Curves & Alphas: A Paranormal Box Set: (BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (4 page)

“Yep, he’s hot,” Chloe exclaimed, a little too much the school girl for my taste at the moment.

No idea why it bothered me. It never had before, but I wasn’t in my right mind. In my defense, this guy on the stage strumming and singing hadn’t helped my plight at all. He sat there too cute to not be dead serious about it.

“But,” she continued, “I’m actually partial to the guy playing guitar beside him. I’m tending toward blond hair rather than dark, you know?”

“I know,” both Sarah and I said in unison, our exasperation not only in sync, but in tune.

“Fine,” Chloe huffed as if truly offended. “I won’t go on and on about how cute he is, or how blue those eyes are. When he turned around though, did you get a good look at that ass?”

“No, we didn’t, but at least you are not going on and on about him,” Sarah teased before I had the chance to do so.

“I have to say I’m impressed with the lead,” I added, trying to keep the dreamy out of my voice.

“Me too,” Sarah said, her voice sultry like I could never make mine be.

I couldn’t flirt. Didn’t know how and didn’t have the soft, deep voice for it. My voice, while not bad, held a much higher pitch. Even sick, I just sounded sick, not sexy. While those who cared about me had always said I had a pretty face and gorgeous hair, we all knew that was just gentle-speak for the healthy hair and skin of the big-boned girl with ample curves.

If nothing else, my mother before she’d died, and my doting yet semi-drunk father, had instilled in me a healthy amount of self-confidence. While I didn’t date, it had more to do with my nervousness around new people, or at least so I told myself. In truth, I couldn’t bear the thought of loving someone and being left alone again. My weight, on the other hand... I carried it well. I held my head high. Most of the time. I wouldn’t let anyone see a chink in my armor, regardless of the truth, even when they did exist. Tonight served as perfect proof of that.

I could never get a guy like the one on the stage to look at me twice, even if I wanted him to. Let’s be real here. Surely, too cute for his own good with a sexy enough to die for voice would have his sights on some perky blond in a low cut something or other. So, it was fine that Sarah liked him. No towing the line of girl code. If she could get him, she could have him. I’d put him in my dreams, try to snuff out the nightmares that had plagued me of late.

If only I had the guts, I would speak to him, though. He was just my type, one I hadn’t even defined completely until this moment. Besides those looks, his music had such a depth about it. Just a few songs in, and I already had a list of subjects I’d like to discuss with him. Love and loss would be the first of them. The heart-wrenching love song he’d first belted out had used turns of phrase that I’d never thought of. They put the whole grief thing into a new perspective for me.

Brains and a good heart made a man even cuter. Damn him for having it all. The muscles in his arms flexed as he strummed the guitar. He played like a devil. I could see the sheen of it on his skin, giving his tan a bronze glow. The way he hit the chords, made the guitar scream in perfect tone, vibrated through me. Each abrupt change of chords, his fingers deftly adjusting to each in seconds, quickened not only the beat of the song, but my heart as well.

I couldn’t shake the nagging sensation that I knew him from somewhere.  Ridiculous. I wished. I’d have remembered that face, that body. I knew I’d never forget it now. I trusted my instincts, the majority of the time, but my knowing him fit in the preposterous category. No one could forget his voice either.

By the third song, my drink gone and replaced with another, I started to comprehend the words to his songs a little more easily. I was in the zone, focused on each syllable and the words of wisdom they contained, no matter how trivial. I had to know if he’d written such strings of words himself. Not only did he play like he’d been born with a guitar in his hands, but his words, the profound understanding of life he had, awakened my eyes to things I’d never contemplated before. He had to be wise beyond his years if he were indeed the composer. He would have to be centuries old, I thought, to have that kind of talent and understanding of life combined.

Sarah’s giggle, high pitched like a woman on the make, interrupted my musings. She flirted with a guy I hadn’t even realized had approached our table. Chloe rolled her eyes at me, and then moved right to wide-eyed. Combined with the slight tilt of her head, I knew she was asking me if I were alright again. I nodded with a smile, one not forced or fake this time, and looked back at the stage. I made an honest attempt to not to be irritated by the conversation going on beside me. Instead, I paid more attention, if possible, to the guy singing on stage.

In between songs, he’d take a sip of the beer a waiter had placed beside him, and then move right on to the next song. Luckily, by then, Sarah had taken off with the guy who’d approached her, and moved to another table. At least she was out of the imaginary running for this guy’s affections that I had going in my head. An odd sense of relief filled me.

For the first time all week, my body hung lose and my breathing stabilized, even if my heart still did double time.  It wasn’t until Chloe asked me what was wrong that I realized my mouth had fallen into a frown after the band had stopped playing.

“Nothing, why do you ask?” I pretended to have no idea what she was going on about.

“You’re frowning, scowling even,” she accused with a coy smile on her own face. 

“Oh, hadn’t realized. Guess I was just really enjoying the music. The songs are amazing, the depth of meaning, the deep male voices,” I mused.

“Not to mention the sexy lead singer,” she teased.

