Mind the Gap (In Too Deep) (5 page)

Chapter 5

Brit

I wanted to get on that adorable stage fro
m the moment I stepped foot in the coffee shop earlier that afternoon, so Rachel's idea for me to sing was A-O.K. with me. Then I asked them if they could play one of my favorites called I Put a Spell on You, by Nina Simone. The sax player, a young guy with dreads, was
way
into the idea since the singer and sax had a bit of back and forth during the song. He and I were looking at each other like we were about to have some fun when the drummer counted off the tune and the band began to play.

My voice didn't have the same t
imbre as Nina Simone's, but it was low and raspy for a girl, and I had an easy time singing any of her songs. I was a little nervous but the band was great, and I quickly got over my fears and settled into the feel of the song. I loved the blues, and it showed in my stage presence. Trevor always said I'm the blackest white girl he knows.

I scanned the faces in the coffee shop as I sang. Most of the guests stopped what they were doing to look at me, which only fueled my desire to give them a show. Up until the time I took the stage, there had been no vocals at all, so the novelty of having a singer up there had every eye in the house trained on
me. I loved it. As I sang, I looked around the room, taking in the expressions of everyone I saw. Some of the people who'd come with us (including, but not limited to Gretchen and Josh) were slack-jawed with shock. I sent them all a smile as the sax player went into his solo and I turned away from the crowd to watch him do his thing. He was really good. He winked at me and set me up for the little exchange that the singer and sax have on Nina Simone's version of the song. I picked up his cue and began singing to him. He and I had our musical exchange as we brought the song to a close.

I faced the crowd again, hung the microphone back on the stand
, and took a slight bow. The whole place started clapping, which was a little startling considering that up until then, the applause had been pretty quiet.

The sax player
leaned over and put his arm around me. "You got another one in you?" he asked.

I smiled up at him.
"I'll let you guys get back to it, but thanks so much for inviting me up here."

I gave a
little wave to each member of the band before I started toward my seat. "You come back any time, darlin," the piano player said, and I waved and blew him a kiss at the sweet offer.

Rachel, Gretchen, and the rest of the gang (most of them, anyway) were all wearing
huge smiles when I made my way toward the couch, greeting me like I'd just made an inspiring speech or something. Gretchen was the first to speak. She basically yelled across the room before I was even halfway back to our spot. "I am officially
making
you move to Los Angeles," she said. "I don’t care if I have to beg, borrow, or steal. You're coming to work with me at The Center."

I sat down on
the couch, which now had plenty of room since some of our group had left.

"I can't believe you didn't tell her you love to sing," Rachel said
looking at me. "She plays the guitar too."

"Not well," I corrected. "I'm still a beginner at that, but I love it
and I'm getting better."

"Seriously," Gretchen said, grabbing my forearm with an earnest expression, "I need you to think about coming to L.A. I think you belong at my school.
We need you."

I returned her sincere expression. "I'm giving it some thought, I promise."

That was good enough for her. She smiled and looked at Joel. "Have you ever heard such a cool voice?" she asked.

"
It
is
a nice voice," Joel said giving me a sweet smile.

As much as I enjoyed putting myself out there, I was somewhat awk
ward with receiving compliments. That, coupled with the scowl coming from Josh's general direction made me feel like I was in the mood for a restroom break. I excused myself, saying I'd be right back. Rachel offered to come with me, but I told her I'd be fine. I crossed the busy coffee shop in search of the ladies room, thinking about everything that had just transpired.

Everyone
in our group had given me compliments or at least approving looks—everyone except for Josh. He was stone-faced the entire time I was on stage, and when I came to the table, he was even worse. It was almost as if he was angry. I couldn't help but wonder if I'd done something to upset him. I figured he was probably put off by people who wanted to be the center of attention, and punished us by scowling the whole time. That would normally have been no big deal. Any other time, I would have just ignored someone like that and thought of them as a hater, but for some reason, I cared what Josh thought. It hurt me that he obviously didn't approve of what I'd done up there.

I was still a little shaken from the stage adrenaline and unnerving thoughts of Josh as I made my way down a darkish hallway to the ladies room.
I turned the handle on the restroom door, but it was locked. I spun, looking around for a place to wait. In the hallway, opposite the restrooms, there was a dark little nook with a chair and a mirror. It looked like the type of place that would have held a landline phone at one point—a glorified phone booth.

I stood in the little
area with my back against the wall as I closed my eyes and breathed a sigh. I wasn't sure if it was a sigh of relief that the song had gone so well, or a sigh of frustration that Josh hated me so much. As an artist, I experienced harsh criticism all the time. Josh's disapproval should have been no big deal after some of the things people had said about my art. Maybe I wanted his approval because he was close with my friends, or maybe it was because he was young and handsome. I couldn't quite figure out why I cared what he thought, but I did.

I heard footsteps coming down the hall, and
at first I jumped, feeling like I should make my presence known, but then I relaxed, assuming I could stay where I was and go unnoticed. Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought it might be Trevor coming to check on me. I stood there quiet as a mouse waiting for whoever it was to come into my line of vision. The figure that appeared was over six feet of solid maleness in jeans and a Nike T-shirt. Josh. To my surprise, he shook the handle of the ladies room. He shook it with such ferocity that a woman's voice came from inside.

"Someone's in here!" she said.

"Brit?" he said.

His deep voice boomed in that tiny, dark hallway.

"Ugh, no?" the poor girl said. 

"Sorry," he said.

He let out a frustrated sigh and leaned against the wall, bracing himself with an outstretched arm. He used the other hand to massage his forehead as if he was anxious about something.

