When she finished, he met her at the edge of the stage to take the mic. Under the cover of applause, he said, “This is for you.”
He was acting weird. The music started, and he fixed his gaze on her as he began to sing “I’ll Stand By You.”
Brody was a born performer. He had charisma dripping out his pores. But absolutely nothing paralleled his performances when he put the truth of himself into the music. It was that sincerity that everyone saw as he serenaded her from the stage. It was a song of promises. What business did he have singing this to her when he’d broken his so long ago?
Tyler felt her face flush and had to fight not to squirm in her seat.
The crowd went wild when he finished, a full-on standing ovation. Eyes still on her, he stepped off the stage, passing the mic off to Myles. Before the opening bars to the next song began, Tyler was out of her seat, jerking her head toward the fire exit and the alley.
As the door slapped shut behind him, Tyler turned on him. “Okay, what the hell was that? We’ve been singing together all night, and it wasn’t weird. But you totally just made it weird.”
Brody took her hands. “I mean it. Every word. I want to help.”
Baffled, Tyler could only stare at him. “With what?”
“Ollie’s medical bills for starters. Being a single parent is no joke, and even with your dad to help, it’s got to be overwhelming. I’ll do anything you need. Babysitting. Child support. I’d have been helping all this time, if only I’d known. Jesus, how could you not tell me, Tyler?”
He was so absolutely earnest. Tyler was pretty sure she’d been zapped to the Twilight Zone. Then what he’d said began to filter through her muddled brain, and she couldn’t help it. She started to laugh.
“I hardly think this is a laughing matter.” His stern expression only made her laugh harder at the utter ridiculousness of the situation.
“Brody, Ollie is my dog.”
“Your…dog,” he repeated. “But I heard you talking, at the shop earlier, saw the toys, and I thought…” He trailed off.
She made an effort to button down the giggles. “You thought he was my son. That he was our son.”
“I…yeah.”
The expression on his face sobered her right on up. The idea of it was so staggering, a dream of a future with him that she’d put away years ago.
Did he actually look crestfallen at the news that they didn’t have a child together he didn’t know about?
“Brody, honey, did you honestly think it was possible that I could’ve had a child, your child, and somehow you wouldn’t have known about it? That I would have kept such a thing from you, if it were true?”
He released her to scrub both hands over his face. “Okay, yeah, when you put it that way, it does sound ridiculous. But I just…from what you said it sounded like you were talking to a child. And then he was seven. And…”
“You leapt to some really impressive conclusions.” And with those conclusions, he’d immediately sought to do what he’d perceived as the right thing. She’d have to think about that later. “Why didn’t you just ask outright? If not me, then Tucker or Piper. They could’ve told you otherwise.”
“I figured if they hadn’t told me, it was for a reason. Same with you. I… I’m sorry for making things weird. God, you must think I’m an idiot.”
Tyler had thought him many things since his return. But this made her think he was sweet and a hell of a lot more adult than he’d been at twenty-one. Because she found she liked that about him, and because he looked really damned embarrassed now, she decided to cut him some slack. “Doesn’t have to be weird if we don’t let it be. Come on, I’m sure there’s a list another mile long of requests waiting for us.”
~*~
The door to Speakeasy closed behind them, abruptly cutting off the sound of voices and laughter, momentarily locking them into a cocoon of silence in the cold night. After the last several hours, it was glorious.
He’d opened the floodgates with his performance to Tyler. As soon as they stepped back inside, they got slammed with romantic duet requests. Anything and everything from their past roles, to jazz, to Garth Brooks and Tricia Yearwood. Various other members of the cast trickled out as the night wore on, but the crowd didn’t thin. Not until Tucker had declared them off the roster—a good thing, as they were rapidly losing their voices—did the requests finally slow down. Over the course of the night, they’d fallen back into their rhythm. As he stood beside her, belting the final bars of “Come What May” from Moulin Rouge, he could almost let himself believe that they could find their way back to who they’d been together. God, he wanted to believe that.
Tyler paused and took a bracing breath, looking up at the clear sky.
“Where are you parked?” asked Brody.
“Back at the store.”
Which was several blocks away. This was Wishful. She’d probably be fine that distance, but Brody had spent too much time in cities and was too much of a southern gentleman to let her walk it alone. “It’s late. Let me walk you back to your truck,” he said. It was another small victory when she acquiesced without argument.
They fell into step, moving down the empty sidewalk in a silence that managed to be comfortable rather than awkward. That was a surprise, considering his earlier misconceptions about Ollie. Tyler had been amused and oddly understanding about the whole thing. He wondered if she was imagining, as he had been, that alternate reality where they made a family.