Page 45 of The Making of Mila and Blake
“Yet only you two are here now,” I fire back, eyeing LeAnne. I know they are finally on good terms with one another, thankfully, after decades of hostility, but what if maybe they are on slightlytoogood terms? LeAnne is divorced, and Dad is soon to be. . .
LeAnne looks me in the eye with sincerity. She arches one of her perfectly defined eyebrows. “I could also ask whyyouare here.”
“Blake and I. . . well, I don’t know yet,” I say, taking a deep breath in an attempt to slow my heartbeat and keep my cheeks from turning scarlet. Dad and LeAnne aren’t the only two exes trying to resolve their conflicts. “We have sort of started talking again, and of course I had to be here to support him.”
Amazingly, LeAnne appears rather pleased by this fact. “Ah, he did mention that he broke up with Olivia.” She smiles. “Now I know why.”
“As to why we’re here,” Dad says, clearing his throat, “I thought I could make things up to Blake after what happened the last time. And I thought LeAnne should see how talented her son is. Imayhave had to drag her here, but. . .”
LeAnne visibly squirms. “These aren’t the kind of places I should be seen at,” she admits, fumbling with her scarf. “It’s not quite in my job description to spend my weeknights in bars rather than my office.”
“So, I taught her a thing or two about sneaking around,” Dad says proudly, gesturing to their disguises. He is one fake mustache short of being a cartoon character.
“And it’s why we chose to sit beneath the AC unit,” LeAnne adds, pointing up to the ceiling as cool air breezes over us. She fans her face with her hand and wrangles her scarf away from her neck.
It’s a completely unexpected turn of events, and I am not at all sure how I feel about my Dad and LeAnne being on such good terms, but right now all I want to know is what they think of Blake’s performance.
“So?” I say, holding my breath. “What do you think?”
LeAnne’s gaze travels over my shoulder to the stage. Perfectly on cue, Blake smashes the long high note in the bridge of his final song, and the crowd cheers.
“He’s. . .” LeAnne tries, but words fail her. A rare look of shame pools in her dark, intimidating eyes and she doesn’t look at me as she admits, “I should have listened to him a long time ago.”
“Yeah, you should have,” I say, and Dad lightly kicks my shin beneath the table. “Sorry, I mean. . .”
“No, you’re right, Mila,” she says. “I never gave him a chance. I just thought he was wasting his time, and I never wanted him to end up like his father. . . I still don’t.”
I think of Jason, less than an hour earlier, showing up here. Thank God Blake made him leave. I think both his parents being here would have thrown off his performance.
We fall quiet as Blake builds to his finale, his mesmerizing voice booming from the loudspeakers overhead, and with one last strum of his guitar, the music ends. But there is no room for silence, because the explosiveness of the crowd takes over Honky Tonk Central instead. Even our table shakes from the rumble of noise. Blake swings his guitar around his hip and takes a bow, flicking his damp hair off his forehead. Sitting here in front of his mother, I should nothave the thoughts that I do. He issosexy up there on stage, all sweaty and breathless like that.
“I still think he should look into a sensible back-up career,” LeAnne says, raising her voice over the sound of the relentless applause, “but I’m happy he is studying music too. I can’t remember the last time I saw him smile that big.”
“Maybe you’ll finally stop snubbing the performing arts,” Dad remarks, nudging his elbow into LeAnne, and I fix him with a hardened glower of disapproval. They can be friends, whatever, but I draw the line at any references to their past relationship. It broke down because of LeAnne’s refusal to support Dad’s acting dreams, after all, and Dad shouldn’t be able to joke about that. I can’t help but think that any playfulness between them may also be flirtatious.
“He’s getting off stage,” LeAnne says, scrambling to grab her purse. “We should get out of here before he notices us. Let’s go, Everett.”
Dad places his hand on her arm to keep her from leaving, and my glare intensifies. This is gettingtooweird, and I hate it. I think I preferred it when they despised each other. “Don’t you want to talk to him?” he asks her.
“I don’t know if he’d be all that thrilled to find me here. . .”
“Are you kidding me?” I jump in. “All he’s ever wanted is to have you support his music. C’mon. Let’s go find him!”
Panic spreads across LeAnne’s face as Dad and I instantly get to our feet. We aren’t letting her make a sneaky getaway. Caps pulled low, the two of them follow behind me as I lead the way through the bar. Marty hops back on stage to introduce the next musician, and I know I only have a matter of minutes before the goofy-smiled bouncer begins his search for minors to kick out.
Chugging a bottle of water by the bar, I spot him through the crowd.
“Blake!”
He twists around at the sound of his name and the smile permanently etched onto his face widens into a grin. “Mila!” He closes the distance between us, swings his guitar behind him, and wraps his arms tightly around the small of my back. Squeezing tight, he lifts me off my feet and spins me around. “What’d you think?” he asks, still breathless from his performance as he gently sets me back down. His hands linger on my waist.
“You were incredible!” I say, reaching up to brush his damp hair from his forehead.
His gaze shines with pride. “Where’d you disappear to for those last couple songs? I lost sight of you.”
“I spotted someone you might recognize,” I say, and despite how badly I want his hands to remain on my body, I step to the side and gesture to LeAnne and Dad as they linger behind. I ignore my father’s dramatically stern look in response to mine and Blake’s display of public affection.
Blake squints at the disguised woman anxiously standing before him, and his eyes widen in recognition. “Mom?”
