My Cone and Only (King Family #1) - Susannah Nix Page 0,72
guitar, and maybe even some synth to a few.
That was going to take some time though, so for now we were still just a cover band playing at our favorite local icehouse.
It felt good to be talking about my songwriting with people, finally. To share what I’d been working on and tentatively start making some plans for the future. And it had been Andie who’d given me the encouragement I needed to do it.
Shit, I was staring at her again. If I didn’t cut it out, people were going to notice.
I dragged my gaze away from her and caught our bass player, Tyler, giving me a funny look. I needed to get my head in the game before I fucked something up. We were only halfway through our set, and it’d be nice if I could keep it together and not make us sound like amateurs.
The guitar solo provided a brief distraction to occupy my attention, but it was over too quickly and after that the rest of the song was pretty repetitive. Before I knew it, my eyes were drifting to Andie again, sitting at a picnic table with some of her friends.
We’d come to the Rusty Spoke separately tonight. She’d gotten here before me with her friend Rain, and when I walked in they’d been talking to a couple of guys they’d gone to high school with.
My blood had gone hot at the sight of Andie with another man—even if it was that doofus Evan Thayer, who I knew for a fact she’d never been the least bit interested in.
I hadn’t gone over to talk to her, although I’d seen her glance my way a few times. I didn’t trust myself to play it cool, so I’d kept my distance.
Now that I was onstage, Andie was right in my eyeline. Watching me. Staring at me at much as I was staring at her.
Evan was sitting next to her, and he leaned in close to say something in her ear after the song ended. My gaze went hard at the sight of him breathing on her and sticking his nose in her hair. As soon as he leaned away, Andie’s gaze met mine again, and she arched an eyebrow as her mouth curved in a smirk.
Goddammit. She knew it was driving me nuts, and she was enjoying it.
While Matt and Tyler started us on the opening bars of “Are You Gonna Be My Girl,” I scanned the patio for familiar faces. Most of the people who frequented the Rusty Spoke were close to my own age, so I knew a lot of them by face if not by name.
There was a younger group sitting at a table close to the stage who had the look of college students, and I guessed they probably went to Bowman. One of the girls had her eyes glued to me as she tapped her fingers along with the bass line. I winked at her and watched her cheeks turn pink.
When my guitar part came in, I glanced Andie’s way and saw her eyes blazing and her mouth set in a hard line. I offered her a smirk of my own, enjoying the turnabout.
Once I started singing, I let my gaze fall on the college girl again. I was supposed to be acting normal, after all, and paying attention to the nearest pretty girl was my normal. It wasn’t my fault the lyrics to the song sounded like a proposition. Or that she was mouthing them along with me and blatantly undressing me with her eyes while she coyly twirled a lock of her hair.
Well, maybe it was a little my fault. I had winked at her.
I felt Andie’s glare on me the whole song, and it took everything I had not to look her way. When I finally did slide my gaze past her in the middle of the next song, she lifted her eyebrows in an expression that said I’m going to make you pay for that, asshole. Then she pointedly turned her whole body toward goddamn Evan Thayer, who was only too happy to have her attention.
Fuck.
It went on like that for the whole rest of the set. The two of us competing to see who was better at driving the other to distraction. I was pretty sure she was winning, based on the state of my blood pressure by the time we finally closed with a singalong rendition of “Don’t Look Back in Anger.”