by Hart, Staci
He was telling me a story about his younger sister, who was three years older than me, his face alight with love for her, and I listened, amused and enchanted.
His smile was bright and handsome, his jaw square and strong, the line sharpened by his dark scruff. Finger ruts cut through the top of his long hair, the sides neatly trimmed, the effect a contrast of clean and casually chaotic. And his eyes were the most stunning mixture of blue and green, the color deep and dark and rich as velvet. I tried not to stare at the tattoos on his forearms that rested on the table between us—I hadn’t seen a lot of tatted up guys in Boerne—and I wondered what their stories were, thought about how tall he was, how broad his shoulders were under his well-fitted shirt that hugged the curves of what appeared to be quite substantial biceps.
Really, Greg was gorgeous. Gorgeous and funny and clever.
And he’d graduated high school when I was in the second grade.
It was just too weird to even consider—although I had in some detail—even if he were interested in me, which he absolutely wasn’t.
No way would a guy like Greg be interested in a kid from Nowhere, Texas, who had never been kissed.
For years, I had considered ad nauseam why I had never been kissed, had never had a boyfriend, hadn’t even entertained the idea of any of the guys I knew.
One reason was that I’d known the vast majority of the two hundred kids in my class since we were in kindergarten. When you grew up knowing everyone’s business, it was hard to see anyone in a new light. I watched some boys go from pigtail-pulling bullies to pigskin-throwing jocks. Some went from country boys in plaid pearl snaps to drama boys with enviable eyeliner skills. Everyone wanted to reinvent themselves, but we all saw each other as we had in Mrs. Clary’s first-grade class. I was sure they only saw me as the sick girl with eyes too big for her face, the girl who always had a book in her lap and laughed a little too loudly. And even though new kids occasionally moved in—Boerne was becoming an up-and-coming spot for new families—they were quickly absorbed into one of the defined social cliques.
But even beyond that, no one had caught my eye. There were three boys in my grade called Bubba, and although their names had nothing in common with their intelligence—one was our valedictorian—I couldn’t see myself with a Bubba. Although, trust me when I say that if you’d heard their real names, you’d understand the appeal of the nickname. No one read. Instead, they threw keggers in their parents’ pastures, tubed in the springs, camped at Canyon Lake. They hung out at Whataburger or Sonic, spiking their Route 44 Cherry Limeades with cheap vodka.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t wanted to go too. But the truth was that I couldn’t have walked the distance into the pastures, and I couldn’t have run for it if the cops came (they always did). I couldn’t have tubed in the springs because, if I had fallen in, I might not have been able to fight the current. I couldn’t have camped; I wouldn’t have been able to set up my tent or swim in the lake or go on any hikes. And I didn’t drink—mostly because it was bad for me, but also because the idea intimidated me.
Oh, I’d been asked to go on those outings a few times—not many, but a few—but once you refused so many times, people would quit asking. And a few boys had tried to pursue me, but I always declined. As nice as it might have been to have a date to homecoming and get a big, jingly, ridiculous mum to wear, I didn’t want to say yes until I felt that yes all the way through me, down to my toes.
None of the boys in Boerne made me feel anything down to my toes.
So I’d read books, and I spent my recesses, lunches, and homecomings with my best friend, Jill, until she moved away the summer before senior year. And then…well, she moved on.
Luckily, Elle was my other best friend.
Greg stayed to chat with me until Harrison started flicking coasters at him from the bar like tiny frisbees.
I quit eating when I was stuffed, which was just as Harrison approached.
“You’re not gonna leave me here to eat all alone, are you?” he asked with puppy-dog eyes.
I chuckled, sliding out of the booth as he slid in. “I wouldn’t, but I’ll never get through training if I take an hour for lunch.”
“It’d be time well spent. Just saying.”
“I don’t doubt that for a second. See ya later, Harrison,” I said over my shoulder as I made my way back to Ruby at the register.
