Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters Collection (163 page)

Now his nerves and Em’s costume were both on the backburner. He’d be seeing Haley. Tonight. That thought made him
much
happier than it should have.

CHAPTER EIGHT

HALEY STEPPED THROUGH the double doors of the auditorium and looked up at the stage where she’d played the lead in
Alice in Wonderland
in third grade, Sandy in
Grease
in fourth grade, and finally, her crowning achievement at Harper’s Crossing Elementary was her fifth grade performance as Kim McAfee in
Bye Bye Birdie
.

Those were good times. She had loved being other people for a few hours. Actually, she’d loved everything about those performances. Learning the lines. Rehearsals. Wardrobe.

Since her days at the elementary school, a lot of renovations had been made to her old stomping grounds, including new padded chairs instead of the old wooden ones, new carpeting, new curtains, and of course, fresh paint. But somehow, even though to the naked eye the space was drastically different, it felt, it smelled, it seemed, exactly the same to Haley.

Scanning the nearly filled assembly hall, she realized that changing eight times in preparation for this evening had not only been overkill, it had probably cost her a good seat for the show. After all of her changes, she’d ended up going with a salmon-colored lace dress from Amber’s new vintage collection and camel-colored sandals with turquoise beading on the straps. Ultimately, this dress had made the cut because it had a peek-a-boo back and hit her just above the knee, accentuating her toned calves.

She felt bad that her indecision had made her run late. But after this morning, when she’d almost spontaneously combusted from the heat that Eddie was putting off from across the street, she couldn’t really blame herself. Haley had spent a good portion of the day reliving that moment.

It had been magical. It had been powerful. It had been unbelievable.

Her working theory for the occurrence was that, from his point of view, she’d been standing half naked and in a towel. Most guys would probably react to that. From her perspective, she’d been having serious Eddie withdrawals since their talk last Saturday. This week it had gotten increasingly worse with each day that had passed and she still hadn’t seen even a glimpse of him. Which was really out of the norm. Since she’d moved into the house across the street from him, it had been rare for her to go two days in a row without at least an Eddie sighting. But all week, nothing. Until this morning.

The force of the silent encounter had been so strong it had actually made her knees weak. She’d never experienced that before. She’d heard people talk about it, sing songs about it, write about it, but she had always thought of it in the abstract. However, there’d been nothing abstract about this morning.

Nope.

Moving down the side aisle in search of the closest seat she could score, she waved and said ‘hi’ to her cousins and their wives, who were scattered throughout the audience. Alex and his wife Jamie had good seats. Front row. Which made sense because their son Joey was probably also in the performance. Craning her neck, she tried to see if there were any open seats beside them.

“Hales.”

The sexy baritone voice sounded beside her and Haley jumped, sucking in a startled breath. When she looked up, Eddie was hovering over her, a small grin on his face. She pushed his chest playfully as she tried to regulate her breathing.

“You scared me! Stop sneaking up on me.”

“I wasn’t trying to be stealth,” Eddie explained, his amusement at rattling her obvious in his tone. “Emily asked me to come find you.”

“Is she okay?” Haley asked, concern flooding her. Since landing the role of Annie a month ago, Emily had been nothing but excited to play it, but Haley knew that jitters and nerves could pop up before show time.

“She’s fine. She just wants to see you before the show.” Eddie turned to the side to let Haley pass so she could make her way backstage. As she walked past, her shoulder and arm brushed against his solid form. She could feel the heat of his body beneath his navy blue button up shirt.

Ignore it
, she told herself. She was doing a pretty good job of shaking it off until she felt his large hand settle on her lower back as he guided them both towards the door that led to the backstage area.

How in the world could such an innocent gesture feel so intimate, sexual, and safe at the same time? The weight of his palm against her back, the feeling of his large fingers spread out almost to her hip, made Haley not only feel protected, but it also sent shockwaves of arousal spreading through her.

Stepping through the door, she heard Emily calling her name but she couldn’t find her girl. There was a sea of kids, parents, and teachers. Eddie easily navigated them both through the crowd to his daughter.

