Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 60978 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60978 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Ada joined the conversation, sliding closer on the bench seat, her hand resting gently on Eliza’s arm as she spoke. The warmth and encouragement in Ada’s expression was clear even from my position at the bar. Eliza continued shaking her head, but with less conviction now as Hannah and Ada persisted.
“Come on, honey, when’s the last time you did something just for fun?” Ada’s voice carried to me during a brief lull in the music, her tone gentle but persuasive.
Eliza’s resistance visibly wavered under their combined encouragement. She took a long pull from her beer bottle, her eyes darting to the stage where a young woman was finishing a surprisingly good rendition of a Carrie Underwood song. When she looked back at Hannah and Ada, something had shifted in her expression, a small spark of the woman I’d glimpsed during Haven’s own karaoke night breaking through her carefully constructed walls. The excitement suddenly pumping through my veins had my palms sweating like they used to before a show.
Hannah said something to make Eliza laugh, a genuine sound carrying across the bar, drawing my attention like a physical touch. Her cheeks flushed pink, either from the beer or the company or both, and for a moment she looked younger, lighter, free from the constant worry usually shadowing her features.
With a final nod of apparent surrender, Eliza rose from the table, smoothing her hands nervously down her jeans before allowing Hannah to guide her toward the stage. As she approached the small platform, her eyes swept the room once more, landing squarely on me at the bar. Our gazes held for a long moment.
I couldn’t look away, couldn’t pretend I hadn’t been watching her all night. Whatever she saw in my face made her pause for just a heartbeat before she took a deep breath and stepped onto the stage, her fingers trembling slightly as she reached for the microphone.
Eliza stood frozen before the microphone for a moment, her fingers wrapped so tightly around the stand her knuckles whitened. The opening notes of Joan Jett’s I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll blasted through the speakers, and I felt my eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Not the song I expected from the quiet, reserved woman I thought I knew. Eliza closed her eyes briefly, drawing in a deep breath that visibly expanded her chest. When she opened them again, something had shifted in her expression, a transformation so profound I found myself immediately straightening and leaning forward on my bar stool, completely enraptured.
Her first few notes came out tentatively, slightly off-key as she adjusted to the volume and tempo. The slight tremor in her voice revealed her nerves, her body still rigid with tension as she clutched the microphone stand like a lifeline, but a few bars later at the pre-chorus, she found her rhythm. Her shoulders relaxed, her hips began to sway subtly with the rhythm, and her voice found its strength, pushing through her nervousness with growing confidence.
By the first chorus, Eliza had shed her hesitation entirely. Her voice rang out clear and powerful, the rich sound filling every corner of the bar, cutting through the noise like a blade. This wasn’t karaoke anymore. This was a performance from someone who knew exactly what she was doing, who had stood before crowds and commanded their attention.
The technical part of my brain -- the part I’d had spent years honing in Nashville’s music scene before everything went to hell -- recognized genuine talent when I heard it. I’d attributed the previous karaoke night to me being infatuated with her, but hearing her a second time when I was fully prepared to critique her, proved my appreciation to be much, much more than being taken with the woman. Her pitch control was flawless, her tone warm and slightly raspy in all the right places. She knew when to pull back and when to push, creating dynamics most amateur singers never mastered.
The crowd felt it too. Conversations died as heads turned toward the stage. Bodies milling around the pool tables drifted closer, drawn by the unexpected quality of her voice. Someone whistled appreciatively. A few brothers raised their bottles in salute. When she reached the end of the chorus, even Mike paused, cloth suspended over a glass as he watched her with newfound respect.
Eliza grew more animated as she grew more comfortable with her surroundings. She pulled the microphone from its stand, moving across the small stage with growing confidence. Her free hand punctuated the lyrics with gestures she seemed to perform from muscle memory, as if her body remembered a version of herself she’d long buried beneath layers of worry and responsibility. Her eyes brightened with an inner fire I’d never seen before, her smile wider and more genuine than any I’d witnessed since we met.