She was handing a bag of books across the counter. “Here you go. Read Fables first, and if you don’t love it, come back here so I can tell you why you’re wrong.”
I laughed, a single, surprised burst of sound. The guy with the bag in his hand blushed, his ruddy cheeks splotchy and smile shy, lips closed over his braces.
“Thanks, Ruby,” he muttered before hightailing it out of the bookstore like his pants were on fire.
“Man, that’s the best part of this job,” she said with a shake of her head. “How was lunch?”
“Greg was right; that sandwich blew my mind.” I made an explosion sound with my mouth.
She laughed. “Man, Harrison is practically tripping all over himself to get you to notice him.”
I frowned. “What?”
Ruby nodded behind me, and I turned to catch him watching us, smiling with a wad of sandwich in his cheek. He jerked his chin in acknowledgment.
I laughed. “Oh, he’s just being…I don’t know. Funny.”
With one eyebrow up, she said, “Funny?”
“Well, yeah. He was trying to make me laugh.”
“Guys like Harrison try to make you laugh so they can get your phone number.”
My face quirked. “No.”
“Yes,” she said on a laugh. “Anyway, Cam wanted you to head to the back. She’s got some more paperwork for you to fill out.”
“All right. Thanks for your help today, Ruby.”
“No problem. You’re a real natural. It takes a lot of skill to manage these babies,” she joked, stroking the plastic buttons.
I chuckled and headed to the office I’d become acquainted with earlier that day. Cam was sitting at her desk, laptop open in front of her.
“Hey, Annie. Come on in. You can sit at Rose’s desk.” She motioned to the empty desk butted up against the back of hers. “Let me grab some forms for you—taxes, that sort of thing.”
She rummaged around in a file cabinet at her side, retrieving one paper at a time until there was a stack on the table. A minute later, she handed them over with a pen. “Here you go.”
I scanned the one on top and got to work.
“So, how are you liking it so far?”
I looked up, smiling. “It’s the best first job I’ve ever had.”
She laughed. “Make any new friends?”
I thought there might be a question under her question, but there was no way of knowing what it was. “Ruby is so much fun. She even made stocking books interesting by riding the cart like a chariot.”
“She’s crashed three since we opened.”
I giggled, imagining it. “Harrison’s so funny. Oh, I met Marshall too, but I don’t think he likes me. He keeps calling me New Girl. Like, he said, ‘Hey, bring me some bags, New Girl,’ all sour-like.”
“Don’t take it personal; that’s just his face.”
I laughed. “Well, that makes me feel a little better.”
“He’s not a bad guy, just an arrogant one who knows far too much about comic books to be considered normal. How about Greg? I saw you guys eating together.”
“Greg and I just had the best lunch. He’s so easy to talk to.”
“Isn’t he?” she asked with a smile that might be a little wily.
“He really is. We had a deal; I’d never had a Monte Cristo before, so we ended up splitting one of those and a meatball sub.”
“Ooh, good choice. From Jonesie’s?”
I nodded. “So good.”
“Greg’s worked here since we opened, and he runs the bar better than I could. I’m more the bookish, sensitive type,�
�� she joked. “I’ve actually been trying to get him set up for years. I’ve been known to…well, meddle is probably the nicest term for it. It’s why I spend so much time organizing our mixers. I’ve sorta been banned from any matchmaking.”
“That bad, huh?” I asked with a brow up and a sideways smile to match.
“Oh, trust me, it was bad. But I’ve learned my lesson. Mostly. So, do you have a boyfriend?”
I laughed.
“I told you, mostly.” She shrugged.
“No boyfriend. I’m new in town.”
“Fresh meat,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “I remember when I first moved here from Iowa. It’s a shock, huh?”
I conspiratorially leaned in. “It’s crazy, Cam. There are so many things to see, so many buildings and bodies, and it smells…different. Like metal and people and cars and possibility, all mixed up and packed into the spaces between buildings.”
