Page 7 of It Happened on a Sunday
Only then do I hit the last note.
“You killed it,” Jace tells me once I’m back under the stage.
I nod, then look at Olivia. “Are they here?”
“Security went to get them a few minutes ago,” she answers.
“Okay. Give me ten.”
I race down the tunnel and into my dressing room, letting the door slam behind me. I sink against it, desperate to shed the Black Widow like a second skin I don’t need anymore.
Just a few more minutes, I tell myself as I reach for the hoodie draped across the arm of my chair. It’s August in Austin, so it was hot as hell on that stage. But I’m still freezing.
After shrugging into the sweatshirt, I walk to the fridge. I grab a water bottle this time and down it as I remind myself I’ve got this.
Five minutes of small talk, maybe a signature or two. A quick selfie. And then I’m free.
A glance at the clock tells me I’ve still got three of the ten minutes I requested, so I prop my foot on the table and start to peel down the zipper of my thigh-high boot.
But before I can get it off, the door opens. They’re fucking early.
And there he is.
I recognize him from the catwalk earlier. The guy standing next to the cute old lady in the spider shirt and earrings whose hand I squeezed.
She’s standing right next to him now, a huge smile on her face. But for a second, all I can see is him.
Not because he’s hot, though he is—all black hair, light-brown skin, perfectly chiseled jawline.
And not because he’s charming, though I can see that, too, in the smile that starts with a question and ends with a dare.
No, what gets me is his dark-brown eyes and the way they seem to see through it all—through the makeup and the mess and the carefully curated wreckage—to the rawness underneath. And not just see it butrecognizeit.
The thought freezes me from the inside out, has my whole body turning to ice in the space between breaths. Not because I hate the idea of him seeing me, but because I don’t.
Because I want him to see. I want him—want just one person in this whole fucked-up world—to look at me and understand.
To see the chaos and not flinch away.
I want it so bad it feels like gravity in reverse. Like falling up. Like flying. And that’s why I do the only thing I can.
I flinch first.
Chapter 4
Sly
The first thing I notice when we enter Sloane Walker’s dressing room is one incredibly long, incredibly shapely leg, slowly being unzipped from thigh-high black leather. It’s a beautiful leg attached to a beautiful woman, but instead of staring, I jerk my gaze straight up to her face and the brown eyes that look as perplexed as I suddenly feel.
“I’m sorry,” I start. “Olivia told us—”
“Do you need more time?” Sloane’s assistant manager—the one who set up our meeting—talks over me.
“That’s all right.” She brings her leg down slowly. “We’re all good here. Aren’t we?”
It’s more challenge than question, and when her eyes cut back toward mine, there’s a predatory look in them that has my mouth going dry even as a ping of disappointment resonates within me. Because the real Sloane, the one I saw in those frantic moments onstage and that first, startled second when Olivia opened the door, is gone.
In her place is the Black Widow, and she is very definitely playing offense.
