Chapter 20 Stevie #2
“Make music.” The glimmer of a smile returns. “Make my own kind of music.”
“Yes.” He lifts up and sends me a wink before pointing at the piano. “Now’s a plenty good time to start.”
The space buzzes with chatter and clinking glasses, a familiar hum that sets the tone for the night and softens my churning anxiety. Nodding my gratitude, I step away from Mr. Hamlin and grace the stage, taking a seat at the piano bench and rerouting my thoughts.
I pause to settle in, running my fingers along the polished keys, cool ivory under my touch.
The bar’s deep mahogany walls are adorned with framed sheet music and classic posters, stories of performances past. A few regulars wave in my direction as they sip their drinks.
The stage is small but intimate, with just enough space for the piano and me to share the spotlight.
I close my eyes and pull in a deep breath to center myself. The smells of aged wood and traces of wine fill my senses, grounding me in the moment. Anticipation builds, the air thickening just before the first note rings out.
I play.
I play for them. I play for me, nailing a solo performance, featuring Ellie Goulding’s cover of “Your Song” while the audience goes wild and I jump to my feet, slamming my fingers to the keys and singing my heart out. It’s electrifying. Therapeutic. It’s exactly what I need.
A release.
When the set is over, I take a bow, offer my thanks, and make my way off the stage, smiling at Joplin and Misty at a high-top table before sneaking off to the bathrooms to refresh.
But I don’t make it that far.
A shadow crosses into my sight line from above, a black baseball cap shielding a mop of sun-tipped hair.
Dark sunglasses, so out of place in this dimly lit bar, hide two crystalline eyes I remember too well.
He looms fifteen feet above me, hands folded and dangling over the balcony banister.
A leather jacket is glued to filled-out arms, thick with corded muscle I’ve seen plastered on movie posters and magazine ads.
Stubble lines his angular jaw, golden and rough.
Tanned skin, tall frame, lips drawn from some impossible dream.
I’d recognize him anywhere, in any form, in any reality.
Lex.
My heart cracks wide open, bleeding memories and crushed innocence.
My mother told me once that the heart has the same neural cells as the brain.
It’s its own intelligent organism.
It feels and thinks in ways we don’t fully understand, guiding us through emotions and decisions with a wisdom that often surpasses logic. Maybe that’s why, despite everything, it still beats so fiercely for what we’ve lost, for the things we once held dear.
But wisdom and logic are not the same. I am wise enough to know this is a bad idea; I am not smart enough to turn the other way.
I gather the pleats of my layered skirt and haul myself up the staircase toward the trio of private rooms reserved for parties and special events.
He’s waiting for me. Standing on the balcony of the piano bar, the city’s glittering lights spilling from the sprawling window below and painting his figure in stark contrast. Lex leans casually against the railing, his posture effortlessly confident. I approach slowly, with caution.
He removes the sunglasses. His eyes lift to mine, and my gaze locks on blue.
Electric blue.
Expensive blue.
For a moment, there’s nothing heavy or cumbersome between us. The weight of lost time and unspoken words collapses, replaced with rooftop memories draped in starlight.
I blink myself back to the piano bar and look down at my feet. At all the little navy carpet tassels, three shades darker than his irises.
And then he says my name.
The one I haven’t heard in almost four years.
“Hey, Nicks.”
I pull in an unsteady breath, curling my hand around the banister as I set my jaw and find the courage to meet his stare. “What are you doing here?”
He gives me a quick once-over, removing his baseball cap and propping the sunglasses atop a tousle of hair, slightly darker than it was four years ago. “Pretty sure you already know that answer.”
“Right. The gala.”
“My agent said he called you.”
“He did.” I fold my arms across my chest while he dips his gaze to my cleavage for the barest breath.
A drumbeat. When our eyes meet again, his are darker, and mine are blacker than midnight.
“So let me get this straight,” I begin, my tone low and even.