Haley’s hands flew to her mouth when she saw her. Emily wore a red curly wig, the trademark red dress with white collar and belt, white ankle socks, and black Mary Jane shoes. Emily
was
Annie.

“You look amazing!” Haley exclaimed.

A huge smile spread across Emily’s face as she glowed with excitement.

“Five minutes ‘til curtain,” Mrs. Simon, the vice principal, announced loudly. “Parents, if you could please go take your seats.”

Haley bent down and gave Em a quick hug. “You are going to be amazing!”

“I know,” Emily replied hugging her back, her confidence shining through.

“Break a leg, squirt.” Eddie leaned down and kissed his daughter on the top of her red, curly-wigged head.

Emily’s eyes widened in horror. “You want me to break my leg?”

Haley and Eddie looked at each other and burst out laughing. But as soon as Haley looked back down at Em and saw the confusion on her face, she quickly composed herself and explained, “It’s just something that people say to performers. It means good luck.”

Emily did not look like she was buying what Haley was selling. “Then why don’t they just say good luck?”

Haley smiled, looking back and forth between Eddie and Emily. “I have no idea. We’ll Google it.”

“Okay,” Emily readily agreed.

Mrs. Simon was busily ushering all the parents out, and Eddie and Haley made their way out of the room that felt like it was packed with sardines. As he again rested his hand on her lower back, she was filled with how perfect and right it felt.

Haley quickly reminded herself that she shouldn’t get used to that. She wasn’t sure where it had come from, but she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. It might not ever happen again, so she was just going to enjoy it.

As they all filed out of the doorway, everyone started scurrying to their seats. Haley resigned herself to the fact that she would be in the nosebleed section. No way was there going to be any prime real estate just minutes before the curtain went up.

She began heading up the aisle when Eddie’s fingers tightened. His firm grip caused a pull deep in her belly. She looked up at him and he tilted his head toward the front row.

“I saved our seats when I got here.”

“Oh.” She nodded and moved towards the seats that were a couple down from Alex and Jamie, who both smiled at her, Jamie waving hello. Haley lifted her hand in greeting as she took her seat. She was doing her absolute best to act completely cool, calm, and collected. But the fact that he’d saved ���
our
’ seats made her want to do the happy dance. In fact, inside she was doing the Moonwalk, Electric Slide, Cabbage Patch, Roger Rabbit, and Pony. Outside, she hoped she looked totally unaffected by his announcement.

As Eddie took his seat, his large legs took up much more room than the small seats were built for. His thigh and knee brushed hers. It wasn’t skin-to-skin contact since he was wearing linen trousers, but it still felt…amazing.

And that wasn’t the only place their bodies touched. They were both using their shared arm rest. Haley always loved being around Eddie this close, but touching? That was almost too much. Heated tingles spread from all the places they touched to her entire body.

Oh my
.

Now she had to add her reaction to this close contact to the list of things she was hoping didn’t read like a billboard. Which was especially difficult. She’d always envied people like Amber, Eddie, and her cousins Seth and Riley who could mask their feelings under unreadable, expressionless faces. She
never
had such a gift.

She felt her toes wiggling in her sandals and immediately stilled them. Damn, Eddie had been right. She did wiggle her toes when she was nervous. As she pondered what other ticks or quirks she might have that she was blissfully unaware of, Eddie leaned closer to her.

“You don’t have to be nervous for her. She’s gonna do great,” he said with a soothing tone that washed over Haley like a cool breeze.

“I’m not. I know she’s going to be amazing,” Haley assured him. She might be nervous but it was not for Em. She was excited for her girl.

How had Eddie known she was nervous anyways? She couldn’t have been wiggling her toes for that long. What was he a super sleuth or something?

As if reading her mind, he whispered, “You also bite the inside of your mouth when you’re nervous.”

“Oh.” Haley wasn’t about to argue with him. Especially considering the fact that there was an indentation of teeth on her inner cheek.

