Sweet Forty-Two (4 page)

Ok, then.

With a quick lick of my lips, I looked at the microphone. “E’s is happy to present ... Last Call.”

I headed back to the bar without looking back, but heard CJ’s excited “Fuck yeah! Last Call!” as I situated myself for the night.

Lissa shouldered up next to me as I went back to my end of the bar. “What was that?” she shouted in my ear as the musicians did one final round of tuning.

“What was what?”

“That look you gave Regan. Your 
go
 look. I thought you weren’t into him.” Lissa stepped back and looked down her long eyelashes at me.

Before she could respond, CJ struck the snare drum, as Bo started a familiar tune on an electric guitar. “Smooth Criminal”.

“What the...” I looked past Lissa just as Regan raised his bow and struck it across the strings.

Holy shit...

She didn’t look back when she returned to her station at the bar. I don’t know how I missed it earlier in the day, but she had a third tattoo on the back of her neck. It looked like a rocking horse of some sort. I’d already spent far too much time staring at Georgia’s body for one day, so I looked away. Though, the way she attempted to pass off that scant piece of fabric for a dress, it didn’t seem that she wanted me to look away.

Or anyone else for that matter.

I didn’t know what Georgia’s game was, but when she challenged me about my ability with the violin, it lit something inside me. I don’t even know why I cared what she thought. I’d met her only hours earlier and had made kind of an ass out of myself.

Still, when she asked me to make a believer out of her, I asked Ember to sit the first song out while Bo played the electric guitar, and we started “Smooth Criminal”. It’s my go-to “wow” piece for people who have an attitude about classical instruments.

Then, her jaw dropped.

Yeah, that
’
s what I thought.

Just as I pulled the corners of my lips up into an
I told you so
grin, Georgia’s seemed to curl into a sneer and she abruptly turned around and got to work behind the bar. Mission accomplished. I’d regained my social footing from my breast-staring fumble earlier and was on even keel with her again.

As the song went on, I looked around the bar. It was an eclectic mix of customers. Hippies, hipsters, and hip-replacements all mingled together, drinking and enjoying the music. I planned to spend some time after the set mingling with the crowd to see if anyone had any leads on apartments or sublets. Anything.

“Smooth Criminal” ended, and as the cheers rose to a roar through the bar, Georgia’s eyes found mine. I watched as her tongue ran across the front of her top teeth with her mouth closed. The look on her face was unreadable, but the guy’s hand riding up her arm as he ordered another drink was loud and clear.

She looked down as if she’d caught two people having sex, turning her attention and smile to the guy with a buzz cut and black-rimmed glasses at the bar.

“Dude.” Bo interrupted the jealousy that had no business brewing in my stomach.

“Sorry. Uh...” I cleared my throat and looked back at CJ who was shaking his head and grinning. He never missed a thing.

“Ha,” Bo continued, “she
is
intriguing ... but we’ve got a set to finish. You and Ember do “Foolish Games” next, okay?”

“Sure. Ember, you ready?”

Ember’s eyes drifted between the bar and me. Curiosity mixed with concern. “Yep ... are you?”

It made me uncomfortable when they made comments about me and other girls in the same sentence. It had been several months since Rae died, but I couldn’t tell if my moving on would give them permission to, or if it was the other way around.

Either way, I wasn’t ready for anything, and as I heard Georgia giggle purposefully from behind me, I knew I certainly wasn’t ready for anything with a girl who had a boyfriend.

I had to get her out of my system. Fast.

“Just give me a second.” I set my violin on the stool and weaved through a group of girls making out with each other before reaching Georgia at the bar.

She walked toward me, and despite the noise around us, I could hear each dedicated click of her heels on the sticky wood floor.

“Takin’ a break already?” She folded her arms on the bar in front of her and leaned toward me like she’d done earlier in the day. This time, though, I remained fixed on her eyes.

I chuckled. “I figured before I continued I should check in to see if I made you a believer.”

