Page 56 of Sing For Me

He inserts a key in the deadbolt on the door. “Close your eyes.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. If you don’t I’m going to take off my tie and blindfold you.”

Sparks go off in my belly as I remember a time, years ago, during our brief fling, when he blindfolded me in bed. We’d been a little drunk.

“Not like that.” Eli’s voice is rough, letting me know he’s thinking of the same moment. “I mean, I could mean it like that if you want.”

He’s teasing me.

I glare at him, and he laughs. Still, my eyes go down the scruff at his throat, which is eye level for me. His pulse throbs, and my nipples have the audacity to harden under my shirt.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

There’s a long pause where I almost want to open my eyes again, just to see where he’s looking, and what’s in his expression. But I don’t. Then I hear the sound of the lock clicking open and the swing of a spring-hinged door.

He grasps my hand then, slipping his rough fingers over mine with a familiarity that makes my stomach flip.

I sense us going through another door, then Eli says, “Holy shit.”

“Hey!” I say, eyes still closed. “Can I open my eyes?”

“Yeah, Reese. Open your eyes.”

My eyes flutter open, and for a moment, there’s nothing but the dulled sound of traffic down on the street below as I take in the scene before me.

My stomach drops. Not just a little—like a thousand feet. So fast, I feel sick.

Next to us, there’s a giant sound-mixing table, with floating monitors and a rolling chair in front of it. The table’s set up against a wall with a giant plate glass window, and next to that, a blue door.

“Your spot’s in there,” Eli says, bringing me toward the door and letting go of my hand to push it open.

I don’t follow him. I can barely hear him, over the thudding of my heart. The room is walled with soundproofing tiles. There’s a mic hanging from the ceiling, next to where a stool might go. A raised platform at the back of the room looks big enough to hold a whole band.

For a moment, my eyes fill in the space. Me, sitting on that stool, a guitar on my lap, singing into the mic. A band on the back platform, the drummer looking at me with earnestness, sweat beading down his brow.

Simon, on the other side of the glass, standing up with rage in his eyes. Cutting the mic. Screaming something none of us hear.

“There are still a few details to finish, but Sam did an incredible job,” Eli says. He’s still looking around the back room. “It’s not hooked up yet, but it will be by Friday.”

Then he turns to me, and I watch, with absolute self-loathing, as the excitement drains from his face, replaced with the same sick expression I’ve been feeling. “Reese,” he says. “I didn’t mean to—fuck.”

He comes over to me, but I back up, fast, until I hit the wall. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“No,” he says. “No, I’m sorry.”

But I can’t take that either, not after he’s done all this for me. In two weeks.

I race outside, then down the stairs, needing to put as much space from that place and me as I can.

I know what he’s doing. I told him to fucking do it.Make my dreams come true.

He doesn’t know I don’t have any dreams anymore.

At the lobby I nearly smash into a woman with short, bleached bangs and a nose piercing—one of Eli’s artists, I’m sure. He should be with her. Someone who remembers how to have fun. Someone not scared of her own dreams.

A flash of jealousy hits me even as I smile at her, not wanting this stranger to see I’m this close to sobbing. I push out into the milky-white late morning, running now through a gap in cars on Riverfront to the walkway on the other side of the street. I don’t stop until I reach the railing, then my hands are wrapped around its freezing length, and all I can see below is the rush of the Quince. I take a breath, then another. Across the water and to the right is the river path, and above that, to the right, Rolling Hills’ golf course, and the hotel itself up higher, nestled into the trees.

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