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Alexander reluctantly lets me go. I climb off of his lap, doing my best to inconspicuously smooth my dress. “I-I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be waiting.” Gruffly. Like he’s pissed off now that I agreed to Leah’s request.
I make my way up to the stage. One of the guys in the band hands me an acoustic guitar. “I’m a fan,” he grins.
“Thank you.”
I sling the guitar across my body, grateful for the small shield it provides, and I make a point of visualizing my inner glow. Rocky’s rock-solid advice that never fails me. It’s easy to do tonight, like it’s tuning into another glow. The new one, that’s hot and wet and just discovered what it feels like to almost come from a single kiss.
I send a few imaginary fireflies into the crowd. I send the brightest one to Alexander, who’s watching from his seat.
The other people at our table are taking their seats now and he shakes someone’s hand but doesn’t get up.
I strum a few chords. And I start to sing.
11
As soon as Ivy starts to sing, my new obsession revs up around a thousand goddamn gears, landing somewhere around overdrive. I vaguely remember wondering if she had a good singing voice the first time I heard her speak.
Her voice is more than “good.” It’s the kind of voice that stops people in their tracks. Not a single person at this party is talking. Everyone is completely riveted by her. Not just by the way she sounds, but also by the way she looks under the spotlights, like a gorgeous little tattooed angel who just fell from heaven and decided to sing us a song.
She has a stage presence that I might not have expected when I first met her. She’s practically glowing with endearing charisma and pure artistic radiance.
She’s so fucking beautiful, her soft presence somehow buffering all the harder edges of reality as she gives off a magical, otherworldly vibe.
The song is smooth and melodic. Perfectly in tune. There’s a bell-toned clarity to some of the notes and a smoky edge to others.
Like everyone else here tonight, I’m starstruck. Ivy Laine is very, very talented.
And I’m in very, very deep trouble. Not to mention so hard it hurts.
If I’m meant to love, then give me the greatest love there ever was.
Ask me for a match and I’ll give you wildfire.
Ask me for a light and I’ll give you the sun.
I don’t know how to feel except in tidal waves of roughed-up, star-studded emotion.
I don’t know how to love except with the glow of a thousand stars.
And I don’t know how to deal with this vision of her, with her pink lips still wet from our kiss and her face still flushed with her innocence. Her third kiss.
Bring it on, baby girl. I’ll see your glow of a thousand stars and raise you the whole goddamn universe.
I don’t know how she does it, but my hardened cynicism has lifted at the edges—and this part of me is so ingrained, the absence of it is wildly noticeable, like a dark cloud has moved away from the sun and the world is suddenly much brighter. I don’t quite know what to do with my new sense of…calmness. Of something that almost feels eerily like hope.
“We were about to tell you two to get a room.” Someone laughs and pats me on the back.
I look up to see Ethan Jackson pulling out the chair next to Ivy’s. He shakes my hand but I’m in no state to stand up right now. I’m hard as a fucking rock from…that kiss.
Holy hell.
From the feel of her warm little squirming body on my lap, I could tell she was wet for me.
Fuck.
The girl is like something out of my wildest fantasies. And I don’t have fantasies. Until the minute that cute-hot little goddess stepped through that door and into my world, I only did reality. 24/7. Every minute of my goddamn life.
