The Sound of Us

Chapter Twenty-Seven. “This Is Me” by Keala Settle, the Greatest Showman Ensemble

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“This Is Me” by Keala Settle, the Greatest Showman Ensemble

SKYE

Despite Dante’s reaction to my meeting with Blake, I was stoked about the basketball cover-up story, and spent the following week chasing down leads and dropping hints to the athletic center staff that I was interested in any tea they wanted to spill. For a few boxes of lemon squares and a tray of coffee, I got some juicy—albeit anonymous—stories about athletes involved in drunk driving accidents, academic dishonesty, affairs, secret babies and equipment sabotage, but nothing serious enough to warrant a major cover-up.

When my efforts with the staff didn’t turn up any leads, I met up with my old teammates for dinner on the pretense of catching up, but really to find out if they’d heard any rumors. I spent Saturday doing a deep digital dive of both the university and local news for any mention of Havencrest basketball players involved in incidents or crimes, and when that didn’t pan out, I dragged poor Isla to the athletic center on Sunday to drink protein shakes with me in the corner so we could eavesdrop on conversations.

“I’ve never seen this side of you,” she said, watching me slide down my seat when a few ballers arrived for their protein shake fix. “Do you really think there’s something to this rumor?”

“I feel it the way I felt the story about the high school principal with the fake résumé.” I thumped my stomach. “It’s here in the gut with two strawberry matcha acai protein shakes and a health bar that tasted like cardboard.”

“Leave room in that gut for a few G and Ts,” she said, laughing. “Apparently Nick, Derek, Haley, and Dante have put together a band and they’re playing at the Ironhorse tonight. Everyone from the station is going to be there.”

“Not me. Dante doesn’t want to see me. He just walked away, Iz. He didn’t want to talk, and when I messaged him, he left me unread.”

“He hurt you by not wanting to go public with your relationship. You hurt him by making a date with some random baller who is clearly holding back the information you need for your story so he can get into your pants. You’re afraid of being rejected, and Dante didn’t help the situation by doing exactly that.” She looked over and grinned. “How am I doing?”

“You’ve been talking to Haley about me.”

“I’m insulted,” Isla said. “Chemistry is just as important as psychology when it comes to relationships, although to be fair, Haley did say you have trust and commitment issues, and you’re not going to make things right by hiding.”

“I’m not hiding.”

Isla pointed to the potted palm half covering our table. “You literally are hiding, and if you don’t agree to come to the bar, I’m going to out you as spy to the entire men’s basketball team and you’ll never get your story.”

“You are a cruel woman, Iz.”

Isla grinned. “That’s why you love me.”

A few hours later, we were back in our apartment, warming up with a few margaritas while we got dressed.

“I’ve decided I’m not going to hide how I feel anymore,” I called out to Isla, who was changing in her room. “I was trying to pretend that everything was okay with Dante when it wasn’t. I didn’t like having to keep what we had secret. It made me feel like he was ashamed of me, or maybe he had someone else. I’m on to a big story here, Iz. I’m kicking ass at school and at the station. I shouldn’t have to hide. I’m going to tell him how I feel, even if it means finding out that he doesn’t want me.”

“If he didn’t want you, he wouldn’t have been jealous of Blake and he wouldn’t have said ‘Skye, I want you.’ The question is, do you want him?” She walked into my room looking stunning in her favorite red strapless dress. “How do I look?”

“Fabulous. Are you finally going to tell Nick how you feel?”

“Of course not,” she huffed. “Then he might want to go out and have dinner or drinks and then he might walk me home and then he might kiss me and that might lead to…”

“Sex.” I opened my closet and flicked idly through my clothes. I still had the dresses I’d bought when I started college. Some of them had never been worn.

“Sex I can do,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of sex since…” She waved a vague hand in the air. “I’ve erased all the badness with multiple sexual encounters. But Nick is different. He isn’t therapy peen.”

“Therapy peen? Is that really a thing?”

“My therapist said it’s a way for me to take control. So yes. It’s a thing.”

“Sounds like it’s an intimacy issue.”

“Strangers know the deal,” she said. “There are no expectations.”

“Maybe it’s time to stop trying to prove to yourself that you’re okay with nameless strangers and start being okay by letting Nick in,” I suggested. “If I can do it, you can do it.”

“They’re not always nameless,” she said, with a grin. “I like to have a name to shout out when I’m pretending to come. ‘Oh, Todd. You’re so huge. Tyler, will it fit? Do me, Ryan. Faster, Scott…’”

Laughter bubbled up in my chest. “You’re hopeless.”

“So are you if you don’t take your own advice.” She reached into my closet and handed me a tight green sheath dress I’d bought for the year-end baller bash that I’d never had a chance to attend. “Go big or go home, babe.”

I looked down at my scarred leg. If I could do this, I could do anything, including taking a risk on a man who made my heart sing.

“I’ll need shoes.”

Isla raced across the hallway and returned a few minutes later with a stack of shoeboxes. “Don’t worry, babe. I’ve got you covered.”

We drank. We danced. We sang. We danced some more. Music thrummed through me, making my heart pound. It was the perfect distraction from the air whispering over my scarred leg and the truth flowing from my battered heart. I was all in and tonight I wanted to let Dante know.

Dante played his bass as if it were an extension of his fingers, steadily, deftly weaving the band’s rhythm and melody into an impenetrable musical cloak that I wanted to wrap around my naked self. There was something highly erotic about watching him play—an intimacy I wanted to share as his fingers moved over the strings, pulling me closer with every note. He was a different person on stage, so obviously born to make music. He was a performer. A rock star. And every time I looked at the stage, his gaze was fixed on me.

Near the end of the night, as the band moved into a slower set, Dante took the mic. “I don’t sing very often,” he said, his deep voice resonating through the speakers. “But this is a special song for a special girl, so be gentle with me.” His hands moved over the strings and into the intro baseline to “Stand By Me.” He controlled the bass in a way that was both powerful and graceful, commanding and elegant at once. Then he started to sing, and his eyes found me and never let go.

He was in my head, my heart, my very bones.

He saw me, and I saw him. He forgave me and I forgave him.

As the last notes drifted away, Dante put down his bass and jumped off the stage. The crowd parted as he made his way over to me.

Before I could say anything, he wrapped one arm around my waist, and pulled me against his body before covering my lips with his. He kissed me deeply, possessively, ravaging my mouth, leaving no doubt that I was his and he was mine and we were together in every sense of the word. My defenses gave way before the force of his desire, my back arching as he owned me with his passion.

I was undone.

It was too much, his kiss. Too good. It was like the perfect sunset when the sky is streaked with crimson and gold and every inch of your body is bathed in beauty. It opened me, his kiss, knocked down the walls and let the light rush in, sweeping away the pain and unveiling emotions so deep and true they bared my very soul. And there I was. The girl who had been hiding. The woman who had been afraid to follow her heart.

I wanted him. His lips. His hands. His breath. His body.

His kiss.

Our chemistry. Sparking, igniting, and melding us together.

A sound escaped my lips, a cross between a whimper and a moan. I could feel his heart beating in his chest. He kissed away my fear, my pain, my hurt, my insecurities and doubts. He was everywhere, everything, his lips on my neck, my collarbone, jaw, chin, and cheeks, destroying me with adoration and filling me up with fire.

“We’ve got one more song,” he whispered in my ear. “Then I want to take you home.”