Great Big Beautiful Life(92)

It wasn’t.

“I know who you are,” she said. Then: “Why are you here?”

“I came to apologize,” he replied. At that point, she noticed the small bouquet hanging from his hand: a bundle of white lily of the valley, knotted with twine.

“Apologize?” she repeated, befuddled.

He came toward her, his slick shoes clicking on the floorboards, and presented the bouquet, almost sheepishly.

Everything about him was a bit sheepish, actually. What could have passed for cool aloofness from a distance struck her now as shyness.

“I saw the paper this morning,” he said, letting the bouquet hover between them. “Felt awful about what happened to you and your sister, and everyone else. Things got out of hand.”

“Oh, I see.” She forced her shoulders away from her ears. “You’re here to kiss the ring.”

His brows pinched. “Ma’am?”

“You can relax. Our family’s papers won’t have any vendetta against you,” she assured him, though personally, she couldn’t say the same. She wasn’t angry enough to try to tank his career, just angry enough to be rude.

He shifted between his feet, the bouquet falling back down to his side. He seemed uncomfortable in his body, as if he’d grown too quickly, in stature or frame or both, and wasn’t quite sure how to move through the world. He looked younger than he had onstage too, so young that she couldn’t help but ask, in that seemingly random moment, “How old are you?”

If he was surprised or offended that she—someone fan enough to attend the concert—didn’t already know, he didn’t show it. Laura probably knew his exact birth date, his associated birthstone, what kind of car he drove, and what his dog was called. Not that Laura cared anymore.

“Twenty-three, ma’am,” he said.

Only three years older than her. It made his performance the night before all the more shocking. How could he look so at home on a stage in front of thousands, thrusting his hips and screaming his heart out, but become such a quiet, mild-tempered boy in this room with only her?

“I was raised never to ask a lady her age,” he said, the tiny smile on his full lips surprising her.

“I’m twenty,” she volunteered, for god only knows what reason.

He stepped a little closer. “Did you enjoy the show?” he asked in that hypnotic murmur. “Before all that hubbub, I mean.”

His dark eyes shone with an eagerness that surprised her, as if the answer mattered very much. She wanted to lie, but she wasn’t a liar.

She settled on an obfuscation. “I’d never seen anything like it.”

His smile twitched across his lips but faded quickly. He reached toward her, and she flinched for just a second before she realized he was merely brushing his fingers lightly along the edge of her bruised eye, a frown deepening the grooves in his forehead. His eyes flicked back to hers. “Will you come again tonight?” he said quietly.

Her stomach flipped nonsensically as their sudden eye contact jolted her back into reality. “What?”

“To the last concert,” he said. “Police will be there this time. Can’t promise it will be a good show, but it’ll be a safer one at least.”

“Oh.” She looked away, and his calloused fingertips fell from her face. “I’m not sure.”

“Your sister too, of course,” he volunteered. “We can bring y’all backstage, where no one can see you. You can watch from the wings.”

Her heart soared, only to crash when she remembered what Laura had told her upstairs—was that really only minutes ago? It felt like days, weeks. In a way she couldn’t understand and certainly couldn’t have expressed, Margaret felt as if the story of her life had been written onto a piece of paper she’d only just now realized had been folded in half.

Now it was open, a full second half of a page appearing abruptly, with a sharp crease dividing this new chapter from what came before.

Laura’s words dropped through her like a cold stone—all he’ll ever remind me of now is the night I lost my dearest friend—settling in the pit of her stomach.

“Laura won’t be able to make it,” she said.

“But you?” The way his eyebrows pitched up in the middle, tenting hopefully, made something in her stomach feel like it was unraveling.

“Fine,” she said.

A smile broke across his face, bright as dawn, and he lifted the bouquet toward her again.

This time she took it.

He won her over that night. Truthfully, that was all it had taken. He’d come off that stage, drenched in sweat, and caught up in the thrill of it all, when he strode purposefully toward her, she’d pitched herself into his arms, intending only to hug him, to praise the performance. But as soon as his strong arms came around her and his heat and scent hit her, it was as if she’d hopped universes. Moved parallel into one where the plan had always been to kiss him, just as his had always been to kiss her.

His band made a couple of little hoots and whistles, but the sound of the audience still cheering out in the dark amphitheater ate away at their teasing, and even if it hadn’t, she likely wouldn’t have registered it. She’d stopped registering anything but him. When he drew back, his fingers falling from her jaw, he took her hand and pulled her through the narrow backstage hallway, all the way to his dressing room.