—
SANTO WASN’T A FAN of these kinds of places. He’d made an exception to come and meet Felipe’s latest band since they were playing so close to home, even though he knew he’d feel awkward the entire time among the groupies that hung around them like cigarette smoke. It was neither his fault nor Felipe’s, they were just very different people. When the Belotti family gene pool had been divvied up, Santo had been handed steadfastness and loyalty while Felipe got flippancy and skittishness, his calm and serious approach to life serving only to highlight his brother’s caprice.
“What would you like?” he said, turning to look at Viv, already feeling like he’d phrased the question too formally. He’d happily take a little of his brother’s ease with girls right now, for sure.
“White wine, please,” she said, shooting him a shy smile.
He ordered himself a beer too, and then he didn’t know what to say or do so he just met her smile with one of his own.
“I’ve never met anyone with bluer eyes than you,” he said, without thinking. “Like the sky on the brightest day of summer.”
She stared at him. “That’s the best thing anyone has ever said to me.”
He found that hard to believe. Viv was one of the most arresting people he’d ever laid eyes on in his life. It wasn’t just those bluer-than-blue eyes and her unusual heart-shaped face; she was a good foot shorter than him but seemed to crackle and fizz with more than her fair share of energy.
“Are you younger or older?” she said, nodding across the club toward Felipe.
“He’s two years older than me,” Santo said. “Not that you’d guess, huh?” He gestured down at his short-sleeved striped shirt. He’d tried to wear his coolest stuff and still wound up feeling like someone’s dad when he’d made his way through the club in search of his brother.
Viv tipped her head on one side and studied him. “I like it. It reminds me of a deckchair on Southend beach.”
He wasn’t sure what that meant, but the fact she’d said she liked it was enough.
“How about you?” he said. “Brothers, sisters?”
She knocked back half of her wine and shook her head. “Just me on my lonesome.”
“Your mom and dad must miss you a lot,” he said, thinking of his folks back at the gelateria, how much they missed Felipe even though they had Santo around to take the sting out of their eldest son’s wanderlust. “Although sometimes Felipe makes me wonder if I might have preferred to be an only child too,” he said, a laugh in his eye and a teasing grin on his face.
Viv drank the rest of her wine and slid the empty glass onto the bar, then looked up at him with a ponderous expression on her face.
“Felipe is nice enough, but he was wrong earlier,” she said. “He didn’t get all the looks.”
Okay, so that was an unexpected turn. He liked that she kept him on his toes. “Another drink?”
She shook her head and laughed, her dark hair bouncing around her jaw. “Better not, Louis will kill me if I forget the lyrics.”
Stunned as he was by her, Santo had somehow forgotten she was in the band. “Do you ever get nervous before you perform?”
She shook her head. “Never. This is what I love to do, and I do anything I love with my whole being. Will you stay to watch? This is our last show in New York. We head out for the rest of the tour in a couple of days, so you should help send us off with a bang.”
He’d actually planned to duck out before the show because it wasn’t his sort of music, but he was surprised to find himself wanting to hear her sing, to stay in her addictive orbit a while longer. He thought of Maria, the girl from down the block he’d been dating for the last few weeks, who’d let him kiss her at the movies just three nights ago and had invited him to lunch this coming Tuesday with her mother. He’d never been someone to lead girls on—that was Felipe’s ball game. In truth, he hadn’t had many girlfriends, he was always too busy at the gelateria, but Maria was starting to feel like someone he could see a future with. Still, no promises had been made, and now his head was full of blue-sky eyes, his palm still electrified from the touch of Vivien’s hand.
“Sure, I’ll stay,” he said, as if there had been any chance he might not once she asked.
Across the room, Charlie Raven leaped up on to the raised stage and held his drumsticks aloft, spine arched, his head thrown back as his body soaked up the adulation from the undulating crowd.
“I think that’s my cue to get over there,” Viv said, watching Felipe step up and loop his guitar strap over his shoulder.
They pushed their way through to the stage and Felipe reached a hand down to haul her up beside him, touching two fingers to his forehead in silent salute to his brother before turning to give a wild-eyed, bare-chested Charlie the good-to-rock nod. Santo leaned his back against a concrete pillar, his breath stuck in his throat. He’d come here to see his brother, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Viv.
He wasn’t the only one—the energy in the place shot off the scale as soon as she opened her mouth, the smoky old-soul sound of her voice perfect for the Pat Benatar cover they opened with to get the crowd going. And, boy, was the crowd going. Viv’s eyes roamed over the thrusting bodies as her words rang out, a call to action, to sing, to move, to be a part of their gang. Santo wasn’t a dancer. He’d like to have been, but his natural reserve held him fast against the graffiti-covered concrete pillar, the hard beat thumping through his blood. He watched her command the stage, the slick sheen of sweat on her limbs as she moved, the amount she gave of herself to the strangers around her. She caught his eye every now and then, and he felt water-cannoned against the wall by the sheer weight of her sudden undivided attention. Did everyone else in the place notice their connection? How could they not? She was effervescent, holding the club—and Santo himself—in the palm of her hand as she whirled and laughed at the end of one of the band’s original tracks. He’d never seen anyone like her in his twenty-three years. He was smarter than to think he could hold on to a lightning bolt without getting burned but, man, did he want to give it a try.
* * *
—
“DIDN’T YOU ENJOY IT?” Viv jumped down from the stage, ignoring the many hands reaching out for her as she made a beeline straight for Santo. “You didn’t dance.”
“You were amazing,” he said, and his expression told her how much he meant it. She appreciated that about him—he had an open, sincere sort of face that couldn’t lie, unlike most of the people she’d encountered in her life so far. From the care agencies she’d been handed round as a teenager to the various retail bosses she’d worked for since she was fifteen, everyone had their own agenda and it was never in her best interests. Even Louis had his own agenda, but right now she was willing to let that ride because his agenda suited her too.
“Are you hungry?” Santo said.
“God, yes,” she said. “Starving.”