AN: Hey, so it's been a bit of a while... Thank you to anyone who has stuck with this story and to those who are just now reading it.

Happy reading

Chapter Thirty-Two: She's Got a Way

Sasha's POV

Shaking my head with a small smile, I couldn't help but be amused as Mike captivated his audience in between his songs. His behavior reminded me of watching Billy Joel in concert. As he moved into his last song of the evening, I couldn't help but blush as I heard him mention me.

"Before I leave you this evening, I'd like to sing this last song for my beautiful wife." Mike told the audience, before signaling to the orchestra to play. His last song was How Deep is the Ocean.

"I thought he could only sing public domain songs…" I commented in surprise.

"He asked us to acquire the license to the song a few months ago, we just got it recently." Heather replied, "When did you guys get married?"

"Earlier this week." I answered, my eyes glued on Mike.

As the curtain closed, Mike ran backstage, still beaming from the praise of his audience. Heather complimented him on his performance and told him that Buster would reach out to him next week about starting rehearsals for a holiday concert. He thanked her as she left before turning his attention to me.

"You were amazing." I told him, "Why didn't you tell me you asked to acquire the rights to use that song?"

"I wanted to be a surprise." He answered, "Originally, I had planned to propose to you with it, but we couldn't get the license to use it until now and I didn't want to wait any longer, so the timing to use it-"

Kissing him softly, I told him, "I think your timing was perfect."

Heather's POV

As I headed up the stairs to my office, I ran into Buster as he was heading down. He seemed to be in a distracted rush as if he were looking for someone. Not wanting to assume that was what he was doing, I mentioned, "You missed a great show."

He looked back at me in relief, "I've been looking for you."

"I was in the wings watching Mike's concert." I told him, "What's up?"

"What are we doing about Ash's concert?" Buster asked, "We have no bass guitarist or someone on keys."

"Next week, find a day you and Ash can hold auditions. The concert is in a few weeks. We can put online that we're looking for musicians. If we need to have Johnny or Layla assist, that shouldn't be a problem." I advised, "Was there anything else?"

"Yeah, the run through of the scavenger hunt routes, when are those being done?" He asked.

"Miles, Ash, Rosita, Gunther and I are doing it tomorrow so that we know where we want to place our volunteers. You can come with us if you want."

"Well, I would think as creative director I would have been invited."

"If you happened to check your email every once in a while, you would know anyone could come on the trial run." I told him matter-of-factly. I took a breath, balance between our working relationship and our personal one was going to be a learning curve now that we were dating again. We'd probably have to have a conversation about how we were going to do this without butting heads too much. That would have to be something we'd have to discuss at another time when we were less busy with everything going on. "Ash and Miles have been spearheading this project, so they were going to do it this weekend anyway. I was going to go with them so I knew who I needed to put where and how many volunteers I needed in a specific space so I could give each location my final count. Rosita and Gunther volunteered. Rosita's bringing her family so we have a test audience. You're more than welcome to come with us."

"What time are you leaving tomorrow?"

"6:30 am." I answered, "If you want, you can come home with me tonight and we could go to Universal together."

"Okay." He agreed, "Why so early?"

"So we can take our time." I answered, "I just have to get a few things out of my office and then we can go if you're ready."

"Okay." He nodded, and then changed the subject, "Since we're heading back to your place, have you had dinner yet?"

"I don't know if I've had anything yet today."

"How would you like it if I made you dinner?" He smiled, "I can make that spinach lasagna that you like and garlic bread."

"I'd say I have a bottle of moscato that would pair really well with that." I kissed his cheek, "Let me go get my stuff and we can go."

Johnny's POV

After Layla turned in early for the night, I changed into pajamas and snuck down to one of the rehearsal rooms to practice. It'd be the last chance I had to make sure I could play this song all the way through perfectly before I had to do it for her. When I first tried to sing this song, what seemed like ages ago when we were just starting to get to know each other, I couldn't put my heart into it. Now with each time I came down to prepare this song in my free time, the more and more I was able to put everything I had into it. Soft clapping pulled me back into focus, noticing my surroundings to find Heather. Buster was standing right behind her.

"I think that is the best I've heard you sing that song." She complimented.

Buster nodded in agreement, "It sounded great Johnny."

"Thanks." I looked down bashfully, "It's part of my proposal to Layla. I wanted to do a song that helped bring us closer together. She helped me learn how to play this song, it only makes sense that she's the one I sing it when they let me play in front of the castle. Disney is letting me propose to her after the party, when everyone is starting to leave, at the Haunted Mansion. We're going to pick up a couple of Mint Juleps and a couple of cakes from the French Market. I have a proposal set up with Disney in the ride and a hotel reservation from Halloween to the 6th."

"I'm sure she'll love it." Buster responded, "We're heading out, just let us if you guys need anything."

"We have to do a run of the scavenger hunt tomorrow, so it's preferable that, unless it's urgent, you text one of us." Heather added, "There's not going to be much we can do since we'll be out the entire day."

"I'm sure we'll be fine." I assured them, "Half of you guys are doing the run through. Mike's gone for the next few days with Sasha in Nebraska. Meena and Stevie are running errands for the Halloweentown concessions tomorrow and then I think they'll be there most of the day after that. I think it might just be me and Layla tomorrow."

"Maybe you should take her out to do something." Heather suggested, "I heard her talking to Ash and Meena about a place called The Last Bookstore or you could find something else to do that isn't just hanging around here."

"Hint taken and I'll look up the bookstore." I told her. They left not too long after and I pulled up the bookstore's website on my phone. They had a delivery service that sent book collections to you. I did a $200 book bundle and checked off the Classic Fiction, Romance, Young Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Graphic Novel genres. In the comments, I added that her favorite authors were Gregory Maguire, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alexandre Dumas, Jane Austen, and Nicholas Sparks. She may not say aloud that she enjoyed Sparks' work, but she had all of his novels. I also listed that her favorite books were Jekyll and Hyde, Sherlock Holmes, and Memoirs of a Geisha and to avoid Stephanie Meyers and anything relating to Romeo and Juilet. Since there was a comment section about things to help them, I told them that she loved fairytales, Disney, theatre, film, and preferred Marvel and manga over DC and all over graphic novels. The books could be new and used, it didn't matter to me and it wouldn't to her. She loved used books. She was a fan of seeing if there were any notes in the margins or what passages someone chose to highlight in a text. I then chose for books to be surprises that were individually wrapped with no rush on when it came. If I was lucky, it would be her Christmas gift for this year. All I would have to do is wrap the box the books came in.

"Hey, what are you doing down here?" I heard Layla ask, slipping her arms around my shoulders. "I thought you were going to bed around when I was."

"I was going to." I set my phone down and turned to face her, "I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to wake you since I knew you hadn't been sleeping too well. You okay?"

"Yeah, bad dream." She said softly, sitting down next to me,"Thought I'd find you before I went back to sleep."

"Anything I can do to help?"

"Play me something?"

I started to play Billy Joel's She's Got a Way and softly sung the song to her. She rested her head against my shoulder as she listened to me play. Slowly the end of that song morphed into And So it Goes. It had always been one of her favorites. I finished with She's Always a Woman at a slower tempo than it's usually sung. After I finished with the song, I carried her upstairs and we both finally went to bed.