling that you like it.”

That made me snort a laugh despite myself. “And what makes you think that?”

“A feeling.”

I leaned a little closer to him. “If this is your idea of flirting, it needs more work.”

“Ah,” he replied, biting in a grin, “should I pull out a boom box like in the movies and serenade you with a love song instead?”

“I doubt you know a good one.” I picked a piece of invisible lint off my black Willa Grey and the Tuesdays tour T-shirt. Below, the masses swayed back and forth to a slow song. “I’m very picky.”

“Since you’ve come for Willa Grey, I’m sure I could just sing ‘If You Stayed’ to you.” He leaned toward me, so close the rest of the world faded out around him. “I’ll whisper it in your ear like poetry. Make you feel like the lyrics could be real.” Then he used that syrupy voice of his to sing a few of my own lyrics back to me. “‘What we could be if you stayed, if you stayed we could be.’”

If it was any other song, that would have caught me.Despiteeverything. Hook, line, and sinker. I was a slut for romantic overtures.

Except for my own.

I leaned toward him to whisper, “That song doesn’t work on me.”

He was inches from me, so close that his eyes weren’t quite sure where to look until his gaze settled on my mouth.

Onstage, Willa launched into another song. It only took three notes to recognize it. The strong major chord speeding into a pop ballad. The punch of the downbeat. The synths.

She sure had perfect timing.

And Sebastian Fell smirked.

Below the private balcony, dark shadows bobbed along to the beat.

I’d written dozens of hits since I came to LA, but “If You Stayed” was the first one that felt personal. A power pop ballad reminiscent of the eighties, with strong synths and a violin melody, it was bright and airy—the kind of song that I had imagined would be on the finicky jukebox at the Revelry, beside Cher and Madonna and Bruce Springsteen—and nothing like anything else I’d written before. It was filled with nostalgia. Bittersweet.

I’d just never imagined it would become so loud.

“This song works on everyone,” Sebastian Fell murmured in the darkness of that owner’s box, surrounded by people singing my song. He was close and encompassing and immediate. “It’s a good one.”

“Why?” I asked, searching his face.

His eyebrows furrowed, and for the first time his mask fell a little, and the surprise on his face looked strangely handsome. I think I liked it. He began to answer—or, at least, it looked like he did—but then something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. “Uh-oh,” he murmured, glancing down at the stage. “We’ve got an audience.”

I didn’t follow his gaze until I realized that there was an unsettling pause in the crowd, and when I did, I saw myself on the projection screen behind Willa, as she pointed her kiss cam up into the balcony at me.

And beside me, on camera, was Sebastian Fell.

Even though she was too far away for me to see her face clearly, I knew she was giving me one of those sneaky grins, and in a flash of dread I realized that she recognized me all the way up in the private balcony, and maybe she also recognized Sebastian Fell beside me. She thought it’d be fun. I didn’t know Willa well, but Ididknow she liked to meddle. You ended up learning a lot about a person trapped in a recording booth during a songwriting session. So I knew she was still hung up on a girl she met back in New York City, and she knew that my love life was drier than the Sahara.

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