Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
S ix days.
Sunny gave herself a stern look in the mirror in her motel room. Her very own motel room. Separate from Gabe’s. No, she wasn’t disappointed. Or lonely.
She ran the brush through her hair. She had six days before she had to be on set with her parents. She’d taken back the driver’s seat from white-knuckling Gabe, but they’d crawled through the mountains and had to stop short of Las Vegas. It’d be an easy drive into the city the next day. She might even start toward LA that afternoon if Gabe seemed to be doing okay with his family.
She checked her lipstick. Why was she even putting on lipstick? It wasn’t like they were going on a date. They were only going to dinner at the bar across the street. Their last dinner together. So what if she’d put on a dress? It was one of the few clean items left in her suitcase. She didn’t bother to probe why she’d packed the form-hugging black dress at all.
A knock sounded at the door, the knock she already recognized as uniquely Gabe’s. Four slow raps of his big knuckles, like he was holding his body back, restraining himself from being ungentle with the door.
After one last look in the mirror, she snatched her coat off the bed and opened the door. Gabe filled it, leaning against the frame. Instead of the parka he’d been wearing most of the trip, he wore that cashmere coat he’d had on the day she’d met him at his townhome. With a pair of dress slacks and softly shined shoes. He’d dressed up, too.
“Hey,” she said.
He backed off a step, blinking those eyes she’d thought at first were hard like granite but now looked like a too-thin crust over the caramel-soft feelings that swirled just behind. He cleared his throat. “Ready?”
She shrugged into her coat and shut the red door behind her. The little town they’d stopped in housed an artists’ colony, and everything was bright colors and sharp contrasts. The old roadside motel, a well-preserved throwback to the 1960s, was painted in turquoise and garnet. It reminded Sunny of her grandmother back in California who loved to wear garish flowered caftans and blue eyeshadow. Like the motel, she still looked good in it.
Even Sunny was at a loss for words as they crossed the street to the Donkey Kick Saloon under its blinking neon sign. They’d spent seven days on the road together, and they’d become friends. Friends who’d kissed, but that was Gabe’s limit, and she had to respect it. Regardless, they’d part ways the next day. What more was there to say?
“Huh,” was what he said when they stepped through the door into what Sunny had expected to be a honky tonk–style saloon. Instead, it was fitted with shiny red padded benches along the outer walls and reclaimed-wood tables in the center. On the wall opposite the bar was a stage with a screen behind it. Everything, from the bar to the stage to the bench-lined walls, was draped in multicolored Christmas lights. At only five minutes to seven, most of the tables had already filled with flannel-wearing diners.
The host, a tall, thin dude with a man bun peeking from underneath his knit cap, greeted them. “Do you want a table close to the stage?”
“What’s the entertainment?” Sunny didn’t see any instruments up there.
“Friday is community singing night,” he said. “Members of the audience are welcome to perform.”
“You mean karaoke?” she asked.
He grimaced. “We don’t call it that, since it gives off the wrong sort of image. We prefer to think of it as a communal sharing of song.”
“Away from the stage, please,” Gabe said, scowling.
“It’s okay,” said the host, leading us toward the corner of the room. “You can hear the singing everywhere.”
“Fantastic,” Gabe growled.
She grabbed his arm. “It’ll be fun. You can criticize everyone. Quietly,” she added when the host shot her a sharp look. Gabe had seemed to enjoy her singing in the car. What was wrong now?
The host showed them to two seats in the isolated corner of the bench. Handing them menus, he said, “It’s a very supportive environment. We encourage you to join in the singing. There are no catcalls or heckling of any kind.”
When he’d gone, Sunny chuckled. “Poser karaoke. I hope the drinks are strong.”
Gabe grunted. He didn’t seem in the mood to talk, so Sunny gazed around at the other patrons. They were all more casually dressed than Sunny and Gabe, and many of them appeared to be fortifying themselves with booze for the karaoke—oops, communal sharing of song.
She let Gabe sulk in silence until their drinks came, then she raised her glass. Time to snap him out of it. “To our last night on the road.” She’d be glad to be free of her Mercedes’s stuffy interior when she made it to LA.
“Our last night together,” Gabe echoed, tapping his pint glass against her martini glass.
She had to admit that she’d miss her driving partner. She slumped. “Now you’ve made it sad.”
He rotated his glass on the table. “Sad? You’ll be glad to be rid of me after tomorrow. You can speed off on the interstate. Go home to your family.”
That was what she wanted. And yet. Her heart gave a weird twist-thump when she imagined Gabe in her rear-view mirror. She laid a hand on his arm. “No. Except for the driving-in-the-snow part, I had fun. I almost wish I’d met you sooner. When we both lived in Ohio.”
“Almost?” He still didn’t look up.
“If I had, I’d be even sadder to leave you.”
He looked up then, searching her eyes. Finally, apparently satisfied she wasn’t making fun of him, he said, “I’ll miss you, too.” Immediately, he snatched up the menu and hid behind it.
The emcee, a gray-haired Black woman wearing red cowboy boots, a short denim dress, and an electric purple beret, stepped up to the microphone. “Welcome to community singing night,” she said. “We encourage everyone to come up and perform. Remember to kindly encourage our entertainers with applause. Any hecklers will be escorted from the establishment. First up, as always, is Miss Viola.”
Miss Viola, an older Black woman, had gospel-soloist pipes. Sunny sat, rapt, listening to her belt out “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” If every one of the community singers was that good, they were in for a treat.
