Bounty

by Kristen Ashley

  This started when I was smiling at Nina as she spoke animatedly and with a great deal of love about her and Max’s children and I caught something out the side of my eye.

  Before I even looked that way, I felt it like I always felt it the rare times it happened.

  I knew I’d been spotted.

  And when my gaze hit a table in the center of the restaurant, I saw four sets of eyes on me, with one of the women at the table’s hand falling after what appeared to be her pointing at me.

  As they got my attention, the two women and one of the two men smiled at me, big and excited. And the woman who hadn’t been pointing lifting her hand for a shy wave.

  I felt my muscles get tight as I tipped my head and gave them a look that I hoped communicated I appreciated that they knew who I was, were excited to see me sitting there, but it wasn’t an invitation to come to the table for a chat or to ask for an autograph or picture.

  If it had just been me, I wouldn’t care. For me, it would be far worse if no one ever recognized me, and especially looked excited when they did, because it would mean they hadn’t heard my music, liked my music, and last, probably bought my music.

  Even without my earnings, thanks to Granddad (and eventually when the shit with Mav and his mother was over, Dad), I’d still be in my oasis tucked in pine and aspen.

  But what I earned was what I had earned and it meant a lot to me.

  However, it wasn’t just me. It was me with Max, Nina…and Deke.

  Max and Nina had warned us they were a magnet for drama at The Rooster (or at least it seemed Nina was, and not just at The Rooster). So they’d had practice and might be able to ride whatever wave was approaching.

  But Deke had said he didn’t know how he’d handle facing the hassle that came from my fame.

  I didn’t think this was a hassle. Connecting to people who connected to me through something that was a deep, emotional part of me, truth was, if it didn’t get weird, I loved it. I didn’t mind scribbling my name, smiling at someone’s phone, having them tell me I’d made their night, knowing even if I said it they wouldn’t believe that they’d made mine too.

  Deke might not agree.

  And we were having a great time. The food good, the company—as ever in these Colorado mountains—stellar. I didn’t want that to turn.

  In other words, I didn’t want to learn that Deke, who was the mellowest man I’d ever met, would react negatively to something that might not happen every day, or even frequently, but it happened.

  So after I gave them their look, I looked away, hopefully communicating that I was pleasantly occupied and would rather not be disturbed.

  No one at our table seemed to notice this and I was relieved, primarily because part of that no one was Deke.

  I’d rejoined the conversation and the waitress came, bringing Nina a glass of wine and me another Jack and Coke, when I felt Deke’s arm that was lying on the booth behind me, curl around me.

  He pulled me into his side.

  I looked up at him.

  “Babe, folk at that table over there know you,” he said quietly.

  Of course, Deke had noticed.

  “They’re takin’ pictures, tryin’ to be cool about it,” he went on.

  Shit!

  “Maybe not somethin’ you wanna do but think it’d mean a lot to them, you went over, had a word before our steaks get here,” he advised.

  I felt my mouth drop open.

  Deke looked to my mouth then back to my eyes.

  “Your call, you don’t want to,” he said.

  “You’re okay with that?” I asked.

  “Be more okay with that than them getting a picture of you shovin’ a huge bite of steak in your mouth, somethin’ you might not like, and that shit’s all over Twitter or whatever by morning.”

  I’d feel better about that too.

  “I, well, if I go over there, honey, they’ll want pictures and other people might notice and it might get around that I’m, well…me.”

  “You are you,” he pointed out. “So be you, give ’em you, and get back here before our steaks get here because you won’t want to eat yours cold.”

  My mouth didn’t drop open then.

  I just stared.

  “Is everything okay?” Nina asked.

  Deke looked her way and did it sliding out of the booth. “Jussy’s got some fans here. She’s gonna go see to ’em.”

  I cast an uneasy glance at Nina and Max as I slid out behind Deke, wondering if they’d be annoyed at possibly having their dinner delayed, our night interrupted.

  But Max was just looking at me benevolently and Nina was looking over her shoulder. She’d clearly caught the table where the patrons knew me because she was waving.

  They were waving back.

  Okay, not annoyed.

  I took my feet next to Deke and looked up at him.

  “I’ll try to be fast,” I assured.

  “Do what you gotta do,” he muttered, his head coming down to do what he often had to do.

  Touch his lips to mine.

  They were almost to their destination when I whispered, “Baby, they could be taking pictures.”

  His head halted its descent and his gaze lifted from my lips to my eyes before he whispered back, “You mine?”

  Oh yes.

  I was.

  Abso-fucking-lutely.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Then who gives a shit?”

  He asked that and didn’t allow me to respond. He went in for the lip brush, hand on my hip giving me a squeeze.

  When he pulled away, I wanted to grab him on either side of his head and yank him back. When I’d accomplished that, I wanted to kiss him hard.

  In absence of that, I wanted to smile at him huge to tell him how much his reaction to this scenario meant to me.

  And last, I wanted to tell him I loved him.

  I didn’t do any of these things.

  Instead, I gave him a look that I hoped shared all of that, a small smile curving my mouth, lifting my hand to trail my fingers along his at my hip.

