Chapter Eight #2
Eliza stood frozen before the microphone for a moment, her fingers wrapped so tightly around the stand her knuckles whitened.
The opening notes of Joan Jett’s I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll blasted through the speakers, and I felt my eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
Not the song I expected from the quiet, reserved woman I thought I knew.
Eliza closed her eyes briefly, drawing in a deep breath that visibly expanded her chest. When she opened them again, something had shifted in her expression, a transformation so profound I found myself immediately straightening and leaning forward on my bar stool, completely enraptured.
Her first few notes came out tentatively, slightly off-key as she adjusted to the volume and tempo.
The slight tremor in her voice revealed her nerves, her body still rigid with tension as she clutched the microphone stand like a lifeline, but a few bars later at the pre-chorus, she found her rhythm.
Her shoulders relaxed, her hips began to sway subtly with the rhythm, and her voice found its strength, pushing through her nervousness with growing confidence.
By the first chorus, Eliza had shed her hesitation entirely.
Her voice rang out clear and powerful, the rich sound filling every corner of the bar, cutting through the noise like a blade.
This wasn’t karaoke anymore. This was a performance from someone who knew exactly what she was doing, who had stood before crowds and commanded their attention.
The technical part of my brain -- the part I’d had spent years honing in Nashville’s music scene before everything went to hell -- recognized genuine talent when I heard it.
I’d attributed the previous karaoke night to me being infatuated with her, but hearing her a second time when I was fully prepared to critique her, proved my appreciation to be much, much more than being taken with the woman.
Her pitch control was flawless, her tone warm and slightly raspy in all the right places.
She knew when to pull back and when to push, creating dynamics most amateur singers never mastered.
The crowd felt it too. Conversations died as heads turned toward the stage.
Bodies milling around the pool tables drifted closer, drawn by the unexpected quality of her voice.
Someone whistled appreciatively. A few brothers raised their bottles in salute.
When she reached the end of the chorus, even Mike paused, cloth suspended over a glass as he watched her with newfound respect.
Eliza grew more animated as she grew more comfortable with her surroundings.
She pulled the microphone from its stand, moving across the small stage with growing confidence.
Her free hand punctuated the lyrics with gestures she seemed to perform from muscle memory, as if her body remembered a version of herself she’d long buried beneath layers of worry and responsibility.
Her eyes brightened with an inner fire I’d never seen before, her smile wider and more genuine than any I’d witnessed since we met.
The woman on stage bore little resemblance to the exhausted mother I’d comforted in a hospital parking garage.
This Eliza radiated joy and energy, commanding the space around her with a presence expanding beyond her small frame.
Her hair whipped around her face as she moved, catching the red lights transforming her into something wild and devastatingly beautiful.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away. My heart pounded against my ribs, my palms suddenly damp against my coffee mug.
I’d spent years carefully maintaining emotional distance from every woman I met, knowing I had nothing to offer beyond sex.
Yet watching Eliza transform on that stage stirred something in me I thought had died along with my career, something both exhilarating and terrifying.
“She’s something else, huh?” Knight appeared beside me again, his knowing grin making me want to punch him. “Who knew the girl had that in her?”
I grunted noncommittally, not trusting my voice.
My fingers itched with the familiar urge to wrap around a microphone, to feel the weight of a guitar in my hands.
Music had been my life once, my salvation and my downfall all at once.
I’d sworn off performing after prison, the memory of what I’d lost too painful to revisit.
I felt a presence on my other side and turned to find Hannah standing there, arms crossed over her chest, watching me with a determined expression I’d learned to fear. Reflexively, I swallowed hard as she held my gaze.
“Well?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “What are you waiting for?” This was the president’s old lady throwing her weight around, leaving no room for argument.
“Not happening,” I replied, turning back to my cold coffee. “She’s doing fine on her own.”
Hannah snorted, an unladylike sound conveying exactly what she thought of my response. “She’s doing more than fine. But you two would be magic together and you know it.”
