The Ex Factor - Erin McCarthy Page 0,52
her. In full view of seventy-five people.
“Hello, everyone,” she said, voice low. It was a pleasant switch to be in such a small venue and she could make eye contact with the majority of the people in the room. “Thanks for letting us come up on stage tonight. Chance and I are working on a new album and we needed a break from writing, so this is perfect.”
She glanced over to Chance and gave him a nod. He started strumming his guitar, giving her a wink in return.
As usual, all of her worries, her tentativeness, disappeared when she opened her mouth and sang. She loved to massage the words, to coax the emotion from the melody, to tell the story of the lyrics to her audience. One of the few talents she possessed in spades was the ability to connect with a room full of people, to make them feel something when they listened. Her voice was high and sweet, the only thing about herself she felt her father had truly admired. He had always told her she had a church voice.
In a way, she did feel spiritual when she sang. She brought joy to her fans, and that meant something to her.
As she sang, shifting her gaze from the audience to Chance, and back, she realized for the first time that if everything went away, all the money, all the fame, all the awards, she’d still have this--her voice. Some of the tension and anxiety she’d been feeling about failure melted away. It was all good. Everything was good. She’d made peace with Chance and peace with her career, no matter what happened with either of them.
Elle had always told her she was terrible at living in the moment, but up on the small Blue Bird stage, the room dim, the tables dark and sticky, she was enjoying the hell out of it.
Whiskey Kiss was a song about sex, a song about falling in love.
She looked over at Chance again, standing there, owning that guitar that wasn’t his, commanding the music. He was so goddamn sexy. She wanted him to grab her and take her behind the bar and bang her like a screen door on a porch during a tornado in Oklahoma.
Given the look on his face, he was feeling the same way. She didn’t want to drive back to the cabin. She wanted to check into a suite two minutes up the road and have him tear her up until she was exhausted and hungry and unable to walk straight.
It had always amazed her that her thoughts could race around different topics while she sang without losing track of the lyrics or her pitch. But this song was intrinsically sexual and given what she was feeling, she knew it was coming across to the room. When she sang the last note and let it hang in the air, the bar was dead silent for a good twenty seconds.
Then the applause erupted, with a few good catcalls for good measure.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank y’all so much. We’re so happy to be here tonight. It’s like coming home to be singing up here on this stage.”
The emcee, whose name she hadn’t caught, jumped up next to her. “Care to do one more?”
“Oh, no,” she demurred. “We came here to hear some music, not steal the stage. But thank you, you’re so sweet. We appreciate all the love.”
Chance handed the guitar back to the musician who had been performing and shook his hand. He reached out and indicated for her to exit first, his hand on the small of her back. For all he had protested letting the media think they were a couple, he was awfully touchy-feely tonight. She was glad she’d taken some time with her makeup because a dozen people had just used their phones to record their impromptu performance. She gave it about three minutes before Ginny started blowing up her phone. Though she honestly did not give a damn what her manager thought.
But she did give a shit what Chance thought, and at the moment, there was no telling what was rattling around in that man’s head.
When they sat back down, she had her answer.
He leaned over and murmured in her ear. “Hey.”
“Yes?” If he started talking dirty to her, they were going to have to leave. She had a decent poker face, but he lit her girl bits up like a blowtorch when he got to talking nasty, and she couldn’t hide that