  He caught them, twisted them in his for a beat before he gave them an affectionate tug and let them go.

  I looked to Max and Nina. “Be back.”

  “We’ll be here,” Nina replied brightly.

  My smile to her was grateful, I turned it on Max and then I moved on my high-heeled boots through the restaurant to the table.

  The women were nearly bouncing in their chairs.

  Both men were standing by the time I made it to their table.

  I spoke with them. I signed two cocktail napkins, personalizing them. And I stood and scrunched together for four pictures, one taken by a waitress.

  Other patrons watched, none gawked (fortunately) and no others approached or cast certain kinds of glances that would mean I’d be taking a tour of the restaurant that would last an hour before I went back to my dinner with Deke and our friends.

  We were undisturbed through steaks, more beverages (for Nina and me) and desserts.

  But when it came time to pay the bill, it was the manager who showed, looking at me and saying, “It’s our pleasure you joined us, Ms. Lonesome. So much so, The Rooster is covering your meal.” He slightly bowed to me, Deke and then to Max and Nina before he looked again to me. “Please come again.”

  He then glided away.

  “Um…” I mumbled to the table at large. “Weirdly, that comes with the territory, the people most likely to be able to afford steak dinners in nice restaurants get them for free.”

  “Free food at The Rooster. Never wanted to be famous, suddenly I want to be famous,” Nina remarked, again smiling at me. “Do you get designers sending you free clothes?”

  Her manner made it easy not to be embarrassed by an embarrassment of riches.

  “When I was touring, yeah.”

  “Okay, now I definitely want to be famous,” Nina decreed.

  I smiled back.

  “This means I get nothi
n’ but the tip which means we didn’t take you two out for dinner at all which means,” Max was speaking to Deke and me but he turned to Nina and said his last, “your fish pie at our place and you and Jus can dress up all you want to sit at our table with our kids. But I’m not puttin’ on boots.”

  “No. Next time our turn,” I butted in, thrilled by the possibility that I could actually take that turn. “At my soon-to-be-done house, that being soon thanks to Deke and Max.”

  “We accept,” Nina said instantly.

  “Can she cook?” Max asked Deke.

  “Yup,” Deke answered Max, again curling his arm that was behind me on the booth around my shoulders and pulling me in close.

  “Then we accept,” Max confirmed to me.

  “Awesome,” I replied.

  And it was awesome.

  An embarrassment of riches.

  But this time, the important kind.

  * * * * *

  “Grace.”

  We were halfway home from the restaurant, this journey made in silence.

  Content after a nice night with good food in our bellies, the silence was about that.

  But it was more.

  It was just the way of Deke and me.

  “Sorry?” I asked, turning to look at his profile lit by the dashboard lights.

  “Your dad see that?” he asked the road.

  “See what?” I asked back.

  He didn’t glance at me when he explained, “Way you were tonight with those folks. That grace you got in you.”

  I felt my breath catch in my throat.

  Deke’s obviously didn’t because he kept talking.

  “For them, a nice night out turned into a memory they won’t forget. They’ll be tellin’ that shit to their grandkids. You made it that way, walkin’ up to them, givin’ ’em your time, givin’ ’em all the good you got in you. Watched you do it, Jussy. You just bein’ you lit up their worlds for as long as you were at their table.”

  As I tried to regulate my breathing which had gone erratic at Deke’s compliment, Deke reached out, found my hand, curled his around it and pulled both to his thigh.

  And his voice was lower, filled with sheer beauty when he continued.

  “Don’t think I’ve ever been prouder in my life than watchin’ you handle those people. No way to describe it. ’Cept pure grace.”

  I squeezed his hand and my voice was different too, lower, but husky when I replied, “Thank you, baby.”

  “Your dad see that?” he asked.

  I cleared my throat and looked to the dark road. “Kind of. Usually it was him giving that to people.”

  Sweet memories filled my head of watching him do just that for as long as I could remember.

  Memories that I noted were just sweet, without any of the sting that memories of Dad had been causing since he’d passed.

  And that sweet was something else Deke had given me—keeping me together even as I fell apart, letting me get things out it was unhealthy to hold in, paving the way for me to move on, release the bitter, keep the sweet.

  “He taught me how,” I finished.

  “Born to it and still, both a’ you know what it means. Don’t take it for granted.”

  “No, we both know what it means,” I confirmed.

  Or Dad knew. And he’d taught me.

  Deke was silent. This stretched and I let it.

  Deke ended it.

  “One album, Jussy. You say you like what you do but, baby, you haven’t explained to me what it is you’re gonna be doin’.”

  This was noted conversationally. I felt no tension in the cab, heard none in his words.

  He wasn’t asking to gather information, assess if our paths would down the road divide.

  He was just asking.

  “I write songs,” I answered. “Sometimes, if I like the artist, I produce. It’s rare, though, that I go in to do that. Produce, I mean. It takes a lot of time and,” I rubbed my thumb along the side of his hand, “until recently, I wasn’t big on staying in one place for very long.”

