Living Out Loud (Austen, #3)(17)

“He’s not a bad guy, just an arrogant one who knows far too much about comic books to be considered normal. How about Greg? I saw you guys eating together.”

“Greg and I just had the best lunch. He’s so easy to talk to.”

“Isn’t he?” she asked with a smile that might be a little wily.

“He really is. We had a deal; I’d never had a Monte Cristo before, so we ended up splitting one of those and a meatball sub.”

“Ooh, good choice. From Jonesie’s?”

I nodded. “So good.”

“Greg’s worked here since we opened, and he runs the bar better than I could. I’m more the bookish, sensitive type,” she joked. “I’ve actually been trying to get him set up for years. I’ve been known to…well, meddle is probably the nicest term for it. It’s why I spend so much time organizing our mixers. I’ve sorta been banned from any matchmaking.”

“That bad, huh?” I asked with a brow up and a sideways smile to match.

“Oh, trust me, it was bad. But I’ve learned my lesson. Mostly. So, do you have a boyfriend?”

I laughed.

“I told you, mostly.” She shrugged.

“No boyfriend. I’m new in town.”

“Fresh meat,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “I remember when I first moved here from Iowa. It’s a shock, huh?”

I conspiratorially leaned in. “It’s crazy, Cam. There are so many things to see, so many buildings and bodies, and it smells…different. Like metal and people and cars and possibility, all mixed up and packed into the spaces between buildings.”

“I know what you mean. I was so overwhelmed, I thought I might bust. But it gets better. Easier. More fun.” Cam turned to her laptop. “Speaking of fun, how often do you want to work?”

“Every day you’ll have me.”

“I like your enthusiasm, Annie,” she said with a smirk. “Tell me you sing. I really need a better karaoke buddy than Rose. She only sings if she’s tanked.”

I laughed. “I love to sing, and I will karaoke with you any day of the week as long as you can find a place that will let me in underage.”

“Duh, here. Tomorrow night and every Tuesday.”

“Seriously, put me down for every day on the schedule, would you?”

“Karaoke is nothing. You should see our costume parties. We have one coming up where you come as half of your favorite historical couple.”

I pointed at her computer screen. “Right, so put me down for working all the days that end in Y.”

She snickered. “Done, starting with karaoke tomorrow night. But not to work—to sing.”

My smile could have lit of Fifth. “Deal.”

Cam typed away on her keyboard, amused. “How about thirty hours a week, and you can come hang out with us on the rest of your days off?”

“I accept.”

She chuckled.

“Really, Cam, thank you. This is…I think this is just what I needed and at just the right time.”

“Well then, I sure am glad you ran into Greg yesterday and asked for a job.”

“So am I,” I said, and meant it.





4





Come Sail Away





Greg

The bar was packed with smiling faces that night, and the karaoke mic had been well met with talent. We had yet to have the quintessential slurred rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” and instead had been graced with a version of “Single Ladies” that had the crowd’s jaws on the ground. We’d also been given a few gems of the ’80s hair-band variety, and a duet performed “Push It,” complete with all of Salt-N-Pepa’s dance moves from the video.

And those were just the highlights.

Beau and Harrison were behind the bar with me, and Bayleigh was working service, making drinks for the cocktail servers and bar-backing, which meant ensuring we were stocked with glasses and enough ice to keep the drinks coming.

I hadn’t stopped moving but for a couple of times—when Annie walked in, waving at me over the crowd, when she swung by the bar to say hi a little bit after, and when she stepped to the microphone.

She seemed to favor ’80s music, singing “Just What I Needed” by The Cars with Cam. The second song, “You Make My Dreams” by Hall & Oates, had me smiling and dancing a little with Bayleigh and Beau behind the bar. Beau went full Molly Ringwald and did the little kick-dance thing she had done in The Breakfast Club. But, when she stepped up onto the stage and the opening to “Head Over Heels” by Tears For Fears started, I stepped off to the side, abandoning the bar without even realizing I’d done it.

She closed her eyes, cupping the microphone in her hands, her shoulders swaying as she sang with a velvety voice about how she wanted to be with me alone, about being lost in admiration, begging me not to take her heart or break it or throw it away.

During the na-na-nah part, she had the crowd going, her arm waving over her head in time to the music until everyone else was doing it too, the whole bar singing along, even tone-deaf me.

I didn’t know how she had done it, how the second she’d picked up the microphone, she became music. She sang like every song meant something to her, sang so deeply that she could have written the words herself. She felt it, felt it through every bit of her, and transcribed that feeling to us through her breath and her lips. And her feeling was so natural, so alluring that we all joined in with the hope that we could feel it too.