Chapter Eleven – Bishop
Deacon didn’t want to go. It took both Priest and I to convince him to get dressed up and come with us. Priest knew a place—because he was Priest and he knew everybody and everything. A karaoke bar that wasn’t exactly your average, run of the mill karaoke bar. Fancier, with more expensive drinks and the kind of semi-elegant atmosphere that was only slightly hampered by the fact there was a stage.
I went for some black pants, along with a dark gray shirt and black suspenders—Priest had gotten me the suspenders last year, claiming girls went crazy for them. He would know. I, myself, didn’t see how or why girls would go crazy for them. In fact, tonight was the first time I’d be wearing them.
Not too dressed up, but enough. Wanted to look good for our newest member.
Angel. It was still weird as hell to know we now had a girl in our ranks, a girl we’d have to share the stage with soon enough. Tonight was meant to be fun, but it was also about seeing what she was made of, figuring out why Ramona and her people chose her out of everyone.
I walked out of my room once I was ready, finding Priest and Deacon in the living room. Deacon was sitting on the couch, wearing nothing more than a black t-shirt and dark blue jeans. His black hair was pulled back in a low bun, and he was busy frowning at Priest, who stood before him with an annoyed expression on his face.
“Come on, bro,” Priest said. “Get off your ass and come with us. The four of us need to bond and shit, and we can’t do that when you’re being a sourpuss.” He knocked against Deacon’s legs, which he had spread out on the coffee table.
Deacon hissed, “Fuck off. I’m not going. You two can frolic with your new girl, but I’m not going to pretend this is something different than what it is. She’s here for one album and one tour, and that’s it. I don’t need to be best friends with her.”
Priest heard me approaching and tossed me a pleading look. His blond hair was swept back, his gray eyes desperate. His tall, muscular frame wore a long-sleeved shirt, though its buttons were undone to his chest, revealing his multitude of tattoos. The sleeves had been rolled up to his elbows—something else I remembered him saying the girls went nuts over.
Again, I didn’t understand what was so sexy about rolled-up sleeves, but what did I know?
“If he doesn’t want to come, we can’t force him,” I told Priest. “Honestly, it might be better if he stays home.”
“No,” Priest said, refusing to listen. “He’s coming. We’re a fucking team still, even if your brother isn’t here, so get up off your ass and get changed, because the moment Angel walks out, we’re going.”
Deacon itched the side of his head, giving Priest the middle finger salute at the same time.
Priest looked like he wanted to brawl with him, but I set a hand on his arm and pulled him away, toward the kitchen. “Don’t bother with him,” I said. “If he doesn’t want to come, he doesn’t have to. It can be just us three.”
Shaking me off him, Priest scowled—something he didn’t do often. “No. That’s how it starts. First, he doesn’t want to come anywhere with us, and next thing you know he’ll be done with it all.” Louder he added, “And I won’t let that happen.”
Priest lowered his voice to a whisper to say, “These past few months, I’ve hardly heard a word from him. He never wanted to come to practice or even hang out. He’s been blowing us off this whole time, Bishop. I’ll be damned if I let him throw away everything just because he’s pouting about his brother.”
“Well, to be fair, the band was Pope’s idea.” After so many years, I, like the others, had gotten used to using our stage names. It was our thing now. When we were out in public, not dressed as Black Sacrament, we went by fake names so no one would know who we were.
I became Brandon. Priest became Paul. Deacon was Devon.
Yeah, yeah, not that creative, but whatever.Our real names were pretty much DOA.
Angel… we’d have to figure out what to call her.
“Pope’s not here anymore,” Priest whispered, “and he’s not coming back. He—” He was going to say more, but his crazy hearing must’ve heard Angel stepping out of her room. He moved away from me, toward where the hall let out into the wide-open space between the living area and the kitchen. I followed him.
The moment Angel appeared, my breath caught, and my eyes dropped to her bare legs. My gaze slowly traveled up that curvy body, and I had to fight the way heat flooded me like a furnace.
She was wearing the dress Priest had made a big deal about earlier, and let’s just say it looked even better on her than it did in my imagination.
Strapless and tight, it hugged every curve of her body, including the roundness of her tits. It ended halfway between her knees and her hips, covering enough but showing so much more. A simple dress, and yet I didn’t think I’d ever seen something sexier.
And with that white hair? God, she was gorgeous.
“Wow,” Priest mumbled, for once at a loss for words. “You look… I mean, you really look—” To me, he whispered, “Help me out here, man.”