The curtain began to rise and the audience cheered. As Mrs. Simon made her way to center stage to welcome everyone, Eddie leaned even closer to Haley. So close, in fact, that when he spoke, his soft lips brushed the outer rim of her ear. If she’d felt shockwaves before, his heated breath, his voice, and his lips sent an earthquake of sensation rioting through her.

“You look amazing tonight,” his deep voice vibrated in her ear.

Before she had a chance to respond, Emily appeared on stage and the show began. Which was a good thing for a couple of reasons. One, she wasn’t sure that she could speak even if she’d been able to come up with a flirty response. And two, she needed the next sixty minutes or so to process what was happening between herself and Eddie.

Because after years of nothing, something was
definitely
happening.

* * * * *

EDDIE WAS WORRIED that he would be so distracted by Haley sitting next to him, smelling like wildflowers, looking sexier than he’d ever seen her look. The dress she was wearing wasn’t the least bit revealing. It actually reminded Eddie of dresses he would imagine women like Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe would have worn. When he’d first seen her at the back of the theater, she’d taken his breath away. After this morning, he would have thought nothing could beat seeing her in a towel, but now he knew differently.

Luckily, he didn’t have to force himself to concentrate on Emily’s performance. From the second his talented daughter came on stage, he was so busy filming the show on his iPhone and trying to see as much as he could live, that he didn’t have time to obsess about the beautiful woman sitting to his right.

Emily was doing a great job. She nailed her solo “Tomorrow” and was so believable when she was talking to her dog Sandy that Eddie almost forgot it was a stuffed animal.

As the play ended, he was out of his chair and on his feet giving her a well-deserved standing ovation. Haley stood as well and was cheering loudly. The kids and Mrs. Simon all took their bows, and Eddie turned to see where Riley was. Eddie had asked Riley to pick something up for him. While he was looking for his friend, he noticed that the entire crowd was on its feet.

Eddie’s chest filled with pride. Sure, he knew that they were all supporting whichever child they were here to see, and he might be biased (he was definitely biased), but Emily had killed it. Her performance had blown everyone else’s out of the water.

He heard a sniffing sound and looked down to see that Haley had tears pooled in her vibrant blue eyes. Alarm rushed through his body.

“What’s wrong?”

“She did
so
good,” Haley said through a choppy breath as she wiped her fingers beneath her shimmering eyes.

He knew in that moment that he wasn’t just in trouble when it came to this girl. He was in way over his head. Because seeing how emotional Haley was over Em’s performance caused the walls he had constructed around his heart when Lacey had walked out of their lives, to crack and begin crumbling.

Shit
.

“Hey, man.” He felt a slap on his shoulder. “She was incredible.”

He turned to see Riley and Chelle standing behind him. Riley handed him the package he’d asked him to pick up. “Thanks.”

Chelle was shaking her head with a huge smile on her face. “I had no idea she could sing like that! Where does she get that from? You don’t sing, I don’t remember Mom and Dad singing, and I can’t carry a tune to save my life.”

Lacey
. Eddie remembered hearing Lacey singing in the shower, and as teenagers she would always sing when the radio came on. Most of the time, she had been better than whichever artist was playing through the speakers.

“Daddy!” His daughter’s voice cut through his short walk down memory lane. Little arms flew around him and he lifted her up with his right arm. After she squeezed his neck tight, she leaned back and asked, eyeing the bouquet of flowers he held in his left hand, “Are those for me?”

“No,” he answered with a straight face.

She looked at him suspiciously as she tilted her head. “Then who are they for?”

“Me,” he said.

“Daddy.” She playfully swatted his arm as he set her down and handed her the flower’s wrapped in cellophane.

“You were incredible,” he said as Emily dipped her nose into the arrangement and took a deep breath of the fragrant bouquet. Em had always loved the smell of flowers—another trait she’d inherited from her mom.

Everyone started talking at once, telling Emily what great job she had done and what a great singer she was. His daughter was eating it all up.