“Well, there is that, but ugly as a dog, he would be an amazing singer,” I countered.

“Sure. Sure,” she giggled. “The looks help, though, right?”

“Of course,” I agreed, rolling my own eyes in an exaggerated fashion. “I wonder if he wrote those songs too?”

“I’ve no idea. He was looking at you as he played,” she stated, looking at her nails to feign indifference before letting her smile take over her face.

“Yeah, right?” I grunted.

I’d thought the same a few times, that our eyes had met, but assumed I’d just been imagining things in my sudden, passionate fixation with the man. Surely he hadn’t been looking at me. As proof, I scanned the room to count all the women I thought more his type, ones that would gather his attention before I would. Not that I found myself unattractive or boring, but in my experience, the other girls, the skinnier and more flamboyant ones, always went home with the guys. I didn’t factor in my shyness, but deep down, I knew a few times I’d been the cause of myself going home alone.

In my musing, I hadn’t noticed the lead singer walk my way. So, I gasped when he said hello.

“Sorry, you startled me,” I stammered as my face burned crimson. “Ah, hi.”

“We thought you played amazingly,” Chloe intervened, on my behalf obviously, as she’d used my word.

“Thank you,” he nodded her way before turning his attention back to me. “She said we. You feel the same then?”

“Of course,” was the most articulate thing I could come up with.

“Good, because a few times I lost track of where I was in the middle of a song, and hoped I’d picked back up in the right place without anyone noticing,” he admitted.

“I never noticed,” I assured him.

“Oh good, because it was your fault.”

“Mine?” I asked, still trying to process the words. “How could I have had anything to do with it?”

“You’re beautiful,” he stated in a low, gravelly voice, one so smooth he could have still been considered to be singing.

I cocked my head, felt my brows furrow in response. My mouth tightened into a flat line that prevented speech.

“It’s not a line. Honestly,” he practically whispered as he leaned in closer to me. “You are beautiful. To distraction in fact. I spotted you out here during one of my first sets, and I could barely focus. Good thing I’ve sung these songs a thousand times. Obviously, I could do it in my sleep, or when I’m distracted. Highly.”

“I…I don’t know what to say,” I stammered again, consciously forcing my face to relax.

“Say I can buy you a drink,” he offered. “My name is Lex, by the way. What’s yours?”

“Christina.”

“A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”

I simply gave him a brief nod of acknowledgment that he’d spoken. Speechless, his words had struck me mute by the way he’d hit on me, like I’d watched men do to Chloe and other women I’d been out with.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to embarrass you,” he said. “Can I get you a drink?”

“I’d love that,” I spoke hesitantly.

Even as honest as he seemed, as genuine as his voice sounded, in my limited experience, I had trouble buying into all he said. The words, so foreign to my ears, or at least being directed at me, caused a suspension of disbelief. Besides, everything he had said would have been some hokey line had I not wanted to believe him so desperately.

“What were you drinking?”

“Cosmo.”

“Same for you?” He inquired of Chloe.

“Yep,” she smiled.

I envied her ease.

When he moved into the crowd of people milling around now that the band was on a break, she winked at me.

“What just happened here?” I asked.

“I think the sexy lead singer guy you’ve been staring at all night likes you back,” she stated as if I were a fool.

“Really? Could a guy like that possibly think I’m beautiful?”

“Why wouldn’t he?” She asked, a hint of anger deepening her voice.

I shrugged.

“You need to read more romances, girl! Listen, Christina, I don’t know what’s up with you, but let that guy be the solution. Suck up the moment. Don’t overanalyze it. And, if presented the chance, have a one night stand!” She exclaimed. “When he comes back, I’ll thank him for my drink and make up an excuse about going to find Sarah.”

“You’re going to leave me alone with him?”

“Absolutely! This time, you are not avoiding your chance at a relationship,” she grumbled.

“What chances?”

“Exactly,” she huffed. “You don’t give any guy a chance to get close. You are beautiful. Let him think so!”

“Okay,” I grumbled back. I swallowed hard and put a hand on my stomach. I needed to settle the hoard of butterflies that had gone to war in there. Tonight, with this guy, more than ever, I wanted to let go, to just see what would happen. If I could manage that would be the true question.

When he came back and sat down, gorgeous smile lighting up his eyes and all, Chloe did as she’d said and made a quick exit from the table.

“Look, I only have ten minutes left to my break, but I’m hoping that you will stick around till my last set is over. I’d love to get a chance to really talk to you,” he spoke with his beer bottle raised.

When he’d finished, looking at me over his bottle as he took a long drink, he waited for me to answer. Surprisingly relaxed, I found my voice easily.

“I’d love to. Do you write your own songs?” My steady voice in this guy’s presence sounded foreign to me, but the sound calmed the butterflies down to a mere rumble.

“Mostly. The guys co-write on some, but I write the majority of them. Why?”

“The wisdom in them, well, it touched me, made me think. I like that, when a song or a book can give me pause to really think about life. Maybe I was a philosopher in a past life or something,” I shrugged. The flowing words calmed my breathing even as looking into his eyes increased my heart rate.