Sadly, no one measured up to Miss Viola. The rest of the community singers ranged in talent from James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke to Mike Ditka’s rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Gabe kept his grumbling low enough that only Sunny could hear it, so no one offered to escort them out.
The food was simple but tasty, and the waiter kept the drinks coming. Someone sang an ear-piercing version of “Fool, I’m a Queen” that didn’t quite break Sunny’s martini glass but made her grit her teeth. She should’ve expected it; it was a standard on karaoke machines from New York to Tokyo. When the last, warbling high C faded away and relieved applause began, she stood.
“Come on. It’s our turn.” She held out a hand to Gabe.
“What?” His eyes went wide, and he gripped the table like it was Rose’s door in Titanic .
“We have to return the favor. Everyone else has entertained us. Now we entertain them.”
He shook his head. “I don’t sing.”
“Everyone sings,” Sunny said. “Some just do it better than others. Now come on.” She wiggled the fingers of her outstretched hand. At last, he grasped it.
As she dragged him to the stage, she asked, “Do you have any favorites you like to do?” It was always best to let the newbie choose.
“I don’t sing,” he repeated.
Sunny kept from rolling her eyes. Barely. “Okay, I hear you, but you’re singing tonight. Do you know ‘Shallow’ from A Star Is Born? Ever see the movie?”
“Yeah,” he muttered.
They’d reached the stage, and before mounting the step, she looked at him, raising one doubtful eyebrow.
“Riley liked it. I watched it with her once.” He heaved out a resigned sigh. “Okay, a few times.”
“Okay.” God, she wished he hadn’t said her name. Now she had to picture him cuddling in front of the TV with someone who wasn’t her. Shaking it off, she went to the machine and queued it up, thankful they didn’t have to do “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.” He probably didn’t have Elton John’s range. Besides, the female part on “Shallow” was stronger.
“Remember, you start,” she said, shoving a microphone at him. “Lyrics there”—she pointed at the screen at the front of the stage—“and hold the microphone close. Ready?”
His wide eyes told her he wasn’t, but the audience shifted restlessly. She hit the button to start the music.
Maybe Gabe didn’t sing on the regular, but his voice wasn’t bad. It was low with a rasp to it, kind of like the country singer Chris Young’s. It pleased her ear and made her smile, the way his growly speaking voice did.
But Sunny realized her mistake while he was still singing his first solo part. When he sang, “I’m falling,” and turned those deep brown eyes on her, glinting in the stage lights, she saw that she’d tripped right into the trap of musical duos everywhere. Johnny and June. Sonny and Cher. Beyoncé and Jay-Z. Even, long ago, Gene and Gwen in that teen musical where they’d met. The soulful lyrics, sung with his heart in his eyes, twisted around Sunny’s heart like ribbons and daisy chains and all that romantic bullshit. She almost forgot to come in at her cue.
She wanted to watch the audience as she sang, or else close her eyes and let the music soothe her, but she couldn’t drag her gaze away from Gabe. A delighted smile played on his lips while he listened to her, and a full-out grin stretched his cheeks when she hit the high notes.
She had to poke him to join her in the last part of the song, and he stumbled over the final syllables. Still, the audience rose to their feet when they finished. Blushing, Sunny grasped Gabe’s hand and pulled him down into a bow beside her before they scrambled off the stage.
The next singer stopped Sunny with a hand on her arm. “Aren’t you Sunny Lafortune?” she asked.
Sunny never hated being recognized, but now wasn’t the time, with her body quivering with need. For Gabe. She glanced at him, and he nodded, a proud smile stretching his face and crinkling his eyes.
“Yes, I am.” She stuck out her hand to shake the other woman’s.
“I knew it! Your voice is just as beautiful as your mom’s. And I love New York Bomb Squad . And between you and me”—she leaned in close to Sunny to whisper, tequila on her breath—“your boyfriend’s hotter than that Curt Suede.”
“I know, right?” Sunny leaned away, grinning. My. Boyfriend. Just for the next twenty-four hours or so. “Break a leg.”
The woman hopped up the step and launched into Patsy Cline’s “Crazy.”
Still clutching Gabe’s hand, Sunny met his gaze. His brown eyes sparkled like smoky quartz, and crystalline tingles traveled from his hand up her arm. She shivered.
He tugged her close and spoke in her ear so she could hear him over the singer. “Want to get out of here?”
As much as she’d enjoy soaking up praise from the other patrons, she couldn’t stay in the bar with the electricity coursing through her. They paid their bill and, Gabe’s hand in hers, jogged across the street to the motel.
She fitted the heavy key into the red door while he waited. “Come in?” she asked.
He nodded and followed her in.
Somehow, she’d strewn most of the contents of her suitcase across the room. She might’ve gone through an outfit or two trying to find the perfect one for their not-date. Sunny scooped clothes off the bed, and Gabe sat in the cleared-off space, humming “Shallow.”
While she shoved her belongings back into her bag, Gabe said, “I’ll miss hearing you sing. Do you think you might do something with music when you get to LA?” Clutching an open-weave sweater in her hand, she didn’t miss the yearning in his eyes.
He needed her.
Suddenly, LA didn’t seem as appealing as it had earlier that evening. Staying a couple more days wouldn’t hurt.
“You know, I don’t need to be in LA until next Thursday. Maybe I could meet your family. Just to make sure they’re not, like, serial killers.”
Once she left for LA, she’d never see Gabe again. And she wasn’t yet ready for the Gabe-free part of her life to begin.