Page 28 of The Plus-One Deal

Claire didn’t relax at first, but then Ken took the mic. He didn’t suck, but he wasn’t great, either. He sang ‘Whispering Grass’and hit all the right notes, but his voice was thin, nasal, nothing special at all. Claire’s fast, panicked breathing slowed. She sat back. I reached for her hand again, and this time, I squeezed it.

“We’ve got this,” I told her, and then we were up. Claire seemed calm at first, maybe soothed by the wine, but her shoulderstensed up again as she checked the screen. She grabbed me and dragged me up to the mic.

“What even is this song? I don’t think I know it.”

I squinted at the monitor. “‘All I Ask of You.’” I could’ve throttled Verity on the spot. I was supposed to stand up here and beg Claire to love me? Look her in the eyes and tell her?—

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I smiled. “See, look, it’s easy. It starts with me solo. You’ll pick up the tune and we’re off to the races.”

Claire knit her brow, doubtful, but the music was starting. I took her hands in mine, feeling self-conscious. It was only a song, only words set to music, but I realized I was nervous, my throat dry and tight. I’d never let myself dwell on how I felt for Claire, much less put words to it or speak them aloud. Our lives weren’t built for that. It’d only destroy us. All I could ask of her was this, what we had. Not what I might’ve asked in another world.

Words flashed on the prompt screen, blinking my cue. The white ball bounced over them and I launched in, hoarse. My voice caught and cracked, and then I recovered. I tried to catch Claire’s eye, but she was watching the screen, waiting for her cue, going pink as she read. She’d always blushed easy, always hated that she did that. Hated everyone knowing how she felt inside.

Her cue came up, and her hands twitched in mine. I squeezed her back, and a shiver ran through me. What if shedidscrew up? Could she even sing? I tried to remember if I’d ever heard her — at New Year’s, maybe? Had she sung ‘Auld Lang Syne’? I willed her to be wonderful. To leave the stage smiling.

She started rough, just like I had, and my heart did a nosedive. Then she found her pitch, and as it happened, shecouldsing. She flubbed a few of the lyrics as the words flickered by, but her clear, sweet voice carried it, and I hardly noticed. I grinned, delighted. Of course she could sing. She could do anything. That was why?—

My next cue came up, and we sang together. Claire didn’t look much at me, mostly fixed on the lyrics, but I could see she was smiling. Relaxing. Relieved. Even enjoying this, getting into the moment. I pulled her into my arms for our last reprise. She gasped, then kept going, and I spun her around. We held our last note and I held her close, and I knew in that moment what we had to do.

“We should kiss,” I whispered, as the track faded out.

Claire stiffened. “What?”

“It’ll look strange if we don’t.”

She glanced over at my shoulder, at the bar sitting silent, at Ken and Verity breathless, eyes fixed on us. They were all waiting for us to do what we felt, what of course wehadto feel in each other’s embrace.

Claire tilted her head back, the slightest of movements.

The violins trembled, sweet in the quiet.

I leaned in and kissed her for the first time. It was awkward at first, her lips pressed together, then they went soft and yielding and lightning forked through me. It lit me up like a candle, like coming alive, every part of me craving her, needing her closeness. I cupped her cheek for its softness against my roughpalm. Tangled my fingers in her thick, curly hair. She sighed and slid her arms around my waist.

Home,I thought.Home. It’s like coming home. Like I’ve been gone a while, but now we can?—

A chorus of cheers went up, and a loud whistle. I thought Claire would spring back, but she just leaned in closer. She stole another kiss, and then she pulled back. The lights of the bar sparkled in her green eyes, and I wanted to dive into them and lose myself in her forever.

CHAPTER 11

CLAIRE

Istared straight through my laptop screen, seeing nothing at all. Conrad had kissed me. I had kissed Conrad. We’d kissed each other, and it had been… something.

I tried to remember the kisses that’d come before it, boys in high school, in college. Men from the apps. Shy kisses, sweet kisses, goodnight kisses. Goodbye kisses. Had any of them made the ground tilt under my feet? Conrad had kissed me, and it had been like falling. Falling into my past. Falling into a dream. Falling through galaxies, stars in my hair. It had just been a kiss, two seconds, three, but my heart was still pounding, my face hot and dry.

Out on the balcony, Conrad was pacing, on his phone to someone back in New York. He kept raking his fingers through his hair, the way I’d seen him do when he got nervous. He never did that in public, where people could judge him. Only in private, then I’d remind him to comb it. When I wasn’t around, did he leave it all messy?

He caught me staring and smiled. I waved and turned away, not wanting him to see the color rise to my cheeks. I was about to get back to work when someone tapped on the door.

“Coming,” I called, and checked my hair in the mirror. If it was Verity, I wanted to look perfect. But when I opened the door, it was a man in a blue suit, a pin on his lapel declaring him RANDALL PRICE – MANAGER. I flashed him a bland smile.

“Is there a problem?”

“No, not at all.” He stood up a bit straighter and sneaked a glance past me. “I see your companion is busy — I wanted to thank him. That scene in the lobby with the Adelfords, that could’ve been ugly. I heard Mr. Farley calmed Mrs. Adelford right down.”

I smiled. “Yes, he did. He’s always had a way with difficult people.”