Will was here. There. Walking across the stage to the judges' table, waving to the crowd, smiling his killer Billy Brenton smile for the crowd.
"I'm fine," Lindsey said before Kimmie could ask.
She wasn't fine. She was missing something, but she didn't know if it was something she'd ever been meant to have.
She simply knew that after Will, she would never be the same.
She hated herself for walking away-for running away from him, but she'd had to. Even while embracing who she was, she was still a mess. And he-he deserved a good match.
Not chaos. Not uncertainty. Not fear.
A good match.
Fearlessness would suit you, Sacha had said.
Lindsey shivered.
Will took a seat next to the news lady. The flashy blonde was a terrible match for him. A thunderstorm after a tsunami.
The lights dimmed, and Lindsey turned her attention to the stage, where a spotlight lit Marilyn stalking to the microphone. She introduced the emcees, who introduced the first performer, and the battle began.
Lindsey hadn't been to a Battle of the Boyfriends in years. Some of the performers were pretty great. And some of the matches were great too. Lindsey saw awkward where others wouldn't have-when the third performer brushed past the second performer's girlfriend, Lindsey realized who the better match would've been, but she'd take care of that later.
But then a guy brought a guitar onstage instead of using the karaoke music, and she braced herself.
She looked at the judges' table. Will leaned his cheek on his palm, his attention focused on the stage. His free hand picked at the middle button on his omnipresent plaid overshirt, and her heart panged again.
He was still reaching for Vera.
Mrs. Hart leaned into him, and he turned to her with a smile and replied. Lindsey suppressed an eye roll. He was a drought with the older lady. Not that she'd go after Billy Brenton-she and Mr. Hart were well-matched and old enough to be his parents-but Lindsey still looked.
An hour into the show, there had been one surprised girl-she'd gone running up the aisle to hug her new boyfriend, a twenty-something bank teller, and Lindsey had felt a spring rain shower.
Her heart had let out a sob.
So had the smileys on her panties.
She and Will had been a spring rain shower, once upon a time.
Four performances later, Mikey walked onto the stage.
And he was carrying a guitar.
Lindsey suppressed a shiver and swallowed the rock in her throat. Her eyes stung.
This wasn't getting easier.
She missed Will. She missed him sitting in her sunroom. She missed his smile over the dining room table. She missed his teasing, she missed his pushing her, she missed his loving her.
And now his best friend was here, a guy no one expected to ever settle down, to sing a love song to a girl who was a good match for him.
Why couldn't Will have been Lindsey's match?
Had she felt everything because she wasn't supposed to use her sixth sense when it came to her own relationships? Had she felt everything because she was so afraid she would mess up, even if they were a good match, that she'd mixed the bad signs in with the good? Or had she felt everything because she wanted him so badly, she willed the good into being there along with the bad?
Mikey settled onto a stool onstage and adjusted the microphone. "Evenin', y'all," he said. "I'm new here to Bliss, and it's been a crazy month, but coming here is the best decision I ever made in my life. Dahlia, sweet pea, I love you."
"You did good with that one," Kimmie whispered.
"I didn't do anything with that one."
"You do more than you know, Lindsey."
Lindsey didn't answer, but she did reach over and squeeze Kimmie's hand.
Mikey's fingers hit the guitar strings, and the sound took Lindsey back to her sunroom, to a day not all that long ago when she'd come home to find Mikey visiting Will, the two of them working on a song together. Joking, playing, starting and stopping.
Tears blurred her vision.
He'd been happy that day. Will had been happy. She had too. Then Dahlia had arrived with ice cream, and they'd all been happy together.
Mikey leaned into the top microphone and sang. His voice was shaky, not as deep as Will's, not as right as Will's. But that cocky smile he flashed to the audience said he knew he wasn't a singing sensation, and he didn't care, because he had his own talents, and he had his girl.
Lindsey didn't hear the words. She didn't want to hear the words. She wanted to bolt.
To leave the theater, to leave the Civic Center, to leave Bliss.
To go somewhere and cry like she hadn't let herself cry since Mom died.
But she'd survived losing Mom. She would survive losing Will.
