Virgin Seeks Bad Boy (Bliss River #3) - Lili Valente Page 0,9

second dose of caffeine hits full force.

This Melody fixation is nothing a night with another beautiful woman can’t cure, and I intend to meet that woman tonight.

Chapter 4

Melody

“Are you sure about this?” Lark pulls the car to the side of the street a block from The Horse and Rider and casts a worried look my way.

My sister can run a kitchen like a boss, but speaking at the Bliss River Women in Business club meeting is enough to give her hives. Usually, I’m the same way. That’s why we make Aria do the talking. We tell her it’s what she gets for being born first and hide in the back row by the cookie tray while she talks about branding and profit margins.

But my big sister can’t speak for me today.

Or sing for me.

Aria can’t carry a tune in a bucket. Singing is my thing.

I think…

I can still sing…right?

Or could I have forgotten sometime between choir practice last weekend and tryouts tonight?

“No, I’m not sure.” I try to pull in a deeper breath but end up wheezing instead. I’m so nervous my chest feels like it’s about to implode, and my lips are going numb. “Am I crazy? Should I go scratch my name off the list?”

“No, you have a beautiful voice! And I told you we can make it work with the catering schedule if you get the gig,” Lark says. “If this is something you want to do, then you should go for it. I just know I’d throw up if I had to climb up on stage and sing in front of a room full of strangers.”

“Throwing up isn’t off the table.”

“Well, I’m sure people have thrown up in there before,” Lark says, giving the entrance to the bar a wary look.

“Right. I won’t be the first. Or the last.” I wipe my clammy hands on the seat beneath me, willing them to stop shaking.

I don’t want to chicken out. I don’t know what compelled me to sign up to audition to be the new lead singer of The Horse and Rider’s house band, Ghost Town Double Wide, last night—the tequila or my frustration with Nick—but I scrawled my name in the last available space. I took the last audition slot away from someone else so I’m obligated by good manners to use it—even if this experiment ends with me getting booed offstage by a bunch of bikers and their babes and never being able to show my face on this side of Main Street ever again.

Or maybe in Bliss River, period.

I’ll have to move, somewhere far, far away where people have never heard me squawk off-key.

“Do you want me to call Mason and tell him I won’t be home tonight?” Lark rests a gentle hand on my shoulder. “I could go in with you for moral support and sleep over at Mom and Dad’s after.”

I shake my head. “No, you and Mason love your Saturday mornings, and this is our first day off in forever. I’ll be fine.”

I will. I’ll be fine, or I’ll make a fool of myself without any family members present to witness my shame. Of course, Lark would never make fun of me for failing, but for some reason, I don’t want her to watch the audition. This feels like something I have to do by myself, a step in a new direction that’s best taken alone.

“Okay, but call me if you change your mind in the next twenty minutes or so,” Lark says. “I’m going to swing by Aria’s on my way out of town and drop off the favor boxes she’s painting for the wedding. Are you sure Kitty’s going to be able to give you a ride home?”

“Yep. She’s doing dinner with her cruising club and is swinging by to meet me after.” I lean over to press a quick kiss to Lark’s cheek. “Love you, Sissy. Thank you for driving me.”

“Love you, too.” Lark smiles that glowing, contented smile that’s become so familiar since she and Mason got engaged earlier this summer.

It’s a smile that makes me believe in happily ever after, but it also reminds me of how alone I am. Ever since Brian and I called it quits—and even before then, if I’m honest; things hadn’t been good between us for months—I’ve felt my single status in new and painful ways.

Being alone is harder than it used to be. I long for a connection like the ones Lark and Aria have found, for a guy who