  “Yeah,” he murmured, amusement and approval in his tone.

  That was when I fell silent.

  Deke didn’t fall into it with me.

  “One album, babe.”

  I looked to him. “What?”

  “It’s been a while. When you gonna do another one?”

  When my hand squeezed his that time, it was involuntary.

  “I don’t record anymore,” I shared.

  He shot a glance at me.

  “Say again?” he asked the road when his eyes went back to it.

  I looked back to the road too. “I don’t record. Like I said, I just write. And sometimes produce.”

  “You don’t record.”

  The way he said that made me turn my head his way again.

  “No, Deke. Not anymore.”

  There was no pause before he asked his next, but when he asked, he asked gently.

  “You wanna tell me why?”

  I looked back out the windshield. “It wasn’t for me.”

  “What wasn’t?” he asked. “Parts of it or the whole thing?”

  A wise question.

  “Parts of it. I…” I hesitated then noted, “You read up on me.”

  “I did.”

  “So you know the story.”

  “Read it but didn’t think it was the whole story, Jussy, seein’ as you’re young and you got amazing talent. Thought there were more chapters to be written.”

  “I lost my drummer to an overdose,” I announced. “He was Dad’s drummer before he went on the road with me. So he was family. And I was the leader of the band then. That means I didn’t take care of one of my boys. I didn’t look out for him.”

  Before Deke could put his two cents in, I went on hurriedly.

  “I know it wasn’t my fault. I get that, really. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a part of me that feels I hold some responsibility. And, well…that happening shook me.”

  It was then his hand tightened what seemed like involuntarily in mine.

  But I gave him more.

  “And the schedule, Deke, it’s insane. On the road. On a bus. On a plane. In a car. In a hotel room. Up early for press. Interview after interview trying to answer the same questions that are asked over and over again, doing it in different ways, trying to seem engaged. Dog-tired by sound check. Amping for the performance to be so jazzed at the end you can’t sleep. Booze all over the place. Drugs easy to get. Everything. Illegal. Prescription. And everybody wants to be your friend because you can get them backstage or get them introductions to the people who’ll make their dreams come true or they can just take off with all the shit folks shower on you for no reason, just because you can sing and you have a famous last name. You’re open to being used, open to shit that is seriously unhealthy for you, finding yourself needing it just to get through the day, doing your best to deny that, turn your back on it and keep going.”

  I looked to him, took a breath, but I wasn’t done.

  “All that happens and if you’re lucky, it grows. Then you need to build a wall to stay behind, to keep away from all that shit, to stay safe. And suddenly, you’re behind that wall. What I do, Deke, it isn’t about being behind a wall. It isn’t about keeping myself shielded from the people who love the stories I tell. It’s about us being two halves of a whole. I love what I do and I’d be happy doing it just for me. But they love what I do too and it’s indescribable how amazing it is that what I give is something they want to take. It isn’t like there would be no me without them, yet it is. We’re one. You remove yourself from part of that, you’re missing something crucial to the process. No one can live without their other half.”

  I watched as he lifted my hand but he stopped in mid-air. I didn’t know what he intended to do and it seemed for a moment that he didn’t know either.

  He decided and I had to turn to him when he lifted my hand farther up, pulled me closer, and pressed it to his chest.

  I f
elt that hit me in the throat in a way I liked.

  And with that warmth right there, I kept sharing.

  “The more success you get, the more there’s a need for that wall. Then you start needing that wall reinforced until you’re so far away from your other half, it’s like they don’t exist.”

  “Your dad had to have that wall, baby,” he noted softly.

  “He did,” I told him. “That’s why he always toured. He might take a break for a few months but only to plan the next tour, record the next album. He was always on the road because he needed those times when he could tear down that wall. Be onstage with his fans a sea of faces in front of him, singing right along with him. There is no greater beauty in a song than thousands of voices singing it. I know it might piss some people off when artists onstage turn the microphone to the audience. But I can say there is nothing a songwriter can experience in the art more beautiful than shutting your mouth and hearing your work sung to you by thousands of voices. Knowing something that came from your soul is embedded in someone else’s.”

  “You miss it,” he noted.

  I turned back to the windshield. “Some of it,” I told him.

  A lot of it. I heard whispered in the deep recesses of my mind, this surprising me.

  Deke took me out of that thought when he fully lifted my hand and I felt his lips touch my knuckles before he dropped it back to his thigh.

  I didn’t watch that. It felt beautiful. If it was as beautiful to see as it felt, I’d unravel in the car.

  We were driving down Main Street in Carnal when Deke spoke again.

  “Want you to think on that, Jussy.”

  “Think on what?”

  “You have way too much to give to let others offer it for you, baby,” he said carefully, quietly.

  Marvelously.

  And he wasn’t done.

  “It’s your choice. You want your less that’s more, I get that. I do. But you miss it, you feel the need for that connection direct, you should go for it.”

  I didn’t know what he was saying.

  But what I thought he might be saying concerned me even as it bizarrely elated me.

  And I focused on the part that concerned me.

  “And if I went for it, where would you be?” I asked.