"He's really pretty bad," Kimmie whispered.
Lindsey choked on a laugh-sob. He was. But he was out there, unafraid of being bad, unafraid of being mocked, unafraid of failing.
And what did he have to fear?
Dahlia adored him. Lindsey doubted there was a single person in the theater who couldn't see it.
Mid-song, Mikey slapped his hand over the guitar strings, plunging the room into silence.
"Enough of that," he said. He stood, put the guitar on the stool, and then reached into his pocket and went to one knee.
The crowd gasped. And that was before the room erupted in rainbows from the light filtering through the massive rock he held out for all to see. "Dahlia Mallard," Mikey said, loud and clear and booming without the assistance of the microphone, "will you marry me?"
Cheers erupted. Clapping, laughter, and joy echoed throughout the theater. Whistles rang out. Dahlia jumped onto the stage, leapt into Mikey's arms, and shrieked, "Yes!" loud enough for her voice to carry all the way to Willow Glen.
Will was on his feet, clapping and smiling with the rest of the judges, but it wasn't his Will smile. It was his Billy smile.
He should've had his Will smile for his best friend. He should've been able to be himself here in Bliss.
Was that Lindsey's fault? If she'd been brave-if she'd been fearless, like Mikey, unafraid of what everyone would think of her, unafraid of being judged-would Will be happier?
"And we're gonna disqualify ourselves from winning so ol' Billy here doesn't have a conflict of conscience in his judging," Mikey said into the microphone. "I got my girl. Don't need a trophy."
The crowd laughed and cheered more. On their way off the stage, Mikey and Dahlia stopped at the judges' table. Will reached over gave Mikey a man-hug, then kissed Dahlia on the cheek.
A sandstorm. Dahlia would've been a terrible match for-
Lindsey straightened.
Will had bad matches.
Will had bad matches.
Her heart shot into her throat. She fisted her hands to stop the shaking in her fingers, but the quaking spread up her arms.
She could see Will's bad matches. If she could see his bad matches, then she could honestly see his good matches too.
Because she'd let herself use her gift for good?
Or because she'd let him go? Because she had nothing left to lose by reading his matches anymore?
As if he'd heard her thoughts, he twisted and looked up.
Right at her.
Their gazes locked. And held.
Lindsey didn't move. She didn't blink, didn't breathe, didn't twitch a single muscle. Will sat there, those soulful, injured brown eyes boring into hers for the eternity of half a second.
And Lindsey smelled roses. Roses and daisies and sunflowers. She felt sunshine, a warm spring breeze, dewy morning grass under a brilliant blue sky.
No thunderstorms. No hail. No locust plagues.
Just goodness.
We're right for each other, and you know it, he seemed to say.
Will's eyes dropped. He faced the stage again where the final contestant approached the microphone.
In ten minutes, Will Truitt would walk out of Bliss forever.
Brave.
Could Lindsey be brave? Was she supposed to be brave?
Fearless.
She wouldn't get another chance. Billy Brenton was untouchable. And Will had taken the hint and quit calling after Tuesday.
Unafraid.
She could very well make a fool of herself if she tried to stop him tonight.
Or maybe she could fully step into the shoes of the woman she was always meant to be.
Lindsey stood so fast she tipped her chair over. "I have to go," she said to Kimmie.
"But-"
"If I don't come back, follow your heart. Don't let your mother boss you around, and don't settle for any man who doesn't worship you like the fabulous, unique, perfect woman that you are. Do you understand me?"
Kimmie gawked at her.
Lindsey didn't wait for an answer. Instead, she bolted out of the box.
She had something she had to do.
Chapter Twenty-Two
WILL COULDN'T sit still. His knee wobbled, his toes tapped, his fingers drummed. He didn't even hear this last performer.
That look on Lindsey's face after Mikey's performance-she saw something.
She saw something, and he didn't know what. But the way those chocolate brown eyes had widened, the way those kissable lips of hers had parted, the way her gaze had bored into him-through him-had stood all his hairs on end.
She said he deserved better. But what about her? Who would stand beside her and believe in her?
She'd disappeared from her seat, and he'd made up his mind.