Willow
ELEVEN
Iregret agreeing to this almost immediately.
Actually, no. That’s too generous.
I regret agreeing to this the second we step through the doors of Bennett’s and the entire room changes shape around us.
One minute, it’s exactly what Friday Night Live always is.
Warm, noisy, familiar. Glasses clinking.
Somebody laughing too loudly in the corner near the dartboards.
The buzz of a local guy murdering a Springsteen cover on the small stage while half the room politely pretends not to notice he’s in a different key than the guitarist backing him up.
The smell of beer and fried food and old wood, wrapped up in a hundred Friday nights just like it.
The next minute, it feels like someone has dragged a spotlight over my head and pinned me to the floor with it.
Because I’ve just walked into Bennett’s Tavern with three men who are impossible to ignore. And unfortunately for me, the town doesn’t ignore them.
Or me.
The warm noise in the room doesn’t stop, exactly, but it shifts. Dips. Ripples. Heads turn, one after another, in that horrible wave that starts on one side of the bar and spreads before you even have time to pretend you haven’t noticed.
My face goes hot so fast I’m surprised I don’t combust.
You know that nightmare where you show up to school naked, except somehow, it’s worse because everyone is fully clothed and you’re just visibly making terrible life choices?
This is that.
I stop short just inside the doorway, my pulse way too loud in my own ears, and for one deranged second I think about turning around and leaving them all here. Just walking right back out, getting Daisy, and moving into the woods where no one can perceive me ever again.
Beside me, Julian leans in, clearly delighted by the whole thing.
“Okay,” he murmurs, “you may have understated the atmosphere.”
I shoot him a glare over my shoulder. “Don’t talk to me.”
“That feels hostile.”
“This is your fault.”
“Technically,” he says, glancing around with way too much ease for a man who has just triggered a town-wide reaction by existing, “I think this is everyone else’s fault.”
Damn him for being so charming.
Xander steps in behind me, close enough that I feel the heat of him at my back before he shifts to my side, and I’m very aware of how boxed in I am by six-feet-plus of expensive, unfairly attractive former rockstar on every side.
Perfect.
Absolutely ideal.
Gabe, of course, is the only one who seems to register that I’m about half a second from either bolting or committing a felony. His gaze flicks over the room once, quick and assessing, then lands on me.
“You okay?” he asks.
No. Not remotely.
I smile through clenched teeth. “Having the time of my life, actually.”
His mouth twitches.
Which is rude.
Before I can say anything else, someone lets out a whistle from near the bar.
“Oh, now this,” Bill Smith’s voice carries through the room, dry as old paper, “looks like trouble.”
There are a few scattered laughs.
Great.
So, not only am I on display, I’m also apparently tonight’s entertainment.
I resist the urge to walk directly into the nearest wall.
Bennett’s is packed enough that there’s no pretending this entrance went unnoticed. People are openly staring now. Some are smiling. Some are whispering.
A few, mostly women under forty and one or two men who definitely had posters in their dorm rooms once upon a time, look somewhere between thrilled and vindicated, like they knew these men would turn up eventually and have been waiting to act normal about it ever since.
Spoiler: no one is acting normal. Especially not me.
Then, Tommy appears from behind the bar like he was conjured by commotion alone.
Tommy has the kind of presence that makes a room feel steadier the second he steps into it.
Mid-forties, easy smile, sleeves shoved up over forearms that look like he’s spent years hauling kegs and breaking up bar fights with the same calm efficiency.
He’s wearing his usual black tee and jeans, bar towel thrown over one shoulder, and the second he spots me his face splits into a warm and familiar expression.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” he says, coming around the end of the bar. “Willow Jameson. Was beginning to think you were going to let Nina steal your table for good.”
Relief punches through me so quickly it’s almost embarrassing.
Tommy is safe territory. Tommy is normal.
Tommy isn’t currently making my pulse do strange things just by standing too close.
“Nice to know I’m replaceable,” I mutter.
“Everyone’s replaceable,” he says lightly, then his eyes shift past me.
Recognition.
Not the wild kind. Not the fan version. It’s older than that.
His brows lift and his smile turns more crooked around the edges. “Well, hell.”
Xander’s expression changes. Still controlled, still reserved, but warmer than I’ve seen it outside of exactly no situations before now.
“Tommy.”
Tommy lets out a short laugh and closes the distance, pulling Xander into one of those one-armed half-hugs men do.
