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Reese’s eyes snap up.

“Is that right?” Neil says.

Reese looks at me like she wants to get up and leave, and I realize, suddenly, that she could. Easily.

It doesn’t matter. I’m not wrong. Beautiful’s not even enough.

Kelly drops her coffee cup back in her saucer with a loud clink. “Maybe we ought to hear it sometime? Is there an open mic night anywhere in town?”

Reese’s jaw tenses. Now she’s throwing a thinly veiled murderous look my way.

I know I need to backpedal, that this is risky, putting her on the spot. But some part of me—the part that doesn’t speak up now—wants to know what she’ll say, now that she’s in a corner.

“Yes! That’d be marvelous!” Neil says, stuffing the last of his torte into his mouth.

But Reese shakes her head. “I reserve my solos for the shower these days.”

“Did you always know you wanted to sing?” he pushes.

I can almost see the pulsing at her throat.Intervene, idiot.

But I don’t want to. She never told me why she doesn’t sing, when it’s clearly something she loves.

She’s stuck, and she looks at me with eyes slightly wild.

That’s when I snap out of it. I open my mouth to deflect, but Reese has already given up on me, because finally, she speaks. “It’s just something I loved doing when I was a kid. I…my sister Michelle and I—we used to write music together. Or I’d write it and make her sing backup for me. We’d put on concerts for our parents. They were elaborate. Costume changes and lighting—mostly flashlights with colored cellophane.”

“Brilliant!” Neil exclaims. “A born show woman.”

Then she surprises me yet again.

She actually smiles. “I’d make my dad flash the beams on and off,” she says. “He could never stick to the rhythm. Back then…I was fearless. I knew it was just for fun, I guess, so I had fun. We sang and sang and sang, Michelle and I, until our voices went froggy.”

Neil beams.

So do I.

Kelly drops her fork then, loudly on her plate.

Reese seems to snap out of her trance, her smile quickly disappearing.

“Darling, you haven’t eaten any of the cake?” Neil asks her.

This time, I don’t bristle at thedarling. This time, my eyes remain on Reese as Neil and Kelly argue lightly over the dessert.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

Reese swallows, then gives the briefest shake of her head. She’s not angry. Relief runs through me, stronger than I’d have anticipated. I realize that could have been terrible.

That time she got up on stage, she ran off it before the song was finished. I know she’s terrified of singing again, though I don’t know what made her stop.

But something tugs at me as she cuts into her mousse cake with her fork. She needs to sing. It’s the clearest revelation I’ve had in a long time.

“You should have some,” Reese says, sliding our shared dessert plate toward me as if she heard what I thought and wants to push it away.

“No. I ordered it for you.” It’s chocolate mousse cake with a raspberry coulis. She loves that combination.

“So you’ve really taken to property development, Eli?” Kelly says, interrupting the moment. “Is that what you always wanted to do?”