Infinity + One (34 page)

“Thanks,” he nodded to the Escalade driver, who nodded back.

Bonnie had flipped down the visor, which lit up accommodatingly. She was smoothing a makeup brush over her face as he slid back into the Charger. She didn’t comment as he pulled back onto the road, her gaze on her reflection, reapplying the shadow around her dark eyes, but she looked at him, her brow creased, when he pulled into the parking lot behind the black, windowless building with the slashing red V and turned off the car.

“I don’t want to be Bonnie and Clyde. I want to be Bonnie and Finn. Just for a little while. Okay?” It was all the apology she was going to get—he was still angry. And he was still very, very afraid. Afraid of loving her, afraid of losing her, and mostly, afraid of losing himself in the process. But he did love her. And that emotion was stronger than all the others.

She nodded, her eyes wide. “Is this a club?”

“Yeah, it is. Hopefully it’s dark and smoky and full of criminals who never listen to country music or watch entertainment TV. People who would never make a concerned citizen’s call to the cops or the news channels, even if they happened to see a famous singer eating at a table next to theirs.” He stopped, wondering if he was being an idiot. He decided he was, and he didn’t care. “I’m guessing you love to dance. I don’t. But I’m thinking I might like to dance with you.”

The smile—the big, beaming one that had started it all, stretched across Bonnie’s pretty face. She turned and added a couple strokes to her eye makeup, deepening the effect. She slicked color on her lips and ran her fingers over her hair. She even dug some earrings from a little, plastic, Walmart sack she’d tucked into a pocket of her purse. The dangling loops made her look dressed up, and when she pulled off her heavy sweatshirt and tucked the black tank top beneath into her snug jeans, he grabbed her brush and ran it through his hair, deciding maybe he’d better spruce up too. He gathered his hair into a tail and unzipped his leather coat so he didn’t feel so buttoned up, but he grabbed Bonnie’s from the back seat, a whim he would be grateful for later, though he didn’t know it then.

They descended the stairs into Verani’s, and no one stood by the door to greet them or to turn them away, so they slipped inside, the murky light welcoming, the music deafening. Finn snaked his arm around Bonnie, looking around for a place to sit. A long bar stood to his immediate left, and they sidled up beside it, waiting for the bartender to look their way.

He was a young guy with gauges in his ears and a hair do that was severely short on the sides and swooped back, Elvis-style, on the top. He was non-stop motion, filling and fixing, sliding and squeezing, his hands sure beneath the never-ending orders. But when he looked at Finn his eyes skittered away as if he was amped on something and couldn’t hold still long enough to maintain eye contact. Someone called him Jagger, and when Finn asked him if they were still serving food, Jagger called out to one of the girls all in black, weaving in and out of the crowd.

She led them to an alcove that had a lousy view of the stage and the dance floor, which was probably why it was still unoccupied at after one in the morning. The waitress plopped two slim menus on the table and promised she’d be back. She wasn’t very friendly or chatty, which was fine with Finn.

There wasn’t a large selection, but he and Bonnie had been eating pretty simply since they left Boston—the last meal where they had actually sat at a table was the spaghetti in Shayna’s little kitchen in Ohio.

It didn’t take them long to decide, and the waitress came back with their water and took their orders. Finn wanted a beer in the worst way, but he didn’t want to be carded, so he and Bonnie both abstained. As they ate, Bonnie kept looking toward the stage and the little sliver of dance floor that she could see better than he could.

Her nose was wrinkled, and she had a perplexed look on her face.

“Maybe it’s because I’m a hillbilly, but I hate this music. It’s like being in a maze, or in one of those little hamster wheels, where you just keep spinning and spinning, and you never get anywhere.” She had to shout at him in order for him to hear her, and he ended up moving to sit by her side instead of across from her, so that they could speak into each other’s ears.

Finn wouldn’t have minded it so much had he not been listening to Bonnie sing for the last week. Bonnie’s songs were anything but a hamster wheel. She told stories and revealed secrets, and made him believe she sang just for him. He had a feeling that’s how everyone felt when they listened to her songs. That’s why she was Bonnie Rae Shelby.

