Page 16 of Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit
Somehow, though, the guy on the stage missed all that.
“Terrific!” he almost shouted. “This gets even better, too, because it’s not just a performance. It’s an open mic! We have a number of local musicians in town, and we like to give them a chance to showcase their talents. So, what do we think? Do we have any musicians in the house? Anyone who’d like to come up and serenade us?”
What?This guy must be insane. Who in their right mind would get up there and perform in front of an audience that obviously didn’t want anything to do with the situation?
I glanced back at Anna, ready to share a laughing look with her, but saw her still glaring at me like she was thinking up all the ways she could poke holes in my story about Rivers, and what she was going to say to me first when I got back to my chair.
Right.
Iwas the kind of person who would get up there and perform in front of an audience like this.
Just as long as it meant I didn’t have to face Anna yet.
I hustled up onto the stage and waved awkwardly to the guy, working to keep my eyes off Anna. “Hi,” I said breathlessly. “I’m a musician.”
The man widened his eyes at me. “Oh ho, we have a volunteer! Hello darling, what’s your name?”
“Lila Potter.”
“And you know how to sing?”
Better than that. I was part of a duo that had been performing for years. I wrote all my own stuff, and I could play guitar in my sleep. Since I didn’t think he really needed to know any of that, though, I just nodded.
The guy handed me a guitar, grinning so big I thought his cheeks must hurt, and yanked me in front of the microphone. “Terrific! Then the mic’s all yours.”
He disappeared from next to me, and I found myself standing on a stage in a small town in Kentucky, staring out at an audience that definitely didn’t want to hear any music right now.
Terrific.
I scanned the place, looking for a friendly face... and saw a face that I’d last seen in the dark of early morning. Deep chocolate eyes, wide cheekbones, and lips that looked full enough to be perfect for kissing.
Lips thatwereperfect for kissing, I corrected myself. I’d spent plenty of time last night doing exactly that.
Rivers’ eyes met mine and immediately started burning. His gaze flicked down to my lips and then back up, getting even hotter, and I nearly gasped again. God, how did he even do that? My body was heating with every second that he kept his eyes on me, and my voice was suddenly gone, disappeared like he’d somehow erased it.
Wait.
This was the guy who had slept with me and then left like it didn’t matter. Disappeared like I was someone he was ashamed to have met.
Like I was something that hadn’t been worth his time.
I narrowed my eyes at him, glaring with everything I had, and strummed the guitar once. It wasn’t my guitar, but it would do. And now that I thought about it, I had the perfect song for this situation. I hadn’t played it in public yet, but I’d written it a year ago and spent a long time perfecting it. It wasn’t slow or peaceful so this audience might not like it, but it was all about hating the way a man could treat a woman—like she didn’t matter—and walk away from a relationship scot-free.
As the lyrics came back to me, my brain supplying them like I’d taken them off a menu, I started to smile.
Yep, this song would be perfect.
And bonus: It was one of my favorites. I loved the way the words sat in the music like they’d been born there. I adored the melody. And I’d worked so hard on it that it felt like it had been branded into my soul.
I could sing it without even thinking about it.
So, if there were any agents hanging around the tour who happened to be here this morning, they’d get a perfect idea of what I could do.
I yanked my gaze away from Rivers, took a breath, and started playing.
Only I couldn’t stop looking at him as I sang. Despite everything he’d done and everything he was—and how much I should hate him—I couldn’t keep my gaze from swinging back to him. Our eyes clashed time and again, and every time I looked at him, I remembered the way he’d told me that I’d be brilliant in LA, that I was beautiful.
I remembered the way he’d looked the first time I saw him when we accidentally fell into his room, and how I’d thought he looked sad and lonely.
