CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE #2
I glanced at the people seated nearby, including the women who had been ushered outside earlier. They watched him with a mixture of awe and sorrow, as though they, too, wondered who he had lost.
He kept singing, his voice roughening over the parts about trying to forget someone who still lived somewhere out in the world.
He sang like we weren’t there at all. Like he was bleeding internally, and the only thing holding him together was the music pouring out between his lips.
When he finally opened his eyes, they didn’t drift among the crowd.
He looked straight through them, even as a few people stood to place large bills into the open guitar case beside his feet. It held more money than I had expected, but he never once looked down.
His blond hair was unkempt and a little long, framing his face and making his jaw appear more pronounced as he sang. His teeth bared through the words, his expression laced with grief and anger.
She had hurt him, whoever she was.
And he hated her.
The longer I stood there, absorbed in his voice and his raw emotion, the more I couldn’t help hating her, too.
To break a soul down.
I knew the feeling.
To reduce him to this—a man baring his grief to the world, knowing we were all listening but feeling alone nonetheless.
Again, I knew the feeling.
I knew it so well that I wanted to pound against my chest and scream that we could make it stop hurting. That we could find a way out if we broke away the cuffs they used to bind us to them.
As though he heard my screaming thoughts, his eyes suddenly flickered my way.
The angry blues met mine and held without wavering.
Unblinking.
Entirely focused.
He saw me.
Not glanced at me.
Not noticed me.
He looked into me.
An ache opened beneath my ribs.
For one disorienting second, the patio seemed to tilt, and I felt outside myself, watching a woman in a blue dress stare at a man she had never met.
His eyes narrowed.
His fingers faltered over the guitar strings, and the song broke off. His mouth parted, but his stare remained fixed on mine.
A few heads turned in my direction, curiosity filling their faces.
I backed away, startled and confused.
Of all things, guilt clawed up my throat.
But I had done nothing to this stranger.
Stay.
The simple thought warred with my entire being.
Shaking my head, I hurried back inside the restaurant as his voice resumed the song.
I remained shaken for some time.
I was aware of the spectacle I had made of myself on the patio. The way I had spun around and raced back inside, feeling the eyes of everyone on me.
Even as I sat beside my husband, I could feel the attention of patrons passing through the restaurant.
Embarrassment flamed across my cheeks.
Thinking back on it, there was no reason for me to have reacted that way. Nothing had truly happened.
I kept my eyes focused on my plate, trying to make sense of it.
Then again, the man had reacted, too, hadn’t he?
He had stopped singing for a few beats.
It wasn’t as though I had started it. I would have been happy to close my eyes and listen to his voice. Hell, he could have sung out his shopping list, and I wouldn’t have minded.
There was something about his voice that tugged at me in the most peculiar ways. I found myself yearning for a connection that couldn’t possibly exist.
I must have imagined the whole thing, which was odd because I had let go of romantic notions a very long time ago.
He had made me feel something, though.
Something familiar, even though I had never felt that particular ache before.
Thoughts of Rowe and June raced through my mind, filling me with grief, but this was different.
This felt like the absence of something I had never known belonged to me.
Crazier than all of that, I wanted to go back outside and watch him again. I wanted to be close to him.
The idea that I might never see him again—
I swallowed and drank my entire glass of water, my hand unsteady.
I did my best to remain present. It took literally everything inside me to sit there and pretend to give a crap.
Thankfully, Oliver didn’t pay me much attention. The others were absorbed in their worship of academia.
I took no part in it.
I wasn’t alone.
A familiar professor looked as though he wanted to stick a needle in his eye. Patrick’s gaze flickered to mine, and his brows rose in a way that implied this was never going to end and we were trapped—but at least we were trapped together.
We would endure this together.
Patrick had always been down-to-earth like that, and unsurprisingly, Oliver had never been a big fan of the old professor.
I was going to get Patrick a Christmas present that year simply for that look.
A thoughtful gift, too. Like a mug covered in Western philosophers. Some Berkeley and Voltaire. Maybe I could have it custom-made and include Dracula among them, just for shits and giggles.
Patrick would appreciate that.
I smiled genuinely at the thought, happy for the distraction.
Then I tuned out and simply existed there in Oliver’s world, forcing shrimp salad down my throat while daydreaming about chocolate sundaes and waffles slathered with raspberry jam.
I thought of the singer the entire time.