Текст книги "My Soul to Keep"

Автор книги: Kennedy Ryan

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WHEN I WAS ELEVEN YEARS OLD taking the stage at Royal Albert Hall in London for the first time, I told myself it was a sea of faces out there in the audience. I never allowed myself to focus on one particular person. In every venue since, whether before thousands or a group as small as Grady’s vocal class, I always block out the faces. I smile. I may even bow, but I blur the faces to remain blissfully oblivious to their expressions of approval, pleasure, or disdain. It insulates me from the crowd and cocoons me inside the music, which is the safest place I have found so far.

Except today, I open my eyes at the end of the Chopin piece, prepared to blindly glance over the crowd in Grady’s studio, when I see a face. A particular face in a sea of faces. Everyone around her claps, but she doesn’t. Her hands hang at her sides, and her expression hovers somewhere between devastation and delight. When music truly affects me, I don’t clap either. I don’t stand to my feet. I absorb. I let the music change me, touch me, and possess me. That’s what she’s doing. I recognize it. Everyone around her appreciated my music, but I can see that she, this girl, communed with it.

She is looking at me. I am looking at her. Her face . . . I wish I had the right words. I write songs and create music for a living. I practically bleed my thoughts and feelings into everything I compose, into every lyric. But I can’t find the words to adequately describe this girl. Maybe I’ve seen girls prettier than she is, but it’s hard to tell, because even with the width of Grady’s small music room separating us, it’s like I’ve been hurled into an electrical storm. My brain is charged and my thoughts are icy water suspended and trapped inside my head. It’s a face I can only inadequately describe as . . . extravagant. Like God spared no expense when He made this girl.

If I take her in parts, maybe I will do a better job of this. She has this wide mouth the color of fire-blasted rose petals. Her chin is slightly pointed, narrow, but her face widens and flares at her high cheekbones. Her eyes, the darkest, richest sable—glintless, fleckless, bottomless brown—carry a dramatic tilt, and I am sure a glance from her could seduce me. This, combined with her honeyed skin, make me wonder if she has Asian ancestry somewhere down the line. Her eyebrows are thick and smooth over an abundance of eyelashes. So thick and so long they look fake, but I know they are not. There is nothing fake about this girl. No artifice. Not even makeup. Her beauty is raw and unfiltered. Long, dark hair runs down her back. Of all things, she wears a Madonna T-shirt from the The Virgin Tour. Her skinny jeans mold her slim legs. Small feet in Toms. Simple silver musical notes in her pierced ears. She is this heady mixture of exotic and mundane, and just being in the same room is giving me a buzz. Imagine if I touched her. Imagine if I kissed her. Imagine if I fucked her. I’d be done for.

But I suspect she’d be worth it.

Grady’s hand on my shoulder, his words of praise, and the students crowding around me pry my attention from the petite girl by the door. And when my eyes again seek out that particular face in the sea of faces, she’s gone.

“YOU DON’T WANT HIS AUTOGRAPH?” SANTOS chomps on a celery stick and glances over my shoulder to the other side of Grady’s dining room. It’s where I’m sure the whole vocal class, definitely the girls, cluster around Rhyson Gray.

“You know I’m not an autograph kinda girl.” I bypass the crackers and the bite-sized pastries that will be anything but bite-sized on my hips.

“But it’s freaking Rhyson Gray. You can’t tell me you weren’t impressed by that piece he played.”

My fingers hover over a bruschetta. Nah. I’ll eat a salad at The Note when I go in for my shift tonight.

“Yeah, it was impressive, of course.”

And disruptive. And fantastic. And the best thing I’ve ever heard. As soon as he had looked away, releasing me from whatever musically induced trance I found myself in, I high-tailed it out of the music room and headed for the food set up in here.

“Then why is everyone else over there schmoozing the best musician we’re ever likely to meet?” San waves his celery under my nose. “And we’re the only putzes at the hors d’oeuvre table?”

