I leaned forward. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Jim, the offers he’s made.”
Alex scrubbed harder at the shine on the bar.
Listen, don’t get the wrong idea. Alex and me, we weren’t that kind of thing. But it wasn’t the business ofJimswhere things stood.
But it was true. They wouldn’t believe it. I played up the misunderstanding they had about me and Alex because it kept either of us from having to explain, well, a lot. I mean, I’d played the stage Alex had built, just for me, for five years, filling his storeroom with my band’s gear. And since last week I was squatting in a room in the apartment upstairs, a room Alex owned but now also covered the rent for.
I was currently wearing a sweater of his I didn’t plan on giving back.
And that wasn’t the half of it, when it came to Alex. But it was brittle territory, for me to admit how much I already owed to one person.
“He’s practicallyadoptedme, for crying out loud,” I said, slipping naturally into my stage persona, a gal, a broad. Doll Devine had a bit of a twang. She smoothed things over, lightened a mood. “I mean, he’s already buying me thisdrink.”
They all laughed. Alex’s shoulders dropped from around his ears.
The thing was, Alexwouldhave paid me to bartend and sling food, just to get the break from the customers, from their questions and curiosity. But now that the music shop had no further need of my talents, I would need to work for someone I could extort for a higher pay grade than I deserved. To be perfectly honest, to get back on my boots I might need to work for a place I could easily, quietly rob.
FreakingJoey.
“So you really still haven’t heard from that fella of yours?” Primary Jim asked, as though he could read my mind.
The third barfly, the one I thought of as Silent Jim, quickly flicked a glance toward the garbage bag below my feet. This guy had become a steady, glowering presence over the last month or so. He could make a single drink last all day and barely ever said a word, but—annoyingly at the moment—never seemed to miss a thing.
I could see Ned’s shoulder through the pass-through. “I have not seen or heard from Joseph Hartnett,” I said loudly enough Ned might hear. “And I don’t expect to.”
Alex frowned and reached for a clean glass, to clean it some more. He hadn’t really liked Joey all that much. Not that he liked anyone all that much or, if he did, showed it.
Lumpy Jim said, “Plenty of fish, dollface. I’m single.”
“I eat only red meat, Jimbo,” I said.
Primary Jim looked up from considering his beer. “How long’s it been, though? Any reason to worry about the guy?”
I was getting annoyed. “You can worry about hisfaceif he ever shows it around here again,” I said. “He’s just at his sister’s, licking his wounds.”
“If you’re sure—”
“I am.” But I turned my mug around on the bar, thinking. Should I be worried? I’d tried calling Joey’s last week, after I’d realized the rent hadn’t been paid. He hadn’t picked up. I’d almost dialed Heather’s house a few times, too—but to say what, exactly?
No. He’s the one who had wanted to turn everything upside down, three good years in. Three okay years.
And I’d spotted him, anyway, skulking down the block. He was fine. “If Joey wants me to know he’s alive,” I said, “he knows where I’ll be, singing songs about broken hearts and empty pockets.”
I caught myself too late. I hadn’t meant myself. My heart, my pockets.
Just then Pascal came banging through the swinging door from the kitchen, a bin of clean, rattling glassware hanging heavy in his scarred arms. He stopped and stared at the quiet that had fallen upon the scene. The Jims studied their beers, the TVs. They liked meonstage, saucy and winking, triumphant. Not down here with them, on the deep bench for the losing team.
Alex cleared his throat. “Ned’ll make you a cheeseburger,” he said. “If you’re hungry.”
I dug a thumbnail into a groove in the wooden surface of the bar so I wouldn’t have to see who was pitying me. Iwashungry, actually. It was just… Alex actually made so many offers.
I just hated that I had needed every single one of them.
“And now he’s buying medinner, too,” I bawled, the persona back in place. I threw out my arms, pantomiming a barrier between Alex and our audience. “Stand aside, boys. He’s all mine.”
Everybody relaxed. Doll was on the case. The broad, the tireless flirt. Bless her heart, she could be counted on to be a real good time.
3
