Chapter 4
DEAN
We won.
We’d never won before, and it wasn’t lost on me that, without Landon, we wouldn’t have stood a chance. Lucas and me, well, we weren’t exactly this brand of smart. When Landon had pulled out that thing about the internet—
Well, I remembered a time before I’d had a cell phone, but the internet? It felt like that had always been there. Not like the green-energy guy had any kind of hand in it.
And there was no way Landon was older than me. I couldn’t see a single damned pore on his nose. His skin was a smooth, glassy, warm gold, made all the more distracting by the late-autumn hue of his light brown hair.
He was just a genius, and all I could do was stare at him, because he wasn’t just good with computers or whatever they had him doing over at Crescent. He knew about the founding of the internet.
He knew about my favorite band.
Lucas grabbed Landon’s shoulder and shook him back and forth, grinning. That was what broke the spell. Landon started, flushed, and nodded.
“Good job,” Landon said as my brother jerked him around excitedly, and while I thought he meant to say it to us both, he was only looking at me. I got that hair-raising feeling that rushed down my arms and up the back of my neck.
“You did the hard part,” I said quietly, the words lost under the sounds of Lucas’s celebratory performance.
Landon shook his head. “You knew that last one.”
I smiled, the expression coming on me unbidden. I didn’t know how strange it’d feel until I was already doing it, and then—well, it’d be weird to start frowning at the guy, right?
Especially when he—he knew the lyrics. Just as fast as I had, he’d pulled them out of nowhere.
Julia came over, pushed her way between Lucas and me, and shoved her hand out across the table toward Landon. “Nice one, boss.”
His smile wavered, but just for a second. I wouldn’t have noticed, except—well, those were the kinds of smiles Henry had zeroed in on. He gravitated toward the people who weren’t quite sure of themselves, and set himself up firmly in their corner.
“Thanks,” Landon said, shaking her hand.
She beamed at him. “Let me buy you a drink.”
Lucas pouted. “The whole team won.”
Julia turned my way. “You want something, Dean?”
Lucas made a plaintive, mewling, cattish sound. “Julia,” he whined, “you know how confused I get when you’re mean to me.”
She stared at him, blank as a sheet of paper. “Because I’m not clear enough?”
In a second, my brother’s smile was back. “Because I’m feline, and I know how incredible it feels when that one person who’s mean to everybody finally warms up to you.”
Julia pursed her lips. “I’m not mean to anyone else. Just you.”
Lucas clutched his chest, but I thought I caught the hint of a smile on her lips as she led Landon to the bar.
For a few minutes, Lucas and I chatted. He asked about the band, and I told him about Craig’s kid and her upcoming performance. That seemed innocuous enough.
But my eyes kept slipping over to Landon. I liked the way his slacks fit him, a bit on the slim side, so when he leaned over to order his ass looked particularly round.
Maybe I was a mess, and being a bit of an audiophile was enough to turn my head, but it wasn’t just that.
He looked good. Smelled good too. And he was smart. I’d always liked smart guys, like if I got close enough to them, some of that would finally rub off on me.
“I think I’m gonna get another drink after all,” I said, finishing off my beer. “You want anything?”
Lucas shook his head. “I’m driving. Better not.”
What kind of big brother would I be to argue with that?
When I went over and leaned against the bar beside Landon, the edge of it bit into my forearm.
He breathed in deep and turned to look at me, his eyes wide and blinking, like I’d startled him.
I had always been a big cat, so I wasn’t totally unused to people staring at me like I was getting ready to pounce on them, but I wasn’t trying to freak the guy out.
I tried a smile, but his eyes dropped to my mouth and he—he gulped. Fuck, was I scary?
The expression faltered on my face, and I went for a smaller one. Fewer teeth on display.
“So,” I said, “you like the Arctic Monkeys?”
“Ah, yeah. They’re—they’re great.” His cheeks flushed, and he looked down into his glass. “I, um, I saw them live once? In a weird, warehouse kind of venue. It was just this big metal building, and it was so hot, but they were great.”
I breathed out slow through my teeth. “Damn. I wish I could see them live.”
