Page 121 of Sweet as Sin (Bad Habit 1)
I couldn’t explain. I could never explain. I strode past them to the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor.
Abandoning their drinks and their companion, Chloe and Grace came up behind me. “Kat, what the hell is going on? Your face is white as a sheet, and you’re trembling! Are you sick?”
I closed my eyes. You have no idea, Grace. I whispered, “I just can’t take this anymore. I’m done with all of it. And I have to go.”
Chloe gripped my arm. “Wait, are you talking about Nico? You’re done with him?”
The elevator doors opened. I shook off her hand. I stepped inside, stabbed my finger to the button, and slumped into the corner, looking at the floor. The girls crowded in with me, peppering me with questions, but I didn’t respond, except to beg, “Please don’t ask me anything. I can’t talk about it. I have to go.”
When the doors slid open on the ground floor, I bolted.
I ran down the shadowy hallway, pushing past couples making out and guys sharing a joint, the acrid haze of pot smoke hanging low in the air. The music was louder down here. The band was still playing, but they were almost finished with their set. They were going to play, then eat, drink, and be merry with all their friends and family who’d come, the favored inner circle of roadies and agents and managers, the hundreds of others who’d helped them along the way.
I made it to the side stage where I’d been standing earlier just as Bad Habit finished the final song. I watched, panting and holding back tears, as they high-fived and hugged. The crowd screamed with happiness.
Then Nico turned and saw me standing there. Before I could call him offstage, he did something that made me choke on my own breath. He began to play a tune on his guitar. A mariachi song: “La Canción del Mariachi.”
Our song.
He smiled at me from the stage, the lights shining on his hair. He leaned into the mike and said to the crowd, “Anybody here ever been in love?”
The response was deafening. Nico’s smile was exultant. He turned his gaze back to me. “C’mon out here, Kat!”
Time slowed. The noise of the crowd faded to a dull roar. Every beat of my heart sounded like thunder in my ears. His hand extended, Nico beckoned to me. Someone behind me nudged me forward, and I moved toward Nico on feet I could no longer feel.
As I stumbled onto the stage, bright lights seared my eyes. Color and motion and noise hammered me from all sides. It was then that I noticed the flowers. Massed low in a long row of fluffy white, peonies lined the entire length of the front edge of the stage. From offstage I hadn’t been able to see them.
Peonies are a symbol of a happy marriage. I was savin’ those up for when I got you the ring.
My stomach lurched. I thought I would vomit. Frozen, my eyes wide, I stared ahead blindly, the room a watery waver. Nico strode over, took my hand, and pulled me center stage. He handed his guitar to Brody, who winked at me, then Nico pulled the mike from the stand. Into it he said, “Got somethin’ I wanna ask you, baby. And this time I’m gonna ask it right.”
Nico got down on one knee.
The crowd erupted into a screaming, jumping riot.
No. Oh, God, no. Not like this.
I should have known. His distraction, his question in the car on the way over, the way he always did everything over the top, loud as could be. If I thought I’d ever felt pain before in my life, I’d been wrong. What I felt staring down at the man I loved as he reached into his jacket and pulled out a black velvet box was nothing short of holocaust.
Someone handed me a wireless mike. My fingers curled around it in a death grip. I no longer knew how to blink, or breathe.
Gazing up at me with adoration, Nico said gently, “I love you, Kat Reid. I wanna spend the rest of my life with you. You said I couldn’t propose right without a ring, so . . . ”
He cracked open the black box. An enormous diamond glittered at me, mockingly bright. Over the screams of a thousand people, Nico asked, “Will you marry me?”
I couldn’t speak. Everything inside me clamored yes yes yes! But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say anything at all. From my mouth came a small sound, a wordless noise of anguish, and the speakers shrieked with a sudden burst of feedback from my mike.
Nico winced. The noise of the crowd died down. There was a long, drawn-out moment of tension in which I stared down at Nico, he stared up at me, the crowd stared at the two of us in our horrible spectacle on stage, until I found a strength I didn’t know I had, and opened my mouth.
In a voice clear and strong, I said directly into the mike, “I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
Cries of shock. Gasps of disbelief. Even a few snickers. Someone near the front of the crowd muttered, “Man, that’s some cold shit right there.” Nico, still down on one knee, stared at me in stunned incomprehension, his blue eyes flared wide.
I imagined I heard the sound of Michael’s laughter in the distance.
The mike dropped from my fingers. It hit the stage with a thud. Nico shot to his feet, his face twisted in shock. I backed away a few steps, then turned and ran.
He followed me. As I shoved past flabbergasted Chloe, Grace, and Eric standing in the wings, I heard Nico shouting my name, heard his feet pounding the floor. I ran with no idea of direction, through the twisting backstage corridors, until Nico caught up to me around a corner. He grabbed my arm from behind, and pushed me against the cold cement wall with so much force my breath left my lungs in a grunt.
