Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
PHOENIX
From across the bar, I watch Judah cup Mason’s face in both hands and pull him close.
He kissed him.
Mason’s hands twist into the front of Judah’s shirt, pulling him closer instead of pushing away. Even from here, I can see the way his shoulders shake. The way his whole body seems to curve into Judah’s like a flower turning toward sunlight it hasn’t felt in years.
They kiss.
Something inside my chest cracks open.
Relief floods through first. Thank God. They’re finally moving past ten years of bullshit and admitting how much they need each other.
Joy follows close behind the relief. Mason deserves this.
He deserves to be kissed like that, in front of everyone, by someone who’s been waiting a decade for the chance.
He deserves the happiness spreading across his face right now, visible even in the dim bar light, visible even from thirty feet away.
My best friend is getting his love story.
And then the other feeling arrives. The one I’ve been shoving down every time it tries to surface.
It starts as a cold trickle at the base of my spine and spreads outward, seeping into my limbs until my whole body feels heavy with it. The joy doesn’t disappear—it’s still there, genuine and fierce—but something else has wrapped itself around it like a choking vine.
Where do I fit in this?
The question is ugly and selfish and I hate myself for thinking it.
Mason and Judah have a lifetime of history.
A bond. Childhood memories and inside jokes and a connection that existed long before I stumbled into Mason’s life with my panic attacks and party-girl reputation and endless demands on his time.
I was the catalyst. The person who pushed them back together after a decade apart.
But catalysts don’t get to stay in the equation once the reaction is complete.
Regardless of what happened during Mason’s heat, I can’t assume I know where we all stand. Mason needed me as a buffer because he was vulnerable and hadn’t reconciled his feelings for Judah.
But what use am I now?
The thought is a knife between my ribs.
I tear my gaze away from them before I can spiral further. The bar swims in my peripheral vision as I push through the crowd toward the only available seat at the long wooden counter. Dom’s busy at the other end, but he notices me slide onto the stool and gives a quick nod of acknowledgment.
“What can I get you?” He appears in front of me moments later, already reaching for a glass.
“Something strong.”
He studies my face for a beat longer than necessary. Whatever he sees there makes his eyebrows draw together slightly, but he doesn’t comment. Just reaches for a bottle of something amber and pours two fingers into a lowball glass.
“On the house.”
I take a sip of whiskey that I doubt is from the well. It burns a path down my throat that almost—almost—drowns out the ache in my chest.
Dom, who has drifted back within earshot, pauses with a bottle in his hand. “You okay?”
“Fine.” I take another sip of whiskey. “Just having a bit of an existential crisis.”
Dom flicks the rag over one shoulder and leans his hip against the back counter. His dark eyes hold mine for a beat too long, reading something in my expression that I’d rather he didn’t see.
“Existential crises are a two-drink minimum.” He pours a second whiskey—for himself this time—and clinks it against mine before taking a slow sip. “House rules.”
“You just made that up.”
“I’m the bartender so I get to make the rules.” He sets the glass down, fingers still curled around the base. “Want to talk about it?”
“Not even a little.”
“Got it. Talking is overrated, anyway.”
His forearm rests on the bar between us, tattoo sleeves catching the neon glow. I find myself tracing the ink with my gaze—a serpent coiled around a compass rose, thorned vines disappearing beneath his rolled cuff. His knuckles are scarred. His rings glint when he shifts his weight.
“You know,” he says, voice pitched low enough that only I can hear him beneath the hum of the crowd, “I’ve heard the best way to get over one problem is to get on another.”
He waggles his eyebrows so I can’t mistake his meaning.
I nearly choke on my drink. “Oh my God, Dom. That was terrible.”
“Of course it was,” he agrees with a smile. “Mason told me to treat you like a normal girl. A terrible pick-up line is the first thing I’m offering on the rare occasion someone as sexy as you sits at my bar.”
My gaze snaps to his face.
