Chapter 16
Deacon
After we belted out the final lyrics to “Let It Go” from the stage of the bar, Kieran and I took deep bows to the cheering crowd following our encore. He patted me on the back before abandoning my side when Sybil pulled him in for a kiss.
“Get a room, you two,” I said as I took my seat.
“We got an entire house,” Sybil said, grinning over the rim of her glass before taking a sip from the fruity cocktail. “And we’ve christened every room.”
Marcus returned with a fresh pitcher and some nachos for the table as Emi leaned into Sybil’s story. “Every room? Even the back room in the basement where you found all those creepy old dolls?”
“Hot,” I said, glancing at my phone to see the reply to my text canceling plans with DJ from the apple aisle, the same woman whose contact name Willow had taken the opportunity to change. She’d sent a message that afternoon, too.
Red Delicious: Hope everything is okay. Maybe tomorrow night? We’d have fun.
I didn’t respond and slid the phone back into my pocket. I’d hoped there’d be an update from Willow—that’s why I’d looked at my phone in the first place—but she’d been radio silent all evening. A good thing on a date, I guess, but I kept checking.
“So, anyway,” Sybil said, finishing a story I’d missed while checking my phone. “I didn’t realize there were so many spiders, and I’ll never be getting naked in that room again.”
Everyone laughed, and Kieran hugged her tighter.
The first few times I met him, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he chose to hide in the bathroom rather than listen to a sex story, but now he just laughed, kissed her head, and looked relaxed.
Besides being my go-to karaoke partner, he was part of our circle now, he and his sister, Lila, who was dating Marcus.
I took a sip from my beer as Sybil and Emi started talking with Marcus about the catering menu for the wedding, leaving Kieran and me out of the decision-making.
“Brought down the house as usual,” he said, holding out a palm for a high five I gladly returned.
“No doubt.” I glanced at the familiar stage with the binder of laminated pages.
It was a cheap setup—a machine the owner bought years ago that somehow still did the trick once a week when he’d trot it out.
“Safe to say, panties would have been thrown if the bar wasn’t full of middle-aged straight dudes and our close friends. ”
“Sybil threatened to throw some,” he offered, motioning to his fiancée, now deep in conversation about cheeses.
“Yeah, but who here hasn’t had Sybil’s panties thrown at them?”
He threw a cardboard coaster at my face, which I barely ducked and also probably deserved.
“Watch it,” he said with a laugh, and I tipped my head in apology.
I knew Sybil wasn’t ashamed of anything in her past, nor was Kieran.
I think he was more offended that she would have been impressed enough to throw them at someone else’s singing, but I still handed the coaster back to him.
I topped off each of our glasses from the fresh pitcher. “Before our first assignment after apprenticing in the PJs, we trusted this guy named Dougy to pick a spot for us to get a beer. Brother chose this honky-tonk-looking place called Stinky Pete’s advertising karaoke.”
I chuckled to myself, remembering how we’d about beat his ass, but still went in.
They had beer, after all. Not that I’d be enjoying it because I’d drawn the short straw and was driving.
Cruz drew the other one, so while our boys got drunker and more off-key, we sat back sipping water.
He’d looked different. Still a cocky, quiet asshole but shaky somehow.
He kept looking at his watch. “All right, man?” I’d asked, shouting over the sound of Dougy belting out “I Will Always Love You” to loud cheers from the guys.
The guy was a brick wall, and I envied him. I had a hard time imagining him lying in bed at night, exhausted and questioning if he was good enough to make it to the end, like I had done. Other guys occasionally showed cracks, let their worries slip in a moment of weakness, but not him. Not ever.
“Fine.” He sounded annoyed, and I’d rolled my eyes, but when I looked back, I saw him clasp one hand in the other, and I noticed the fidgeting and the tight set of his jaw. I studied him over the rim of my water glass.
“You look kinda shaky.”
“I can’t hear you,” he mouthed over Dougy’s wailing, the word “love” taking on eighteen syllables.
“You can talk to me,” I shouted.
“What?”
“Fuck this,” I muttered and grabbed his arm, dragging him toward the entrance, where the warm Texas night air hit us as much as the sudden silence did.
“What the hell?” He shook off my hold and glared, but I blocked his way back into the bar.
There was a fifty-fifty chance he was going to hit me, and I’d have to go on stage, sober and with a swollen jaw, because I’d already insisted I was the best singer in the group and talked a lot of shit about everyone else’s singing talents.
I’d held up my palms, really hoping to avoid the swollen jaw. “We’re about to have people’s lives in our hands. Without us, people die, and it’s not a simulation or a training exercise. This time, it’ll be for real. And that’s big. I’m checking on you.”
“That’s the job,” he said, back straight, but anyone could tell that his assured tone was a front. “Why do you even care? You’re basically the class clown. You don’t care about anything.”
“I care about you, motherfucker.” God, he was a dick.
I’d thrown my hands up, reaching for the door, to head back inside.
“I’m going to have your back out there no matter what, because you had mine.
During hell night. I didn’t forget that.
I’m trying to have your back here, too. No matter how much you look like you wanna hit me, I’m still trying to have your back. That’s why I pulled you outside.”
