Killing Me Softly(A Broken Souls Series)

“Tate, you’re on in three minutes,” says a voice overhead.

I stand up and shake out my hands and jump up and down.

“Are we boxing?” Tate asks as he mirrors my movements in front of me.

“No, I’m trying to get the wine to hit me, so I’m shaking out my nerves.”

He’s funny jumping in front of me with his guitar strapped to his back. “Is it working?”

“I’m still upright. I guess not.”

“Here, I’ll say a quick prayer. Hold my hand. Dear Boss, please bless us as we get up and sing together for the first time. Take Holland’s nerves away and please don’t allow anyone to throw anything at us… Amen.”

“Amen. You call him Boss?”

“Yeah, I’m unsure about religion and who is our leader.”

“ONE MINUTE!” The voice announces.

“Ready?” Tate says and takes my hand.

“Sure,” I whisper.

***

Once he finishes the second song, I stand up. My face is warm from the wine and my hands are trembling. “Sit down,” I whisper to him. He obeys and flashes me his panty dropping grin. “Hi everyone, tonight is Tate’s birthday. As a surprise, I’ve decided to sing him a song.” Tate’s eyes are following my every movement, like a cat watching a mouse. “Happy Birthday Tate.” I gesture to the DJ and the track begins.

Strumming my pain with his fingers.

Singing my life with his words,

Killing me softly with his song….

I stand in front of him and zone out the rest of the club, focusing on nothing but his electric blue eyes. As I finish the song, he takes the mic from me.

“Excuse me everyone, but I need to thank my beautiful girlfriend. Don’t mind my P D A.” He grabs me around the waist and kisses me for three seconds and my heart quivered thirteen times. The crowd applauds and a few people whistle as he picks me up and sets me on the stool. “I’m going to thank you better than that when we’re alone,” he whispers.

Yes! Please do! My inner voice shouted as she clapped her hands.

I glance into the audience to see what Florence is doing. She isn’t happy. If I had to guess what’s wrong, it’s me. She didn’t expect our relationship to be real, and we just displayed how real we are.

I watched his back as he starts singing his next song. The crowd is paying attention to him intently. Earlier I overheard someone talk about the owner having some of his bigwig friends in town.

“You got to hear my beautiful girlfriend sing already, but the two of us have been working on a song together. Please welcome the lovely Holland,” Tate says and takes my hand. I hop off the barstool and walk with him to the microphone stand. One of the workers handed him another microphone and he in turn hands it to me. “Ready?” I nod in reply.

He holds the guitar high and turns to face me. I close my eyes and imagine we’re doing karaoke in a dive bar. Destiny’s Child isn’t a household name anymore, but we’re hoping to have everyone singing, Say My Name. Throughout the song, I peer up at him and he encourages me to keep going. I don’t know if anyone was paying any attention to us, I’m not going to jinx myself and look into the crowd. As we stop, Tate takes my hand and we take a bow together. The crowd is applauding and a few people are standing up for us. You would have thought a huge star was up singing. I glance over and catch Florence applauding with everyone.

We step off the stage and people have crowded around the steps. I hold onto his hand and he makes a tunnel for us to get through everyone. People are touching us and saying we should make an album. Obviously, everyone’s deaf. He’s gripping my hand harder as he tries to guide us to the table. Florence is standing and pulling out a chair for Tate to sit next to her.

“You were amazing Tate, I knew you’ve been practicing, but you didn’t tell me about your popularity. Holland, your voice is beautiful. How long have you been singing?”

“Thank you, I’ve been singing in the shower for years,” I say nervously. “Tonight is my first time to sing without the words on a screen doing karaoke.”

“Holl, you were spot-on. I can’t wait to hear what the manager thought of our gig,” Tate says and gives my knee a squeeze. I hope his grandma didn’t see it or she’ll have one more thing not to like me about.

A couple of the club’s bouncers come over and ask people to step away from the table. Soon, two more bouncers are clearing a path for the owner. He’s dressed in jeans and a black blazer over a white shirt unbuttoned one button too many. I get a whiff of cigars when he leans over Tate to talk.

“Excellent job Tate. I’d like to talk to you in the office. Ladies, we’ll only be a few minutes.”

Tate stands up and kisses me on the top of my head and says he’ll be right back. Now I get to sit alone with Florence.

The comedian comes back to the stage and starts telling a new set of material. Everyone is laughing, even Florence. I’m so intently paying attention that I yelp when someone touches my shoulder. One of the bouncers nods for me to follow him.

“Hey slow down, where are we going?” I call out to the bouncer. He doesn’t answer me and like a kid I follow him up a set of stairs and into a office. Tate is sitting with the owner and two other men and a woman, all of them are dressed in suits.

The bouncer grabs one of the leather chairs and drags it over next to Tate. As I sit down the spring under the cushion creaks. If anyone thinks I just farted, I’m going to die right now. Tate scoots his chair over as close as he can to me and reaches for my hand. Still not sure what’s going on, I turn to the owner. “Is anyone going to speak? You didn’t call me in here to kick me out for singing, are you?” The thought just occurred to me.

“No Holland, we wanted you to come in and talk with us. My name is Pat McDown, I’m the owner of Creation Enterprises and I represent musicians such as Ingrid Bowman, Scott Jacobson, Terry Bishop, and the female country sensation, Country Fried Kisses. I’ve just been talking to Tate and he tells me that this was your first time to sing publicly. With some practice and experience, you two are going to be a force in the business. When we were called out here, we thought we’d only meet Tate, but honey, you sweetened the deal.”

I look around the room, no one appears to be joking. Tate is looking at me confused too, so we sit and listen.

“Deal? What deal?” I ask.

Pat smiles at me, I don’t smile back. “I’d like to represent you and Tate. Before you say anything, hear me out. Part of my company has a contract with clubs such as this. This is my Midwestern region, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri. To start you out, I need you to get some experience. I will book you at clubs that are a day trip, meaning you go and come back the same day. Although my Dallas area would be two nights in a row. Tate explained to me that he’s in the military and you have family obligations. I understand that, so I would like to get you started with clubs in Oklahoma. You need to learn more songs, but that rendition of Destiny’s Child, that was a damn hit! The pay isn’t great, but it will increase once you start traveling. Each gig in Oklahoma will be five hundred dollars each. You’ll be given four courtesy tickets to give out to a fan or family, we don’t care. When No Doubt started out, they did this same thing and they ended up with a huge California following. I want that to happen for the two of you. I’d like to schedule you some studio time to get you a track for the radio to play. You won’t earn anything from that track, it will be what pays the bills for you. I will email you a contract for you to look over and you can return it to me any time this week. Get yourself an entertainment attorney to go over the details. This is the real deal guys. Happy birthday Tate.”