Angel’s blue eyes were on me when I told her, “What he means is you look amazing.” That was the understatement of the year, I think. She looked more than amazing. She was drop-dead gorgeous, and suddenly I knew why Ramona had told us she was off-limits. Throw her in a band with a bunch of guys and they’d all want her.
Who wouldn’t? I mean, who the hell wouldn’t want to take her in their arms, pin her against the nearest wall, and see what kind of sounds she could make?
Okay, that was a very Priest-like thought. I had to push feelings and thoughts like that down, otherwise I’d get myself into trouble.
Angel gave me a small smile, like she was feeling shy or something. “Thanks.” Being shy in a dress like that…
That’s when I noticed her feet were bare, and she currently held onto a pair of heels. God, she was going all-out, wasn’t she? Suddenly I felt too underdressed, like I should go throw on a suit or something. Something that wouldn’t make me stick out like a sore thumb when I was by her side, something that made it look like we were together.
We weren’t. We couldn’t ever be together, but damn it… if this was anything close to what she’d look like during an actual show, I had the feeling trouble didn’t quite cut it. She was the most gorgeous girl I’d ever seen. I was speechless.
Priest and I were too busy staring at her that we neglected to realize Deacon had gotten up and joined us. He stood on Priest’s right, his green gaze zeroed in on Angel. Whatever argument he’d made with Priest about not wanting to come with us tonight must’ve been history, because when he finally tore his stare off Angel, he asked, “Well? Are we going or what?”
“My man,” Priest said as he gripped Deacon’s shoulder. “I knew you’d come around. Vámonos !” He turned around to lead us out. Angel followed him, and I was right behind her with Deacon, who, I noticed, couldn’t take his eyes off her.
I couldn’t blame him. She was beautiful. Sexy. So much more than pretty. Any guy with eyes would want her. Still, I had to fight pangs of jealousy, for whatever reason. Yeah, yeah, it was stupid; Angel wasn’t mine. She would never be mine. Things were just… it was complicated, all right?
After Angel slipped on her heels, we were off.
Angel, as it turned out, didn’t know how to walk in heels that well. She stumbled a few times to Priest’s car, enough that she had to use one of us as her stability. Priest offered, and of course she accepted, but once we got to the karaoke bar and got ourselves a table, she sat beside me.
The Wet Notes. That’s what this bar was called. A funny name for a bar whose insides looked more like a gentleman’s club than an actual bar that had karaoke. A stage sat in the far back of the seating area; you had to pay the bartender extra to get karaoke going. The place had a long list of songs to choose from.
Someone else was currently up, singing an old melody from an eighties movie. Other groups were scattered around the bar, drinking, talking, and laughing. You know, generally having a good time.
Deacon, on the other hand, didn’t seem to get the memo. He sat on the other side of the table, scowling as he looked all around. He looked like he wanted to murder someone, so I leaned forward and said, “Man, lighten up.”
All that did was make him scowl harder.
While I was busy riling up Deacon further, Angel was watching Priest at the bar. “Women flock to him, huh?” An off-handed comment, and when I turned to look at Priest, who was currently paying for our future karaoke, I saw two girls had approached him.
The two girls stood close together, and even though they were a good thirty feet away, I could see their smiles and hear their laughter as Priest said something to them. His back was to us, so I couldn’t see his face, but if I had to guess, I’d say he was loving the attention. He always did. Girls loved his height and the muscles and the tattoos. They went crazy over him.
And he, in turn, went crazy over them—at least he did until Pope got into trouble, and Ramona made him rein it in. The dude used to have sex multiple times every single day, and unfortunately for anyone living with him, he wasn’t quiet about it. Let’s just say when Priest was getting down, he was very vocal.
A particular detail I wished I didn’t know.
“Ah, yeah,” I muttered, sluggish in bringing my gaze back to the girl beside me. “He can’t really help it. It’s like he’s catnip for chicks.”
Deacon snickered at that, but ultimately said nothing.
Priest returned with the news that our turn on the stage wouldn’t be for another thirty minutes, along with a tray of drinks… and the two girls in tow. “Hope you guys don’t mind if Hailee and Tara join us,” he spoke with a smile, and when he flashed it toward the two girls, they practically melted into each other.
When I gave him a certain look, he shrugged me off. “It’ll be fine. You don’t mind, do you?” That was directed toward Angel, who suddenly appeared like a deer in headlights, frozen now that everybody was staring at her.
Hopefully she wasn’t that way on the stage.
