by Vivian Lux
Alan flicked on the studio mic. "That was some good shit, guys."
Keir shook his head, a fierce scowl on his face. "That was from Desolation City and it sounds it. That's the same old tired rock riff we've been hammering out of the last three albums. Aren't you tired of it?"
Rane shrugged. "It's been working so far," he said, lazily picking his guitar.
"Yeah, but I don't want to just do what works," Keir sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm not the same fucking kid who thought he was god's gift to rock and roll two albums ago. I'm a grown ass man who's getting married and settling down and shit. My life had changed. Shouldn't my music change along with it?"
Rane shrugged again, and I saw Keir's temple twitch as his jaw clenched. The differences between the Wilder Brothers when it came to work ethic was the stuff of legends for a reason. I pulled my headphones back on and switched off my mic, but there was no way I could drown out the shouts that followed. Without even really meaning to, I began playing my scales, mindlessly working my way up and down the keyboard as I stared off at nothing. In the corner of my eye, I could see my brother, his grin frozen on his face, teeth bared in that snarl he sometimes gets. He hated the fights just as much as I did. Maybe more. His shoulders rose as he took a deep breath. He was ready to try some peacemaking. I slid my headphones down to hear what he had to say.
"Guys!" he called out over Rane and Keir's shouting. "Yo, can we take a breath for a sec? I've got some news."
Rane backed off immediately, slumping against an amp stack like he didn't have a care in the world. But he didn't fool me. He was pissed at his brother and only playing like he didn't give a shit to piss Keir off even more.
Keir seemed to snap back into focus. "What's up Twitch?" He cleared his throat. "Sorry. Low."
Lowell nodded his thanks. "I was gonna ask if we could wrap up a little quicker today because I want to get home to Zoe. She was sick this morning."
"Sorry to hear," Balzac rumbled sympathetically. I sat up a little straighter. Lowell wouldn't be interrupting rehearsal if that's really all that was going on.
"Yeah, she was so sick. This morning," he repeated, grinning like an idiot.
I sat up even straighter, my heart suddenly pounding in my throat. Intuition was setting off alarm bells in my head, but the guys were insanely thickheaded sometimes.
"Did she eat something bad?" Keir wanted to know.
"No." My brother shook his head so hard his hair flopped into his eyes. He raked it back and the dazed, deliriously happy look on his face made the two pieces of toast I'd eaten for breakfast try to force their way back up again. "I was gonna hold off and tell you all after rehearsal," he shot a regretful glance over at me, "and tell you at dinner tonight, Pep, but I really want to get back to her so I'll tell you now so you'll stop fucking around." He softened his words with a big goofy grin. "Zoe's pregnant."
I wasn't wearing my headphones anymore, but my hearing went muffled all the same. I stood like a stone in a river, letting the celebration flow around me. Keir poured out shots from his flask and someone must have handed one to me because the next thing I knew there was bourbon burning a trail of fire down my throat and I snapped out of my catatonia somewhat. "I'm really happy for you," I heard myself saying. "You guys are going to be really great parents."
The tightness of Lowell's hug told me he could see that the bottom had dropped out from under me, but he didn't know why or what to do. Neither did I. And then Rane slapped his back and Low stared at me, trying to check in, trying to see that I was okay with this, but there was no way I could even begin to understand why I was feeling hurt and betrayed. I didn't want to feel hurt or betrayed, I just wanted to be happy for my brother like a normal sister who was about to become an aunt should feel. Rane announced that there was no way in hell we could finish rehearsal after news like that and stated his intention to meet us at the nearest bar.
I stood up and smiled and nodded at them. But I wasn't going with them. I told myself that I would be okay....
I just needed to test it.
Lowell's eyes bored into my back as I left the studio. I could feel him watching me, even when I was certain he couldn't see me anymore, when I was out in the parking lot and in my car, and leaving the lot and heading....
Where was I heading?
I was heading to danger.