“You know I don’t do schmooze.”

“You meet a guy who was playing on stages all over the world before his balls dropped, you break the no-schmooze rule.”

This isn’t actually about my no-schmooze rule. It’s a different one. Life has taught me that you survive by your rules. When you don’t follow the rules, you get hurt. Even worse, sometimes you hurt everyone else. My daddy taught me that when he ran off with the church secretary. So, yeah, I have rules. And this one I abide by religiously.

No rock stars.

I know it sounds weird from someone who wants to be a singer, but like all rules, this one has a reason. My last run-in with a big rock star in this town . . . let’s just say what I remember of that night would not make Mama proud. I was lucky to get out of that situation relatively unscathed, but I’m not tempting fate again. I put my dreams on hold for years when Mama got sick, and I’d do it again and again. To have those last few years with her, even as debilitated as she became, was everything to me. But now it’s my time. It’s why I packed up my few belongings and followed San out here to Los Angeles I can’t afford to be distracted now.

And when Rhyson Gray finished playing that piece and opened his eyes, he looked right at me, electrocuting every molecule in my body without even trying. He just opened his eyes, and something in me sizzled. Something started stirring in dark, quiet corners. I can’t be sure he felt it too, but somehow, I think he did. I know it sounds ridiculous because he’s one of the greatest musicians in the world and I’m, well, just me . . . but I think he did.

And that would be distracting.

So while everyone else fawns over him, asks him for the secrets to his success, and probably offers to screw him in Grady’s bathroom, I’m considering bruschetta. Because in the rock star category, he would be Grade-A rock star. He’s not just some piano prodigy all grown up. Think Coldplay. Think Mumford and Sons. Think Tom Odell.

Think Rhyson Gray.

Santos is looking at me strangely because I have been quiet for . . . how long? Lost in thought over Rhyson Gray. Oh, this won’t do. Already distracted.

“You’re welcome to go over there,” I say. “I’m gonna eat.”

“Only you aren’t actually eating anything. You’ll just consider food for the next few minutes and then give up. You haven’t fully regained your appetite since . . .”

Santos leaves the last words unspoken, and his eyes grow more concerned.

Not this again. But he’s right. I never understood being so sad you didn’t want to eat until Mama died. Having to force yourself to do the basic things that keep you in this world when the person you love most has left it. San has been after me to join a grief support group for months. I headed out here just weeks after Mama passed, needing to put as much distance between me and Glory Falls as possible. The awkward sympathy of every customer who came into the diner. The not-quite-right biscuits the new cook served up. Mama’s silent sewing machine and half-finished pillow shams. Reminders and memories tucked into corners and waiting around every bend. I didn’t need them. Every moment we had is stored in my heart, and there’s no running from this pain, but boy, did I try. Since three thousand miles and a few time zones didn’t do it, I’m not sure what ever will.

I finally give San a glance that begs him to leave well enough alone even though I’m not sure how well it is. I can’t go there. Not after the day I’ve had. His sigh is a concession and a reprieve.

“I’m just saying you need to eat more, Kai.”

“My ass begs to differ,” I say lightly, grateful that he’s letting me off that hook at least for now.

“Your ass looks fine to me.”

“Gross, San.”

Santos is gorgeous in a smoldering, Latin lover kind of way, but he’s also been my best friend since we were seven. Think your brother checking you out, and . . . gross.

“Just saying, objectively.” San laughs and snags the very bruschetta that almost got me seconds ago.

“If nothing’s happening on the vocal side, I’ll have to focus on the dance route for now.” My eyes track the bread and tomato temptation on its journey from his fingers to his mouth. “So I have to be disciplined with my eating.”

He just nods even though he knows weight watching for dance is what I hide behind.

“Speaking of the vocal side, how’d the audition go?” he asks. “You said it was a joke?”

“Ugh.”

“What happened?”

Santos’s lips already quirk into a half grin. I’m glad he finds some amusement in the never-ending drama that is my life trying to make it in this industry, in this pit of vipers.