Any look of surprise that showed on her face dissolved into a grin. “Regan ... I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

That’s it. That was her only response before slowly lifting her chest off of her folded arms, turning, and strutting over to a guy with spiked hair and a black t-shirt with “Pink Floyd” across the front vying for her attention.

With my eyebrows pulled in, I returned to the stage in a daze.

“You okay?” Ember settled onto her stool and adjusted the guitar over her shoulder. “What’d she say?”

“I...” I looked back at the bar and watched Georgia thread her fingers through the spikes of the Pink Floyd guy’s hair. “I have no idea.”

“What were the words she said, Regan?” Ember chuckled as she tuned.

“They made no sense.” I tuned with her as she looked over my shoulder, undoubtedly at Georgia.

“Well,” she shrugged, “it’s probably for the best, anyway. Her eyes and hands have been all over everyone in this bar.”

Defensiveness overrode common sense. “Isn’t that just ... her job?”

Ember’s eyebrow hooked incredulously. “
That
’
s
not her job.” She nodded, and I followed with my eyes to see Georgia leaning
all the way
forward as a different guy whispered something into her ear.

He tucked a piece of paper in between her breasts and she set herself back on her heels and kept working.

I wanted to kick his ass, and it made no sense.

I shook my head. “God, whatever. Let’s play. Ready?”

Ember’s look relaxed. “Mmmhmm.”

As we settled into the song, I reminded myself that girls like Georgia were good at making guys want them. Crave them. With skin-baring clothing, wicked eyes, and a bottom lip pinched between their teeth, they owned us. All of us.

Through each piece, Georgia’s hips swayed to the beat, but she never pulled her attention away from her customers. Her tips. Once every other song, or so, her eyes would flash to mine, and I’d look away. She was scrambling my sense of reality with one stone-blue gaze. One smile. One laugh.

It was clear why she and CJ were such good friends as I watched her move with seductive determination through the bar with a tray of drinks in hand. Each time she set down a glass she’d bend a little further forward, inviting eyes to places they had no business being.

Her game bothered me just as much as CJ’s did, maybe even more since I knew how men perceived women who behaved like that. I hadn’t seen her take a drink all night, and I was pretty sure drinking on the job as a bartender was barely tolerated, so she couldn’t even use intoxication as an excuse.

She was intentional, this girl with a rocking horse tattooed on the back of her neck.

She was intentional and made absolutely no sense.

We finished our set and packed up our gear with an hour left before the bar closed. I just wanted to get out of there and go home. It was the first set of that length that I’d played in some time, and I was exhausted. The finger pads on my left hand screamed for a break.

“Great set, Ceej.” Georgia met us on the stage, kissing CJ on the cheek.

“Thanks, kid.” He smiled as he held her waist for a second.

It was then that I got a better look at the tattoo on the back of her neck. It wasn’t just a rocking horse. It was one with wings. More confused than I’d been before, I shook my head and slung my violin case over my shoulder.

She and CJ were engaged in quiet conversation about something CJ appeared to take seriously, given he was paying attention at all. I wandered to the bar and sat next to Ember.

Ember bumped her upper arm into mine. “That was good, Kane. Real good. You’re back on top of things, I’d say.”

I grabbed her beer and took a sip. “It felt good. Two weeks and we start recording, right?”

Bo laughed from the other side of Ember. “I knew the bug would bite you in due time.”

Even though I’d agreed to come record, I wasn’t sure if my heart was in it. But, Bo and Ember could see the desires of my heart written across my face. I was all in.

Ember tilted her chin to where CJ and Georgia were still talking. “What’s with her? How does CJ know her?”

I filled them in on what little details I knew.

“Dunes?” Ember crinkled her nose at the mention of the bar Georgia’s dad used to run. “That place is such a hole.”

“Yeah, she’s been out here for a few years. I don’t know anything about her, really.”