When I'm numb, I can't feel and I needed to start feeling again, so I did the only thing I knew how to do to feel alive.
I started driving out of LA.
I was going to drive until I found a strange bar. One with fighting and rough men who weren't used to taking no for an answer. One where I could prove to myself that I was never going to be powerless again.
Maybe you'd think I'd have more sense. After what happened to me, I should definitely be more cautious. My mother urged it, before she threw caution to the wind and swallowed all those pills. My therapists urged it, seeing my defiant streak as courting danger, that I was a thrill seeker looking to recreate that day in my own way. That by sneaking out and meeting strange men in strange bars I was trying to regain the power that had been taken from me.
Lowell was always after me to go back to therapy, but the thing about therapy is that it goes on forever. You talk and you talk and you try to get better, but there's never a moment you can say, "Okay, yes, I am all better." And if you protest that you're better, you're fine, the therapist gets this pinched look on their self-satisfied face and directs you back to your father's abandonment and then suddenly you're fucking crying and they're smug that they broke you so they can fix you back up again. Just another million sessions should do it.
How do you know you're better until you actually test it?
I ran my first test in Dallas, as we passed through on our very first tour. I snuck away from the watchful eye of my brother and I went to a bar alone. Twenty-one years old and a stranger in town. It was a risk. And it made me feel alive.
And nothing bad happened to me.
When I got back that night, Lowell was beside himself. He raged and slammed doors, shouting at me, demanding to know if I was crazy. But that was a dumb question. Of course I'm crazy. That's been true for years.
I placated him. I said I was careful. I said I was better. I said I was careless. And he nodded and hugged me and told me not to worry him like that. And I told him he didn't need to be worried.
But I never said I wouldn't do it again.
If Lowell knew that I'd been doing this for years, he would have hit the roof. I would understand. I could take it.
What I couldn't take was him blaming himself if something bad did happen to me.
So, I tried to curb my addiction to danger, at least a little. For his sake. He'd always tried so hard to understand me even though there was no way he could. When I did this, it felt like a betrayal of all that effort. But the compulsion was real and it needed to be answered. Especially now that everything was about to change.
I slid my finger across my phone and turned on my music. The clanging, tolling bells at the beginning of Uttered resounded in my brain. Jane Doe's caterwauling voice drove all the other thoughts from my head.
I took a deep breath and pressed down on the accelerator, leaving the lights of the city behind me.
Chapter Four
True
Pat Halligan lost his left arm in a farming accident, but he could sling drinks faster with his right arm than most people could with both.
When you're feeling like a sorry sack of shit, he's a good person to talk to, help you find your perspective again.
"So Lizzy's moved out?" Pat asked, slamming the beer can in front of me. I wanted something stronger but I could only afford the cheap shit.
"She's moved out," I replied, lifting the beer to my lips. It tasted like foamy ricewater. "This shit tastes like my mood."
"How's the little one taking it?"
"Rory?" I set my drink down and sighed. "Who the fuck knows? I'm not fucking smart enough to figure
out how that kid's mind works."
Pat raised a bushy eyebrow. "Why you slagging yourself off? You're smart as hell, True."
I looked down at my hand and sighed. Pat wasn't one to let you complain. Maybe that's why I'd come here tonight, when there were a million other shitty little dive bars that surrounded my town. "Smart doesn't matter. What matters is what you do with it. I've done jack all."
Pat rolled his eyes and looked over my shoulder as the door slammed open and two regulars came in, already weaving and slurring their words. "Ah goddamnit, it's the Morphys. I need to deal with this." He gave me one more withering glance. "You ain't dead yet, right?"
"Not technically, no."
"So fucking fix this shit. You wanna do something different? Then fucking do it and stop making excuses."
And with that he left me to my shitty beer.
I looked down at my hands again. The callouses from guitar playing still adorned my fingertips, even though the rest of my hands bore the marks of my trade. Deft guitar-picking fingers made for deft engine repair and I had always joked around that at least my music had been useful for something.
