Page 92 of Ten Years and Then…
She pulled away from him, finally, only because she needed to breathe. And because, no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t make love with him right here on the floor of the bar.
No, that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to talk to him. To know everything he’d been doing for the last two years, all the good and the bad. And to tell him everything she’d done, everything she’d felt since the moment she’d last seen him, up on the stage receiving his diploma.
But before they could talk, before anything else, there was one thing she had to do. Her hands were ahead of her; they’d already unbuttoned the two buttons on his polo shirt.
And there it was. She pulled the necklace out, held it up to her face.
“You’re still wearing it.” She knew he would be.
“I haven’t taken it off since you put it on me.” She hadn’t known that. But she probably should have guessed it.
Nora only now realized that everyone in the bar was staring at them. She didn’t care, but Daniel might. Except he wasn’t paying any attention to anything or anyone except her. His eyes were locked on hers.
“You want to sit down?” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Annette get up from their table, clearing out to give her space with Daniel. But before they got halfway there, a voice boomed out from the speakers by the stage. “Stop right where you are! If you’re going to give us a floor show, then you have to sing, too!”
She turned away from Daniel to see the emcee pointing at them, beckoning them to the stage.
“I guess we have to,” Daniel whispered to her. He didn’t look nearly as hesitant as she expected. “I can’t sing, but if we’re up there together, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
No, it didn’t. She took his hand and walked up there. The emcee wasn’t all that much older than her, maybe mid-twenties, and he wore the most hideous multi-colored sportscoat she’d ever seen. “Sorry for making a scene,” she told him, although she wasn’t at all.
He handed her the songbook, and she opened it, holding it up for Daniel to see, too. “You pick,” he said. “Like I said, I can’t sing, so pick something you’re good with and I’ll—I don’t know. Hum along, I guess.”
An image came to her mind then—that stupid music video for Addicted to Love. Except she’d be Robert Palmer and Daniel would have to be one of the slinky women in a too-tight black dress.
She had to laugh at that. But her voice probably couldn’t go that low anyway. And, anyway, it wasn’t the right mood. There was something better, though. She wasn’t really a Cyndi Lauper fan, but it was a pretty melody, and she was fairly sure she could hit all the notes. “Okay,” she told the emcee. “We’re ready. Number 315.”
The emcee gestured for her and Daniel to take the stage, and handed each of them a microphone. He reached over and took her hand, lacing his fingers with hers, and then the music started up.
Daniel, five seconds later
He knew the song, of course. He’d been a freshman in high school when it came out, and it was all over the radio.
Nora’s voice was shaky for the first couple of lines of Time After Time, but she quickly got hold of herself. She knew the lyrics by heart. She didn’t glance at the screen once—her eyes never left his.
He just watched her, listened to her, felt how close she was. He hadn’t forgotten how much he missed this—missed her—but the intensity of it surprised him. The way she filled all his senses—not just sight and sound and touch. She still smelled of jasmine and vanilla, and from her kiss he could still taste something tangy and maybe sour—whatever she’d been drinking right before he got here.
She was everything.
And she could even sing. Her voice wasn’t trained, he could hear that. But it was beautiful and clear all the same.
He had to join in, didn’t he? The chorus was coming up, and it was perfect because it was true. He wasn’t looking out at the crowd when he started singing, he was focused on Nora and every word was from the heart. He would always catch her if she fell, and for two years now—no, twenty six months and one day—he had been waiting.
Nora, three minutes later
The music faded, and she hugged Daniel, holding him as tightly as she ever had, enough to break a rib and she could see that he didn’t care.
The crowd was clapping, and Nora glanced away from him for a minute to see one table on their feet and shouting, and all wearing the same shirt. His co-workers, they had to be. But he didn’t see them, he was completely focused on her. “Let’s go sit down,” he said, and he led her off the stage. She pointed to the table Annette had vacated.
“That’s the first time I’ve sung in public since …” Since when? High school. The choir at St. Brendan’s. Something else she’d never told Daniel. Not that it was a secret, it was just already part of her past by the time she met him, something she rarely thought about.
There was so much she hadn’t told him in those seven months they were together, and just as much he’d never told her. And now there were two whole extra years they didn’t know about each other.
“Since when?”
“I was in the choir at my church for a few months, sophomore year of high school. But—it’s not a deep dark secret and it’s not sad or anything, but I’d rather hear about you now, Daniel. I want to know all about your life.”
She didn’t say, I want to be part of it, even though she did—so desperately that it burned.