“So the producer asked me to sing something older, something I like. I belt out ‘If I Could Turn Back Time.’ I mean, it’s Cher. How could I go wrong with Cher, right?”

“You and Cher.”

“Shut up. The woman’s a goddess.” I fight back a grin and keep talking. “I can tell he’s impressed. There are three of them in the room, and he asks the other two guys to give us a minute.”

“Oh, hell.” Santos’s eyes narrow, and I know his protective instincts are already kicking in. “I see where this is going.”

“Exactly. He goes on to tell me that he loved my singing. Thinks I have real potential, but he just wants to make sure I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”

“Oh, God,” Santos groans and buries his head in his hands before peeking at me from under a lock of dark hair. “What happened?”

“First, he recommended augmentation.”

“Augmen—of what?”

“Breast implants.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. At least two cup sizes up, he said.”

“What’d you do?”

“I just kind of stared at him with my small, offended breasts. I didn’t know what to say, so he just kept on going.”

“He had more?”

I snatch a bruschetta from the tray. Screw it. I’m teaching a dance class tomorrow. I’ll twerk these calories away. It feels good to want food, so I’m going for it.

“Oh, boy, did he have more.” I pop the carby dream into my mouth and groan. “Best thing I had all day.”

“Come on, Kai. What’d he say?”

“He had very little to say. He just unzipped his pants and looked at the spot in front of him where I guess I was supposed to drop to my knees and suck him off.”

“Tell me you punched him in his face.” Santos balls his fists at his sides. “Or I’m going back there and doing it myself.”

“I said, ‘Let me get this straight, you want me to suck your dick?’”

Santos’s eyes catch something right over my shoulder and stretch wide. His mouth drops open. And then that voice—the one I used to fall asleep listening to with track number nine on repeat—speaks into my horrified ears.

“Are you taking requests?”

I practically choke on my bruschetta. Santos’s mouth crooks into a weird shape, very close to a smile, much like a smirk. Even though he doesn’t actually say “busted,” the wicked mischief in his eyes does. If he laughs at my predicament, he’ll be picking tomato bits out of his hair for the rest of the night.

With dread, trepidation, and a sick feeling in my stomach that has nothing to do with what I have or haven’t eaten, I finally look over my shoulder, and there he is. Rhyson Gray, standing with Grady, who gives him a look that is probably supposed to chastise him. I get the impression it would take a lot to chastise this man grinning at me unrepentantly.

“Sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry even a little bit, grey eyes laughing at me. “I couldn’t resist.”

“You could have tried.” Grady shakes his head. At least he looks apologetic. “I’m sorry about that, Kai. Rhys has a wicked sense of humor.”

As long as he keeps it away from me.

“No problem.” I spare Rhyson a quick glance before looking back at Grady, and I wish I hadn’t. Rhyson is even more mesmerizing up close. His hair is a mess of dark and burnished colors with lighter streaks. It’s just long enough to hang over his forehead and brush his neck, and he runs his hands through it every few seconds like it’s driving him crazy. Which must drive the girls crazy, if my reaction is anything to go by.

“Rhys, this is Santos, one of my vocal students, and this,” Grady says, pulling me into a side hug, “is Kai, the assistant I was telling you about. She keeps me straight.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” I hate how husky my voice sounds all of a sudden.

“You’re Southern?” Rhyson tilts his head, considering me like a zoo animal who’s been captured and domesticated for his inspection.

“What? How’d you know?”

“You’re kidding, right?” His brows go into hiding under the hair hanging low over his forehead. “With that accent?”

Okay, maybe he’s not so irresistible. Maybe he’s a bit of an asshole. I’m self-conscious about my Georgia accent, especially here in Los Angeles. It’s a sore thumb for the ears.

“Guess there’s no hiding it.”

“I didn’t mean to be rude.” Rhyson’s eyes try to tease me out of being offended.