But fuck useful. How the hell can you go on like everything is okay when life closed around you like a noose around your throat?
I chugged down the rest of my beer, wincing at the bitter aftertaste and wiped the foam away from my lips. The door banged open again, but I ignored it. A plan, however flimsy, was starting to formulate in my head, and I didn't want to waste any more money on this piss-tasting shit.
There was an odd shift in the background noise, like everyone started humming and muttering about the same thing. I felt myself turning to see what was going on.
And saw her.
She walked through the doorway and stomped across the floor like she was pissed as hell at the floorboards. The door banged shut behind her and heads swiveled, everyone trying to figure out why the hell the brunette with the cute little bob was trying to crack the foundation. The walls actually shook. Dust poofed up from the rafters, only to settle back down again into our glasses.
We all stared.
But only I knew who she was.
Of course, I knew who she was.
Fuck, I'd been listening to her music in the car on the way over. I'd been a fucking fan of hers for years.
Fucking Piper Stowe. Here in Shittown.
What the hell was she doing here?
The one Ruthless show I'd seen, she'd only been a distant blur. I was too far up in the nosebleed section to even make her out on the big screen. But I'd been a fan long enough to recognize her from the album art.
I looked down at my drink, suddenly hot under my collar. Anger made me clench my fist, though I couldn't have told you exactly why. Maybe because my life had turned to shit and I was embarrassed? After all, Lizzy left and I was sitting here feeling sorry for myself and grasping at the threads of a plan to salvage my soul while drinking to the dissolution of my marriage. Why the hell did she have to come here tonight?
Any night, any fucking other night but tonight would have been fucking perfect for me to get up and go say hi to her. Get a shitty selfie, brag to Conway back at the garage about how I partied with the chick from Ruthless. Buy her a beer, or a wine or some fruity chick drink, whatever. Hell, maybe I could charm her enough that she'd want to come home with me and I could get out the old guitar and pluck a few chords for her and she'd invite me backstage and...
Fuck. I actually snorted out loud at where my shitty brain was taking me. Piper Stowe was not -- nor was she ever going to be -- interested in hearing me play. Fuck, Roar was barely interested in hearing me play. I sucked, that much was clear. If I didn't suck, I would have made something of myself in the music world. Not ended up the way I had.
So, I just sat there and stared, watching her out of the corner of my eye.
She was taller in person, long and elegant and she held her head up high like she was a ballerina. I watched her place herself at the edge of her barstool and lift her finger to Pat. Her face was like a mask, but there was a little tremor in her fingers that she tried to disguise by busily twisting a cocktail napkin.
I signaled Pat for another beer. My new plan could wait. My self-pity could shove it. This was the closest I had ever been to a rock star and I wasn't going to cut my time short. I lifted my eyes to watch her in the mirror behind the bar. She was sitting at the other end from me, but there may as well have been a spotlight shining on her. I drank in the sight of her like she was a glass of cool water on a hot sunny day.
Her cheekbones were sharp enough to cut, but there was softness around her mouth. Her lips were small enough to be called cute, but the way the lower one poked out in a pretty little pout had me sitting up a little straighter in my chair. Her nose was long, like everything else about her, but it had this little turn-up at the end that was just about the cutest thing I'd ever seen. If I got close enough to her, if through some miracle I was able to look her in the eye, it would take all my strength not to lean down and kiss that turned-up tip.
Her eyes flicked upward, catching mine in the mirror. I held her gaze, and she didn't look away from me, bored and uninterested, like I was expecting. Instead she lifted her chin, and the corner of her pretty little mouth quirked upward. Like an invitation. Or a challenge.
Heat pooled in my chest and I swiveled in my seat to look her head on.
The fucking door banged open again and my heart sank to see Johnny Banner sauntering in with that fucking idiot Hal Raymond scuttling behind him. When Banner walked into a room, trouble inevitably followed.
