CHAPTER 36
Cory
Four months later
The music shifts in the background, the lead-in replaced with the kind of pulsating beat that signals my impending appearance onstage. The crowd grows loud with anticipation, my band members take their places. It’s almost time. My nerves take off; it’s been awhile since my last live show, and adrenaline begins to pump. On a reflex that can’t be helped, I quickly scan the dim corridor behind me, my eyes landing on a familiar face. Immediately I breathe easier. I stare for a moment while she walks toward me. The sight calms me down.
“You nervous?” She knows me, knows that for a guy who rarely gets nervous anymore, I’m currently on the verge of throwing up. The feel of her hand on my waist helps a little. The feel of her mouth on mine might help even more. I move in to kiss her, but she backs up a little.
“Hey!” I protest. “I thought you were here to help me. Do a better job.” I move toward her again, but she slaps me on the chest. I can’t help the slow smile that tilts my mouth. I’m grinning like an idiot, and I don’t even care.
“Back off, Casanova. You have a job to do. I didn’t come here to distract you from it. Besides, you’ve been daydreaming again. You’ve missed your cue twice already.”
Alarmed, I swing my head toward my band members. Sure enough, Mark is glaring straight at me.
“Crap.”
“I was worried about you for a second, but something tells me you’re fine. Mark, on the other hand. I think you’re about to give him a stroke. Miss it one more time and you might face a mutiny. Sal sent me over here to snap you out of wherever you drifted off to. Anything you want to talk about?”
“Yes, but it’ll have to wait until later.” I bend to kiss her nose, then turn to head up the steps.
“Hey, that’s all I get for saving your career? A stingy peck on the nose?”
I turn to look at her—arms crossed, glaring up at me, ready for battle. She’s cute when she’s angry, and I’m grinning again. I walk down one step.
“Saving my career? You’re the one that backed off earlier. Besides, now I’m in a hurry. What more do you want? Most girls would offer their left arm for a chance to kiss me.”
Her eyebrows raise at the same time her mouth falls open. What a sexy mouth it is. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not most girls. I reserved the right to both back off and demand more when it comes to kissing you. And whatever that was,” she twirls a finger in the space between us, “doesn’t cut it. Try again, and do better this time.”
I’m not stupid. I have about twenty seconds before the band will have to start playing the intro for the fourth time around. Still, I can’t just leave her hanging. Wouldn’t be the gentlemanlike thing to do, and I am nothing if not a gentleman. I walk down another step and reach for her belt loops, then pull her to me. When her fingers trail a line at my waist, I swallow a strangled sound that wants to escape and there’s nothing gentlemanly about my thoughts. Nothing at all. Still, I know I better make this quick.
“Do better, huh?” I slide my fingers around to her back and rest them above her hips, then bend my forehead so that it’s touching hers. “What did I do to deserve you? No matter how many times I ask myself, I can never figure it out.” I smile. “I have no idea why we work so well, but we do.”
She smiles back. Her breath feathers my mouth and it’s all I can do not to take her lower lip between my teeth. Later. I’ll definitely do it later.
“Yes we do,’ she says. “But as for the why, wondering is a waste of time. The real question is now that you have me, what are you going to do about it?”
What am I going to do about it?
I know exactly what I’m going to do.
I move in closer. Thigh to thigh, stomach to stomach, chest to chest. And then I do the one thing I’ll never get tired of. I lower my head and cover her mouth with mine, nipping at her lower lip, her upper lip, claiming them both for myself along the way. Cinnamon. Vanilla. Peppermint. She tastes like all of them and suddenly I’m very hungry. Distract yourself, Minor.
So I do.
One…two…three…
I feel a little guilty for timing the kiss, but I do have a show to play and standing here with her will make me want to run away from it.
At five I break the kiss. Because if I keep going to ten my band will likely kill me.
“Better?”
Sam smiles up at me and releases my waist. “A little. But still not your finest.”
At that, I laugh. “I’ll make up for it later. Stay here and watch?”
She bites her lower lip. The sight is nearly my undoing. “I’ll sit right here on the steps.”