“But you were,” Grady says. “I think Kai’s accent is lovely.”

Which is the West Coast equivalent of “Bless your heart” and a pat on the head.

“Why, thank ya, Mistah Grady, I do declare.” I lay it on thick and bat my lashes before rolling my eyes.

“I really am sorry.” Rhyson manages to look slightly more penitent. “Grady’s been telling me about how you’ve organized everything. How he would be lost without you. I’d like to shake the hand of the woman who finally brought some order to all his chaos.”

Rhyson grabs my hand, sending little sparks up my arm. And we’re back in that moment. That little pocket of time where the rest of the room disappears and it’s just us, unable or unwilling to look away from each other. The longer our eyes hold, the darker his grey eyes go. I could drown in those eyes. Maybe I am drowning. Maybe that accounts for the burn in my chest and the shortness of breath. I can’t afford these sensations. I can’t afford this man. I won’t be distracted. I give his hand a quick shake and jerk mine back.

“I think Emmy gets that honor.” I turn to Grady, who looks close to blushing. “She gets the credit for Grady’s new lease on life.”

“Oh, yeah. The girlfriend. Another new woman in your life I need to meet.” Rhyson laughs and pounds Grady on the back. “Hopefully I’ll manage not to offend that one.”

“It’s fine,” I reassure him. “You aren’t the first person to mock my accent.”

“I wasn’t mocking. I just . . . it’s cute.”

I risk another look up at him, and it confirms what I suspected. I didn’t imagine that he felt it before too. He’s feeling it again. I’m feeling it again. It’s like the lurch of the elevator, how your stomach tips a little and you feel slightly sick, but you find yourself grinning. After a few moments of . . . whatever this is . . . we let each other’s eyes go at the same time. I drop mine to the floor, studying the Toms on my feet to keep my eyes off his face, which I’m still not sure is classically handsome, but for darn sure fascinates me.

Silence settles around us, thickening the air until the quiet becomes awkward enough for everyone to feel it. I glance at my watch, glad to have a lifeline out of here.

“I really do need to go.” I lean into Grady another inch, looking up at his distinguished face with the salt-and-pepper goatee. “I have to start my shift at the restaurant, but I’ll swing through tomorrow to handle those invoices.”

“Okay. Don’t work too hard.” His dark eyes twinkle a bit, but I know he means it. He and San take turns worrying about me.

“I can’t make any promises.” I loop my elbow through San’s. “Does my chariot await?”

“Oh. That’s right. I’m taxi tonight.” He grabs one more celery stick and a cheese-laden cracker before turning to Rhyson Gray. “It was really an honor to meet you. I’m a huge fan.”

Rhyson nods and smiles a bit, but I bet he doesn’t even hear praise anymore, he’s so used to it. San could have said, “Man, you sucked balls on that piece you played.” Rhyson still would have just nodded and smiled. He turns his eyes back to me, and something on his face shifts. I hold the entirety of his attention, and I have no idea what to do with it. So I take a cue from him. I smile and I nod.

“It was nice meeting you, Mr. Gray.”

“Oh, so formal. Mistah Gray.” He leans into the vowels my Georgia roots always draw out. “Call me Rhys.”

I hold his stare an extra moment, smile, and turn to San.

“You ready?”

“Um.” He drags his eyes between Rhyson and me, raising one dark eyebrow. “Sure. Let’s go.”

“See you tomorrow, Grady.” I allow myself one more glance at the rock star. “Nice to meet you, Rhys.”

And nicer to be walking away, even though I feel his eyes hot on the back of me as I go.

“SO HOW DO I FIX THIS?” Grady points to the section of the song he’s composing that isn’t working.

I could have told him fifteen minutes ago how to fix it, but I was waiting for this question. My opportunity.

“I’ll tell you how to fix it if you tell me more about your assistant.”

Grady’s face clouds over. Actually it’s more like a brick wall that takes over.