“I know what you mean. I was so overwhelmed, I thought I might bust. But it gets better. Easier. More fun.” Cam turned to her laptop. “Speaking of fun, how often do you want to work?”
“Every day you’ll have me.”
“I like your enthusiasm, Annie,” she said with a smirk. “Tell me you sing. I really need a better karaoke buddy than Rose. She only sings if she’s tanked.”
I laughed. “I love to sing, and I will karaoke with you any day of the week as long as you can find a place that will let me in underage.”
“Duh, here. Tomorrow night and every Tuesday.”
“Seriously, put me down for every day on the schedule, would you?”
“Karaoke is nothing. You should see our costume parties. We have one coming up where you come as half of your favorite historical couple.”
I pointed at her computer screen. “Right, so put me down for working all the days that end in Y.”
She snickered. “Done, starting with karaoke tomorrow night. But not to work—to sing.”
My smile could have lit of Fifth. “Deal.”
Cam typed away on her keyboard, amused. “How about thirty hours a week, and you can come hang out with us on the rest of your days off?”
“I accept.”
She chuckled.
“Really, Cam, thank you. This is…I think this is just what I needed and at just the right time.”
“Well then, I sure am glad you ran into Greg yesterday and asked for a job.”
“So am I,” I said, and meant it.
Come Sail Away
Greg
The bar was packed with smiling faces that night, and the karaoke mic had been well met with talent. We had yet to have the quintessential slurred rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” and instead had been graced with a version of “Single Ladies” that had the crowd’s jaws on the ground. We’d also been given a few gems of the ’80s hair-band variety, and a duet performed “Push It,” complete with all of Salt-N-Pepa’s dance moves from the video.
And those were just the highlights.
Beau and Harrison were behind the bar with me, and Bayleigh was working service, making drinks for the cocktail servers and bar-backing, which meant ensuring we were stocked with glasses and enough ice to keep the drinks coming.
I hadn’t stopped moving but for a couple of times—when Annie walked in, waving at me over the crowd, when she swung by the bar to say hi a little bit after, and when she stepped to the microphone.
She seemed to favor ’80s music, singing “Just What I Needed” by The Cars with Cam. The second song, “You Make My Dreams” by Hall & Oates, had me smiling and dancing a little with Bayleigh and Beau behind the bar. Beau went full Molly Ringwald and did the little kick-dance thing she had done in The Breakfast Club. But, when she stepped up onto the stage and the opening to “Head Over Heels” by Tears For Fears started, I stepped off to the side, abandoning the bar without even realizing I’d done it.
She closed her eyes, cupping the microphone in her hands, her shoulders swaying as she sang with a velvety voice about how she wanted to be with me alone, about being lost in admiration, begging me not to take her heart or break it or throw it away.
During the na-na-nah part, she had the crowd going, her arm waving over her head in time to the music until everyone else was doing it too, the whole bar singing along, even tone-deaf me.
I didn’t know how she had done it, how the second she’d picked up the microphone, she became music. She sang like every song meant something to her, sang so deeply that she could have written the words herself. She felt it, felt it through every bit of her, and transcribed that feeling to us through her breath and her lips. And her feeling was so natural, so alluring that we all joined in with the hope that we could feel it too.
The crowd roared when she finished, and behind the bar, we were clapping and whistling and whooping our appreciation.
Annie waved and hooked the microphone back on the stand. When she wound her way through the crowd to the bar, I made sure to put myself where she landed, which was at the end near Bayleigh and out of the way of the crowd.
Harrison and Beau took over, covering me without a word spoken. After a couple of years of working together, we were a well-oiled machine of efficiency in the square feet of space behind that bar.
She brushed her hair out of her face, beaming and energized. “Hey!” she called.
“You are a woman of many talents,” I said, trying not to beam back with quite a bit of difficulty.
A blush colored her cheeks. “Thanks. Mostly I just sing in my shower. Karaoke is my exception.”
I laughed. “Something to drink?”
“Oh, that would be great. Water, please.”