Feeling lighter than I have in a while, I run up the steps, ignoring the looks everyone onstage shoots me as I begin singing the words to our newest release. I swagger across the stage—par for the course—pretending as always that everyone loves me. Why shouldn’t they? I’m Cory Minor and tonight, this stage is mine.
Of course it’s all an act. It’s always an act.
But this time is different. I’ve been given a chance to start again by people who never should have believed in me—much less forgiven me. But they did. All of them. And one of them is waiting backstage like I’m the light of her life.
What she doesn’t know is that she’s the freaking sun and moon and stars in mine.
Everything that’s happened over the past year is because of her. And because of her, I am free.
Angela’s family—distraught from everything they learned over those two days last September—decided not to press charges. Her uncle is back behind bars, stubbornly maintaining his innocence while awaiting a trial that may take years to begin. I keep in touch with the family, I’ve paid all their legal bills and will continue to do so. I’ve offered more money just to make their lives a little easier, but so far they’ve refused. I’ll wear them down eventually; I owe them that much.
As for Kyle, things are more complicated with him. Years of resentment can’t be erased with a simple I’m sorry, but we talk occasionally now. I’ve even spent time with Millie—once taking her for ice cream and once to visit Santa Claus last Christmas—and she’s no longer afraid of me. It’s a start, better than tears, definitely better than the awful years of silence my family once endured from me. Our relationship may never fully recover, but we’re on the right road. And time…I have to believe that time has a way of working things out. Whether it’s over the course of a month or a year or decade—time usually manages to smooth things over.
As the first song leads into the next one, I stand at the edge of the stage. Sweat works its way down my lower back—by the time this show is over I’ll be drenched. A sea of hands reaches forward to touch my feet, my ankles, any part of me able to grab. There was a day I thrived on the frenzy of fans, but now I take a step back and walk toward the other end of the stage. Catching sight of Sam sitting on the steps like she promised, I smile. She smiles back and sways to the music, her head bobbing up and down in the shadows.
I reach for my guitar and shrug into it to join Mark in a musical duet. His bass goes one direction, my electric guitar goes another. Like always, both instruments blend together to make the best kind of music. The twenty-five thousand people in the crowd seem to agree.
I look back at Sam one more time. A few minutes ago, she asked me what I was going to do about it now that I have her in my life. Well, tonight I’m going to make my plans clear. The ring tucked inside my guitar case practically screams at me from the green room. Two hours to go, and I’m free to ask her what I’d planned that day in the park. All I need is a yes, and I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to be the family she deserves.
I’ve already asked her father. Of course, he didn’t respond and in his rapidly ailing state I might not have much longer to spend with the man, but I did respect him enough to ask. Phyllis answered for him in the form of a crushing hug and a sloppy kiss on my forehead that I will no doubt never forget. At least the woman likes me. The feeling is definitely mutual.
I step to the microphone as the song segues into a slow one. The crowed is loud, I have to shout. “How is everyone doing in Dallas tonight?” The fans roar their approval. “It’s been a great night so far, but I have a feeling it’s about to get even better!” They scream, because they know. I step back and play the opening riff to He Might Look Good, But My Money Looks Better, the first single off our new album. Such a pretentious title, but everyone seems to like it. The energy in the arena swells as the crowd jumps up and down.
As always, I study as many individuals as I can see, trying to remember each face…each expression…each smile. I know how this job works. One day this will all be a memory, and I want to file away each moment while I can. I skim the front row in a final pass through when I see her. My breath catches. A guitar string pops. I flub a line of lyric. She smiles up at me from the left side of the stage.
Short red hair. Yellow shirt. Tall, lean, the build of an athlete. Her eyes sparkle even in the darkness. I know that face. I’ve memorized that face in a hundred different dreams. I will never forget that face. It looks so much like Sam’s.
Flustered, I blink. I look away to compose myself, then look back again.
The girl is gone. I scan the crowd but see nothing. Maybe she wasn’t real. Surely a figment of my imagination.
Or maybe she’s been here the whole time. Maybe…just maybe…she never left at all.
Feeling slightly bewildered, I step to the microphone and begin to sing.
But I can’t get my mind off that girl. That face. That smile.
I remember my grandfather’s Bible.
I feel free.
And slowly, I smile too.
I’m pretty sure I just saw the face of an angel.
THE END