He’s not looking at me. He’s wiping down the section of bar to my left, movements deliberately unhurried, mouth curved in the barest suggestion of a smirk. Like the compliment slipped out sideways and he’s pretending it didn’t happen.
Heat prickles across my skin that has nothing to do with whiskey.
“That your idea of flirting, Romano?”
“Depends on whether or not it’s working.”
I wonder, briefly and recklessly, if anyone would notice if I grabbed this man by the front of his shirt and dragged him into the storage room for however long it takes to make myself feel better.
Hell, maybe I could convince him to take a vacation and come along when Atticus and I leave in two days.
The thought is vivid enough to make my pulse kick. Dom’s scarred hands pinning my wrists, that rough voice telling me to—
I drown the fantasy in a gulp of whiskey.
His mouth twitches, as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking.
But the lights dim before I can decide whether to throw caution to the wind.
A hush ripples through the crowd as attention swings toward the makeshift stage in the corner.
Atticus has settled onto the stool, guitar balanced across his thighs, fingers already finding position on the frets.
The single spotlight that someone rigged up catches the sharp planes of his face, throwing shadows that make him look almost otherworldly.
I swivel on my stool to face the stage, grateful for something to focus on besides the complicated knot of emotions currently strangling my heart.
Atticus adjusts the microphone, tapping it once to check the levels. The sound system crackles briefly, then settles into a low hum.
“Evening, Harmony Harbor,” he says, and his voice carries through the room with that effortless projection that fills stadiums. “Didn’t expect to be back here so soon, but apparently the lobster rolls are too good to resist.”
Scattered laughter ripples through the crowd.
He strums a chord, letting it ring out. “I get nervous singing around people I know, so you all need to bear with me.”
More laughter. He’s got them already—that magnetic pull that makes rooms full of strangers feel like they’re sharing a private moment with him.
He starts slow with a crooning song that feels like a whisper under skin. I let the music wash over me, and for a few blessed minutes, my thoughts slip away with it.
The song ends to a round of raucous applause.
Atticus grins, acknowledging the response with a small nod. Then his expression shifts. His eyes scan the crowd, searching for something. Someone.
They land on me.
“I’ve got a special guest for this next one,” he announces.
My stomach drops.
“Phoenix Riviera, everyone.” He gestures toward me with the neck of his guitar. “Come on up here.”
The crowd goes wild.
I shake my head emphatically, plastering on a smile that probably looks more like a grimace. My hand waves in a motion that clearly communicates no thank you, absolutely not, please stop.
Atticus doesn’t stop.
“Don’t make me come down there and carry you up,” he says into the microphone. “I’ll do it. I am not above manhandling.”
The crowd laughs. Someone near the back starts a chant.
“Phoenix! Phoenix! Phoenix!”
The chant spreads like wildfire. Within seconds, the entire bar is chanting my name, stomping their feet, clapping their hands. Impossible to refuse without making a scene that would be infinitely worse than whatever Atticus has planned.
I might actually murder him.
Atticus extends a hand to help me up on the stage.
“I will kill you for this,” I whisper in his ear.
“You’ll thank me later.” He’s still grinning, entirely unbothered by my death glare. “Just follow my lead. You’ve got this.”
He presses a microphone into my free hand and lifts his guitar. “You take the chorus.”
The first chord rings out, and I recognize it immediately.
Paper Bones.
Atticus begins to sing. His voice fills the small space, raw and unproduced, every imperfection audible in a way that studio recordings never allow. The verses tell a story I’ve heard before—someone building walls to protect themselves, someone learning to be soft again.
Then the chorus approaches.
He looks at me. One eyebrow raises slightly. Your turn.
My hands are shaking. The microphone trembles in my grip. I can feel every eye in the room fixed on me, waiting to see what happens next. Waiting for me to fail.
I can’t do this.
The thought is reflexive. Automatic. The same voice that’s been telling me for years that my singing is mediocre, that I’m only good for looking pretty and reading lines someone else wrote, that the dream my grandmother believed in was never meant to come true.
