Angela Morrison - Sing Me to Sleep

He shrugs. “None of them has your voice.”

Meadow maneuvers to a spot on Derek’s other side. “Are you guys singing up here?”

Blake puts a postcard with a guy blowing an alphorn back in the rack. “Uh-huh. We just checked the schedule.” He pronounces “schedule” as “shedule.” Sarah smiles at that. Blake raises his eyebrows at her. “Thirty minutes.”

Sarah picks out a card I can’t see and shows it to him. “You must be right after us.”

“Cool.” Blake looks around the rack at all of us. “We should do a piece together—in the name of international harmony.”

Derek turns back to me, picks up a black velour beanie. “Are you singing your solo? I’d love to hear it live.”

“No.” I croak, swallow, manage to find a voice that doesn’t wobble too much. “That’s our competition piece. We’re saving it.”

“Secret weapon?” That grin again.

Dang. I’m going to die right here and now. And then they’ll win for sure. A guy with his cuteness factor blended with little-boy sweet shouldn’t be allowed to roam free and unprotected. He’s infectious. Crap. He’s an epidemic.

I can’t help smiling back at him. “Maybe not as secret as we thought.”

“Do you girls want to get a drink with us?” He says “girls” but he looks at me. “They’ve got this hot apple stuff that really clears out your throat. Great for the pipes.”

Leah looks at her watch. “I don’t think we have time. We’re supposed to warm up in five minutes.”

Blake leans over Sarah and whispers, “Your loss,” in her ear—loud enough so we all hear. She keeps her cool, does this almost imperceptible cat-wriggle response.

Meadow tugs at the beanie in Derek’s hand. “How about after.”

Derek drops the beanie and turns back to me. “Only if you promise to sing the test piece with us.”

Sing with them? Oh . . . my . . . gosh. “But we sing the treble arrangement.” I’m gross sweaty again. I can even feel perspiration breaking out in the small of my back.

Derek doesn’t seem to notice. “The bass piece is in the same key. It works. We sing it in our chamber choir with the AYS all the time.”

Meadow shakes her sexy straight hair back out of her face. That gets Derek’s attention. Blake’s, too. She purses her glossy red lips. “Won’t the AYS get upset if you guys sing with us?” I need to memorize what she does with her body. Head tilt, hip out, weight shift, chest movement. It all looks perfectly natural. I feel like a board standing next to her.

Blake’s eyes are all over Meadow now. “They are in China.”

Sarah frowns behind him.

Derek picks up the gloves I looked at. “I’ll make it happen.” His arm brushes mine. Not Meadow’s?

The guy must be magic because five minutes later when we meet for warm up, Terri’s bubbling over. “The Amabile Young Men’s Ensemble performs after us. Their conductor just invited us to sing the test piece with them.”

When our choirs sing together, the sound fills up the entire non-acoustical glass, chrome, and cement installation. There are eighty of us and fifty of them. I’m standing in the center in the front. I’m too tall for the risers. Derek is right behind me, singing in my ear. That means he’s only a couple inches shorter than me. He shows off and sings the soprano part. I’d like to hear his tenor. I bet that would melt the glaciers out the window. Shoot, he could melt the stone underneath. I’m grateful he’s goofing around. His tenor would be way more than I can handle.

Maybe I have heard it. There’s this one piece on their latest CD with an aching, tenor solo. That’s got to be Derek. Meadow manages to stand beside him. She sings better than usual. Guess all she needs is a little inspiration. What is she doing in an all-girls choir?

After the performance, the guys take us through the main sights, starting with the ice palace full of goofy sculptures. Meadow slips on the ice right into Derek. He catches her arm. “Take it easy, eh?”

She clutches onto him. “Thanks.”

He drops her arm, gets ahead of all of us. “Watch.” He runs across the ice floor and slides all the way down a narrow hall that leads to the exit, his authentic Canadianness oozing out. Maybe he plays that weird game with the stones. I can’t see him in hockey gear.

Then Blake has to do it. Sarah tries and almost falls, but Blake catches her. Meadow knows she’ll end up on her butt, so she just watches. I go for it and do end up on my butt.

Derek’s there, helping me to my feet, touching me again. “Are you okay? I should have warned you. It’s slippery.”

“Slippery ice? I’ll have to remember that.” I stare at him. Can’t help it. Is he really this nice? Really this different from any guy I’ve ever known? That’s impossible. Best behavior. Good impression. International harmony. That’s all this is. Underneath, he’s a guy. They all are—except Scott. Poor Scott. He seems so far away.

We take the elevator to the very top of the peak and go out on a wild, wind-whipped viewing platform. Even with all my layers, I’m frozen in seconds. Feels kind of good. Banks my interior fires pumping up all this heat.

“We better not get chilled,” Leah calls.

We all agree she’s right and duck quick back through the doors.

The guys lead us to the cafeteria-style restaurant where they ate lunch with their choir while we were hogging up the nice place.

Leah glances around with the corners of her mouth drooping. “What were you guys doing up at the other restaurant?”

Blake looks at me and then Derek. “Derek heard a rumor you girls would be here. He was looking for Beth.”

Derek elbows him hard. “Shut up, you jerk.”

Sarah turns to me. “Oooh, Beth. You’ve got a stalker.”

I’m embarrassed into a scarlet neck again, but Derek doesn’t flush at all. He coughs like he’s got something stuck in his throat and then laughs. “She figured that out the first time we chatted.”

I try to compose myself while he and Blake push two tables together.

Sarah points at the table next to ours. “Look at that.” Big cups of hot cocoa overflowing with whipped cream. Swiss cocoa. Banned. We can’t have chocolate, either. No cream. No cheese until after we perform. That’s torture in Switzerland.

The guys drool, too.

“You off dairy like us?” I take a chair.

Derek sits down beside me. “Yeah. We’ve got the gala opening tonight. Gotta keep the pipes clean.”

Blake rolls his eyes at Derek. “What a joke that is.” He slaps the menu down on the table. “To hell with clean pipes. I’m having some.”

Derek shakes his head and turns to me. “Are you going tonight?”

I start to explain, but Meadow plops down beside him and pats his arm. “We wouldn’t miss it.”

“Great.” He smiles at her but turns to me again. “I’ll look for you after.”

The three of us sneak out with Meadow. I feel a bit guilty, but the concert is a blast. Why did we come all this way if we’re going to hide in our hotel room? As soon as the Amabile guys hit the stage, every girl in the audience forgets about saving her voice and starts screaming. The guys steal the show. Meaning, Derek steals the show. He’s magnetic. Everyone in that giant auditorium tunes in to him and has a great time. I wish they could do more than three numbers.

“Okay, ladies.” Leah’s acting all official when she’s just as AWOL as the rest of us. “Let’s get back before somebody blows our cover.”

“Hey—” It’s him, Derek, pushing through the crowd toward us. “You made it.”

“Great show.” Meadow touches him again.