Hot and Bothered(23)

                They finished up “Seven Nights” and started in on Delbert’s “Squeeze Me In,” and he couldn’t help himself, he gave her a look. Can you?

                Her gaze fled his, sought refuge anywhere it could get to. Then, as though she couldn’t completely govern herself, she turned to him again. She met his eyes, and then her gaze dropped. Haven Hoyt was looking at his mouth. Jesus. Her expression was telling him, Maybe so.

                No. He had to be making that up. No way this buffed-to-a-sheen, image-obsessed woman wanted him. He had proven that he could fluster her, but wanting was another thing entirely.

                And what the hell difference would it make if she did? There was no way he wanted to get himself tangled up with her.

                At the break between sets, she came over to him.

                “You’re amazing,” she said. She had to lean close in the chaos, and her breath brushed his ear and sent signals he did his best to ignore.

                He liked this way too much, her breath on his ear and her praise. He wanted to turn away so she wouldn’t have a chance of seeing how much it meant to him. “Thanks,” he said instead.

                “You’re crazy talented.” Her face was so close to his that his hair prickled on his scalp.

                He had to take a step back to keep himself sane. “Nah.” She was wrong about that. He’d never had a deep enough well of musical talent, only been in the right place at the right time. “I just, you know, mess around.”

                “Do you play here a lot?” She was shouting.

                He guided her, hand on her elbow, to a quieter corner of the room, where conversation, if not easy, was at least possible. “Whenever I can. And a few clubs in Queens and Brooklyn, too. There aren’t many blues jams left anymore.”

                “I get it now,” she said. “Why you hate the pop stuff. This is you, right? This comes from your soul.”

                He was startled by her words and by the rush of emotion and recognition he felt. He could only nod, and that felt inadequate.

                “You ever tour?”

                He laughed.

                “Not with Sliding Up. Like, with these guys?”

                She was wearing skinny jeans and knee-high boots, and he wanted to peel her like a banana. He had to force himself to stay in the conversation. “I don’t have my own band. I play jams. Just for fun.”

                “But why not? Why not a band? You’re good enough, Mark.”

                He shook his head. “I’m not. Just a dabbler. Besides, there’s no money in blues. You have to play five nights a week, and even then, you have to have a day job.”

                “You used to teach music lessons, didn’t you?”

                “Where’d you hear that?” It was just one of the unnerving aspects of this thing with her, that she knew so much about him and he knew so little about her.

                “I sniffed around,” she said. “Talked to some of your old students, actually. They all said you dumped them.”

                “I didn’t dump them.” He heard the defensive edge in his voice and tried to tone it down. “I decided to stop giving lessons.”

                “You didn’t like teaching?”