Luckily, I wasn’t forced to drum up a response for Bell because we made it to the band. She wished me well and headed for the bar and a man who looked as if he were undressing her with his eyes. She gave him a long, hard kiss and then moved to pour drinks.

I turned my focus back to the band. And with a few last-minute checks, we took the stage. The lead singer and banjo player, Gareth, greeted the patrons. When he introduced me as their special guest, I caught sight of Sam in the crowd. I hadn’t seen him since our altercation a few weeks ago, conveniently pushing him from my mind. His gaze swept over my body, and I fought a shiver. I turned my focus to a point about a foot over the crowd’s heads. It was a trick I’d learned when I first started playing in recitals. If I didn’t make eye contact, the nerves couldn’t set in.

We started out slow, with a rendition of I’ll Fly Away, and it didn’t take long for me to get lost in the music. The bar, the building, the world…it all slipped away. The only thing that existed was my bow across the strings, the push and pull, the buildup, and the spiral down.

When we moved into The Devil Went Down to Georgia, the crowd lost their minds as my fingers flew across the strings, and my bow went wild. They were loud enough that it pulled me from the trance I loved so much, and I found Brody across the room.

The smile on his face as he watched me fly twisted something deep inside me. His sheer joy at watching me do something I loved made its way into a place inside I hadn’t let anyone into in over a decade.

As we transitioned into something slower, a song I couldn’t name but which my fingers played on autopilot, I kept my gaze locked with Brody’s. Neither of us looked away as one note slid into the next. Each sweep of my bow seemed to pull at something low in my belly. As if Brody’s hand were somehow on top of mine, and we were playing together. Each place his eyes focused on my body burned as if he were actually touching me. And by the time I finished the final note, I was aflame.

26

Shay

The bite of the night air as our boat whipped along the water should’ve cooled my overheated skin. But it did nothing to calm the buzz of energy humming just below the surface. The wine, the high of playing for a crowd for the first time in years, the intensity of Brody’s stare. It had started a fire in me that I wasn’t sure I’d ever get under control.