Page 42 of A Ballad of Betrayal and Beauty

“Sorry, I’m still working on it?—”

“That was amazing,” she whispers.

“Re—really?”

“Key, I . . . wow. I had no idea how good you are.”

A blush spreads across my cheeks. “No, I’m not.”

“No, really,” she says seriously, leaning toward me. “I’m kind of in awe of you right now.”

“I—thanks, I guess.”

She frowns and sits back against the sofa.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just—Key, you could really be something, you know?”

I shake my head. “No . . . I don’t know?—”

“You could!”

We look at each other for a long moment.

“When we said we could run away to Hollywood together,” she starts, “it was just a dream . . . but you—you could really do it.”

I place the guitar next to me and reach forward to grasp her hand. “You can too! Come on, show me some of your acting.”

She shakes her head and wipes a tear from her eye. “No, I’m terrible at it. You’ll just laugh at me.”

“No, I won’t.” She scoffs but I press on. “Come on! You didn’t laugh at me?—”

“Because you were good!”

“And you will be too!”

She tucks her bottom lip behind her teeth and it turns my insides to marshmallow.

“Please?” I beg. “For me?” This seems to win her over. “What’s your favorite movie? Show me a scene.”

A smile peeks out from the corner of her lips. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

I cross my heart with my finger then hold up my hand. “I would never.”

She grins widely then, and bounces up from the couch to stand next to the TV.

“Have you ever seenTo Catch a Thief?”

I shake my head. “No . . . my parents, they don’t really let us watch anything unless they’re there.”

“Okay, perfect. Picture this then. A big fancy room with fancy furniture, fireworks shooting into the sky in the background as a beautiful woman with a diamond necklace stands across from the most handsome jewel thief.”

My eyes widen. “Jewel thief?”

“Yes, hush!” She closes her eyes. When she speaks next, she takes on an accent that suggests it’s decades earlier. That she is the grown-up woman in the diamond necklace. She walks about the room with the air of someone with royal blood, like she’s been trained her whole life to look down on those beneath her, but somehow keeps her kind eyes and friendly smile. Her acting is subtle, each movement purposeful. It makes me wonder if she’s rehearsed this a million times.

Her fingers skim across her bare neck, and I let myself imagine a diamond necklace. Her chest heaves, and I can’t even hear what she’s saying as her breasts pull at her see-through shirt. Before I know it, she’s moving toward me, her hips swaying in a pair of high-cut shorts until she’s sitting right next to me.

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