I reached for a glass and dumped a scoop of ice into it. “So, ’80s music, huh?”
“I know. I was barely even born in the ’90s, but my mom loves ’80s music. I grew up to Journey and The Police and INXS and Eurythmics. Daddy was more into classic rock. So I didn’t listen to a lot of pop music as a tween. Total freak, I know,” she said on a chuckle.
“Please, don’t ever apologize for not listening to Miley Cyrus.”
She full-on laughed at that and took the water once it was poured and offered, downing half of it in a series of pulls. On a sigh, she set the glass down. “How about you? Are you gonna sing?”
“And bust a hundred people’s eardrums? Probably not.”
“Aw, come on.” She leaned on the bartop, smiling. “There has to be a song you love to sing. Everyone sings in the shower when they think nobody’s listening. And if they don’t, they should.”
I snickered and rested my forearms on the bar across from her. “I’m tone-deaf.”
She rolled her eyes, but her smile grew even wider. “So? It’s not about how you sound; it’s about how you feel. I know you have at least one song. You sing it…” She tapped her chin in thought. “Ah, you sing it in the kitchen while you’re making pancakes. Or in the car when you’re driving—wait, you don’t have cars here. Hmm…when you’re getting ready to go out with your friends, you sing it into your brush in front of your mirror.”
She looked so sure of herself, I had to laugh.
“In the shower,” I corrected, my cheeks warming a little. “I sing it in the shower. Or I used to.”
Annie bounced, satisfied at her rightness. “What song?”
“Styx, ‘Come Sail Away.’”
A lovely, happy laugh burst out of her. “Power ballads! ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ is my go-to; it’s Mama’s favorite. Come on, we have to sing yours.”
“Not on your life, kid.”
Her smile shifted to a pout in a heartbeat. I wasn’t sure if it was for the refusal or for calling her kid.
“Have you ever done karaoke?”
“Never. Tone-deaf, remember? You wouldn’t even be able to tell what song I was singing.”
“I’ll back you up. Come on! Just once in your life, you have to sing your favorite song with a microphone in your hand.”
I gave her a look.
/> She started to sing “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley.
I didn’t waver.
She switched to “I’ll Be There for You,” shimmying around with a corny look on her face.
I fought to keep my lips flat.
When she launched into the hook of “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” by The Smiths, I gave up, laughing.
“All right, you win.”
She clapped, her green eyes twinkling. “I’m going to go tell Cam! And don’t worry; I’ve got your back—promise. Be right back!”
She turned to go and ran smack into a guy, who grabbed her, chuckling.
“Whoa, you okay?” he asked.
I watched through narrowed eyes.
“God, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m such a klutz.”
“A klutz who can sing like an angel.”
I involuntarily rolled my eyes at him, not that he was paying any attention to me.
She laughed, totally unaware that he was looking at her like she was an ice cream cone he’d like to treat exactly like an ice cream cone.
“You come here often?”
“I work here, so…yeah.” Another laugh.
“I’m here every Tuesday. Tell me I’ll see you again here.”
She shrugged and stepped around him. “Probably! Nice to meet you!”
Annie bounded off, and the mystery douche and I watched her go.
No clue. She didn’t have a single clue. And I wished it hadn’t left me relieved, but it had.
I wondered briefly how many guys she’d inadvertently blown off. Which, naturally, made me wonder what kind of man would get through to her. He’d have to be clear about his intentions and obvious. Persistent. Because subtlety didn’t seem to be something she responded to. I got the impression that Annie took everything at face value, accepting what was simply by what it appeared to be.
The thought sent a flash of unfounded worry through me.
I shook my head when I remembered that she’d just left to set up a circumstance wherein I would be singing in front of a crowd. At least, if I had to endure the horror of singing in front of people, I would be doing it with someone like Annie. Because I had a feeling that she didn’t do anything in her life without some measure of fun and happiness, and I knew from experience that her brand of fun and happiness were contagious.