“No way.” Grady shakes his head. “Leave her alone, Rhys. She’s a good girl.”

“What do you think I’m going to do to her?”

Though several ideas have been percolating in my head since I met Kai last night. Grady looks at me over the eyeglasses he only wears when he’s composing. A look that says he knows exactly what I usually do with girls who look like his assistant.

“Okay, so maybe I have a bit of a track record.”

“A bit? It’s not so much a track record as the Trail of Tears, and I don’t want Kai to be one of your stops.”

“I can tell she’s . . . different, or I wouldn’t be asking you about her.”

“Oh? What’s so different about her, Rhys?”

The way she was off on the other side of the room while all the other girls smothered me. The way she blushed when we busted her talking about some guy asking her to suck his dick. The way her Southern accent was thick and sweet like molasses. That look on her face when she heard me play. I’d sound like a real pussy if I said any of that, so I just shrug and doodle on Grady’s composition pad.

“Well, the things you’ve told me, and she just seemed nice.”

“She is, and I want her to stay that way, so hands off.”

“I doubt we’ll be running into each other anytime soon anyway, right?” I look up, half hoping he’ll contradict me, but he gives me a satisfied grin.

“That’s right.” He pushes his glasses up on his nose and circles the problematic set of measures in the middle of the piece. “Now, if I could—”

His ring tone interrupts, and he glances at the screen, his face softening with a smile.

“Is it your girlfriend, Grady?” I’ve been teasing him mercilessly only because in the time I’ve known him, which is my whole life, Grady has never been this way about a woman.

He rolls his eyes and grunts before heading for the door.

“I’ll be right back,” he says over his shoulder. “Just give me a minute.”

His “Hey, Em” reaches me from the narrow hall he’s stepped into just beyond the music room. I can’t help the goofy grin on my face. If anyone deserves to be happy, it’s Grady. He’s sacrificed a lot for me. When I emancipated from my parents at sixteen, he was the one wading through a messy, the-whole-world-watching court battle with me. He was the one who took me in. The least I can do is help him with this piece that I could write in my sleep.

And keep my hands off his assistant.

From my experience, there are several categories of pussy. There’s groupie pussy. Those girls who just want to be able to say they slept with someone famous. Love that. We both get exactly what we expect, and we’re done. Then there’s the L.A. girls. My best friend Marlon calls it “thirsty pussy.” Tit-for-tat pussy, emphasis on the tit. These ambitious girls who want to be a star and see me as their fast track. It’s a transaction, and after we’re done, they think I owe them something. A spot on the next album. An introduction to the hottest producer. A cameo in a video. Strings attached. I don’t do strings.

Grady’s assistant, Kai, made it very apparent last night she is neither of those. After that connection we had in the music room, basically a jolt of electricity that temporarily disabled my synapses, she barely looked at me. She pretended it hadn’t happened. Brushed me off. Girls don’t brush me off. No one brushes me off. I know that sounds arrogant, but it is what it is. I get the sense that she’s not so much playing hard to get as much as she actually is hard to get.

Going back over the piece, I realize a page is missing. I bend down to retrieve it from the floor.

“Grady?”

That hot, sweet molasses voice calls from the door. I hesitate about sitting all the way up because I suspect she’ll dart off as soon as she sees me. She was not just prickly last night. She was full-blown cactus. I’m not used to that with girls. Especially not girls who want to be singers. Hello? I’m a walking, talking, fucking opportunity to most of them. Does she not know I could be her big break? It’s like she doesn’t care.

I think that’s what I like most about her so far.

I sit up before she can leave the room. Her eyes go wide before she narrows them, and I can’t tell if she’s giving me the no way signal or if she’s trying to convince herself.

“I’m sorry.” Her rich voice smothers the words like gravy, weighing them down in the way I teased her about last night. “I thought Grady was—”

“Grady is.” I push the hair out of my face before slumping a little on the piano bench. “He’s talking to Emmy.”

