Page 7 of Dear One Night Stand
CHRIS
"You were amazing," Annie gushes as we walk down the street together.
She said goodbye to her friends at the end of the show and asked if I wanted to take a walk with her. There was no other answer than hell yes when she asked me, but I played it cooler than that.
I asked to leave my guitar at the club in the office overnight, so I wouldn't have to walk with it. Phil, the club manager, isn't someone that is accommodating about stuff like that, but he took one look at me and then over at Annie, and I think even he couldn't say no.
We head out of the club with no specific destination in mind. We talk about anything and everything. I tell her about what inspired me to get into music.
"I broke my leg on the second to last day of school in seventh grade, making it impossible to do anything but sit inside," I tell her. "After about a week, I was getting a bit stir crazy watching my brothers get to play outside, and I was stuck with nothing to do. My dad came home one day with a guitar case and an instructional book on learning the guitar. He told me not to come out of my room until I could play the first song in the book."
“Were you driving him crazy?” she asks.
"No, my mom. Being stuck inside with me was driving her just as crazy, so my dad stepped in."
“How long did it take you?”
“One afternoon.”
She stares at me in surprise. “That’s it?”
“That’s all it took, and I was hooked.” I shrug. “By the end of the summer, I filled a notebook with poorly written songs about random stuff in my room.”
“I’m glad that you’ve moved onto more relatable topics other than—” She gestures for me to give her a title.
“The Power of Power Rangers.”
“Wow.” She laughs. “I bet that one had all the girls swooning.”
“I didn’t realize the power of writing a love song until later, but when I did—“ I smile mischievously.
“I want to say a guy with a guitar is unappealing, but it’s kryptonite to most women and their lady bits.”
I chuckle. “Does it work for you?”
“I can't tell you that. I'm a lady." She smiles and bites her lip.
That’s a yes!
We talk some more, and she tells me about how she misses doing theater.
“It was never about wanting fame or money,” she says. “It was the adrenaline of stepping out onto that stage for the first time each night, the bright lights, the reactions from the audience, and the feel of pretending to be someone else if just for a couple of hours."
“I get that,” I smile at her. “I love that feeling playing that first cord and see the faces in the crowd responding to the music.”
"There's nothing like it." She loops her arm in mine and holds her body close to me. The feel of her soft breast pushed against me makes my dick twitch, and I have to keep the conversation to distract myself.
“Why did you quit?" I ask. "I mean, I know you still work backstage, but—"
“I don’t work backstage,” she interrupts.
“But Marnie said you did.”
“She lied. She was trying to help me save face in front of everyone.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”
She shrugs. "It all just got away from me. I took a job to pay the bills so that I could do community theater in my spare time. But the workload started to increase with each promotion, and soon I found myself with a career in HR and no spare time to do what I love."
