Chapter 7 Padraig
seven
Padraig
A Few Weeks Later
The sky over the highway bleeds from tangerine to violet.
Grain silos blur past. A few cows. Golden fields.
We’re heading north on the 195 with the windows cracked open. Warm wind slaps against my temple.
Liam glances over. His hair is as long as mine, wild and unbrushed. Blowing in the breeze. We’re halfway to Spokane before I realize how quiet we’ve been.
Liam’s foot taps the floorboard in rhythm with whatever beat’s looping through his head. I feel a certain emptiness. Something’s missing. My soft, steady touchstone.
Stevie.
“She texted yet?” Liam reads my mind, as he does.
“Yeah.” I nod, though I keep my eyes on the road. “Said her mom nearly cried when she walked in. She’ll check on Ma and the wee lads tomorrow.”
“How long’s she staying?”
“A couple weeks, I think.”
He lets out a low breath. “So it’s just us for a while.”
“Yeah.”
We lock eyes. Then he turns back to the road.
“I’m glad we have some time for the two of us. It’s been years, you realize.”
I glance over.
“There isn’t any part of us she isn’t there for anymore.” His comment lands sharp between my ribs.
I shift in my seat uncomfortably. “You’re not being fair,” I fire back defensively.
“Why exactly are we checking this singer out? You know you’re gonna choose her in the long run over me.”
“What the fuck?” I turn toward him, utterly confused. “Do you have something you need to say?”
“She’s not into the band stuff for the long haul. Do you not listen to her?” He shrugs.
My chest constricts. Not with guilt. With truth. Because I know he’s right.
“I don’t wanna do this with anyone else, Dar.” Liam reaches over and grips my wrist. “But, I’m gonna do it no matter what. With or without you.”
“What’s gotten into you?” I’m struggling to understand. Have I not been showing up every goddamn day?
He cracks his knuckles. “You don’t even notice I haven’t been around much. At least you haven’t said anything.”
Huh. Is it true? Guilt overwhelms me.
“See.” He juts out his chin. “You’re so into your relationship, like it’s the most important thing.”
I stare out the window as we approach Spokane. City lights blur like static against the glass.
“She doesn’t take me from you,” I retort. “She fills something else.”
“No, you fill her. Ten times a day. It’s all you think about.” Liam rolls his eyes.
“Don’t be a dick. She’s one of your best friends. She’s the woman I love. I won’t continue this conversation if you disrespect my relationship.” I swallow hard, unable to process his harsh words.
“Fer fuck’s sake. I didn’t mean it as a shot. I’m not pissed. I’m realistic.” Liam folds his arms across his chest and I know he’s telling the truth. He’s worried. Thinks I’m slipping away.
“I promise, you’ve got me.”
“Not all of you.” He sucks his lips over his teeth. “I’m not tryin’ to get up in your grill, Dar. But, don’t you think you’re too serious? I heard you and her whispering about fucking marriage. You’re twenty, for God’s sake.”
“Not for a few years, Jesus,” I protest.
He turns, eyes sharp, hurting. “Don’t feckin’ lie to me or yourself.”
I don’t. I can’t. The lie wouldn’t land anyway. The truth is, I’d put a ring on her finger tomorrow if I thought she’d say yes and he knows it. I’m trying to be two things at once. His twin and bandmate. Her forever man.
Liam turns back to the road. Flicks on the headlights. “Would you choose her if she gave you an ultimatum? I deserve to know.”
“I don’t want to choose,’ I answer honestly.
He nods once, hollow as if to say, you already have.
“Fireball is my priority. You’re my priority.” I wish I could punch the shit out of this situation. Crack it open and rearrange it.
His fingers drum the wheel. “Well, I guess we’ll see.”
The neon sign blinks ahead.
The Big Dipper. Spokane’s premier live music club.
Liam slows the truck. Pulls up to the curb like it’s no big deal even though we both know this night means something.
It’s supposed to be the start of something for the both of us.
If we’re gonna add a new voice to the band, I guess it makes sense he wants to know where my head is at before we go forward.
He stretches, arms behind his head. “Look, don’t sweat it. I’m not trying to put pressure on you. All I’m saying is I’m looking forward to the next couple of weeks. It hasn’t been just us since you started fucking her in high school.”
