Chapter 10
Vienna
Now
Bee came out holding Heather—her nanny’s—hand, and immediately her eyes scanned the room. I saw the little bob in her throat as she took in the sheer number of people around her, watching her.
Axel came bounding through a second later, bulldozing his way through the crowd.
I scooped down low, swinging him into my arms, making him squeal with excitement.
It was a miracle, because when Rachel had first arrived with him, I had been too nervous to hold him—I hadn’t even known how to push his pram.
And sure, a lot of it had been reluctance on my part.
I avoided babies because of everything I had once lost. What it cost me to be close to them.
But Axel refused to be denied. He clung to my beard, bringing his face as close to mine as possible, until our eyeballs were basically touching, and grinned his toothy grin at me.
“Do you want to help Uncle Venny with your sister’s grand entrance?” I asked him, trying to pull my head back ever so slightly since his eyelashes were currently on a mission to shred my eyeballs to pieces.
His response was to grab my beard even tighter, smooshing my nose against his.
“I’m gonna take that as a yes,” I laughed, placing him down on his feet and quickly reaching behind the bar, pulling out the rolled up red carpet I had in store.
“M’lady,” I called to Bee, bowing down to her and gesturing wildly. She giggled, and my heart lurched. That was a sound we didn’t hear anywhere near enough of lately.
Straightening up, I shook the carpet until it rolled towards Bee and handed one of the corners to Axel so he could help me lower it to the floor.
“Please, follow me,” I said to Bee. “I am at your service. Your audience awaits. Let’s kick some ass!”
“Vienna!” Heather snapped at me.
“What?” I hissed, rubbing my arm up and down after she slapped it with the back of her hand. “What did I do?”
“We don’t say ‘ass’! Do you want Bee to repeat that word?”
“How else is she going to learn what to kick?” I asked, frowning at the nanny.
“I would prefer she kicked nothing.”
“Are you sure you know where you are, Heather, dearest? You realise who you work for, yes? You realise what her mother does when people upset her? Kicking someone’s ass is like a friendly greeting for Rachel.”
“And we’re raising the next generation to be better than that!”
“Are we? Well, that’s certainly news to me. Oi, Divorce!” I yelled over. “Are you aware that we are cleaning our acts up and improving for the new generation?”
“Don’t get me involved, Vienna.”
“This is why your wife left you!” I yelled back, earning myself the middle finger and a roll of his eyes.
Turning back to Bee, I held out my arm for her to hold on to the crook of my elbow. “Come on, Bee. Take my arm and guide me away. Guide me away before she has me repenting all my sins!”
“You’re silly,” Bee whispered to me as we walked her red carpet.
Her fingers curled into my skin, her nails digging into me slightly.
I hated that she still had these doubts.
That she was still unsure of herself and how adored she was here.
Wanting nothing more than to see her smile, I winked down at her and then scooped to grab her waist and hauled her onto my shoulders.
“That’s why you love me, Bumble Bee,” I said, and then started buzzing, “flying” us over to where our equipment was set up.
The throb in my forehead only intensified as I “flew”, reminding me of where I had spent the night, and the drunken binge I had participated in afterwards.
I tried to push it to the back of my mind, to push her to the back of my mind, but my thoughts always went back there. Back to the woman behind the glass. The source of all my troubles, and the person I needed like I needed air.
“Kick some ass?” Bee whispered to me as I placed her in front of the karaoke machine, pulling my attention back to her.
For someone so young, she was so perceptive.
“Kick some ass,” I grinned back.
This was a huge step for her. It had been my silly idea a few weeks back to start a band. She made us all audition for her, and it had definitely been my excellent improv skills that won me the role of lead guitarist.
I took my place next to her and grabbed my beard, ready to replicate the excellent skills I had shown her—playing the air guitar on my beard—and clicked for the rest of the band to come take their spots.
Ant was on the drums. We didn’t have drums, but Bee had told him two tables and a snooker cue would work well enough.
Doc was on the piano—which was just Axel’s baby keyboard.
And poor bastard Pivot was on the triangle. The one and only real instrument in this band.
As he got on the stage, I whispered “good luck” to him, chuckling to myself at the way he blanched in return, and nodded my head to Dante to start the music.
“Lads, welcome to the grand debut of the finest band in town. The talented, the amazing, the—”
“Modest?” Rachel called back.