The two of them stood in the doorway, surveying the scene. I felt something flicker across my skin and I recognized the feeling of tightness in my muscles. If Lizzy was here, she would reach over, put her hand on my arm. "Don't do it," she'd beg me. "You don't have to go protecting everyone. It's not your job."
"It's my job to protect you," I'd tell her. But she wasn't here.
Piper Stowe was.
You can psychoanalyze it all you want. Maybe it all has to do with my dad and the way he always preyed on the little guy. The weaker one. Maybe that's why I'm always jumping in, trying to protect those that can't protect themselves. Hell, I even fucking married a girl who didn't love me because I was protecting her from her own father's wrath. Since Rory was born, that protective streak has only gotten worse. To the point where I feel like I'm always spoiling for a fight.
Just let Banner try something tonight. I ached to smash his face in. Nothing would make me happier.
I watched as Banner and Raymond zeroed in on Piper and my heart sank. Even as my pulse started racing, I moved to slide off my wedding ring so I wouldn't break my finger and was startled to remember that I wasn't wearing it any more.
As the two dipshits moved in to invade her space, Piper leaned back on her stool and folded her hands in her lap like a queen receiving her court. Usually when douchebags occupy a lady's space, the girl tries to get smaller. I've seen it happen a million times, even to Lizzy when some prick forgot himself and tried to move in on Cash Truman's wife. Girls smile and shrink and try to disappear.
Piper Stowe didn't do any of those things.
She looked up, dead into Banner's reptilian eyes and gazed at him coolly while she sipped her beer. Just fucking held eye contact with him for longer than I thought was possible.
I was way the fuck at the other end of the bar and that level gaze was making me uncomfortable. I couldn't imagine how it made Banner feel.
Actually I could, because the vein in his forehead, the one that popped out when he was getting his rocks off beating on kids a foot shorter than him back in Canastoga High, was fairly throbbing right now.
A small person wasn't scared of him.
And that made him dangerous.
I slid forward in my stool a little and planted my foot on the floor, leaning a little closer.
Piper's mouth moved, the shape of her words scornful. There was a rumble from Banner and then an answeri
ng laugh from Raymond, a sick toady echo. Banner leaned in, and Piper spun in her stool to set her beer down. Then she leaned in and matched his leer, lifting her chin in defiance.
Some flutter of instinct made me rise to my feet.
Even before I saw Raymond drop the powder into her glass.
Then I was moving.
"Don't!" I shouted as Piper lifted her glass. She shrieked as I batted it away from her mouth, sending the pint glass spiraling down to the floor where it shattered into a million pieces.
The whole place went silent.
"This asshole," I panted, pointing at Raymond. "Just fucking put something in your drink."
Raymond, always a paragon of bravery and virtue, turned tail and fucking ran out of there, leaving Banner alone and sputtering. "Keep going!" I yelled, when Raymond reached the door.
"Mind your own fucking business, Truman," Banner hissed.
I whirled on him. "You wanna try me, Johnny-boy?" I taunted. "Or should we skip right to the part where I hand you your ass and you go sniveling home to Jenny? Or maybe we can skip all of that and I can just give Jenny a call myself and let her know you're out spiking girl's drinks for fun? Should I do that? Should I finally let your mama know she raised a rapist piece of shit?"
Banner's vein throbbed. Instinctively I turned my body, and planted my feet. I could feel Piper's wide eyes on me, but I couldn't worry about that now. She could think I was a crazy person but at least she wouldn't get hurt.
Not on my watch.
Banner's swing was wild and unpracticed and I ducked it easily. But it finally made Pat -- who'd been busy talking the Morphys into handing over their keys -- notice that there was a fucking problem over here.
"Hey! Get the fuck out of my bar!" the grizzled old coot bellowed, brandishing the sharpened broom handle he always kept behind the bar. I'd seen him do enough damage with that thing -- even with only one arm to swing -- to take several steps backward.
"Johnny, it ain't worth it!" Raymond pleaded from the doorway.
"No," I growled. "It fucking isn't."