“Oh, that’s right. They have a date today.” She smiles and glances down at the handwritten invoice in her hand. “I needed to ask him something, but it can wait. His penmanship . . . geez Louise.”

Is she for real? Geez Louise? I haven’t heard that since repeats of The Andy Griffith Show. I want to hear what else she’ll say if she sticks around a little longer.

“I’m fluent in Grady.” I motion for her to give me the paper. “I bet I can interpret.”

“Really?” Doubt crinkles her eyebrows, but she hands it over. “Worth a try.”

The first thing I notice at the top of the stationery pad is Grady’s full name. Bentley Gray. Yeah, I’d go by Grady too. I glance at the slashes and marks bleeding all over the paper in my hands.

“Yeah, it says double-check the payment schedule on this student.”

“Wow.” She shakes her head, the dark, silky braid swishing over her shoulder. “I never would have guessed that. Thanks.”

She turns back toward the door. She’s leaving. I’m not the kind of guy who typically encourages girls to linger, but . . .

“So you sing?”

Wow, Gray. Brilliant.

She looks back over her shoulder and around the room like there might be someone else I’m addressing.

“Yeah, you.” Just in case she thinks I’m talking to my imaginary friend. “You sing?”

Everything about her screams reluctance at the top of its lungs. The glance she gives the door, like it’s her salvation. The way she taps the invoice against her leg a few times before turning to face me. The gate she locks over her eyes before she looks back at me.

“Yeah. I sing. I mean, I’ve been dancing more than singing lately, but I sing.”

“What kind of dancing?”

“Well, I do ballet, tap, modern dance, hip hop. You name it, I did it growing up. Right now, I teach a hip-hop class to fourteen-year-olds.” She snorts, twisting her wide, full lips into a half grin, half grimace. “And, yes, it’s as much fun as it sounds. I’ve been doing some small stuff in a few music videos. Nothing major.”

“But you really want to sing?”

“I want to perform, to do it all. Dance, sing, act.”

“Ah, one of those, huh? A multi-hyphenate.”

“Are you mocking me again?”

“Mocking you? No, of course not.”

She narrows those tilted eyes at me and puts a hand on one slim hip.

“Okay. Maybe a little.” The stern line I usually keep my mouth in with strangers contorts into a grin. “Come on. You spout some Jenny-from-the-Block shit and expect me not to mock you just a little?”

“We aren’t all born piano prodigies who get to do exactly what we want from the time we’re children. Some of us have to do it all and see what sticks.”

“Oh, is that what you’d call it?” Her audacity, her ignorance of my actual life, and her nerve sends heat crawling up my neck and loosens my lips. “Having no friends your age? Working around the clock? Being on the road more than two hundred days a year? Does that sound like the easy way up to you?”

I’ve shocked myself with that tirade. I rarely talk about my life before I emancipated from my parents. Certainly not to strangers. Even a hot, adorable stranger who stands only as high as my collarbone and has a voice that sounds like it’s been sitting out melting in the sun.

She bites her bottom lip, and as much as her assumptions irritate the hell out of me, that gesture manages to distract me. I’m struggling to remember what she did to annoy me in the first place.

“Look, I’m sorry.” She lays the invoice on the piano and slides her hand into the pockets of her cargo shorts. “I don’t know you. All I have is what I see from the outside and read in tabloids. I wouldn’t want anyone to judge me by that.”

“You wanna make it up to me?”

At least my parents taught me to exploit every opportunity. Sadly, I was the opportunity. Still, lesson learned.

“Depends.” Kai gives me a cautious, considering look. “What did you have in mind?”

“Sing for me.”

“Sing?” Uncertainty takes over her face, and for a moment, I think she’s going to turn and run. “Just sing? Like right here? Right now?”

“Unless you’re scared, of course.” I deliberately keep my eyes glued to my fingers picking out a scale on the piano.

“Did you learn that in Reverse Psychology for Dummies?”

