“Hi,” a deep voice said.
“—over.”
Not looking, Cait told herself. Nope. There wasn’t enough of her water left to douse her when she spontaneously combusted.
“Hi,” Teresa replied in an octave higher than normal. “Great set. Songs, I mean. Fabulous.”
“Thanks, that’s really cool of you. I think I’ve seen you before?”
“Oh, you know, I’m kind of into the music scene.”
News to me, Cait thought with a grin.
Another pause.
Shoot, she was going to have to make eye contact. It was either that or Teresa was going to kick her shin under the table like it was a football. God knew the woman had done that before—
Okay, wow. He was even better-looking up close.
“I’m G.B.,” he said, putting out his hand.
“Cait. Cait Douglass.”
As she shook what he offered, he smiled as if he liked the feel of the contact—and then he held on to her palm for a split second longer than was polite.
“Is that with a C or a K?” he asked.
“It’s C-A-I-T as in Caitlyn.”
“That is a beautiful name.”
Cait grimaced. “I’ve always hated it. Too girlie—
As she glared at Teresa, G.B. laughed. “I’m a Gordon Benjamin, so I know how that goes. G.B. is as close to my real name as I can stand to get. So, are you into music, too?”
“No.” She shot a don’t-you-dare at Teresa. “But I’m glad I was invited out tonight. You really are something.”
“Thanks, but the set felt rough on my end.”
He was cut off by the arrival of a trio of women, all of them crowding in and talking fast—saying pretty much what she and Teresa had, and wasn’t that embarrassing. As the din got louder and more fervent, Cait fully expected him to peace out and pay attention to his fans. Not how it went. Five minutes later, Gordon Benjamin, a.k.a. G.B. of the golden pipes and Fabio-without-the-cheese hair, had parked it at their table, ordered a chai latte, and was leaning back in his chair, apparently ready to stay the night.
“So what do you do for a living?” he asked Cait.
“I’m an artist. I teach at Union College and I illustrate children’s books.”
He nodded as his bowl-size mug arrived. “So you’re like me, making a living off your passion.”
“It must be hard to be in the music business. Things have changed so much, haven’t they? I mean, file sharing, piracy, all that.”
“Actually, that’s just the business side. Creatively? So much worse. The overuse of Auto-Tune, singers functioning as marketing concepts, everything so totally packaged.” He pushed his hair back, and she was momentarily distracted by how beautiful it was. “There are very few of us left who write our own material—and I’m not a twenty-year-old girl writing about famous boyfriends who treat me like crap. I want to convey truer emotions than puppy love gone bad, you know?”
“Teresa told me you write your own lyrics.” She nodded across the way to make sure her friend was included. “That song about eternal life was … inspirational.”
Like he was reading her mind, G.B. smiled at Teresa. “And that’s what everybody wants, right? The time we have here is so damned short—and we need to leave something behind.”
“So you’d be immortal if you could be, huh?” Cait said.
“In a heartbeat. Come on, life is great—I don’t want to lose all this. I don’t want to get old. I certainly don’t want to die.”
“With the way you sing,” Teresa cut in, “everybody’s better off with you on the planet.”
“Does that mean you’ll vote for me on
Teresa clapped her hands. “Hell, yeah! Are you trying out?”
“Maybe. Will you vote for me, too?” he asked Cait.
“I don’t watch that kind of TV, but if you’re on it? I’d be there every night.”
“You guys are the best.” He pushed that amazing hair back again, and Cait lingered on the way the stuff gleamed. “But I haven’t pursued that one yet. I don’t know … I hate to go that route. It feels like a copout in some ways, but the reality is—it’s time for me to break out on a national scale, and I need a platform. I mean, I do okay money-wise, like, singing backup for people on tour, and doing voice-over work down in Manhattan. And I’ve just gotten a part in the local production of
“Have you sent any tracks in to record companies?” Cait asked, like she knew anything about “tracks” or “record companies.”
“I have, but again, it’s hard to get noticed. That’s the only reason I’d do
“You would,” Teresa said.
“And you’d do well,” Cait echoed. Star quality, it was called. And he had it.
“Thanks. That really means a lot.” G.B.’s smile was so genuine, Cait found it hard to believe the three of them hadn’t been friends for years. “It’s not about the fame thing, by the way. I just … you know, I want to leave behind something important, something that lasts. And that’s not a bad thing, is it?”
Cait thought of recent events … and upcoming funerals. Shaking her head, she said grimly, “Not at all.”
“So how about you?”
“Me?”
“If you could be ageless, would you?”
She took a drink of her water and grimaced. The ice cubes had all melted and there was a tinny aftertaste now. “I don’t know. I suppose if everyone I loved could be along for the ride with me? Well, then the losses wouldn’t be that bad and I’d say yes—because the thing is, it’s not only you. What good is having forever if you just have to watch your friends and family die? That would be hell, not heaven.” She shrugged. “Personally, I think it’s better to just focus on the here and now. Immortality is not going to happen, so why not learn how to live the best life we can in this moment?”
When G.B. fell silent, she winced. “I sound like Oprah, right? I don’t mean to get preachy—”
“You are a deep thinker. And I like that—a lot.”
Flushing, Cait looked away. She didn’t know what to do with comments like that, and the fact that Teresa was with them made her feel even more awkward.
When another couple of women came by to chat with him, she checked her watch. As much as she was enjoying this—
“So, you look like you’re getting ready to head off.” As she glanced over, G.B. smiled at her—and wow, his dark eyes were pretty. Were they brown? Blue? “Do you have anyone waiting at home for you?”
Cait’s brows rose. He wasn’t suggesting that—
“She doesn’t even have a cat,” Teresa interjected. “Or a goldfish.”
“Oh?” G.B. smiled again. “So no one, huh.”
Cait started to feel truly antsy. “Well, I’m allergic to cats.”
“Me, too.” G.B. took a long drink of his tea and then resettled with the base of the mug balanced on his knee. “Is it okay for me to ask for your number?”
As G.B. waited for Cait as in C-A-I-T to respond, he was more than happy to pass the time looking over at her.
The blond hair was hella ’tractive, and that smooth skin—his hands just wanted to touch her again. That shake of theirs had been way too short, and he’d been racking his brain ever since to find another socially acceptable reason to make some sustainable contact. Not that this was Regency England, but come on—he didn’t want her to think he was a letch.
He really wanted to go out with her.
The second he’d gotten on the stage, he’d seen her in the crowd, sure as if she had been sitting under a
