Page 111 of Ghost Note

It wasn’t long before Halo was power-walking back to us with a cheek-shattering grin on his face. “It’s happening!” he cried.

“What is?” I asked, only for every head in our party to turn my way.

Halo’s eyes locked on mine. “It’s party time, baby. Let’s shake this sleepy village of yours up a bit.” Before I could respond, he’d practically jumped on the table, sending a few empty glasses shaking and rolling to the floor, only for the others to catch them where they could.

I stared up at him, my eyes wide and mouth open.

On cue, the music died down around us, leaving nothing but the chattering of the locals to fill our ears until Halo pushed his fingers into his mouth and whistled to the crowd.

The chatter died down slowly, and heads began to turn his way, each one of them looking up at the frontman of Front Row Frogs like they couldn’t believe he was real.

The bar manager soon arrived at Halo’s side and reached up to pass him a microphone, which made Danny groan. Theo clapped his hands and shouted a ‘Fuck yeah!’ at the top of his lungs.

Halo held that mic in his hand like it was an extension of his body, twirling it around before he brought it to his mouth.

The uproar was like nothing before around here, and my face lit up as I took in each and every one of the locals, seeing them through brand new eyes. Just because I’d lived under a rock, it didn’t mean they had, and the look on grown men and women’s faces reminded me of the fact.

Everyone’s been living but me.

“Enthusiasm. That’s what I like to hear,” Halo said with a laugh. “How about I sing you a song or two?”

Just like that, Hope Cove was gifted with its very own one-man concert. Halo’s voice was like magic. I’d heard it before, of course, but with everything stripped away and only Archer creating a drumbeat on a nearby table, Halo’s talent shone.

When I looked up at Danny, his eyes were closed, and he had his lips pressed together as the most ridiculously low, sexy humming made the veins in his neck pop and his jaw tense. He was in the zone, and something about seeing him lost in his own version of art made me tear up with emotion.

Burning the bridge to you was a step too far,

Couldn’t run to my obsession,

Couldn’t meet under the stars.

The biggest mistake

I ever made

Was putting you behind the guitar.

Danny’s eyes opened to find mine, and he gifted me with a flirtatious wink that made my heart pound in my chest.

After four songs, Halo announced he wanted to finish on a track he’d grown up listening to with his father, and he dove straight into Elvis Presley’s,Always on My Mind,giving it a rock edge that somehow fit.

The lyrics mixed with Halo’s voice made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and suddenly, the only place I wanted to be was in Danny’s arms, completely alone, with no one else taking my attention from his face.

Pressing up against him, I placed my hands on his chest. “Take me home,” I begged him quietly. “I need you to myself a while.”

“I have a better idea.”

Thirty-Eight

We climbed to our favourite spot on the rooftop of Rosemary Ford’s bed and breakfast, and we sat on the thick ledge, with our legs dangling over.

Of course, that’s where he’d taken me. It was better than home.

I wasn’t that good with heights, but this wasn’t exactly a skyscraper, and I knew I was somehow safe with Danny.

The ocean twinkled in front of us, flashes of the moon’s white settling over black, inky, soothing waves. The sound of them crashing against the shore stripped the heaviness of the night away, leaving me to rest my head on Danny’s shoulder. His hands were clasped together on his lap as he looked straight ahead.

“I’m going to miss this more than I ever thought I would,” he said quietly. “I spent my whole life thinking there had to be more out there for me to see. It turns out that Hope Cove is some of the best of it. You really don’t realise what you had until it’s gone.”

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