“Oh. Ah, yeah. You should. They’re—well, like I said, they’re great live. Very . . . energetic. You’ll like them.”
I raised an eyebrow. I wanted to ask how he figured that—ask if Lucas had said anything to him about me other than that I was his brother.
Maybe he’d given Landon my whole tragic backstory.
More likely, Lucas would’ve tried to paint me as some rocker savant.
That was his usual go-to when he was trying to sell one of his corporate friends on the idea of his wayward brother drifting in for trivia night or a holiday party or the family picnic day or whatever.
But I could practically feel the heat of Landon’s flushed skin, hear the jump in his heart rate when he’d realized I was beside him. I was making him nervous, and nothing I had to offer was worth making him uncomfortable.
“I’ll have to make a point to go next time they’re on tour.”
He swallowed, nodding. “Definitely. You should.”
“Yeah.” I rocked back from the bar but lingered a second. “You were great tonight. At trivia. I hope we can match up again.”
“Thanks,” he croaked with a tiny, wavering smile.
When I got back to Lucas, I was drinkless and ready to go. That was about all the peopling I could stand, so I grabbed my jacket off the empty stool and shrugged it on, trying to ignore the way my little brother was staring at me.
“Change your mind about that drink?”
I sighed. “You’re right. Driving. Better if I just head home.”
Luke frowned at me. He wasn’t buying it.
“Do you like Landon?” he asked, eyes alight as he leaned in and lowered his voice.
I shrugged. “He seems nice.”
“Yeah, but you went over there.”
I stared blankly at him. “Am I not allowed to talk to him?”
“No, but—” Lucas waved at the guy, as if he were actually saying something.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “But this is middle school? Me going over there to talk to him means—what, I have a schoolyard crush?”
Lucas huffed. “No, but do you like him?”
I scowled, hollowing my cheeks between my teeth. My molars dug in.
Lucas was too damn excited about this, and Landon was too—
Well, I wasn’t exactly sure. He didn’t seem interested in me, really, despite the way he’d stared, and wasn’t that cause enough to leave him be?
“He seems great.” I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my leather jacket. “Good taste in music. That’s all. He should join our team next week. If he wants to.”
Lucas grinned like I’d just presented him with a three-tier cake and told him that we were going to start celebrating his birthday every day now because he was just that damned special. “He’ll want to.”
“Sure, Luke. I’ll text you.” I clapped him on the shoulder and made my exit. My stomach was fluttering before I made it to my bike. What was that?
Just Lucas making me uneasy, probably. He was too excited about this—the prospect of nothing.
Thing was, I hadn’t dated anybody since . . . since Henry.
I didn’t know why.
It wasn’t like I genuinely thought Henry would’ve wanted me to spend the rest of my life sulking and alone.
He hadn’t been like that. He’d been quick, clever, caring. At first, I’d thought he was an alien or something. I couldn’t hide anything from him, so much so that, initially I hadn’t believed he was human, plain and simple. Turned out, he was just . . .
He’d had a big heart, my Henry.
We’d started Lucky Black Cat together, playing out of his parents’ garage in high school. We’d had big plans, and then he’d gotten sick. Life had gone on for all four of us, until Henry’s stopped, and mine alongside.
We were just a couple months shy of three years without him now, and as Riley and Craig drifted toward other things—their families, their careers, their own dreams—I was starting to believe that, without him, I didn’t have what it took.
We’d started this top spinning together, and it was going to fall on my watch.
That was why it sucked to have this creative block. Sure, Henry’s lyrics had always been better than mine. He could twist a word around until it pulsed in the air and meant everything as it danced over our chords. But I hadn’t been that bad—I hadn’t been fucking useless like I was now.
Even that wouldn’t have bothered Henry. He’d have told me it was fine, that I needed to go out, live life, and the lyrics would come to me.
I couldn’t.
I owed him a—well, a fucking lot. But at the very least, I owed him a song. If I could finish it, maybe then I’d feel like living life, or whatever.
Hard to imagine, but there it was.
It didn’t matter how many trivia nights I went to or how many hot guys Lucas got to smile at me across a bar table; I was stuck.