by Regina Kyle
Alyssa releases him and I hear her whisper, “You got this,” before she hands him the mic and gives him a gentle push in my direction. Up close, I realize for the first time how nervous he is. His smile is shaky, his cheeks pale, and there’s a line of sweat at his brow.
“Hey,” he says. The quiet greeting is only for me, not the audience, seeing as the mic is down at his side.
“Hey.” I smile back, I hope reassuringly.
He raises the mic to his lips. Time seems to stop, and my heart along with it. He’s not the only one who’s nervous. I’m as jumpy as a chorus girl at her Broadway debut. But it’s not because I’m worried about what he’s going to say. It’s because I think—I hope—I know what’s about to happen.
David shuffles his feet. “So, I, uh, suppose you’re wondering what we’re doing up here.”
“You could say that.”
The audience, and the cast behind me, titters. David reaches out with his free hand and takes one of mine. “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, you walked into mine a little over a year ago and upended my life. But if I’m honest, you’ve been doing that since the first time I saw you back at the conservatory. Because that was when I knew you were going to own my heart.”
He goes to one knee, and there’s an audible, collective gasp from the crowd.
“I loved you then, I love you now, I’ll love you always. And that’s how long I want us to be together. Always.”
He gives some sort of signal to Alyssa, who relays it to the cast behind her. In unison, they raise signs spelling out Will You Marry Me?
My brain’s buzzing, all the pieces falling into place. So that’s what she and David have been up to. And this is what being proposed to feels like. It’s a confusing combination of out-of-my-mind overjoyed mixed with a bit of shock/terror. But mostly I feel wanted. Completely, profoundly, beautifully wanted.
He drops my hand. For a moment I’m confused, the loss of physical contact almost painful, until I realize he’s pulled a ring out of his pocket. The shiny silver band gleams up at me between his outstretched fingers. “Marry me, Chris, and stay with me forever.”
My gaze flits to Alyssa, the cast with their signs, the audience, on the edges of their seats, then finally back to David, who is staring up at me expectantly. “You did all this?”
He nods.
“Why?”
“I thought I made that pretty clear.” He holds the ring up a little higher. “I’m proposing.”
“I know that. I’m just surprised you’d do it here. In front of all these people. You hate grand romantic gestures. Especially public ones.”
“Yeah.” His eyes find mine, the heat in them so intense it almost sucks the air out of me. “But you love it.”
He’s right. I do. “True. But there’s something I love more.”
“There is?”
“Yeah.” My heart’s pounding so loud I’m pretty sure they can hear it all the way in the back row of the balcony. “You.”
“Does that mean you’ll marry me?” he asks, his voice bordering on desperate. “I’m dying down here.”
The words won’t come, emotion clogging them in my throat, so now it’s my turn to nod.
“Is that a yes?” someone from the audience calls out. “Raise the mic. We can’t hear you.”
David slips the ring on my finger and stands, bringing the mic back to his mouth. When he speaks, it’s to the audience, but his eyes don’t leave mine. “It’s a yes.”
“Then kiss him, dammit,” someone else yells. The crowd picks it up and starts a chant.
“Kiss him, kiss him, kiss him . . .”
I can’t help myself. I need to touch him. I reach out and brush a stray lock of his perpetually disheveled hair off his cheek. “Our public has spoken.”
He shrugs and smiles. “Then I guess there’s only one thing we can do.”
“What’s that?”
“Give them what they want.”
He hands the microphone to Alyssa, loops an arm around my neck, and pulls me to him. Our lips meet, and everyone around us—cast, crew, audience—erupts in cheers and applause.
Later, at the bar around the corner where the cast likes to congregate after the show, we’ll probably swap stories about tonight. Alyssa will say how surprised she’d been when David reached out to her for help, and how hard it had been to keep her mouth shut and not spoil the surprise. David will insist that for a long minute there, he was afraid he’d made a huge mistake and I was going to say no. I’ll tell him he was an idiot for thinking I’d ever let him go, then kiss him for all I’m worth to make sure he’s convinced.
But for now, the whoops and hollers of the crowd around us fade to black and it’s just him and me. The way it always should have been.
The way it always would be.
Acknowledgments
Thank you for reading Play It Again. I hope you enjoyed it and would consider leaving a review.
If you read the dedication, you’ll know that David and Chris are based on my real-life friends and neighbors of this same names. This novella is a fictionalized version of their storybook romance. Yes, I took some liberties, but there’s a lot of true stuff in there, too. They really did meet as students at a college conservatory; David is a fabulous pianist (you should see his one-man Liberace show); Chris is a former professional ballet dancer who now teaches dance to kids (and yes, his nickname is Beak); David was out in college and Chris wasn’t; and they met again years later, after Chris’s divorce, rekindled their relationship, and eventually married. They are truly two of my favorite people in the world, and I can’t thank them enough for allowing me to make them secondary characters in The Billionaire In Her Bed and now the heroes of Play It Again.
Thanks also to my fab editor, Jane Haertel, who really helped make this thing shine; to Tessa Bailey and Alexa Riley for giving me the opportunity to write this fun, sexy story for the Read Me Romance podcast; to David Panak for being my beta/sensitivity reader; to my writing tribe, the MTBs, for doing their best at the nearly impossible task of keeping me sane; and, as always, to my ever supportive husband and daughter.
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More Books By Regina Kyle
If you liked this book, you may want to try:
Worthington Sisters Series
The Billionaire In Her Bed
A Nanny For The Reclusive Billionaire
The Art Of Seduction Series
Triple Threat
Triple Time
Triple Dare
Triple Score
Harlequin Dare
Dirty Work
Ashland Falls Novellas
Summer Stock
Sugar Plum Seduction
ive.
