Page 160 of Till The Sun Dies (Checkmate 2)

“Sorry, Blondie.” Kane tucks his shirt into the back of his jeans and takes a seat. “You made me do this, so stop whining, sit your pretty ass down, and prepare to be beat.” He turns to Ang. “Do it.”

Shake, shake, shake.Kane works his instrument.Shake, shake, shake.Then Ang starts the guitar and forces every woman that was a teen in the nineties into a tailspin.As Long As You Love Meby the Backstreet Boys, acoustic style, chips away at the wall that I didn’t know was still shielding my heart from him, so I lean on my elbow on the table and watch Angelo play.

“They’re cheating.”

“Yeah,” Jess sighs. With hearts in her eyes and a popped bottom lip, she mirrors me and rests on her closed fist while the guys sing. “Iwantto give him a BJ now, so it’s okay. I’m so in love with my man, Baby. You can’t possibly know this love until youknowit.”

Ang’s voice is well honed from twenty-five years of playing in a band, and though Kane’s isn’t amazing, he still puts on a show so every woman in the bar falls in love with him.

Almostevery woman…

“Yeah…” Memories of a lifetime together – the lifetime we’ve already lived, and the lifetime that could still come for us – pass through my mind. I think back on the million nights Ang and I spent together,just friends, but something more. It was always something more, always something simmering beneath the surface.

I think of all the riddles I fed him that he was never able to solve, the frustrations he would voice when I wouldn’t spell it out, the answers that I would scream in my head.

The answer iscall me, dumbass!

The answer iskiss me! I’m not a little girl anymore.

Ang stares into my eyes and sings of love, of acceptance, of forgiveness.As long as you love me.His strong hands strum the guitar almost as skillfully as they play a piano. He picks up any instrument and convinces it to work for him, to make magic, to make my heart race for someone it was never supposed to race for…

“Baby…?”

I don’t look away from Ang. I stare into his eyes and feel something new and sweet run through my blood. “Yuh?”

“You okay there? You’re drooling a little bit.”

“Shut up.” I watch Ang closely, each move he makes, each finger that caresses the strings on the guitar, and I consider dropping the riddles. “I should just tell him I like him, right?”

“Well, duh!” Laughing, she turns in and drops a kiss on the ball of my shoulder. Ang’s eyes follow her for a beat, but they come back to mine with a smile. “Though I don’t think it’ll come as a surprise to him. He’s looking right into your soul right now, Baby. Jesus, even I can feel it. Jump off the ledge and let him catch you. I promise, he won’t drop you.”

She goes back to watching Kane, giggling when he tosses his shaker aside and starts dancing instead.

Ang plays the way a good natured uncle plays for a child; with an exasperated smile, and a shake of his head. His lips caress the mic, his words vibrate inside my chest, and Kane picks up his stool and gyrates against it like it’s Jess’ leg.

Laughing when Ang shakes his head, Kane pulls him to his feet and kicks the stools aside. With Ang’s guitar still in his arms, without missing a single string or step, they do the cha cha slide in perfectly synchronized steps.

I sigh like a lovesick puppy. “Jessie…”

Grinning, she twirls my hair around her finger. “I know. I’ve known it a long time. You just gotta stand up and tell him.”

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