“Cora! Rex!” The younger Bennett sister materializes with two glasses of something that smells like rum and conspiracy. “We were just talking about you two.”
“I’m sure you were,” Rex says easily, accepting both glasses and handing one to me.
“It’s just sowonderful,” the older sister says. “We always thought you had a spark.”
I take the rum drink because if I’m going to survive this conversation I’m going to need help. Rex’s hand finds the small of my back, warm and steady, and I lean into it without thinking.
“We like to think so,” Rex says with that easy charm that makes everyone love him.
I’m saved from having to add anything by Mateo clapping his hands and announcing it’s time for music. Time for me to stop navigating my fake relationship and start doing the thing I came here to do.
Rex gives my back a gentle pat before stepping away to finish securing the platform. I take my spot on it, guitar already there and tuned because Mateo is efficient like that. The crowd settles into that expectant hush that always happens right before a performance, faces turned toward me in the firelight, and I take a breath.
“Evening, Harmony Glen,” I say, and my voice carries the way it’s meant to. Warm and clear and just threaded enough with sirena resonance that people lean in without knowing why. “Thanks for coming out. I’ve got a few songs for you tonight, and if you’re very good, I might even take requests.”
Someone whoops. Someone else whistles. I catch sight of Finnbar near the back, raising his beer in salute, and Mr. Calloway settled into a camp chair with the satisfied air of someone who has seen this show before and knows it’s good.
I start with something easy and familiar. An old folk song that everyone knows the chorus to. By the second verse, half the crowd is singing along, and I let myself relax into it. This part is easy. This part I know how to do.
It’s theotherpart that’s the problem.
Because eighty percent of my brain is not focused on the music. Eighty percent of my brain is scanning the tree line at the edge of the firelight, looking for a silhouette I have no business looking for, waiting for someone who has no reason to be here and every reason to stay away.
He’s back in town, I think, fingers moving through the chord progression on autopilot.He could be anywhere.
He could be here.
I finish the first song to enthusiastic applause and move into the second without pausing. If I pause I’ll have to think. Thinking is not on tonight’s agenda.
“This one’s for anyone who’s ever made a questionable decision and then had to live with it,” I announce. Gets a laugh because everyone in Harmony Glen has made at least three questionable decisions, and most of them were about real estate.
Halfway through the second song, someone calls out, “Play something for Rex!”
My fingers stumble. Just for a second, just enough that I have to recover the chord, but it’s there.
“Rex,” I say, with as much dignity as I can muster, “does not need me to dedicate songs to him. He knows how I feel.”
This is the right answer, because peopleawwlike I’ve just said something heartwarming instead of desperately evasive.
I play the third song. Something slower, something that lets me use my voice the way it’s meant to be used, threading sirena magic through the melody until the whole crowd is swaying and silent and caught. It’s the kind of song that makes people feel things they didn’t know they were carrying, and when I finish, the silence holds for three full seconds before the applause starts.
“Beautiful,” someone says.
“She’s so talented,” someone else murmurs.
I set my guitar down and step off the platform. Rex is there immediately, offering his hand to help me down even though I don’t need it. I take it anyway because we’re supposed to be selling this.
People drift over to thank me, to compliment the performance, to ask about upcoming tour dates. The questions are mercifully focused on the music and the business, and I’m grateful for it.
The whole time I’m scanning the edges of the gathering, stupidly looking for someone who isn’t there.
Someone who left me without a word four years ago.
What the hell is wrong with me?
It’s a good thing he’s not here, I tell myself firmly.I didn’t want him here, anyway.
Except some traitorous part of me does want him here, wants to see his face when he realizes I’ve moved on, wants him to see me happy and settled and completely fine without him.