Page 98 of Run Away With Me

‘Yeah. I think we could do some fun harmonies with it again.’

‘Like a modern spin?’

‘No … no. I hate those breathy, nasally little-girl singers. Belt it, like Ms Russo is always telling us to.’

‘Sing from your stomach! From your guts!’ I laughed.

‘I don’t think anyone has ever wanted to hear anyone sing anything from their guts,’ Brooke drawled, and I leaned back, still laughing.

Brooke played most of the first verse without stopping, and my mouth dropped open as her fingers flew over the keys.

‘You, like,knowthat,’ I said.

She shrugged, and kept playing. ‘I always loved this melody.’

I wanted to ask her to elaborate. It was such a sad song, about a woman who had been one thing to the world and something completely different behind closed doors. The more I thought about it, the more I saw how Brooke could relate – the Norma Jeane she wanted to be versus the Marilyn Monroe people viewed her as. The Marilyn her parents forced her to be.

I’d been one of those people, seeing just the Marilyn. There was no point in denying I’d had a crush on Brooke since forever, but I liked all those superficial things about her: her smile, her laugh, her gorgeous hair, her classic-yet-modern clothes that underlined how beautiful she was.

But I’d been too shy to really get to know her, and that was on me. Brooke had to know she was popular – she wasalways getting asked out, and I’d often heard people gossiping about her. Brooke and Kendall and Madison. I’d never wanted what they had. God knew, I would never have coped under that amount of scrutiny.

Yet it had never occurred to me that Brooke wasn’t coping, either.

I pulled up the lyrics on my phone.

‘Let’s try it,’ I said.

After an hour of rehearsing and trying out new songs, Liam stuck his head around the door.

‘Everything okay?’

Brooke smiled at him, and I felt another stab of jealousy. ‘Yeah. Really good.’

‘Don’t play “Graceland”,’ he said, and Brooke’s fingers stilled on the keys, where she’d been working out the melody.

‘Why not?’ she asked with a huff.

‘One of the regulars always plays that. Damien won’t mind, but doubles of the same song aren’t a good idea.’

Brooke sulked.

‘Sorry,’ he said with a laugh. ‘You want drinks or anything? Water?’

‘I’d love a water, actually.’ I forced myself to stand up and step out of my comfort zone. ‘I can come get them.’

‘I can come too,’ Brooke said quickly, and I shot her a smile, hopefully communicating that I was okay. I could do this.

‘It’s all right,’ I said, and followed Liam back down to the bar.

He had dark hair and eyes and didn’t smile quite as easily as Damien. But he was cool, and he didn’t seem to have ulterior motives. He went behind the bar and took two bottles of water from a fridge.

‘Oh, no charge,’ he said when I pulled out a couple of bills from my pocket.

‘Are you sure? Thanks,’ I said, stuffing the money into the tip jar instead.

‘You guys sound good, by the way,’ he said as I twisted the top on one of the bottles.

‘Yeah?’ I asked, surprised.

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