Tricks (Take It Off #6)(23)
Author: Cambria Hebert

It made me feel naked, yet I was fully clothed.

It also loosened my tongue.

Or maybe that had been the beer. Or the wine. Whatever it was, I just told him things that I only ever kept to myself. I never let anyone know how much I wondered about my father and what he would think of me now. I never talked to anyone about coming home from school that day and finding him lying dead on the carpet.

Those things affected me. Affected me in ways I still felt to this day. And I never spoke of them because it made me feel weak. It made me feel self-conscious.

But his touch acted like Miracle-Gro to a flower. I felt my petals, my feelings unfurling from deep inside me and opening up, blooming right in front of him.

And he didn’t look at me like I was weak. He didn’t look at me like my feelings were silly.

He looked like he understood.

How had we never had a conversation like this before?

I wondered what else we would have talked about had it not been for the piano man that, up until this moment, I actually enjoyed. Until he suggested I get up and sing, that is.

I did not sing.

As far as I knew, Max didn’t either.

Did he?

I watched in fascination as he strode up toward the small stage. The navy dress pants hugged his butt a little more tightly than usual and his back muscles strained beneath the white dress shirt.

A few of the women sitting around whooped and whistled, and the burning sensation of jealousy scorched the back of my throat like acid. It was the first time I ever felt jealous that a woman was checking out Max.

Usually I found it flattering.

Tonight I found it annoying.

He stopped beside the piano and spoke briefly to the man who called him up there. He smiled and then crossed behind the large wooden instrument and bent, picking something up from against the wall.

Max draped a thick strap across his shoulder and swung a guitar up across his middle.

People in the audience cheered as he stepped across the stage and sat down, letting his feet hit the floor. A hush fell over the room. Even the singing drunk guy shut up (Thank God for that).

Anticipation coiled through the room like a deadly snake, and I found nerves fluttering around in my stomach for Max, wondering what in the world he was going to do.

And then he started playing.

His thick fingers strummed the chords on the guitar with perfection. A song I wasn’t familiar with but he seemed to know with ease.

And then he started to sing.

The bottom dropped out of my stomach. His voice was absolutely stunning. Entrancing. Tunnel vision claimed me and it was as if I were staring through goggles that only pointed in one direction.

His.

His voice was raspy and jagged, like a broken piece of glass. There was so much emotion behind the words—which were about love and loss—that my heart began to ache. Every single person in the bar was completely ensnared.

I don’t think anyone looked away; no one even dared to breathe.

My God, how had I lived with this man for almost a year and never seen him this way? Should I start stocking the fridge with beer?

The song dropped a little in tone and his voice slid down into that deep and smooth place that literally lifted the fine hairs off my arm. I hung on his every word.

He sang a line about never leaving and as he did, his eyes lifted, cut through the dimness shrouding the room, and looked at me. My heart skipped a beat. I lifted my hand toward my throat, my palm resting in the hollow place beneath my chin.

He watched me as his fingers moved. He strummed that guitar with such finesse and he didn’t struggle, not one time. His voice kept perfect pace with the music… and then the piano started to play backup.

It didn’t overpower his voice because he was so commanding that not even a bomb would do that. The music just accompanied him; it floated along behind him like the caress from a lover.

I wondered if his fingers would caress me like they did the guitar.

I squeezed my thighs together and squirmed a little in the wooden chair. He made me feel fidgety inside.

Then he closed his eyes, bowed his head, and delivered the last few lines of the song, his raspy, deep tone fading away with the music.

You could have heard a pin drop in the seconds that followed.

And then everyone erupted into mad applause. But I didn’t. I still couldn’t move. I still was wondering about this man—feeling him in ways I never expected.

My eyes caught on the way his hips swiveled as he weaved through the bar, back to our little two-person table. Even his movements seemed new to me, like I had been blind all this time, but now I could see.

It was so confusing.

Yet it was so achingly wonderful.

He lowered himself into the chair and gave me a little half smile, and I could have sworn I saw a little bit of insecurity in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” I rasped, my voice literally scraping out of my throat.

His brows drew together. “What are you sorry for?”

I grabbed the bottle of beer and slid it closer to me, almost hugging it against my chest. “For never seeing you the way I see you right now.”

The fleeting look that passed behind his eyes was of alarm and sadness. But it was gone so fast I couldn’t ask him what it was all about.

“How do you see me right now, Charlie?” he asked.

“Real,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“What?”

“I just…” I began, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I just always thought of you as this perfect guy. The guy who always knew what he wanted. The guy who never let emotion rule his head or his heart. The kind of guy who never stumbled a day in his life.”

“And now?” Max whispered. I swear his face seemed paler than just seconds ago.

“Now I know I was wrong. There is no way anyone could have that kind of grit, that kind of soul in their voice, if they hadn’t lived through pain. There’s no way that kind of emotion can just be pulled out of thin air. You aren’t perfect, are you, Max?” I whispered the last part, sliding my hand across the table toward his.

He opened his fingers and mine slid into his palm, like it was exactly where they belonged.

“No. No, I’m definitely not perfect. I guess I’m not the guy you thought I was. I’m not the guy you wanted.”

Why so much sadness in his tone?

“Can I tell you a secret?” The fluttery sensation in my stomach was so wild I felt like I was sitting at the top of a super steep roller coaster.

“Yeah.”

“I like this guy better.”

He jerked so forcefully his hand pulled away from mine and his chair slid back a couple inches. Then he snagged a bottle off the table and chugged the rest of it down.