“Who needs modesty when you possess skills like we do! May I humbly—”
“Oh, now you’re humble?” Jenna laughed.
“Okay, audience participation is neither asked for nor welcome!” I hissed at them. “May I present the fantastically named, Bee and Vee, the finest singers this side of the—”
“Good grief,” Rachel laughed, rolling her eyes.
“Oh, just play the fucking song!” I said, putting on most of my frustration for Bee’s sake, knowing it made her giggle.
As the opening bars of Ring of Fire rang out, the club quietened their chatter and turned all eyes on us.
Rachel, Jenna, and Trex pushed their way to the front, ready to do their silly groupie dance routine, and we waited for Bee to sing.
Bee’s mutism was a sore spot for the club. Not because it was there—we didn’t care about that. But because we recognised why it had happened, and the part we all played in destroying her confidence until she took away the one thing she had control over—her voice.
I had made it my personal mission to bring her back out of her shell again. To show her that it was okay to be silly and goofy. Even if she never spoke again, I just wanted that happy, carefree child back.
I wanted the child who ran through this compound like she owned it—because she did. She owned each and every one of us and had done since the day she had been born.
So, as Johnny Cash began his opening line, and Bee shrank away with shyness, I dived in front of her, sinking to my knees, and played the shit out of the guitar on my beard.
“Love,” I belted out, making my voice as deep as I could. “Is a burning thing… eyes on me, sweetheart,” I whispered during the quick moment of instrumental. “Just me and you. Just like we rehearsed.”
She nodded at me, and we both chuckled at Pivot’s ridiculous attempt to bang the triangle in tune.
“And it makes, a fiery ring…”
Out of nowhere, we heard someone attempt to do a trumpet for the music, and Bee’s eyes scanned the crowd, seeing her dad stood behind the bar, a pint glass to his lips as he made the noise.
He gave her a small wink, nodding his head to show her it was okay, and she beamed back at him, grabbing the microphone, “bound, by wild desire,”
Followed by the whole crowd singing, “I fell into a ring of fire.”
The song went more or less smoothly from there on. Bee had her moments of faltering, but with the help of all of us—minus Pivot, who spent the entire song either frowning at the triangle or banging it rapidly—she managed to get through it.
There was one moment where I thought she was going to stop entirely, so I grabbed hold of Ant, planted a kiss on his lips, and then put on a bad French accent—why, I don’t know, but it succeeded in making her laugh.
“Oh, but oui, oui, oui, it bunz, bunz, bunz, ze ring of fiyah, ze ring of fiyah.”
“Get the fuck out of my face,” Ant snapped back, bopping me with the snooker cue.
I dropped to my knees and shuffled over to Bee until my back was pressed against hers. As she sang, “down, down, down,” I encouraged her to fall to the floor and jump back up, taking her eyes away from the crowd, knowing she would be overwhelmed when they all started clapping at the end.
She fell to the floor with me in a fit of giggles, which only increased when Pivot muttered something under his breath and threw the metal stick off the stage, and stomped off.
“I guess he won’t be joining us on the world tour,” I whispered to her. She shook her head, still smiling, and then pushed herself to her feet, holding her hand out to help me up.
To anyone else, this was just a song. To Bee, this was a huge achievement.
A few years ago, she had been caught up in a fire, thanks to her fuckwit of an uncle.
It left her with burns up and down her back, and a few that crept along her neck.
They were the biggest source of her discomfort and the biggest knock to her confidence.
So singing this song, which was no doubt a huge reminder of that night, was a step none of us could have seen coming.
“Bee, you absolute fucking sensation!” I shouted at her when we were both on our feet, the song was over and the crowd was clapping.
“Vienna, language!” Heather snapped back.
“I never told her to kick anything! What do you want from me, woman?”
“I want you to stop your swearing around impressionable young ladies!”
“Is this flirting, Heather? Is that what this is? Are you trying to establish dominance over me?” I winked at her, causing her to scowl.
As everyone rushed towards Bee, I pulled away slightly, giving her the moment she deserved. Her time to shine.
And then, as was my curse these days, my thoughts wandered back to her, and I couldn’t help but think of another time I’d been pulled up for dancing—another room, another crowd, another version of me that didn’t feel quite so far away.