But Atticus is still singing, and the chorus is here, and he’s leaving space for me in the melody—
I open my mouth.
The first note comes out shaky. Uncertain. A voice that hasn’t performed live in years, rusty with disuse and trembling with fear.
But it’s my voice.
And as the chorus continues, something shifts.
Muscle memory kicks in—the years of vocal training, all those hours spent in recording studios as a kid recording bubblegum pop, the skills I never bothered to keep working on because my mother decided acting was more profitable than music.
My diaphragm engages, my throat opens and the tremor fades.
Atticus grins at me over his guitar, and I can see the satisfaction in his expression. He takes over at the next verse with that smile still on his face.
When the second chorus arrives, my voice is stronger and more confident.
And then we sing the final chorus together, our voices weaving together in a way even I have to admit is a nearly perfect harmony.
The final note hangs in the air, followed by a moment of silence.
Then the applause comes so loud and strong that I nearly stumble backward.
People are standing up. Someone near the bar is actually whistling. A woman in the front row has her hand pressed to her chest like she’s trying to keep her heart from escaping.
I look at Atticus. He’s watching me with the largest grin I’ve ever seen him wear.
“Told you,” he mouths, the applause still too loud for his voice to reach me even with the amplification of a microphone.
My gaze drifts across the bar, searching for the one face that has been my true north for three years.
Mason stands behind his camera tripod in the far corner. Judah hovers a half-step behind him, both of them cheering and clapping.
But Mason’s camera isn’t pointed at Atticus or sweeping over the crowd. The lens is aimed squarely at me, the little red recording light blinking steadily above the viewfinder.
My gaze flies back to Atticus.
His smile has a satisfied curl and there’s a knowing glint in those green eyes.
Smug. He looks smug.
Not performer-high-on-applause smug. Not I-just-nailed-a-difficult-song smug. This is the expression of a man watching a plan come together. A man who set up some dominos and is now sitting back watching them fall.
That is the smile of a man who is up to something.
I step off the stage on legs that feel like they belong to someone else.
The applause follows me down, hands reaching out from the crowd—pats on the shoulder, squeezes of my arm, a dozen strangers telling me things I can barely process through the ringing in my ears.
“That was incredible!”
“Your voice—oh my God.”
“Can you sign my napkin?”
I smile and nod and murmur thank-yous, moving on autopilot while the rest of me floats somewhere several inches above my body.
As soon as I can, I push through the crowd until I reach Mason.
He’s still behind the tripod, but his hands have left the camera. One glance and he reads me like a book.
“You look like you need a cigarette.”
A laugh bursts out of me. “God, I really do.”
Mason’s mouth quirks in a patient smile. “Do you have any left in your emergency pack?”
Heat crawls up the back of my neck because he isn’t supposed to know about that. “I have one left.”
Mason nods once, already turning back toward the camera. “I need to stay and finish recording the rest of Atticus’s set. But Judah can go with you.”
Because I want to pull Judah away from him now. “I’ll be right outside. It’s fine.”
I slip away before either of them can reply, through the crowd and out the front door. The noise of the bar drops to a muffled thrum behind the closed door, replaced by the quiet of an empty street.
Leaning back against the brick wall, I dig through my pockets in search of a lighter. The cigarette dangles unlit from my lips.
“Fuck,” I mutter around the filter, still rummaging. Where the hell did I put it?
The door of the bar opens behind me, spilling warm light that is immediately replaced by a long shadow.
I don’t turn around, assuming it’s just someone stepping out for air or heading home early.
My fingers finally close around the familiar shape of my lighter, and I pull it free with a small sound of triumph.
I cup my hand around the flame as I flick it to life, the small fire casting flickering shadows across my fingers.
“Told you I’d be seeing you soon.”
I don’t even get the chance to scream.
Darkness descends as rough burlap is pulled over my face. Rough hands grip my arms, my waist, hauling me backward off my feet. My heels drag across pavement, then gravel, then nothing as the ground disappears beneath me entirely.