Page 30 of Just the Wrong Twin
“Don’t sell yourself short. Take a chance.” He gestured to the otherwise-empty apartment. “And if we suck, who’s going to know? I won’t tell.”
There was that.
Sonia sang along, her voice steadily getting stronger, until they sang the final chorus together triumphantly. Nate held the closing note so long that Sonia applauded him and he took a bow. Someone’s cat howled in the distance and Nate laughed.
“See?” he said, turning off the music. “You’re a natural.”
“You’re even better.”
“I should be.”
“Okay, so now it goes in the oven for half an hour.” Sonia was checking the directions.
Nate flicked a look at the darkness pressing against the windows. Even though he didn’t say anything, Sonia knew what he was thinking about his drive. She was going to miss his company when he left, and not just because she’d been home alone for months, but didn’t want to think about that yet.
She started to wash the greens for the salad. “Why was your band called the Manic Eclectics?”
“Because we had such a mixed list.” Nate leaned against the counter beside her. “We didn’t choose songs by theme or anything predictable like that—we figured out which keys were best for each of us, and learned all the songs we could in that key. That made it eclectic.”
“I don’t know a lot about music. You have to explain.”
“Okay,Angel Eyesis in C major.Rhiannon, too. My best key. Since I was lead singer, we did a lot of songs in C major.”
“Did you play an instrument?”
“Nope, just sang.” He lifted his right arm. “Good thing I wasn’t dependent upon playing the guitar to earn a living.”
It was surprisingly easy to picture Nate, young and confident, as the lead singer in a rock band. His hair would have been longer and he would have had more attitude. He would have been leaner, too, hungrier looking—perfect for a local rock star and heart-throb. Sonia wondered how many girls had tossed their panties at him. She’d guess a lot. She admired that he didn’t feel sorry for himself or bemoan what he’d lost—he just made his peace with the change in his life and moved forward.
“What other songs?” she asked.
“Now you want a playlist,” he teased with a shake of his head. “Hotel California. Losing My Religion. When Doves Cry. Can’t Buy Me Love.A lot of Beatles’ songs, actually.Lovesong. Mustang Sally. Material Girl. I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues.Quite a few Elton John songs, too.Heavenby Bryan Adams.Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. INXS’sDevil Inside. I like that one.”
“You?” Sonia asked, laughing. “I don’t believe it.”
Nate gave her a wolfish smile that made her wonder if she was wrong. “That’s because you don’t know about my wasted youth.” He sounded like he was making a joke, but Sonia wasn’t sure—and he continued before she could ask. “You’re My Best Friend.I never had Freddie Mercury’s range, but I nail that one. I used to…” He fell silent suddenly, his lips pulling to a taut line.
Sonia guessed that a memory had taken him by surprise. She knew how that went. “That’s eclectic all right.”
“We’d just start out with a bang then slow it down for a bit, and build to a crescendo for the big finish. Our set was about an hour. It was a lot of fun.”
“But you never thought of making a career of it?”
Nate laughed at the very idea and she liked how his eyes danced. “We weren’tthatgood, but we got lucky a lot more with the band than without it. That, I’m sorry to say, was the entire justification for its existence.”
“You’re not sorry at all.”
His eyes glimmered all hazel and gold, making him look like pure trouble “Not one bit.”
Sonia tried to get her heart to stop fluttering. “So, when you didn’t need to get lucky you got rid of the band?”
“Hardly. Some of the guys got married.”
“What happened to them?”
“Day jobs. Dustin is a cable repair guy with three kids in New Jersey. Ricky was the brains of the operation. He’s a college prof in California. Married, two kids.” He raised his brows. “I think he’s Richard now but we call him Dr. Rick. Yvan designs role-playing games. Married, no kids. I enlisted so I was gone for a few years.”
Sonia couldn’t help noticing that Nate was the only one not married. Was that important? “Do you think it’s sad that you all went your separate ways? You must have been close for a while.”