Ember raised her eyebrows. “She really does leave little to the imagination, though, doesn’t she?”

I leaned to the side and saw Georgia and CJ walking toward us. Georgia’s breasts bouncing as she moved.

“Be nice,” Bo mumbled.

“I intend to,” she shot back.

Georgia cocked her head to the side as she wiggled her way between Ember and me. “What’s the matter, Regan? You look ... lost.” She bit her lip. Her eyelashes swooped down for a fraction of a second before she looked back up, red in her cheeks.

She was flirting with me.

No.

“Just tired.”

A tiny groan of a noise fled from her throat as she smiled. “Well, rest up. Janice wants you back here tomorrow.”

“Janice?” I asked.

“The owner. Customers told her they want more.” Then she looked at me in a way that was so intimate, I felt like we should be alone. “I want more, too.”

“I don’t know...” I looked between my friends, who all seemed eager to accept.

Bo shrugged. “It would be great practice before we hit the studio.”

Ember eyed me cautiously before nodding in agreement with Bo.

CJ slapped me on the shoulder. “Come on, dude! I’m only in town for a week. Then how much will we get to play together?”

“What the hell...” I sighed as CJ cheered. He was easy to please.

“See you tomorrow, then.” Georgia smiled, and for the first time since I met her a few hours before, it reached her eyes.

I nodded. “Tomorrow.”

I ordered a drink from the 6-foot, too-skinny bartender with spiky black hair. She set the Guinness in front of me while looking me over, suspicion lazily forming her lips into a half-grin.

“What?” I asked, the noise of Bo and Ember asking Georgia for details about tomorrow lost in the background.

She just shook her head, looking behind me for a split second before looking back at me with a full smile.

“Enjoy the ride.”

“What are you talking about?” I shook my head.

“You’ll see.” Her eyes flickered behind me once more. I knew Georgia was still standing there. I could smell the brown sugar perfume I remembered from earlier in the afternoon.

“I doubt it,” I challenged.

She chuckled, and as she walked away she said in a sing-song voice, “We’ll see.”

Turning around, I found Georgia linking arms with what had to have been the fourth or fifth customer I saw her get that cozy with over the course of the night.

No
, I thought.

We won
’
t see.

The gang and I had some sound-check issues we wanted to correct before Sunday night’s gig, so we showed up at E’s around six o’clock. CJ had insisted on staying until closing to catch up more with Georgia, and I didn’t see him until he rolled in around five in the morning. Needless to say, he was moving slower than I would have liked for someone that needed to move a multi-piece drum set across the stage to accommodate our set-up.

“Come on, Ceej, you slept till we woke you up to drive over here. Get your ass in gear or get off the stage.” I set a coil for sound cable on the stool and went over to his set, pushing the bass drum with my foot.

“Pull the bow out of your ass, Regan. And, don’t touch my fuckin’ drums.”

Bo shook his head with a smile, moving stools to the side. But, Ember wasn’t about to let me get away with my attitude.

“You’ve been kind of bitchy all day.”

I loved when she used the word 
bitchy
 to describe Bo’s attitude, sometimes. But not mine.

She was right, though.

“Sorry,” I sighed, “I guess the stress of trying to find a place to live is grating on me.”

“No luck last night, huh?”

“No. I talked around the bar for like an hour, but no one knew of anything available right now.”

“Craigslist?”

“You mean 
Crazylist
? I’m good.”

Ember snickered and picked up the cord I’d been winding and deposited it in its appropriate place. “You know there’s no hurry, Regan. Don’t stress it, okay?”

I nodded. I was stressing it. I loved both Bo and Ember, but soon we’d be spending 12-18 hours a day together in the studio, and living with them on top of all of that would become a challenge. Especially with Bo suggesting to me each week that I go to his therapist with him one time. To, 
you know,
 he’d say, 
talk about Rae and stuff.
 There was no stuff. Why couldn’t they just let me move on in peace?