Page 108 of Hollywood

“Somebody sing!” an audience member called.

Tex opened his mouth, and god, I couldn’t make him keep up this train wreck.

I jumped into the middle of the song, picking up where he’d left off.

“…love me true,” I sang, the words so familiar, they flowed easily from me, nerves or not. “For, my darling, I love you.”

There was a smattering of applause and a few whistles of encouragement. I kept going, keeping my eyes fixed on Tex. The crowd was there—I couldn’t completely ignore that—but this wasn’t for them.

“Love Me Tender” was a love song that strummed a chord inside me. It put into words everything I wasn’t ready to say to Tex for fear of scaring him. But with the song, I could let all the emotion, all thelove, flow out of me.

As the song ended, applause broke out. The drag queen—I heard her call herself Cherry Topping—took the mic from me.

“Wow! That made my panties a little moist.”

There was a groan and more laughter.

“Hollywood lives up to his name, everybody! But let’s keep his boyfriend off the stage, am I right?”

Tex only laughed, eyes on me.

The queen had just announced Tex was my boyfriend toan entire crowd—and he hadn’t even flinched. This was real. This was happening.

I slipped my arms around his neck, hugging him tight. “Sorry,” I said into his ear. “You were right. This was great.”

He put his hand on my cheek, eyes full of promises for later. “Youare great.”

Damn, I wanted to kiss him so badly, but there were limits even to my comfort level with PDA. I grabbed his wrist and dragged him toward the stairs. “Bathroom. Now.”

He followed me, a bemused expression on his face. Once we were inside, I shoved him into a stall, grabbed his face, and kissed him with all the pent-up emotion the song had unleashed.

He kissed me back, hands going to my ass. “You were incredible.”

“I can’t believe you went up there for me.”

“It was my bad to sign you up. I didn’t mean to push you.”

I drew back. “Maybe I needed a push.”

His eyes fixed on mine. “Maybe I did too.”

Then we were kissing again, hands everywhere. My heart swelled until I wasn’t sure it’d fit in my chest. I loved him. God, there was no coming back from how much I needed him.

The bathroom door opened, laughter trailing in with a couple of guys. We broke apart, breathing hard.

“To be continued?” Tex murmured.

“It better be,” I agreed.

We waited until the bathroom emptied again to slip out of the stall and straighten our clothes.

“Let’s go have that drink,” Tex said. “Then we can head out.”

“Not until I sing at least one more song,” I said, emboldened. Now that Tex had pushed me out of my comfort zone, Iwanted to get back out there. If he could be step into the light, so could I.

He sent me a hot look. “Just don’t expect me to restrain myself when we get home.”

I imagined him taking me up against the front door or maybe bent over the edge of the sofa.