Page 72 of Love Scenes

Meanwhile, Sarai of all people has taken to vamping now, leaning into her mic and asking the crowd how they’re doing. “You people excited to hear us perform now?” She has the measured confidence of a seasoned pro. “When I say ‘jam,’ you all say ‘band.’ Ready? Jam!”

The crowd echoes, “Band!”

“That’s right! I hear you! Jam!”

“Band!”

We’ve got them now, all the way in, desperate to discover if we’re going to sink or sail.

Once our band seems settled, the audience is so in tune with us that an understanding hush falls over the room.

Garrett counts us in.

Off we go into our first number, “Rock’n Me.”

The song literally starts with a drum roll, which Guy nails like he’s rehearsed it a thousand times before. Joe misses his entrance he’s so stunned. Guy repeats the intro again, unfazed. He has that perfect head-bobbing drummer swag to him, more at ease than everyone onstage combined, looking around at the rest of us likeCome on, guys, let’s play!

Joe doesn’t falter this time. Emmy sweeps in to back him up, the both of them gliding through the intricate opening while Garrett’s bass kicks in, thumping along as fast as my heart beats. When it comes time for Sarai’s tambourine, she’s so fully inside the music that her head sways back and forth as she shakes along to the beat.

Joe starts the first verse. His gruff tone has an intoxicating urgency to it. I leave my mic to share his, desperate to climb inside this moment with him. He turns his head to sing sideways,eyes on me as he rocks us all the way to the chorus, neck muscles pulling taut as he reaches into his upper register and growls out the high notes. I get up on my tiptoes to meet him at the mic, my lips inches from his.

The song ends with Joe and me harmonizing into a fade-out, softer and softer until there’s nothing left. All I want is to press myself against him and never let go.

He feels it too. Leaning closer. Inches turning to centimeters.

Then the crowd cuts the tension with their applause, snapping us back to an appropriate distance.

The next song, “Night Moves,” flies by in a heady daze, soft and sweet and so easy I’m able to wander the stage as we sing, sharing a mic with Sarai and Emmy and even Guy, who jumps on to the vocals the same way he jumped behind the drum set, eagerly and without fear.

By the time we reach our finale, there’s a gloss of sweat coating my skin and a pulsing all through my body. It’s so utterly alive, this feeling, deep enough to get lost inside. I can’t remember being nervous. Or scared. Any of it. There is only raw adrenaline coursing through my veins, making me certain I could lift cars.

Guy kicks in with the drums. His beat is as alive as the feeling inside me. I turn around to see Emmy has a wild, free-floating way about her, eyes squeezed shut and hips gently swaying. It’s the same look I’ve seen in the performances I’ve watched of her on YouTube, the comment section full of her fans assuring me that this is how she gets when she’s really feeling it. Sarai has it too, shimmering and twinkling, slamming that tambourine on her hip. Garrett’s looking at me, bobbing his head up and down in approval.

And Joe.

Joe is as I said he was.

Everything to me.

We sing together like we’ve always done this. Like we wrote this song for us. Like this is our favorite activity. Not the very thing that had the both of us pale faced and worrying ourselves near sickness.

Near the end I am so feverishly happy I start to cry, wrapping an arm around Joe, swaying the both of us side to side while we take it home. All the bad things, the strange moments over the past year that I once saw as tally marks of failure, come to me now as stepping-stones. Rocks I’ve had to climb over to get to here. To see this view.

It’s a great fucking view.

When we finish, Joe wraps me up in his arms, holding me tight enough to lift my feet off the ground, kissing my cheek over and over. Sarai piles onto the side of me, squeezing tight. Then Emmy and Garrett. Then Guy. He tries to be on the outside of our circle, and we have to reconfigure, because he is undoubtedly our hero.

We rearrange into a kick line, turning toward Guy with our hands pointing in his direction, encouraging the audience to cheer for him and him alone. Then we wrap our arms around each other’s backs and take a collective bow. The DJ plays the album version of “Listen to the Music” as an outro, and we dance our way offstage to it, the crowd still standing.

While the rest of the jam band goes to their seats, I pull Joe behind the stage. Out of the audience’s sight. I kiss him as hard as I ever have. Leg wrapped around him. Hands in his hair. I have never felt this desperate to be breathing someone else’s air.

“We are not at work,” I say, pulling back. “Do you know what that means?” I reach my hand into the pocket I had sewn into this dress—a stunning feature—and slip my room card into the frontof his pants. “I have a room upstairs. You’ll go up ahead of me. When I get there I’ll knock six times, so you know it’s me.”

“Sloane,” he hisses out, breathing heavy on my neck. “Are you sure?”

“If my parents weren’t ten feet away, I wouldn’t bother going to the room at all.” I can feel him straining. “It shouldn’t be long now. Just goodbyes, really.”

The event windsdown with countless hugs. Last-minute pledges and final bids on all the auction items. Early projections from my committee say this was our biggest year yet. Guests leave, and the remaining stragglers work their way out of the ballroom and into the open area outside. The step and repeat is gone now. It’s an expanse of hotel flooring again. A funny place for a drunk crowd of industry people in formalwear.