My mouth pulls into an involuntary grin even though I don’t look up from the keys.

“I’m just thinking anyone who wants to do it all,” I finally glance back at her, my fingers still playing the scale, “Should be able to sing in front of one guy.”

She rolls her eyes, but her mouth starts tugging up at the edges just a little. She takes a step closer, leaning her hip against the piano.

“What should I sing?”

Her smell surrounds me. Something fruity and sweet, but not one of those scents girls wear that scratches your throat and burns your nose.

My fingers traverse the keys in a basic scale before I look up at her, prepared to be underwhelmed by the pipes hiding in that lovely throat.

“Sing this scale and hold the last note for me as long as you can.” I pick out a basic scale I’ve heard Grady do with dozens of students over the years.

She closes her eyes, draws a deep breath, and duplicates the notes I just played with her husky voice. She holds the final note for a few seconds, and then her breath wanes, causing the note to fade away.

“Your tone is great.”

Sliding her hands into her pockets, she rocks back on her heels, faking nonchalance.

“I bet you say that to all the singers.”

“Then you really don’t know me.” I hold up a finger. “And you didn’t let me finish.”

She offers a quick nod, her posture deliberately casual. But I can tell she’s nervous about my opinion. Believe me—I’ve lived enough of my life looking for affirmation, so I recognize the need right away.

“Your breathing is off. Not by much. I can tell you know how to breathe, but you aren’t executing. Your notes aren’t supported well enough.”

Even though she’s standing and I’m seated on the piano bench, she’s only a few inches above me. I reach up, my fingers hovering over her throat, but not quite touching.

“Too much energy here.”

I envy the slim fingers she rubs against the smooth skin of her neck. My fingers float over her abdomen, and I lock my eyes with hers.

“May I?”

She lowers her lashes, eyes on my hand suspended and waiting for her permission.

“May you what?”

“Touch you here?”

She clears her throat, but if I’m not mistaken, her voice still comes out a little breathier than moments before when she speaks.

“Um, sure. Of course.”

I press my hand to her stomach, and my pinky finger strokes across something resting in her bellybutton. I look at her, brows lifted to ask the silent question.

“Belly ring.” A blush rises over the slant of her cheekbones.

Everything about this girl turns me inside out. The muscles beneath my fingers tense at my touch. The thin cotton of her shirt is a semi-conductor, passing electric current from her skin to mine. I look up to see if she feels the same shock of sensation that I do. Even though she looks away, she can’t hide that she does.

“So, your breathing.” Even to my ears my voice sounds deeper and heavier. I force a little cough and continue. “I always say singing is the two M’s, mental and muscular. Think about what you’re doing every time, and about using the right muscles and breathing properly. Do that until you don’t have to think about it anymore and doing it right is second nature.”

I press gently into the muscles of her stomach and lift my eyes to her face.

“More energy and effort and breath here.”

I reach up and rest one finger against her throat. Her skin is like warm velvet, her pulse strong under my fingers.

“You’re singing too much from your throat. Pull from your diaphragm. Better support, and you’ll be able to sustain your notes longer.”

“You’re right,” she says. “I’ve been out of consistent vocal lessons for the last six months. I do some with Grady, but I mostly work for him, and my breathing has deteriorated some.”

“Let me hear something else.” I pick out another, slightly more demanding scale. She matches the notes easily, her eyes flicking to my face for the verdict as soon as she’s done.

“Okay, you have a great voice. Really.” I meet her eyes frankly. “But if you don’t want to be just a dancer who sings, you need to work on adding some tone and texture. You do vocal compressions?”

“I haven’t been as consistent with them lately.”

“Get back to it. You dance every day?”

“Of course.” She shrugs. “It’s my job, so yeah. I dance every day.”

“If you want singing to be your job, make sure you’re doing vocal compressions every day too. Add some flavor. Something that’ll set you apart from every other girl after the mic. Give me one more scale. Focus on the breathing.”