“You wanna talk about it?” he asks as my breathing returns to normal.
Two guys stumble loudly into the alley, lighting cigarettes before they’re even fully out the door. Flynn looks at them, then me, and grabs my hand. “Come on. Let’s go for a walk.”
Fingers linked, we walk silently from the alley and make our way around the corner to a bench just outside Bryant Park. It’s after midnight and the street is quiet, especially for New York.
“So, I’d like to think you were so happy to see me, you couldn’t contain your excitement. But something tells me that isn’t it.” Flynn uncaps the bottle of Jack Daniels that Avery handed him and offers it to me.
I take a swig. My face scrunches up from the taste. “Thank you for walking with me. I actually feel better already.” I extend the uncapped bottle back to him.
He lifts the bottle to his lips, and then stops. “Glad I can help. Hope it’s my company and not the alcohol.” He gulps a shot from the bottle and smiles. “So tell me what’s going on? What’s got you so anxious?”
“It’s just…anticipation of something I need to do.”
“You breaking up with Dylan?” His voice sounds hopeful.
“No. Nothing like that.”
He brings the bottle to his mouth a second time, mumbling before he drinks, “That’s too bad.”
The first real smile of the day threatens my lips. “You’re ridiculously charming, Mr. Beckham. Women must fall at your feet.”
“Not the right ones,” he says and offers me the bottle, but I decline. “So talk to me. What’s got your sexy self all twisted up tonight?”
“It’s nothing, really. I…” It’s difficult to admit my fears to anyone, let alone a guy who does what I fear most on a regular basis and makes it look as easy as breathing. “I sort of have stage fright.”
“Okay…” he says, waiting for more.
“And I’m supposed to sing tonight at the bar.”
“When was the last time you got up on stage?”
“Eight years ago.”
“Wow. It’s been a while. Have you tried before tonight?”
“No.” I chuckle, knowing how ridiculous I must sound. “I’ve been working up my courage.”
I expect him to laugh at my admission, but he doesn’t. “Did you always have a fear, or did something happen that scared you?”
“A little of both.” It’s the truth. Well, sort of. I was always nervous when I got on stage, but then…one day…everything changed.
“When you used to go on stage, what calmed you when your nerves got the best of you?”
I don’t have to think about the answer, yet I take a minute to steady myself before I speak. “My dad.” It’s ironic how the man could be the source of my strength and now, a big part of my fear.
Flynn takes my hand and squeezes. There is something so comforting about the way he looks at me, waits for me to continue. It makes me feel like he really wants to hear whatever I have to say—like each conversation is a layer he peels back, yet his goal isn’t to strip me bare. Instead, he leaves me feeling blanketed.
“The first time I went on stage, other than at school, was here at Lucky’s. I was nervous. The crowd was pretty much filled with faces that I’d already won over before singing my first note—my friends, my mom’s friends, my dad’s buddies. It wasn’t a tough crowd. But I got up there and froze anyway. I looked around the room. Every smiling face my eyes landed on made my heart thump louder in my chest. Until I found my dad in the crowd. He was beaming proudly. It helped to take the edge off, although I still wasn’t sure I could go through with it. But then I looked down and saw he was barefoot.”
“Barefoot in the bar?”
I smile, remembering back to that exact moment. Looking down at his wiggling toes, the spirit of who my father was somehow cracked through all of my tension and brought me relief. “My dad always played barefoot. He liked the feel of the drum pedal under his foot and the vibration that caught on the floorboards and seeped up into his legs. But it was more than that. He said the earth under his feet made him feel grounded…somehow balanced. It helped him forget everything else and give everything over to the sound.” My voice breaks as I finish.
Flynn wraps his arm around me and pulls me close. It feels good, comforting, I close my eyes, but it doesn’t stop a few wayward tears from falling. My dad was everything to me.
Although he keeps me physically close at his side, Flynn gives me the mental space I need for a few minutes before he speaks. “He’s going to be watching you tonight. With a big smile and bare feet. He may not be in the audience anymore, but that doesn’t mean he can’t see you. You just need to close your eyes and see him.”
I look up into Flynn’s beautiful blue eyes. “He’d want me to sing.”
“So that’s what you need to do, then,” he declares with unerring confidence. “You want to know my secret for calming my nerves on stage?”
“You still get nervous?”
“Sure.” He shrugs. “Sometimes it’s worse than others. I can’t even figure out what makes it easier for one show than the next. You’d think it was the venue or size of the audience…but it’s just random for me.”
“Well, tell me your secrets, rockstar.”
“I’ll tell you. But if word gets out, it might tarnish my rockstar status. So you have to keep it to yourself.”
I make an X across my chest. “You have my word.”
“I recite the words to a song in my head and take a walk around the stage.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“The song is ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’”
“Oh.” I chuckle. “Guess that might soften the bad-boy rockstar image just a bit.”
“Did you know it has five verses?”
“‘Twinkle, Twinkle’? You mean there’s more to it than just, ‘how I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky’?”
“Yep. A lot more. Most of the world doesn’t know the best parts.”
I shake my head, amused, yet intrigued by his enthusiasm. “Why did we only learn two verses as kids if there are five? And more importantly, why do you know the five?”
“I don’t know why we’ve been deprived of the other three. But I found out about them in college. Astronomy major. Did a paper on what makes stars appear to twinkle and titled it ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, How I Wonder What You Are.’ I looked up the lyrics to make sure I had them right, since half of us sing things we learned as a kid wrong, and found the whole song.”
“Astronomy major, huh? The more I get to know you, the more I find you’re a complete enigma, Flynn Beckham.”
“Are you into enigmas?”
I laugh his harmless flirtation off, but all I can think is…shit, I’m into enigmas.
I sat around talking to Flynn on that park bench for almost another half an hour. He told me one of the lost ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ verses, but refused to tell me the others. He promised I’d get the remainder of the classic song when I was done with my performance. My reward—which he’d grace me with after I sang. It meant he was planning on staying for my performance, monumentally increasing my crowd by twenty percent, from five to six. Oddly, it gave me more comfort than stress to know he’d be there.
That didn’t mean I spent the remainder of the night in a calm state—not by any means. I dropped another tray, screwed up half my orders and gave my last customer twenty-six dollars change from his eight-dollar drink…that he paid for with a twenty.
But I made it through without running away, at least. And now, as I stand here locking the door while the last patron stumbles from Lucky’s, I feel my nerves fraying at their ends. A body comes up close behind me in the narrow hallway. I know who it is without turning around, yet I’m so jittery it doesn’t stop me from jumping.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you again.” Flynn’s voice is low, soothing.
“I’m just a—”
“I know. That’s why I followed you out here. Figured you might either sneak out the door behind the drunk guy who just left, or could use some calming.”