Finding Harmony (Katie & Annalise Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

of course, looked sexier than me in peep-toe leopard print shoes trimmed in red and a scarlet stretch-wrap dress with caplet sleeves. I did the best I could with what God gave me; God just gave Ava more.
    So, here we were, ready to kill each other and ready to go on. When the musicians before us had finished their set, Ava and I walked onstage and adjusted the microphones. Nick appeared just in time on stage left, talking to possibly the only woman in the room under forty besides Ava and me. Of course. Nick was not traditionally handsome, but he was sexy, and he had a magnetic appeal that attracted women to him like he was true north.
    I was glad he’d come tonight, though. He hadn’t protested the gig, which made me suspect an ulterior motive; he’d frowned on me performing since my last trimester. Fatherhood brought out his paternal side—only I wasn’t his kid.
    The sounds of our music played through the massive Klipsch speakers around the room. This East End club allowed the platinum-and-diamonds set to enjoy themselves without leaving their safe homogeneous community. The only black faces in the room belonged to Ava, the sound guy, and the servers. When we finished our first set, we got such an ovation that the sound guy asked if we would do another.
    “So, your next act a no-show?” Ava asked.
    “For true,” the kid admitted.
    “What you do for us if we help you?” she asked in a tone I could never have pulled off.
    “What you want?” he asked.
    “I want you to get us some afternoon gigs.”
    “Yah, I hook you up. No problem.”
    “All right.” She handed him another CD. “Here our music.”
    “Ava, what the hell are we singing?”
    “Now we sing what we like. All our old stuff. The crowd too drunk to notice if we mess up, but if you don’t remember one, just make up a background part. Or bend over, show some cleavage, and shake your bana.”
    “Irie,” I said in my best local accent, using the West Indian word meaning “it’s all good.”
    “Stick to the Queen’s English, girl. You awful,” she said, and stuck out her tongue. Our tension eased.
    An hour later, we left the stage to accept the adulation of our new fans. Who was I kidding about the joy of song being enough? I drank in the compliments like I used to down Bloody Marys. Nick sauntered up to us, a drink in each hand: sparkling water with lime for me and a rum Painkiller for Ava.
    “I would not believe you guys took six months off if I didn’t know it was true. You sounded great,” he said.
    “Shucks, Nick,” Ava drawled in her best Texas accent.
    “Stick to Calypso, girl,” I told her. “You’re awful.”
    Ava ignored me. “Look like some well-fed and very large fish swimming here.” She referred to the Rolex- and Tag-Heuer-wearing men trolling the waters around her.
    “Is Rashidi with Laurine?” I asked.
    Rashidi and Ava shared a house. They occasionally shared a bed, but Ava did not let that constrain her enthusiasm for men.
    “Yeah. I can’t stay out too late, but there enough time for me to do some damage.”
    “You’re incorrigible.”
    “I wouldn’t be if you pass that sexy husband of yours along to me.”
    I had no doubt. Nick grinned. I didn’t know which of them I wanted to punch more. While this joke had run between Ava and me since she’d first met Nick, it had less luster now that I felt fat and frumpy and knew my friend’s history with married men.
    “Never,” I said, and she disappeared into the crowd.
    I gave myself a ten-count to relax. The Yacht Club’s exterior walls rolled up on all sides to create an open-air interior, and the view seaside stretched out over a maze of docks that was lit with strands of yellow Christmas lights. The masts of sailboats rocked to and fro like twiggy poltergeists in the dimly lit night sky. Even over the odor of alcohol and sweat, I could smell fishiness and seawater.
    “There’s someone I want you to meet,” Nick said to me as Ava strolled off, vamping for