It was a few moments before Angel said, “No, it’s fine.”
Priest dragged over some extra chairs for the girls, taking the middle empty seat so he could be surrounded by them. Deacon immediately moved his chair over to our side to give them some room, and he grabbed a beer off the tray and downed about half of it in one gulp.
I wasn’t technically old enough to drink, though that had never stopped me before. Angel, I noticed, didn’t go for anything, so I let the new girls have the drink Priest had gotten for me. If she was going sober, so would I.
“So,” one of the girls spoke, “I’m Hailee.” Beside her, her friend introduced herself as Tara. They were pretty chicks, I had to admit, even though, if given the choice, I’d pick the girl beside me. Angel was far more beautiful, to the point where I couldn’t understand how Priest could even look at other girls when we had Angel in our group.
But that’s the problem. She was completely off-limits. I think, if any of us tried something, Ramona would literally kill us.
Priest pointed to Deacon, saying, “Devon. And that’s Brandon and Angie.” Angie? Really? I guess it was the name he’d whipped up on the spot.
“Paul said you’re doing karaoke. I love karaoke,” Hailee said, wearing a huge smile—though that smile was mainly toward Priest. Both she and Tara only had eyes for him, and Priest drank it all in.
It was hard not to let the whole table revolve around Priest. He talked, chatting away aimlessly, and both the girls listened, hanging on every word he said. Deacon remained quiet, though after he finished his beer, he got up to order another. That left me and Angel sitting on our side of the table, quiet.
There were so many things I could’ve said, so many things I wanted to say, but it was too awkward.
Of course, one of the girls noticed, and she pointed at us both. “Are you two together?”
“What? Oh, no—” Angel was swift in saying, but Priest spoke over her, “Actually, Angie here is on a date with my friend Brandon.”
I think both Hailee and Tara relaxed now that they knew Angel wasn’t going to compete for Priest. Hailee leaned closer and said, “I think you two look super cute together.” Tara nodded, her short blond hair bobbing along with her head.
Priest was soaking it in, grinning ear to ear even as I shot him a glare that told him to stop it. “I offered our company, since I know my man can be a little awkward, and here we are.” He turned that winning smile over to the girls. “I did not expect to run into two goddesses tonight.”
Okay, at that, I had to roll my eyes.
I turned toward Angel. She’d dropped her eyes to her lap, looking uncomfortable. I leaned in closer to her and whispered, “You know, maybe this was a terrible idea. We could get an Uber home.”
“And renege on karaoke? No way.” Priest snapped his fingers. “Don’t worry. We got the stage for half an hour. I’ll solo first, get everybody nice and warmed up.” He glanced at Hailee on his right and then Tara on his left. “Either of you want to join me on the stage?”
Priest wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t sing quite like how he sang when we were on stage as Black Sacrament. Of course, prior to this, Pope was our lead singer and Priest did backup vocals, so it wouldn’t be the same, anyway.
As the girls giggled and talked amongst themselves about who would be joining Priest up there, I looked back at Angel. She now stared at the stage, a look of determination on her face. “No,” she said, loud enough to make Priest and his two girlfriends for the night whip their heads in her direction. “I’ll go first.”
I couldn’t fight the smile that spread on my lips. There was that fire. I knew she had to have something in her, otherwise she wouldn’t be here. She wouldn’t have gotten chosen.
“All right,” Priest spoke, grinning. “No pressure to do amazing or anything.”
The look Angel shot him could kill, but he just shrugged it off. Putting Priest in his place, eh? I liked this girl. But, of course, I think I’d known that already. From the very first moment I’d met her, actually.
After the current woman singing on stage slipped the microphone back into its stand, Angel got up. She walked over to the worker, who helped her out with the machine and picking a song, and then she climbed up on stage.
God. She looked even more amazing up on that stage in that tiny black dress than she did when she was sitting right next to me. Her white hair tumbled over her shoulders, her chest rising and falling as she sought to catch her breath. She was practically a model on the stage, and even Priest had to stop flirting with his girls to watch.
The music began to play, she started to sing, and I kid you not, the entire world stopped.
At least, it did for me.
She’d chosen something by… Celine Dion? I think. Regardless, I didn’t know it too well. A slower melody, but one where she could belt out the notes and showcase the smooth timbre of her voice. So lush, so ethereal. The name Angel fit her so well, I was speechless. Even Deacon had stopped scowling as he watched and listened to her.
But that’s the thing: her name wasn’t Angel. It was Maggie.
She might not remember me, but I remembered her.