Page 7 of Tempting as Sin
Staying.She didn’t live here, then. But neither did he. “I tell you what,” he said. “I’ll promise to take care of all that, I’ll let you pour your own champagne, and we’ll burn down the house.”
She glanced at him sidelong, half-flirting and half-serious. “I know I should ask you what you do for a living and all of that,” she said, “and I definitely ought to tell you that this isn’t going to be worth your while, but I’m floating in a bubble right now, and it feels so good.”
He’d had exactly one beer, and he couldn’t feel his feet.Shewas in a bubble? He was all the way up at the ceiling. “Then,” he said, “let’s keep doing it. It’s already worth my while.” And when the waitress came back, hedidorder that champagne. The best they had, which wasn’t anything very choice, but that was all right. After that, he let Lindsay pour her own, applauded at some more drunken and fairly mediocre singing, and studied the song list with her.
“I want to try,” she eventually said, setting the list down with a sigh. “I’m just not sure I can pull it off.”
“Want to do it along with me first, then?” he asked. “Ease into it?”
“I should have gone for the bowling,” she said, but she was laughing again, her eyes teasing him from over her champagne glass. “At least I know how to bowl. Vaguely. My dad bowled. Except that you probably have a secret bowling championship in your past. Is there anything that fazes you?”
“You have no idea,” he said. “At this moment? Yeah. There sure is. I’m kinda knocked off my feet, in fact.” And having a hard time staying in character, too. “But I’m going ahead anyway. We’re having an adventure, remember? I’m willing to make a fool of myself if you are. That was our deal. I’ll go sign us up for this one. You can sing backup, or you can take a turn. Your choice.”
He went over to the karaoke jockey, handed him a twenty, and put his name on the list. The bloke took the tip, but said, “I keep a strict rotation, man. Can’t get you in there any quicker.”
“That’s fine,” Rafe said, remembering not to say “No worries” at the last minute. “We’ll wait.”
The bloke peered at him more closely. “Do I know you?”
“Nope,” Rafe said. “I’m new in town.”
“Uh-huh,” the bloke said, but then, therewasthat twenty, and more where that came from. So Rafe went back to the table and drank some more champagne along with whisper-light tempura vegetables and prawns that were heaps better than the alcohol, and later on, tender bites of chicken on skewers, and theydidn’ttalk about what the fictitious Clay did for a fictitious living, or where Lindsay was visiting from. And when the DJ called his name, he stood up, took Lindsay by the hand, took her over to the table to pick up their microphones, and told her, “Remember. We got this. Loud and proud. If you’re going to go—go big.”
If he had anything to say about it, that bird was going tofly.
Clay took her up the steps to the stage fast, and when they got there, he grinned.
How did he do that? Do nothing but smile at you, and make that bubble float even higher? The champagne fizzed all the way to her feet, or maybe that was his hand around hers and the warmth in his eyes.
The big monitor in the back of the room lit up, but he didn’t look at it. He looked at her. And as soon as the first insistent note sounded over the speakers, it was like you’d flipped a switch.
He wasn’t Pharrell Williams. His voice was too deep, and he was too tall, too muscular, and much too obviously masculine to be any kind of teenage heartthrob. But he sang that song with absolute assurance, and from the first word, he owned the room. He sang that he was happy, and he made you feel it, too. It could be the way his feet were moving. Clay could singanddance.
Somehow, she was clapping along, adding her voice as much as she dared, and getting her own body going. She couldn’t sing, not all by herself, but there was one thing she could do just fine. She could dance.
He saw her and grinned some more, but he didn’t miss a beat. He was smiling, he was singing, and he had the room rocking. It was for her, but it was for all of them, too, like he had so much life inside, it had to spill over. The DJ had gone to town with the light show, and the yellow spot, then the pink one, were lighting them up, pulsing like they were on Broadway. The bachelorettes, meanwhile, were on their feet, clapping and singing background along with Lily. They were all in that bubble together, with Clay pulling them higher with his voice and his body and his energy, to where gravity let go. To where you were weightless.
Tomorrow, they’d pick up their troubles again. But right here and now, they were happy. And every one of them, probably including the bride, would have traded places with Lily in a heartbeat.
More and more, higher and higher, and nearly everyone was on their feet now, letting it all go, like Clay had them on strings. Like it was the Fourth of July, and they were the fireworks.
She wasn’t just floating anymore. She was singing, she was dancing, and she was soaring. She was flying free.
An hour later, the bottle was upside down in a bucket of melting ice, the noise level had risen another twenty decibels, every seat in the place was full, and the energy was pulsing like nobody here had realized before what living was, but now they knew. And Lily was up on the stage again and singing her heart out. The best part was—Clay was letting her do it.
“I’m still standing,” she announced to the room, flinging her arm wide and belting the song out like a woman who believed it, not to mention like a woman who could sing.Loud and proud,Clay had said, and that was how she felt. The man himself did a spin and a complicated series of moves that had her tossing the song to him with an extravagant gesture and doing some dancing of her own. By the time they’d finished and the applause had started, her hair had long since come out of its knot, she was sweating more than a lady probably should, and she was laughing out loud and letting Clay twirl her, his hands around her waist, her arms around his neck and her feet off the floor, like she weighed nothing at all. Or like he was just that strong.
He set her down and took her by the hand down the steps, and she stood, one hand on her galloping heart, beside the karaoke jockey’s booth while Clay said, “Thanks, man, from both of us. Amazing light show,” and handed over yet another bill from his seemingly endless supply before he led her back to their table.
She really should ask what he did for a living. He either had some expense account, or…what did a man do in West Virginia that brought him to San Francisco and allowed for this kind of night? On the other hand, what did it matter? She was enjoying herself, that was all. No past, and no future. She was here, and that was all.
He sat down at the table, took a long drink of water, grinned at her some more, and asked, “What?”
She shook her head, pulled her hair back with one hand, and found herself admitting it. “I keep trying to imagine what your job could be, and everything I come up with is so ridiculous.”
The skin around his eyes crinkled in an absolutely delicious way when he smiled, she’d discovered. “What are the candidates?”
“Porn producer?” she asked, and added, through his outraged expression and her own strong desire to giggle, “Which would account for your cool, your looks, your free-spending ways, and how casual you’ve been all night. Most men give off this desperation, you know. Like they’re trying too hard, or they’re…” She made a face of her own. “Stalking.” The bubbles of laughter were trying to make it out again. “They’re trying to convince themselves they’re wolves, soooo sneaky and scary, and they’re actually coyotes. Country joke,” she added when he looked confused. What, they didn’t have coyotes in West Virginia?