“Look at you,” Tommy says, stepping back just enough to look him over. “Still intimidating people for sport.”
Xander’s mouth actually moves. Not quite a smile, but close enough to count. “Trying my best.”
That lands with the room, too. You can feel it. Whatever curiosity was already buzzing around us intensifies.
Tommy knows him. And not in a celebrity way.
In a hometown way.
I definitely would’ve paid more attention to the gossip had I known it would end up directly affecting me.
Julian, who has somehow already relaxed into the room like it was built for him specifically, sticks a hand out. “Julian.”
Tommy shakes it, chuckling. “Oh, I know who you are.”
“Good things, I hope.”
Tommy looks him over. “That remains to be seen.”
Gabe steps forward next, more understated, and Tommy nods at him, too. “Stockton.”
“Bennett.”
The way Gabe says it, polished and dry, makes Tommy grin wider.
Then Tommy looks at me again and jerks his chin toward the back corner. “Your usual table’s open. Nina’s already there pretending she hasn’t been craning her neck toward the door for the last ten minutes.”
I close my eyes briefly. “Fantastic.”
Julian leans toward me. “I’m starting to think your sister likes us.”
“I’m starting to think you should be quiet for at least thirty seconds.”
“That long?” he says. “Feels unnatural.”
I don’t dignify that with a response.
Tommy claps Xander once on the shoulder as we pass. “We’ll talk.”
Xander nods once. “Yeah.”
That apparently isn’t subtle enough, because now I can practically hear the speculation forming in the room like storm clouds.
I start toward the back table with all the dignity available to a woman currently escorting the human equivalent of a magazine spread through her favorite local bar.
Which isn’t much dignity, if we’re being honest.
Nina sees us coming over to her and lights up.
Traitor.
She’s already standing before I even get there, dark hair pulled up, eyes practically sparkling with the kind of unfiltered delight that only a younger sister can manage while your social death is unfolding in real time.
“Oh wow,” she says, and then, because she’s committed to humiliating me in every possible way, “you actually brought them.”
I stop at the edge of the table. “Please lower your voice.”
“I’m speaking at a normal volume.”
“You’re radiating.”
Nina beams straight past me at the men. “Hi.”
Julian smiles first, of course. Easy, warm, lethal. “You must be Nina.”
She laughs, immediately charmed. “I must be.”
I make a face.
Gabe, at least, is more restrained about it. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too,” she says, then glances at Xander with the kind of polite curiosity that’s somehow less embarrassing than if she acted like everyone else in the room. “Wow, all of you!”
Julian laughs and slides into the booth like he’s been joining us for years. Gabe takes the end of the table, giving me room on one side, and Xander stays standing a beat longer, scanning the room in that watchful way of his before finally taking the chair Tommy pulls over from another table.
So, that’s it.
This is happening.
I’m sitting at my usual Friday night table in Bennett’s with my sister and the three founders of Redemption Records while half the bar tries very hard to pretend they’re not openly staring.
This is way too much.
A server swings by. Patty, who works part time at the diner on weekends and looks one second away from vibrating through the floor. “Tommy says first round’s on him.”
Julian leans back. “I like Tommy.”
“Everyone likes Tommy,” I say.
“That feels right.”
Patty’s eyes flick between all of us, then settle on me with just enough meaning to make me want to fake my own death. “What can I get you?”
Orders happen fast after that. Beer for me. Brandy for Xander. Whiskey for Gabe. Julian asks for whatever Tommy would bring someone “looking to make excellent decisions,” which isn’t a real drink order but somehow still gets him served.
The stage changes over while we settle in. Someone local named Darren, who always plays two originals and a cover like he’s hoping one of the originals will accidentally launch his career, starts tuning at the mic.
The bar fills back in around us, noise returning in uneven layers as people accept that the ceiling isn’t going to collapse just because three rockstars walked in.
Mostly.
I wrap both hands around my beer and try to ignore the fact that every few seconds someone at another table looks over.
Nina, because she enjoys my suffering, leans across the table and says, “You’re blushing.”
“I’m leaving you all my debt in my will.”
“That seems dramatic.”
“This is dramatic.”
Julian props an elbow on the table. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re handling it really well.”
I look at him flatly. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re enjoying this way too much.”
He smiles into his drink. “Both things can be true.”
Xander says nothing, but when I glance his way, I catch him watching me over the rim of his glass like I’m somehow more compelling than the whole room.