I’m so consumed with communicating my message that I forget to worry about whether or not he thinks I’m a good singer. By the time the song ends, I look around myself and realise that the whole bar is staring at me. I swallow and take a bow, hoping they’re only staring because I’d been standing there banging a drumstick off a box like a mental case.
A second later they all begin clapping like crazy. Okay, maybe I was actually…good?
When I come off the stage, Robert is at the bottom of the steps, waiting for me. He gives me a small flourish and presents me with his arm. “Madam,” he says, “I bow down to your originality. That’s definitely not what I’d been expecting.”
“What were you expecting?”
“Honestly? I was worried you were going to sit by the piano and do a Tori Amos impression.”
I giggle. “Well, I’m glad my unpredictability impresses you…” I trail off. “So, did you like it?”
“I liked it so much I think I’m going to make you sing me to sleep every night from now on in that husky voice. Though we probably wouldn’t get much sleep after,” he teases, leaning in to kiss my neck. “By the way, every time you beat on the box, it made your breasts jiggle. It was kind of mesmerising.”
I push him away, laughing, but he pulls me back into him and plants a smouldering kiss on my mouth that’s all tongues and hot wetness. I draw away, gasping for air, and before I know it he’s leading me out of the club and straight into a taxi.
“Seriously, though, well done. I’m proud of you. I know you were scared to do this, but you pulled it off beautifully,” he tells me in a tender voice.
I blush. “Thank you, Robert. That means a lot.”
We sit side by side in the back seat, Robert trailing his hand up and down my thigh. There’s an electricity about him, and his bad mood from earlier has completely vanished. After a while the taxi driver switches on the radio, and a song starts playing: “The Blower’s Daughter” by Damien Rice. It’s all soft and romantic, with the singer telling a girl about how he can’t take his eyes off her. The air in the taxi thickens, but Robert and I are the only ones who can feel it.
The small space is quiet except for the gentle flow of the song drifting around us. Robert’s deep eyes look right into me, his hands travelling over my arms. His mouth falls open as his gaze drops to the rise and fall of my chest, my breathing quick and shallow.
He brings his mouth to my neck and drags his tongue from my collarbone all the way up to my earlobe.
“Shit, this song,” he whispers.
“I know,” I whisper back.
“I never stop thinking about you, Lana. It feels like I’ve been thinking about you my entire life.”
“Don’t say that,” I breathe as he nuzzles me gently.
“Why not?”
“Because it will make me fall in love with you,” I tell him in the quietest voice, feeling like I might cry.
“Good,” he says, sighing and letting his face fall against my skin. “Because I’ve been in love with you for years.”
My eyelids flutter in surprise as I grab his chin and pull him to face me. “What?”
He grips my upper arms and looks me dead in the eye. “I’ve been in love with you for years.”
“Robert,” I say shakily, the sound of impending tears in my voice, “don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. In fact, I’ve never spoken more truthfully in my life.”
My mouth falls open and my brain won’t work, won’t come up with anything to say. Then the taxi driver interrupts us, completely unaware of the life-altering moment currently taking place, by announcing, “That’ll be twenty-five eighty when you’re ready, please.”
I look out the window and see that we’ve arrived at the house. I’d been so caught up in Robert that it felt like the whole journey took mere seconds.
Robert draws away from me and pulls his wallet from his pocket, handing the driver a fifty and telling him to keep the change. When we get inside, he backs me up against the wall by the staircase and kisses me tenderly. A tear streams down my face as my heart tries to comprehend the declaration he just made.
“Do you really love me?” I ask, pulling back.
“Yes,” he breathes. “You are quite possibly the only woman I will ever love. I’ve been with so many, so fucking many, Lana, and none of them ever even lived up to the feeling of just standing near you in a crowded school hallway. Seeing your blue eyes glisten under the sun when you didn’t know I was watching. Catching sight of your red hair as you walked across the field between our houses.” He runs a hand over my cheek.
His words hit me right in my centre. All along, all along he’d been in love with me but covered it up because he didn’t know how to deal with it. God, we’ve wasted so much time pretending to hate one another.
It feels like every molecule of air has left me entirely as he tenderly takes my hand and leads me up the stairs. In his room I sit on the edge of the bed while he begins rummaging in a drawer, searching for something.
“I used to think I had a fear of sex,” I whisper, and he pauses to look at me. I fidget, bashful. “It’s an actual thing, you know. But now I’m not so sure. When I’m with you, I feel the opposite of afraid of sex.” He laughs, his dark lashes shading his eyes. My cheeks go red with embarrassment. “It’s not like nobody ever wanted to be with me, I just couldn’t bring myself to be with them,” I explain.
“I know that, Lana,” he replies, eyes soft like melting chocolate. “Although it’s probably not the best idea to be telling me that right now. Thinking of you with another man makes me want to commit GBH.”