“Hannah,” I warned, not looking at her. “Leave it alone.”
Instead of responding, she grabbed my arm with surprising strength, her fingers digging into my bicep through my cut.
“Johnny Kingston, you’ve been moping around, punishing yourself for something not entirely your fault since you got to Kiss of Death.
It’s time you remembered who you were before Terre Haute. ”
Before I could protest further, Hannah physically pulled me from my stool, leveraging her small frame with determination, leaving me little choice but to follow or create a scene. She propelled me through the crowd toward the stage, people stepping aside with knowing smirks as we passed.
“Hannah, Goddammit,” I growled, trying to extricate my arm from her grip without hurting her. “I don’t sing anymore.”
“Tonight you do,” she replied, her voice softening slightly as she looked up at me. “You both need this, Cash. Trust me.”
We reached the edge of the stage as someone started Old Time Rock and Roll.
The fuckers. Eliza launched herself into the song, taking off with the first verse like she’d been born to sing the song.
Hannah gave me a firm push, sending me toward the steps, brooking no argument. Her expression dared me to walk away.
With a muttered curse, I climbed the steps to the stage, feeling everyone in the fucking bar staring straight at me. God, it was just like the first time I took the stage on my own. I was fucking terrified. Just maybe for different reasons this time.
Or maybe not.
Eliza spotted me approaching and faltered mid-lyric, her eyes widening in surprise.
For a moment, I thought she might stop singing altogether, might reject my intrusion into her moment.
Instead, her startled expression radiated pure joy as she extended her hand toward me, offering the shared microphone.
I hesitated only a moment before stepping fully into the light beside her, accepting the microphone with a steady hand when I quaked on the inside.
When the next verse began, I let my voice join hers, the rich baritone I’d once been proud of merging with her clear, powerful alto.
The sound of our voices blending together sent a shock through me, a perfect harmonic chemistry I hadn’t experienced in years.
Eliza’s eyes widened slightly, her lips curving into a genuine smile as she recognized the same thing I did. We sounded good together. Damn good.
The crowd felt it too. A roar of approval rose from the packed floor, bodies pressing closer to the stage as brothers and their women whistled and cheered. Someone cranked the volume higher.
I’d forgotten this feeling, the pure adrenaline rush of performance, the way music could transform a room full of strangers into a unified whole.
The sheer power of holding a crowd in the palm on your hand was the greatest fucking feeling in the world.
I’d forgotten how it felt to connect with another person through song, to find a rare, perfect blend where two voices became something greater than either alone.
As we powered into the final chorus together, Eliza’s face flushed with exertion and excitement, her eyes never leaving mine.
I knew we’d crossed some invisible boundary neither of us had acknowledged existed.
Whatever came next, we couldn’t go back to the careful distance we’d maintained before tonight.
The noise of the crowd faded until all I could hear was the music and Eliza’s voice twining with mine.
The red lights cast shadows across her face, highlighting the curve of her cheek, the fullness of her lips as they shaped each word with precision.
The rest of the room disappeared into a hazy blur, faces merging into an indistinct mass beyond the stage lights.
Nothing existed except this song, this moment, this woman whose voice called to something long buried inside me.
The heat from her body reached me across the diminishing space between us, the scent of her shampoo more intoxicating to me than the strongest moonshine.
I could see the fine droplets of sweat forming at her hairline, the flutter of her pulse at the base of her throat.
Every detail of her burned into my memory with extraordinary clarity, as if part of me knew this moment mattered.
Our hands brushed against each other on the microphone stand, and electricity shot up my arm with such force I nearly missed my entrance to the next verse.
Her fingers were cool despite the heat of her performance, slender and strong where they pressed momentarily against my tattooed knuckles.
Eliza’s eyes widened slightly at the contact, her voice catching almost imperceptibly before she recovered and pushed into the chorus with renewed intensity.