Page 52 of Mr. Not Nice Guy

“I won’t.” Without hesitation, he leans down to meet my lips with a lingering kiss, but then hewipes his mouth, and I nearly scoff. “It’s not that,” he hastily clarifies, then kisses my cheek. “I much prefer the taste of frosting on your mouth instead of that nasty drink.”

He steps away from us, and I can only laugh.

Luke has his mouth pressed shut for a second before bursting into howling, thigh-slapping laughter, and then hollers into the crowd. “Atta boy, Hawkins!”

August turns for a second and touches his brow in a small salute before continuing to diligently march away to whatever it is he has to go take care of.

Luke and Frankie are both looking at me with giddy, mischievous expressions, and I shrug as I set my glass on the waiter’s tray. “What can I say? I’m justirresistible,I guess.”

Frankie laughs loudly, stepping to my side and wrapping her arm around mine. She starts to say something when the band draws the music to a close, and Jimmy steps up to the microphone.

“How y’all doin’ tonight?” he crows.

The whole bar explodes into a cacophony of shouts and whistles.

“Yeah, yeah.” Jimmy chuckles. “Yeah you right. Me too.”

As the applause starts to die down, Liza appears at my side, taking my opposite arm, leaving me sandwiched between her and Frankie. Brennan slaps Luke’s back before shaking his hand, and then everyone turns their attention back to Jimmy.

“You know, I founded this record label nearly twenty years ago, y’all,” Jimmy continues, “and twenty years is alongtime. And this label family has been hit by all kinds of storms since then, both literal and figurative. We always manage to keep music and tradition alive, and that’s mostly due to our stellar team. So, before we get to the main event, I want to recognize a newer member of our team, because he’s responsible for finding the new superstar that we’re all here to celebrate. So, everybody give it up for August Hawkins.”

The crowd cheers again as Jimmy lifts his arm to gesture at the side of the stage, and August diligently climbs the steps to join him. Jimmy wraps his arm around August’s shoulders, and August humbly nods at the crowd.

“I appreciate that,” August says, somewhat near the mic, “but I think it was actually Luke who found her.”

“Yeah!” Luke hollers, grandly pointing at himself. “I found her!”

I laugh along with everyone else, and Jimmy merely waves his hand dismissively at everyone in the room.

“Y’all are messing up my grand speech,shoo.” He shakes his head and gives August a tug closer to the microphone. “Anyway, go ahead and make the official introduction, Hawkins.”

The room breaks into more laughter spliced with applause as August steps all the way in front of the mic and offers a congenial smile. “Thank you, but again, I had very little hand in any of this, so I’m just going to get to the point.” He lifts his upturned palm toward me. “Scarlett,” he starts to say as the clapping revs up again, “come on up, sweetheart.”

Liza gives me a squeeze before I slip away from her, stepping through the crowd, which parts like the Red Sea as they whistle and shout. For my official coming out party, I selected my absolute favorite of Maw-Maw’s costumes; a glittery red, military style jacket, fashioned into a short, tight dress with a plunging, sweetheart neckline. A matching red-sequined garrison cap is pinned at a dramatic angle on the side of my head, and shiny red, peep toe, platform pumps complete the ensemble. I shimmy my way up the steps and to the center of the stage, where I offer a saucy salute that earns a round of wolf whistles. Meeting August’s gaze, I see that he’s simply smiling proudly, which somehow just screams how far we’ve come in such a short time.

I can’t help wishing Maw-Maw could be here forthat,too, and a bittersweet pang echoes in my chest.

August angles his body to halfway face both me and the audience and briefly joins the applause before speaking into the microphone. “As all of you know, keeping tradition alive is paramount for Jimmy’s label, and it can be a challenge to find someone who embodies tradition and also that inarticulable star quality. It can be a lot like trying to find a unicorn.” He pauses and winks at me. “And Scarlett is one-hundred-percent that unicorn. Her art and music are a perfect storm of passion and an encapsulation of time gone by. And she is who she is because of who came before her and taught her everything she knows: her legendary grandmother, Hazel.”

The lights suddenly dim, and the screen behind the stage flickers to life with a gritty, antique film reel. The speakers flood the space with the voice of an announcer crackling through a vintage microphone.

“Everybody please welcome to the stage, the one, the only, Hazel Bradlee!”

My breath catches in my throat, because there she suddenly is, larger than life, and wearing the same costume I have on right now, while she shimmies her hips and shoulders in front of a microphone. Her velvet voice is crooning the upbeat, swinging lyrics to Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, and the video dynamically cuts to different clips of her tap dancing, baton-twirling, and then finally fades to one of her trotting across a stage while playing a trumpet.

And then the video splits to display Maw-Maw performing on one side of the screen, and me on the other while I do my copycat routine of hers—footage I didn’t even know existed.

But there it is.

And suddenly, Maw-Mawishere because it’s plain as day for all to see that her life and memory is alive and well inme.

I can’t fight the violent tremble of my chin as my gaze drifts to August’s face on its own accord. He’s not even watching the video. He’s just looking at me, his eyes and smile warm and soft, and just like he told me earlier, I don’t think I could love anything more either.

As though reading my mind, his lips part, and he mouths the words, “I love you.”

My brows draw together and a tear slips out of my eye as I mouth the words back. “I love you, too.”

The magical, mesmerizing video eventually draws to a close, and August beckons me over to the microphone while the crowd applauds and whistles some more.

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