He told her this, his mouth pressed to her ear, and she smiled up at him when he finished and then leaned toward him to respond.

“But Finn—I was singing to you. I just hadn’t found you yet. Don’t you see? From now on, every song will be yours.”

Her words were too sweet. Corny even. But she said them with such conviction, her hand against his opposite cheek, holding his face as she spoke into his ear, that he was moved by her words anyway. In spite of himself. He’d heard her yell into the wind, telling him she loved him too, but he’d been too upset with her to let himself believe anything she’d said in the heat of the moment. He didn’t know if Bonnie really loved him. He knew she liked him. He knew she was infatuated with him. He knew she was sad and lonely and lost. And because she was all those things, she needed him. For now.

He kissed her forehead and finished his meal in silence, feeling her eyes linger on his face, knowing he was confusing her, but not knowing how to explain himself without prompting more professions of love and devotion that he wouldn’t be able to believe. When the band took a ten-minute break, Finn eased himself from their booth to search out the men’s room and a chance to clear his head. Bonnie said she didn’t need to go, and that she would wait for him there.

He should have known he couldn’t leave her alone. Not even for five minutes. When he returned to their booth, she wasn’t there. He spun around, his eyes searching through the poorly lit space, wondering if she’d changed her mind about the bathroom, when he saw her.

She was on the stage. She stood beneath the lights on the little platform that had been vacated by the jumping trio and their drummer, so totally opposite of Bonnie Rae in every way, only a few minutes before. All four of them were sitting at a table nearby, clearly cool with her entertaining their audience while they took a breather. One even raised his glass, as if to say, “Have at it.”

“Shit! Bonnie Rae!” he hissed, trying not to draw attention to himself as he eased toward the stage, anxious and furious and stunned that she would pull such a stunt. She had slung the fat one’s electric guitar over her slim shoulders and was fingering the strings like she was as comfortable on the stage as she had been in his Blazer, her feet on the dash, her eyes on his face. She plugged it back into the amp nearby and leaned forward.

“Hey.” Her mouth kissed the mic as she breathed her greeting, and the crowd instantly quieted. Vocal magic. He’d witnessed it before.

“Y’all don’t care if I sing you a little somethin’, do ya?”

Her arms were slim and golden, toned and taut, her cap of dark hair sleek and shining under the flickering strobe that obscured her features and shadowed her face in half-light. He didn’t think anyone would realize they were about to be serenaded by an international superstar. Nobody would guess how many miles she’d come, or that she hadn’t prepared to sing or be seen. But she was up there doing both, just for the pleasure of doing her thing. Her snug jeans, cow-girl boots, and tight blank tank looked very natural on stage, and Finn fought the urge to swing her into his arms and run into the night, keeping her safe, keeping her hidden, keeping her close.

“It’s just somethin’ I’ve been thinking about,” she said, as if she were talking to her best friend. The electric guitar was a little at odds with her down home style, but she kept it simple as she began to play, her fingers plucking effortlessly at unfamiliar strings, picking out a tune Finn instantly recognized as the one she’d been humming last night. The one he’d asked her to sing. Seems she was granting his request. And then her eyes found his.

I cannot describe

Or explain the speed of light

Or what makes thunder roll across the sky

And I could never theorize about the universe’s size

Or explain why some men live and some men die

Her voice filled the space so effortlessly that Finn felt a shot of fear, certain she’d be rushed by fans who recognized her signature sound, that she’d be swept off the stage in a deluge of frenetic humanity. But everyone was listening, a few couples dancing, and Bonnie Rae kept singing, pondering out loud the things she didn’t know.

I can’t even guess

I would never profess

To know why you are here with me

And I cannot comprehend

How numbers have no end,

The things you understand, I can’t conceive

Infinity + One

Is still infinity.

And no matter how I try

I’m bound by gravity.

But the things I thought I knew

Changed the minute I met you.

It seems I’m weightless

and I’m endless after all
.

Finn felt heat and heartache rise in his throat as Bonnie threw back her head, singing a song that could only be for him. And the audience moaned with her as she climbed an entirely different kind of bridge.