“You crash my car and nearly kill me, and when I lie to protect you—”
“I never asked you to lie for me.”
“—you repay my kindness by leaving town, ignoring my texts and phone calls, and changing your number. You disappear for four years—for four years , Lex—and then you drop back into my orbit with your sensationalized television show, embellishing my life, dramatizing our relationship and experiences, and you expect me to do you a favor by prancing around some fancy gala as your date?” The blood returns to my face, heating to boiling, and my chest contracts with labored breaths. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Good to see you too,” he mutters, a picture of stony indifference. Lex steps closer to me, invading my space, smelling like a cloud of citrus and sea breeze. “For the record, I made you an overnight celebrity. You’re welcome.”
I gape at him, jaw unlocking. “You took pieces of me, twisted them into something they’re not, and broadcast it for the world to see, all while another actress got to play the part of me —a part I didn’t even get to audition for.
” Tears spring to my eyes, wretched little daggers.
“That is not a courtesy. That’s a slap in the face. ”
His eyes flash, a familiar shade of hollow. “Don’t pretend you didn’t like the show.”
My heart fumbles.
Wow.
I find my balance through the upheaval and take a deliberate step toward him, tipping my chin until our gazes lock and hold.
“Honestly? It was a bit…” Pausing, I draw out the next beat, toying with the silence, pretending to think over my response.
Then, with a firm set of my jaw, I finish: “Underwhelming.”
His expression falters. The mask slips.
Warm breath skates across the top of my head as he exhales a breath. Then he sniffs, shaking off the comment. “Fair enough. Art is subjective.”
“I’m going to go. I can’t say it’s been a pleasure.”
He snags my wrist before I can retreat. “Just hear me out. Five minutes.”
“You’ve had four years.” I try to pull away, but he holds firm, guiding me toward one of the VIP rooms. “This is pointless, Lex. My answer is no.”
When he lets go of me, I have my chance to run away.
To race down the stairs and never look back, to put Lexington Hall behind me for good.
But he knows me better than that. He saunters into the candlelit room, adorned with plush couches and red velvet chairs, and turns to face me, just inside the threshold.
Tipping his head, a gesture to join him, he slips his hands into his pockets and waits.
Waits for me to be weak, to be his audience once again.
I stand there, dangling between wisdom and logic, the glow of flickering candles casting long shadows on the walls.
It’s my stupid heart. It remembers everything I long to forget.
It dreams in color and silly wishes despite the nightmares lurking in the back of my mind.
It has my feet inching forward, into the room, as Lex steps over to me and closes the door behind us, hesitating before he moves away.
Our faces are inches apart, just a breath, a kiss he never returned.
I angle my head to the side, gritting my teeth.
With a hard exhale, Lex retreats from my personal bubble and stuffs his hands back into his pockets. “Listen, this was not my idea.”
“Wonderful. I guess all is forgiven then.”
“But it’s a good idea. It’s one date, and it could benefit us both.”
I glance over at him, a buzzing ball of tension and nerves. “That’s funny. I thought you only did things to benefit yourself.”
“Not true. I bought you a car.”
“And then you totaled it a week later.”
“That was an accident.” He stabs a hand through his hair, shaking his head. “It was an accident I regret every day—every fucking second of every day.”
That ancient trace of vulnerability weaves into his words, causing me to waver. I hate that I do. I hate that he can still reach me after all these years, after all this radio silence. My resolve slowly cracks, piece by piece.
I stare at him.
He stares back.
“It’s one date,” he says. “One event. All you have to do is wear a pretty dress and pretend to like me.”
I swallow, forcing the cracks to seal back up. “Above my skill set.”
“Bullshit.”
“One date, and then what?” I counter, extending my arms at my sides. “Are you going to publicly apologize for making a mockery of me and my life for millions of viewers to dissect?”
“Apologize?” A muscle in his jaw flickers. “It was only loosely based on the truth, and I never painted your character in a bad light.”
