Page 10 of Change of Plans

It was a look I could definitely get used to.

“Promise me you won’t hold anything I say tonight against me,” Theo said, finally lowering his hands. “I swear, I do get out now and then, but I’ve always been so awkward around people I…around people.”

“I won’t hold anything against you,” I promised him. “Unless you want me to,” I added with a wiggle of my eyebrows.

Theo snorted with laughter, immediately looking embarrassed about that, too, but before I could continue our banter, Gilbert stepped up to the mic.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” he said loud enough to interrupt everyone’s conversations. “Welcome to Common Grounds’ open mic night!”

The decent-sized audience broke into applause and hoots. They were mostly all locals and regulars, but I spotted a few people I didn’t recognize sitting here and there in the increasingly crowded space.

“We’re going to get started tonight with the guitar and vocal stylings of our very own morning baker, Hannah!” Gilbert announced.

Hannah took the stage with her acoustic guitar as everyone greeted her with enthusiastic applause. “Thank you, everybody, thank you!”

“You’re going to love Hannah,” I leaned over to say against Theo’s ear. I had to just about put my lips on his lobe to make sure he heard me. That was totally why I got so close. “She’s got real talent.”

Theo turned his head toward me faster than I could move away. For a few seconds, our mouths were only inches apart.

I sucked in a breath, then smiled widely and faced forward, buzzing from the inside. This was the way two people who had been eyeing each other for months should take the next step. We were together but surrounded by people. We got to enjoy a fun experience together, but with enough space that my enthusiasm for just about everything I liked wouldn’t overwhelm Theo. The night couldn’t get more perfect.

And yet, once again, I’d underestimated things.

Hannah’s set was fantastic. She had a folky, almost witchy vibe that would have made Stevie Nicks proud. The next up were Kyle and Andrea, a couple friends of our family who did jazz-sounding versions of heavy metal songs. Everyone always loved them, even if no one really understood whether they did what they did seriously or to make fun of one genre or the other.

After them, Chase’s friend Darrell got up and played the old upright piano that lived in the corner while singing.

“Darrell always plays the classics,” I told Theo, leaning into him once more, as Darrell began a sweeping piano version of “Unforgettable”.

“He’s really good,” Theo whispered back.

The two of us had shifted enough during the previous songs that our hands, which we both had resting on our thighs, were so close that just a little flicker of a pinky and I would be able to hold his hand. It would have been too much too soon, but boy was I tempted.

“Who wants to come up and sing the next one with me?” Darrell asked, like he usually did at that point in his set.

“Which song are you singing?” Hannah called out, pretty much on cue. The two of them had developed a sort of an act as a way to drag some poor, unsuspecting soul up onto the stage to sing their hearts out when they wouldn’t have otherwise.

“Let’s do one for the ages, ‘Oh, Danny Boy’,” Darrell called out.

A couple people called out their enthusiasm.

“My Gran used to make me sing that all the time,” Theo laughed beside me.

“Really?” I perked up at once, glancing between Darrell and Theo.

Darrell noticed me at once. “You got a singer for me, Diccon?”

“Don’t you dare,” Theo hissed beside me. His eyes lit up with expectation, though.

I couldn’t resist. “Theo knows that song.”

“Then come on up, Theo, and stretch those vocal cords,” Darrell called back.

Theo hunched down, and for a few seconds, I worried that drawing attention to him was a terrible idea. I didn’t want to force him into anything, particularly given how shy he was, and I actually did want him to keep speaking to me.

But Theo turned out to be a good sport about the whole thing. With a little more encouragement from the audience, he stood, cheeks flooding with red, shuffled past me, which gave me an up-close view of his backside for two seconds, then walked up to the tiny dais that served as a stage.

“I’m assuming with hair and eyes like yours, you know this one,” Darrell said with a wink.