Run, Rose, Run(76)

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I really need you.”

He nodded, head bent, concentrating on what she was saying.

“We’re going to sing ‘Love or Lust,’ and we’re going to do it on the same mic, okay?” She looked pleadingly at him. “I don’t want to be alone up here tonight.”

Ethan touched her elbow gently, fleetingly. “I guess you won’t be, then,” he said.

And then he stood so close to her that she could feel the heat of him all along the left side of her body, and their voices were instruments that they played together.

Love or lust

Do we doubt, do we trust?

Whatever it is, it’s stronger than us



As they sang, she could sense the way the air in the room changed. A hush settled over the crowd. They were seeing something almost unbearably intimate: two people singing with and to each other, alone in front of hundreds of strangers. Two people who looked for all the world like they were in a love so deep there weren’t even words to describe it.

Though they had rehearsed the song a hundred times, in hotel rooms and on empty stages, they hadn’t rehearsed it like this.

When the music ended, the applause was so loud and long-lasting that AnnieLee and Ethan stood there, blushing, unable to say anything over the noise.

Then AnnieLee turned to Ethan. “Thank you,” she mouthed.

He picked up her hand and kissed it. And then he left the stage.





Chapter

65



By the time they arrived at their hotel, AnnieLee was a delirious mix of elated and exhausted. The show had been teetering on the brink of disaster, but she’d pulled it back from the edge. She hadn’t let the threats from her past drag her down.

As she and Ethan rode up in the elevator together, though, she grew quiet, almost shy. The reason that the show had worked, of course, was that she’d called Ethan onto the stage. She didn’t mind admitting that he’d saved her; she didn’t have a Kip Hart–sized ego. But if she scratched below the surface of that fact, she’d be forced to acknowledge that it wasn’t about the song they’d sung. It wasn’t about the lyrics or the pleasing thirds of their harmonies. It was the way they had sung them. It was as if they were lost in their feelings for each other, and nothing else—not even the audience—mattered.

What exactly were her feelings for Ethan Blake? That was something she wasn’t ready to think about, let alone discuss with him.

But as they unlocked the doors to their adjoining rooms, AnnieLee found herself turning to him. “Do you want to come in for a drink?”

He barely hesitated. “I kinda think you owe me one, don’t you?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I do.”

They walked into her hotel room, which looked like every other hotel room they’d been in: dark wooden furniture, a king-sized bed, a sultan-sized TV. AnnieLee kicked off her boots and opened the minibar. “What’s your poison tonight?”

Behind her, she heard Ethan taking off his jacket. “Is there any whiskey in there?”

“Of course there is,” she said, scooping up all six bottles at once. “Want to get us some ice?”

While he was gone, she poured two mini Jack Daniel’s into each of their glasses, and then she stood in front of the mirror and looked right into her own eyes.

Don’t let this go too far, she told herself.

In the bathroom she washed her face, took out her earrings, and pulled her long hair up in a knot on the top of her head.

When she came back into the room, Ethan was sitting on her bed. He must have seen the surprise on her face, because he said, “Not to be forward or anything, but there’s no couch.” He held out her glass, full of ice and whiskey now. “Cheers,” he said. “It ended up being a great show.”

She clinked her glass against his. “Thanks mostly to you,” she said. She took a sip and shuddered. She still wasn’t used to hard alcohol.

“Don’t be craz—”

“Don’t be selling yourself short,” AnnieLee interrupted. “You saved me up there.”

Ethan put down his whiskey and shoved his hands between his knees. He, too, seemed suddenly shy. Embarrassed, even. “I was just doing my job.”

“You’re doing the job of ten men,” she corrected him. “And I don’t know if you know how much it all means to me.”

She’d never spoken so directly to him before. Ethan looked down at his hands. Then he jumped up and took her guitar out of its case.

“When was the last time you put on new strings?” he asked.

She fell back on the bed and stared up at the ugly light fixture. Fine, she thought, let him change the subject. They weren’t really in the habit of deep honesty, were they? No wonder he was unsettled. She was, too.

“I’ve never changed them,” she told the ceiling. “I found that guitar in one of Ruthanna’s closets, and I just started playing it.”

Out of the corner of her eye she could see that he was looking at her like she was nuts. “It’s a great guitar, but who knows how old the strings are? You could’ve popped one onstage. You need a new set.” He started pawing around in the giant messenger bag he always carried on tour. It was full of bottled water, snacks, picks, batteries—and, apparently, a new set of Martin guitar strings. “I’ll take care of it.”