“I should hit you for thinking it was okay to touch me, let alone drag me out here.”
“I should hit you to knock some sense into your thick head. We’re a team.
A unit. If you keep this lone wolf thing going, you’re not only going to miss out, you’re going to hurt the team.
” I dropped my arms and stepped back, holding his gaze.
“So hit me if you need to.” I held out my arms. “But when I hit you back, it’s because I care about you, which is why I’m telling you to get it together. ”
“I told you,” he said. “We’re not the same. I’m never going to be part of some bro hug circle with you.”
“Maybe not. But we’re in the same boat. Can you just take a chance on rowing with us?”
Cruz stood silent, fists clenched, and it looked more and more likely he might actually hit me.
I held out my arms. “Give it a try if you need to,” I said.
“To be fair, that’s the only thing that gets me to listen sometimes.
” I thought the joke might break something, but he was the same rock wall as always.
He didn’t say anything further, and I gave a mental “fuck it” before waving him off and pulling open the door to get back into Pete’s. I’d been certain he wouldn’t come around, but maybe he’d talk to someone. When I stepped into the bar, they were announcing the next performer over the loudspeaker.
“Deacon to the stage. Our next performer is Deacon Rakes.” I tried to shake off the conversation with Cruz.
He was right that we didn’t ever admit we were scared, but it felt fucking great to say it out loud, even just to him.
I strode toward the stage, but Dougy snagged the mic and his voice boomed through the room.
“And joining our DD is my other fellow rookie, Cruz Lewis! Get up here, boys!”
Behind me, Cruz looked horror-struck for a second before his cool mask returned.
He was an asshole, but he was one who understood expectations.
We were rookies—we did what we were told.
And today that meant I was going to sing a duet with the person voted least likely to pull the stick from his own ass.
He walked toward me with a nod to Dougy, who was pretty amused with himself, and hopped onto the stage.
“What are we singing?” I looked toward the screen, waiting for the song to appear, and the guys at the front table whooped with laughter.
“Rakes talked so much shit about his skills. This better be good,” a guy named Leo shouted from the front row.
That’s when the song title flashed across the screen and the opening chords to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” played.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Cruz said under his breath, and I ignored his sour mood and laughed before I sang the opening lines à la Marvin Gaye.
“Just hum along,” I said, holding out the second mic to him. “I’ll take the lead.”
“I know the song,” he said, snatching it from my hand. “I can hold my own.”
“Yeah,” I said as the song began. “Right.”
“Whoever is worse has to take Leo home! He’s been eating nothing but refried beans all night!” The guys laughed, and Leo shrugged from his spot on the end of the table.
“That farting motherfucker is not getting in my car,” Cruz said under his breath.
“Oh, he is,” I said, before singing the opening line. “I had to air out my truck for days last time.”
Despite the stakes, I had expected little from my partner, so I was shocked as hell when he joined in, not only on time but with a strong, clear voice for his part.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. If there was one thing he hated, it was being bested at something.
I’d looked at him wide-eyed, but he’d been focused on the screen for a second before belting out a line.
Not to be outdone, I matched him line for line.
There was no way I was going to let Cruz outshine me.
The guys were catcalling our performance, and we joined up for the duet of the chorus, our voices matching as we worked through the song.
The ridiculousness of the competition between us to sing a more convincing love song made me laugh, and I was shocked as hell to see Cruz loosening up.
When I sang the word “wind!” everyone pointed at Leo, who bowed, and Cruz sang back, “No rain!” We kept going, and something amazing happened and the guy smiled.
We made it mostly through the song, stumbling once over a lyric together, and he actually laughed along with the guys cheering us on.
By the time we’d finished the song, he looked different than I’d ever seen him, and when he sang the last lines, he set the mic aside.
“Thanks,” he’d said, scratching the back of his neck. “For making me…row. For looking out for me,” he added quietly, away from the mic. “Even when I didn’t ask for it or want your advice.”
He hadn’t actually shared anything with me. That would still take more time. But it felt like a boulder had shifted, and I liked that feeling. I’d wanted to help, and it seemed like I had. “No wind,” I’d said, holding out my fist.
It took a moment, but he bumped his fist with mine. “No rain.”
“Anyway,” I said, returning to the story, “I have that squad and Dougy to thank for my prowess at karaoke.” I took a sip of my beer as the memory receded and looked around the bar we sat in now, a much nicer one than Stinky Pete’s in Texas.
Kieran raised his glass. “To Stinky Pete,” he said, and I clinked mine with his, my mind stuck on that first moment when I really met my best friend.
My phone buzzed in my pocket with another message from Red Delicious.
When Kieran joined Sybil in the cheese plate conversation, I’d turned her down initially because I’d wanted to spend more time with Willow.
But Willow was on a date—not to mention I had no business wanting to spend time with Cruz’s little sister instead of a hot, interesting woman who was up for some short-term fun.
It would lead to all kinds of trouble if I thought of Willow as anything more than a friend.
I lifted my glass to my lips but paused before taking a drink. The sound of a familiar laugh had drawn my attention to a group nearby, where Willow stood in a red dress that fit her in all the right places, and the sight of her made my breath catch.