Weightless and endless.

Timeless and restless.

So light that I’ll never fall.

Weightless and endless.

Hopelessly breathless.

I guess I knew nothing at all.

Infinity + One

Is still infinity.

And no matter how I try

I’m bound by gravity.

But the things I thought I knew

Changed the minute I met you.

It seems I’m weightless

and I’m endless after all
.

She hadn’t panted and strutted, she hadn’t moved her body in sultry ways. She hadn’t serenaded the crowd with suggestive lyrics, but she’d bared her soul and Finn’s soul too, and he didn’t think he would have felt more naked or exposed if he’d participated in a strip-tease.

I’m weightless and I’m endless after all
. That was it. He felt weightless. Her eyes were on his as she stepped back from the mic and shrugged the strap back over her head. The bouncing band seemed momentarily stunned as she set down the borrowed guitar, fully aware that their audience had completely abandoned them for a slip of a girl with a pixie hair-cut and red cowboy boots. The crowd took a collective breath and released it in shouts and applause and stomping.

Finn had been moving toward her as she sang, walking toward her because he couldn’t walk away, and now he closed the gap, side-stepping dancers and drinking observers and swept her up bodily as she moved to step off the stage. She gasped a little as her feet left the ground, but then his mouth found hers, hot with need, but laced with anger at her foolishness. It was the second time he’d kissed her in frustration. But regardless of the reason, it didn’t take Bonnie long to catch up, and she kissed him back, unaffected by the crush of people around them.

And then Finn heard the whispers. He heard the name Bonnie Rae Shelby ricochet around the room in hissed wonder, as if people guessed but weren’t sure. She didn’t look the same. But her voice was distinctive, and once you saw through someone’s disguise, it was completely useless. The moment question became belief, there would be a stampede. He pulled his lips from hers and barreled toward the back entrance he’d noticed upon arriving. Bonnie had taken her purse to the stage with her, and it now hung across her body. But their coats were back at their table, and they hadn’t paid for their meal. Shit! He set Bonnie down and pushed her toward the side entrance, across from the bar.

“Stand by the exit. Don’t go out! Wait for me! I’m going to grab our coats and leave some money on the table.” He strode toward the alcove that housed the booth where they’d tried to hide before Bonnie gave in to the lure of the microphone. Digging out his wallet, he tossed more than enough money to cover their dinner among the plates and napkins that had yet to be cleared. He grabbed their coats and was heading back toward the exit, pushing around people that were still watching, still wondering, although the band had begun to sing again, desperately trying to recapture their audience after Bonnie’s performance. The pounding drums were sufficient distraction for most of the patrons, and Finn had never been more grateful for obnoxiously loud music in his life. His eyes were on Bonnie, on the ten steps it would take to reach her and exit the building, when the lights flickered, the sound system lost power, and the band was upstaged once more.

Cops flooded into the room from every entrance, SWAT team style, all in black, shields and weapons raised, DEA written across every chest. Finn lunged for Bonnie and narrowly missed the advancing stream of police shouting for everyone to get down. He obeyed immediately, pulling Bonnie with him, but he didn’t stay put. He crawled toward the bar just to his right, finding himself nose to nose with the wide-eyed bartender, the college kid who he suspected had a cocaine habit and a side business that paid for it.

“Is there a way out that nobody knows about? A window, a cellar, the roof, anything?” he shouted into the bartender’s face, the din around them making it impossible to do anything but yell.

“They’re DEA! I’m in so much shit, man!” Jagger started to babble.

“So let’s get out of here!” Finn coaxed, willing the bartender to pull a disappearing act out of his hat for all of them. Jagger nodded, gulping, and eased himself deeper behind the bar and Finn followed him on his hands and knees, pushing Bonnie in front of him, his hand on her rear end, urging her along. The bartender opened what appeared to be a large cabinet built into the wall behind the bar, about three feet by two feet, and Finn worried for a second that the wiry bartender was going to crawl inside and pull the doors closed behind him, a hiding spot for one.