Game On(28)

“So,” I said, sliding my phone, recording app cued up and ready, closer to him. “Tell me what you love about baseball.”

He raised his eyebrows at me and crossed his arms. His shirt was stretched across his gorgeous chest, straining against the muscles in his shoulders and biceps. Everything he wore fit him perfectly, molded to his lean form.

Before, he could answer, however, there was a loud commotion from the other end of the bar where the stage was.

“Great,” Nathan said with a smile. “The band is setting up.”

I glanced over my shoulder to confirm and did a double take. You had to be f*cking kidding me, I thought, as I watched Nick and his band set up their instruments on the rickety stage.

“Dammit,” I muttered to myself, turning my back to the stage completely. This was the last thing I needed right now. “Can we go somewhere else?” I asked, hating the pathetic way the question came out of my mouth.

“Why?” Nathan asked, popping a peanut into his mouth and tossing the shells on the floor like the rest of the patrons. “Not a fan of the band?”

“You could say that,” I responded through gritted teeth.

“I’ve heard they’re pretty good,” he said. “Not from around here, though.”

“They’re from Houston,” I told him, getting up from the table. “Can we please go somewhere else?”

“Isn’t that where you’re from?” Nathan asked.

“Yep,” I said, standing next to the table, making eyes at the door.

“Great,” Nathan smiled. “Then they should make you feel right at home.”

But before I could answer, I heard Nick’s voice crackle through the microphone.

“Good evening, Austin,” the baritone I had once found sexy called out to the crowd. For all his personal faults, Nick was a great performer. It was the reason I had fallen for him in the first place. Seeing him on stage was seeing the most attractive version of himself. It was the rest of the time that had been problematic.

Why was he here? My ego would have liked to believe that he regretted breaking up with me and had followed me to Austin in an attempt to win me back with some big romantic gesture, but my logical side remembered that when he had broken up with me, he had had no idea where I was, just that I wasn’t there. This whole thing had to be the world’s worst coincidence. Unless…

I glanced over at Nathan who was looking up at the stage with a smile on his face. I hadn’t pegged him as the kind of guy to plan something like this—to purposefully take me to a place where my ex-boyfriend was playing—but I also knew that I had let myself be half-blinded when it came to him.

“Let’s just stay for their first set,” he said, his eyes twinkling. I really didn’t want to believe he had done this on purpose, but what other explanation was there?

Then I heard the familiar first chords of a song I had hoped never to hear again. I sat down.

“This is a song about a girl I knew,” Nick said, and I could hear Anne Marie’s stupid little tambourine jangling in the background. This song, this awful, stupid song that I had once found terribly sexy and romantic, had never had a tambourine in it before. That bitch, I thought. My boyfriend wasn’t enough for her; she was even moving in on my song.

The band joined in, pretty much drowning out the tambourine, but my relief was short-lived as Anne Marie began crooning into the microphone. She was singing now too? Guess sleeping with Nick really was the best option for her, career-wise. I wanted to be more annoyed at her, but I couldn’t help but admire the girl’s moxie. It also helped that the entire audience winced when she started in on her off-key ooh-la-las—another new addition to the song.

I risked a peek back at the stage and found Nick at the center, strumming his guitar, looking pale and angular, dressed all in black. His usual performance attire. I hated to admit it, but he looked good. I was struck with the memory of why I had liked him in the first place. He looked like he belonged up on that stage. He looked confident and comfortable. It had been easy to assume that that’s how he was in the rest of his life, instead of lazy and unmotivated.

Next to him, clutching the microphone in one hand, jangling her tambourine in the other, was Anne Marie, also dressed in black, but her outfit was more ripped and suggestive. She looked as if she had barely escaped a crowd of especially vicious wolves, her dress practically in tatters, holding onto her curves for dear life. I looked down at my jeans and T-shirt, wishing I had known I was going to be confronted with my ex-boyfriend and his new paramour this evening. I would have worn my red dress.

Now I just wanted to leave before they started into the chorus of the song, but a glance over at Nathan showed that he had settled into his seat, his mug of beer halfway empty, another full one being placed on the table next to it, along with a flirtatious smile from the waitress, which I was vindicated to see him ignore. His focus was on me, that same satisfied smile on his face—a smile that felt like a sock in the gut. Clearly he had hoped the band would be loud enough that we couldn’t do the interview. Little did he know how much he was going to regret bringing me here. I took a long swig of my beer, as if that could make this whole thing go away.

It didn’t take long for Nathan’s smile to flicker and fade as Nick leaned into the microphone and began singing the chorus in his sexy baritone.