"Josh?" I asked tentatively. His head snapped up, and he squinted into the dark nook where I was standing, trying to see me through the shadows.

"Britney?" The name sounded funny since nobody
ever
called me that, but some tiny piece of me liked hearing it.

"Yeah," I said. "What's up?" He came into the nook without hesitation, not stopping until he was right up against me, literally pressing his body against mine, invading every last shred of my personal space.
At first it startled me, but I quickly realized what his intentions were. His big hands first touched my shoulders then ran up my neck to cup my face. He looked at my face briefly, but with a passionate determination I'd never seen before. I'd been in quite a few kiss situations in my day, and none were as utterly hot as this one. He controlled the entire thing. Using his hands to guide and position my face as he placed burning hot kisses on my mouth and neck.

"That. Song. Was. Unbelievable," he said in between
contacts.

I was weak in the knees
, could barely get enough oxygen, and he just kept kissing me. His kisses were tender yet impatient, and his lips were the perfect balance of soft and firm. It was as if it were the first time I'd ever been kissed.

I was so
freaking dizzied by the whole thing that I barely noticed the girl coming out of the ladies room and retreating down the hall. I would have totally been able to tune her out and continue the kiss, but suddenly I heard Trevor's voice filling the hallway. "You killed it out there," he yelled into the darkness. Then he noticed his mistake and corrected himself. "I'm so sorry, I thought you were my friend," he said to the woman in the hall. She didn't respond. Trevor's footfall grew louder, and I knew he was approaching and would likely find the two of us in that compromised position. The light was off and the door leading to the women's restroom was cracked, but Trevor still kicked it open and said my name.

"Brit?" he said, peeking into the dark restroom.

"She's not in there," Josh said. He stood at the edge of the little nook, leaning against the wall to make sure I was shielded from Trevor's sight.

Trevor gasped and jumped. "Damn it, you scared the crap out of me." He
let out a sigh. "Where's Brit? I thought she came back here."

Josh shrugged. "She's not in there." He gestured with a tilt of his head to the restroom.

"I can see that," Trevor said.

Josh just stood there leaning against the wall.

"What are you doing back here?" Trevor asked, taking in the open door of the men's restroom.

"I had to make a phone call," Josh replied. "How's that any of your business?"

I cringed at the harsh words.

A few seconds of tense silence, then Trevor responded. "
It was
you
and your rude behavior that made me come check on her in the first place," Trevor said. His poor little voice was shaking.

Josh huffed a laugh.
"Are you seriously saying this to me right now?" he asked. "
What
rude behavior?"

"Everyone
in the group noticed what an ass you were being when she came back to the couch," Trevor said. "You're probably the reason she ran off." He paused, and when Josh didn't say anything, he continued. "Listen, you might not like Brit or the way she sings, but it's common courtesy to refrain from looking at people like you want to kill them. The rest of us happened to enjoy her song, and no one even cares what your opinion is, anyway."

I almost laughed from nerves as I tried to stay quiet during Trevor's reprimand. I had to put my hand over my mouth to refrain from making noise. I was so touched by the way my precious friend was taking up for me.

"I loved her song," Josh said, surprising me. "She sounded better than the original. I came back here to tell her that, but couldn't find her."

I couldn't see anything, but there was a few long seconds of silence before I heard the sound of Trevor's footsteps retreating. Josh leaned back on the opposite wall and put his head in his hand like he wished he could erase the last few minutes of his life. He let out a frustrated breath.

"I'm sorry. I should have never done that," he said. He was back to the same old Josh who could
never
imagine
why he'd kiss me.

"It's not your fault," I said.
I skirted around him and started walking back down the hall without even using the restroom. "It's the song," I said casually from over my shoulder. "It just
put a spell
on you for a second. The lyrics work, you know. Why do you think I got so much love from the crowd?" My tone was jovial since I was doing my best to let him off the hook.

He didn't respond, and I just continued down the hall and back into the main room. Part of me expected him to come
from behind to stop me before I could make it out of the hallway—part of me wanted that to happen, but I walked away with no protest whatsoever from him. As I walked back to the couch to join our friends, I hoped it wasn't obvious to any of them that I'd just been kissed senseless and then rejected.

"Where were you?" Trevor asked when I sat down.

"Someone was in the restroom, so I had to use the men's," I said.

Trevor looked confused and I could tell he was debating saying the men's room was empty. Then he thought he might be mistaken and decided not to say anything.

"Ahh, you found her." Josh's deep voice said as he sat on the edge of the couch a few spots down. He was obviously talking to Trevor.

"Yeah," Trevor said with a less than genuine smile.

We stayed there for another hour or so, but everything seemed like a big blur. I heard the conversations going on around me, and even engaged in some of them, but I was so shaken up from that kiss that I couldn't think straight. I glanced at Josh a couple of times, but each time he was talking to someone else. He seemed more at ease than I'd ever seen him, and I wondered if he was just faking it. How could he be so unaffected when I was shaken to my very core? I kept replaying the kiss in my head, easily imagining the feel of his lips on mine. I caught myself thinking about how attracted I was to his boyish face, but had to remind myself how much of an arrogant ass he was.

Rachel and Gretchen both asked me at separate times if everything was okay, and I assured them that I was just tired. They were kind enough to know not to push it any further. They'd
both taken a picture of me when I was on stage, and I asked them if they would forward the photos so I could upload them to Instagram. Rachel's came out better since she had an eye for making things look like an ad, but I liked the face I was making in Gretchen's, and I was glad to have them both.