“Dar—”
“What?” He shrugs. “You’re tied to her like a feckin’ balloon.”
I reach for the handle. “I’m hopelessly in love with her.”
“I know.” He winces like the idea of love is a curse. “Don’t get me wrong, I love her too—you don’t get what being tied down means for us.”
“I’m gonna call bullshit. You make her out to be some ball and chain. She’s all-in on Fireball. Hell, she came up with the concept,” I remind him and slump back against the seat.
This conversation has obviously been brewing for a while, but I’m not backing down. Stevie is nonnegotiable.
“What the fuck do you mean? We’ve got a name, a couple good songs, and no singer. We’ve been dicking around for months while you guys play house in our dorm room.” Liam slams his palm against the steering wheel.
“We’re here now.” I remain calm. It’s the only way when Liam gets agitated.
He doesn’t stop. “You think you can tour with a wife?”
“She’s not my wife.”
“Not yet.”
I roll my eyes. “As you said, I’m twenty. Not stupid.”
“No?” He laughs, bitter. “Your priority is her while we’re living on borrowed time.”
Silence stretches out like wire between us.
“You wanna talk life choices? How many people have you fucked this month?” I turn it back on him.
He doesn’t flinch. “Who keeps count? Are you?”
“No. I’m watching you spiral. Men, women, whoever looks at you twice.” I soften my tone because I’m generally worried about my brother’s inability to maintain a relationship. He seems so lost.
“I’m allowed to have fun, why discriminate?”
“Are you?” I place my hand on his shoulder. “Having fun?”
Liam looks out the window. His reflection in the glass doesn’t smile. “I don’t know what the fuck I am. Hell, maybe I’m jealous because it seems like I’m never gonna have a Stevie.”
“You will.” I assure him.
He shakes his head. “Name one person who’d be down to be in an open relationship forever. It doesn’t exist, and probably shouldn’t.”
“You’re in bum-fuck Pullman. You haven’t even explored the possibility. You aren’t the only person in the world who’s bisexual.” I try to give him something steadier to hold on to, though I know this nontraditional road isn’t going to be easy.
“I already know the answer. Casual sex is the only way I can satisfy my cravings.”
Fuck. I reach over, knock my knuckles against his leg. “You’re the coolest, most talented guy in the family. Not bad looking, if I do say so myself. Have some patience.”
“Says the gentle soul who found his perfect goddamn future at eight years old.” Liam smiles almost apologetically.
“Fuck off. It was seven.”
He grins, but his eyes are now glassy. “Connor’s the hero. You’re the heart. I’m the freak.”
I stare at him, stunned.
He swallows hard. “You don’t know what it’s like. It’s bad enough watching Da morph from a great man into a zombie. He’d rather be drunk than have a fag for a son.”
I go still. The memory of what happened that afternoon vivid in my mind. I didn’t realize how it felt for Liam to be shamed in front of our entire family.
“Liam…”
“I saw it in his eyes before he…” he whispers. “Like I ruined something sacred. Like I’m the one who made everything collapse.”
I breathe slow. Careful. “You didn’t.”
“He hates me.”
“No,” I say, voice thick. “He hates himself.”
We sit in that truth.
“I need this to feel like I’m worth something.” He curls his lips around his teeth to stop himself from crying.
“I know. We’re doing this. I promise—”
“We’ve got one shot,” he interrupts. “Connor is putting us through school, he gave us the gear, our freedom. We owe it to him…”
“I get it.” I nod vigorously. “I live with the weight of it every goddamn day.”
“It shouldn’t be a fucking weight. It’s a privilege,” he snarls.
His words scrape. Not because they’re wrong. Because they hit too close.
Liam and I were born to walk beside each other. Stevie and I were born to be soulmates. How could I ever choose?
We fall quiet and our surroundings come back into focus. The parking lot next to The Big Dipper buzzes with a kind of static energy I didn’t know Spokane had. Neon bleeds out the door every time someone stumbles through it.
“Let’s go see if this chick’s our singer and take it from there.” I gesture to the building.
The place reeks of stale beer and overripe perfume. The floors are tacky underfoot. Colored lights pulse overhead. Dollar bills hang from the ceiling like jungle vines. A pack of girls in plastic tiaras screech-laugh by the bar.
