67. Chapter 67
“Hey, little sister,” Luke said. “This is a really spectacular dive.”
He set a heavy arm over Lindsey’s shoulders and smiled at her with a dopey, boozy grin despite his life being as tattered as the cobwebs dancing to “Summer Nights” in the upper corners of the stage.
“It really is,” Lindsey said.
“You know I’m on your side, right? I’ll always pick you,” he said.
“You sure?” Lindsey asked. “You and Jase looked awfully cozy on the patio.”
“He told me some things about the trip you left out.” He raised his uninjured eyebrow in brotherly concern. “You got shot?”
Crap.
“Shot at. And it wasn’t as bad as it sounds,” she said. Lied. It had been terrifying and she’d thought she was going to die.
“It’s exactly as bad as it sounds,” Helen said, coming up beside them. Lindsey shot her friend a silent warning to keep her opinions to herself.
“What do you think Dad would say if he knew?” Luke asked.
“Luke, if he finds out…” Lindsey trailed off. There weren’t words. Her stomach dipped toward the sticky linoleum.
“Relax, Shortcake.” Luke shook her shoulders. “Your secret’s safe with me. I would’ve rather heard it from you, though.”
“Luke,” she sighed. “You don’t need another thing to worry about. With everything you have going on…”
“Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to go through this on your own and I need the option to worry. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“I am. We are,” she said. “We were all fine. Right Helen?”
“Yes. Totally, totally fine,” Helen said. “I mean, mostly. Graham’s having panic attacks and I’ll probably need therapy, eventually. But, other than that, we’re all fine.”
“Graham needs therapy now,” Lindsey said.
“I gave him the number of the best psychiatrist I know,” Luke said.
“He’ll call. I’ll make sure of it,” Helen said.
“You call too, if you need to. Both of you.”
“I’m fine,” Lindsey insisted. “Seriously, I don’t need therapy!”
“You’re alive and that’s what’s important. That’s why I’m rooting for this one.”
“For Jase? Seriously?”
Luke sipped and nodded. “I think Dad would too.”
In an alternate universe, maybe, where Jase Young stuck around and had girlfriends and met fathers.
“Is that such a bad thing?” Luke asked.
“It means we both have terrible taste in men,” Lindsey said, which was something Jase pointed out to her many times, along with her lack of self-preservation—which was also evident by her taste in men.
Luke ruffled her hair, and she realized he was probably drunk—again—and it hurt her heart that her brother was slumming it at the Haunt with its black-light paint and plastic cups. He belonged sitting at the polished bar at Walker’s Whiskey Room.
“I love you, you know,” she told him.
“I love you too, Shortcake.”
He hugged her as if he hadn’t hugged anyone in a long time, and that hurt her heart too.
Graham walked up with three mixed drinks, passing two between Helen and Lindsey. It was weird. Making a bed with Graham, driving to the Haunt in his car, Graham getting her and his fiancée drinks at the bar, the way he smiled at her—tight-lipped but sincere—was all very, very weird.
Weirder still was how she didn’t want to see him hurt by Helen’s inability to choose between love or career.
“Okay, everybody, get ready. We have a crowd favorite,” the emcee announced from the stage. “Gather ’round, ladies. This hometown hero accepts gifts of all kinds—drinks, bras, panties…” He smirked, “Dirty promises. Do you worst and welcome back, for the second time in recent weeks, Jase Young.”
“Oh, God.” Lindsey groaned.
“Is he a celebrity or something?” Luke asked.
Graham snorted. “He wishes.”
A crush of women rushed to the stage as if Jase really was a celebrity—local or otherwise. Wondering how many of them left comments on the bathroom wall, Lindsey turned to leave.
Luke held her at his side and said, “Where are you going? I want to hear this.”
“I don’t.”
Jase walked out, took the microphone from the emcee, and cleared his throat.
“I don’t know about all that,” he said, and the ladies roared. He grinned and Lindsey threw up a little in her mouth. “Please keep your bras and panties.” A disappointed moan erupted, followed by a stray catcall. Lindsey tried to leave again, and Luke tightened his hold on her shoulders.
“Drinks I will take,” Jase said. “Whiskey, if you’re wondering.”
The crowd cheered and the song started. A few notes into “Fancy Like,” all the women were singing and cheering and—in one case—tossing a lacy black bra at his face, as if he really would take all the ladies for a Bourbon Street steak at Applebee’s.
And it was funny. Lindsey didn’t pick up on how funny until Graham burst out laughing and clapped at his brother gyrating and playing it up, a hometown hero giving Walker Hayes a run for his money, bringing down the house on a Saturday night.
“He’s really good!” Luke shouted over the song. “He should be a singer.”
“It’s his dream,” Lindsey said, remembering the Truth game they never finished.
A few days ago, when he belted out Billy Idol on the same stage, she’d been too focused on his body, on the way he practically undressed her with his eyes while he sang, to notice he didn’t just work a crowd that already loved him. He was good.
Every woman clamoring for the stage knew it.
The song ended in applause and rowdy calls for an encore. Jase flung the black bra into the crowd and took a mixed drink offered by a blonde in a slinky black dress. Then he peered over the crowd.
Their eyes locked, the message in his stare hard and clear.
He wasn’t going to prowl off the stage and pull Lindsey to the bathroom tonight.
It was over, if she let it be. After she left him naked in his room, he avoided her all day.
What more was there to say? They weren’t engaged. They weren’t really together.
The emcee called up the next singer and Jase was swallowed by his adoring fans. Lindsey lifted Luke’s arm from her shoulders and walked away. She didn’t want to watch the blonde in the slinky dress put her arms around Jase’s neck.