“You told the world I was poor. You wrote my dad as a bumbling oaf.”
“You said he was a big dork.”
“You made me a belly dancer!”
“So?” He huffs. “Belly dancing is a legitimate and respected art form.”
“That’s not the point,” I grind out. “You embellished things. You never reached out to ask for my permission. You knew acting was my dream, Lex—you knew that—and you left me out of it. You wove a fairy tale of us falling madly in love, when in reality, you were disgusted by the thought of even kissing me.”
“I did kiss you.”
“While you were acting . That wasn’t real.”
“That was…” His voice softens, trailing off into thoughts unsaid. Regrouping, Lex presses his hands together like a plea. “Listen, I’m sorry for hurting your feelings. Is that what you want to hear?”
I look away, biting my lip.
“Maybe I could have reached out, but nothing I did was ever a ploy to hurt you, and there are things you don’t understand, things you’ll never—”
“Then tell me. Right now.” I shove a finger at the floor. “Explain to me these things you claim I can’t understand, the things that have kept me up at night, thinking I was someone you could use up and discard like a crumpled script, tossed aside after the curtain closes.”
A crease pinches between his eyes. “Stevie…”
I wait for more. I wait for him to explain all the things that don’t make sense. But if that was some sort of apology or explanation, it begins and ends with my name.
Tears leak from the corners of my eyes, and Lex’s attention dips to the warm rivers sliding down my cheeks. He frowns, almost like emotion is a foreign concept to him. An oddity.
I swipe them away, erasing the evidence of my wounded heart, and he blinks back up, inhaling a frazzled breath.
“One night,” he repeats, rerouting the conversation back to the point.
And the point is not my pain. “You’ll be spoiled.
Catered to. Primped and styled by industry professionals.
The best. A limo will pick you up for a late Friday flight, and you’ll be back by Sunday afternoon.
I’ll introduce you as my date for the evening, my inspiration for the show.
I’ll treat you like a fucking queen, and then you’ll go home, and you’ll never have to think of me again. ”
Reluctantly, I consider it.
I imagine it playing out, just as he says.
Maybe Joplin and Misty are right. Maybe I’m allowed to be selfish for once.
To take something for me, for me alone, and use it to my own advantage.
This is an open door. One I can slam shut or walk right through.
And that passageway is looking more tempting the longer I stand here, drinking in his self-serving spiel.
Because that’s what this is—another opportunity for Lexington Hall to make headlines and capture audiences around the world with a manufactured lie.
Lex doesn’t deserve my acquiescence.
But I do.
“Fine,” I say, voice hitching, loath to even say the word. “I’ll do it.”
His head jerks back a fraction. “Yeah?”
“What weekend is it?”
“September seventh.”
Nodding, I swipe my sweaty palms down the length of my skirt. “Okay. Have your agent send me the details, and I’ll be there.”
I study him, waiting for the grin, the smirk, a flicker of victory to brighten his eyes, but it doesn’t come. “All right,” he says evenly. “My guys will be in touch. If you want my number, I can—”
“I don’t.” I glance around the room that feels two sizes too small. “Let’s keep this strictly business. It’s better that way.”
Something splashes across his face, a sentiment I can’t pinpoint.
“No problem,” he murmurs. “I’ll see you then.
” Lex moves around me, reaching for the door handle, his leather coat brushing my arm.
He falters, glancing at the contact before finding my eyes.
“This probably doesn’t mean much coming from me… but you fucking killed it out there.”
Taken aback, I suck in a breath, my brows bending. “What?”
“Your song. On the piano.”
I part my lips to speak, to say something, but he disappears out the door before I can get a word in. I step outside into the hallway, watching him go as he slaps the baseball cap on his head and returns the sunglasses to his face, then traipses down the staircase, out of sight.
Your song.
“And this one’s for me,” I say, the whispered lyrics dissolving into piano chords from below as I gather my skirt and exit the hall.