Then a voice slices through the noise. The room hushes like it’s been slapped.
Low. Smoky. The kind of tone that leaks into your bloodstream and takes its time. Like Ella Fitzgerald soaked in red wine with a little dose of Amy Winehouse and a sprinkling of Adele.
I don’t breathe. Liam doesn’t move.
The woman’s dress clings to her like a dare.
Midnight-blue satin, dipped low in the back.
Long enough to brush her calves. Her hair’s jet-black and wild, tumbling in loose coils down to her waist. Her lips are painted dark purple, like bruised plums. Sea-glass green eyes catch the overhead light and fracture it.
She hits the chorus and lifts into another register entirely. Clear, bell-pure, like she ripped a hole in the ceiling and dragged heaven down with her.
We’ve found her. If she’ll have us.
Liam turns to me slowly. The look on his face says it all.
After the song is over, the crowd explodes into cheers. She introduces herself.
Felicity Clark.
Our future?
“She’s a vibe.” I nudge him. “Would she even want to join a Celtic rock band?”
“Don’t know.” He grins. “But we’re gonna find out.”
The lingering crunchiness of our previous conversation evaporates. This is Liam at his best. Fueled by a feeling. A spark. A whim. The most magnetic person I’ve ever known. I spend half my life reassuring him and the other half trying to catch up.
The next song isn’t one I expect. She slows it way down.
The piano drops into a lazy, minor-key intro, then slips into the first line of You Don’t Own Me.
Not the bubblegum version. This one’s molasses and velvet.
Full of broken glass and long stares. She doesn’t wink.
Doesn’t flirt. Doesn’t perform for anyone.
She’s in her own world. Even the way she delivers the chorus—fragile, restrained, then suddenly soaring—is perfection. She makes every man in the place sit up straighter. Liam goes still beside me, frozen. Like he’s afraid to miss a note.
The drummer watches her intently like he might miss a cue. The upright bassist closes his eyes, swaying like the strings are leading him instead of the other way around.
She launches into Bennie and the Jets next, completely reworked in a strange, lilting jazz rhythm, her phrasing twisted and playful, like she’s rewriting the song as she sings it. The band keeps up, barely. They’re good, but she’s better.
“She’s not merely singing,” Liam murmurs. “She’s bending sound.”
He’s right. Her voice changes with every bar. Growls into the lower registers, floats up into a falsetto so clear it rings in my teeth. Her vibrato is tight and controlled. The mic barely picks her up in the softest places, so the crowd leans in.
She has them—and us—by the balls.
When she starts Here Comes the Sun, I think of Stevie. The way she sings the song every morning while she brushes her hair without even realizing it. I wish she could be with us now to experience this magic, but she needed to spend time with her own family.
I text her a video. We’ve found our singer.
Felicity hits the final note with her arms raised and body arched like she’s pulling the sound down from somewhere divine. Then she lowers the mic, gives the tiniest nod to the band, and finally smiles.
The room erupts. It’s a bar in Spokane, Washington, not Carnegie Hall. The crowd treats this show like it’s both.
Felicity doesn’t say goodnight. She steps back and leaves the mic swinging.
Like two eager puppies, we edge past a line of drunk college guys and slip down a narrow corridor behind the stage.
The green room’s small and overheated. She’s propped against the far wall, head tilted back, throat working as she drains a bottle of water.
The confidence she wore on stage peels off her shoulders like smoke.
Up close, she looks like she’s barely out of high school.
Certainly not old enough to carry that kind of voice.
She lowers the bottle, eyes locking on us.
Stills when she sees Liam.
Up close, her eyes hit harder. They’re laced with gold. Her dark hair’s now slicked into a ponytail, loose strands clinging to her neck. There’s sweat at her collarbone. A flush across her chest. She’s buzzing from the stage.
“Hey,” I say as we approach.
She watches us, unreadable.
“I’m Padraig,” I offer. “This is Liam. We’re in a band called Fireball and we need a singer and were wondering if you’d be interested in talking about it.”
Her gaze flicks between us. Lingers on Liam.
Something shifts.
Silent. Charged.
Like a fuse caught fire.