“Yeah, Braden!”
“Come on, Hot Stuff.”
“#hotdrummerneeded.”
Someone laughed and added, “#hotdrummerneededinmypants.”
That sent another round of laughter around the bar. My brother saluted my beer in the air, then hit the bottom back of the counter and chugged the entire thing.
The crowd responded with whoops, wolf whistles, and cheers.
He pumped a fist in the air and hollered, “Let’s do this!” Then he pressed the empty glass to me and headed through the crowd, jumping onto the stage in one leap.
“Hey.”
I turned.
Kelly had leaned closer. She glanced toward the back door. “I saw you head out there with Elijah Turner, right?”
I nodded. “That was my boyfriend.”
“Good guy.”
My eyebrow went up at that. “He’s a drug dealer.”
She winked at me, handing a glass to a customer. “Good guy, just misguided at times.”
I snorted. “I’d like to think that.” But I did. Elijah had good in him. He just . . .wasn’t for me anymore. I shook my head. “Okay. I need a drink now. Braden took my beer.”
“Not a problem.” She gestured around the side of the bar. “We’re going to get slammed. Your brother’s band brings in the crowd, and we’re down a girl. If you help out later on, if we’re in a pinch, you can drink for free.”
“I don’t know how much help I’d be if I did drink for free.”
She laughed before moving farther down the bar. “You’d be surprised how sober you get when twenty people are shouting orders at you. Think about it, but help yourself until then.”
Shit. Free beer? Maybe I had come to the right place to deal with my break up. Laughing at my lameness, I slid off the stool to grab my first one. Braden hit the first beat on the drums, and Luke began singing. I went back to my seat, but as Luke kept singing and I kept hearing the band playing, that void reopened.
I’d need a second drink. Soon.
They took a short break ten songs in, and when they hopped back up, Luke’s voice came over the microphone. I heard the crescendo starting from Braden’s hands, and then Emerson joined in, building the bottom note.
I was going to be gutted by the end of their set. I wanted that. I wanted to be up there, creating the tension and setting the rhythm as Luke’s voice cast its spell.
“Hey, Bri.” Kelly came over to my end of the bar. She signaled around to the growing crowd. “You mind hopping in? You can do the beer. It’s not hard.”
“Yeah.” I stood and heard Luke’s words behind me. “Leaving my body, leaving my heart, leaving my soul, bloody and broken—” My knees were unsteady, and I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. Taking position behind the beer taps, I faltered.
He was singing about that night.
I had no idea he had written a song about it. They never asked to practice this song while they were in the basement.
“Two tall tap specials!” a waitress yelled from the side.
I jerked my head in a nod and reached for the tall glasses. Luke’s haunting voice sounded over the crowd’s growing buzz. “She healed me up, cared for my wounds. Then left and ripped them open once more. Broken. I was left broken.”
“Hey!”
I came back to reality at the waitress’s voice and saw the beer was overflowing. Cursing, I switched the glasses and glanced at Kelly. “I’ll cover the loss.”
She waved it off. “No worries. We all do it. I don’t normally advise this, but have a couple of shots. You won’t be drunk, but it’ll help tune out whatever you need tuned out.”
“Yeah.” I poured two shots of whiskey and downed them, and it wasn’t long before Luke’s voice couldn’t infiltrate my wall anymore. After that, I got lost in filling orders.
Two hours later, Kelly nudged my arm. “We’re doing last call now. I think we should be good.”
The place hadn’t emptied. It had just gotten more packed. “You sure?”
“Yep, I’ll take over here. Crystal came in. She’s the shot girl. That helped us.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Hey.”
I had started to walk back around, but paused and looked back at her.
She gestured to the garbage cans, which were overflowing, forming piles around the bins. “I know it’s a shit job, but do you mind taking those out? You’ll get a portion of the tips, too.”
“I thought my payment was free beer?”
She laughed. Braden hopped onto a stool at that moment, and her eyes darkened. She said to me, while eyeing him, “That payment’s not good enough for how much you helped tonight. Doing the garbage seals the deal. Anytime you want a job here, you got one.” Then she focused on Braden. “You guys sounded good up there tonight.”
He winked at her, leaning forward with his elbows on the bar. “Something extra was up Luke’s ass tonight. He sang his heart out.”
They both glanced at the crowd still standing in front of the stage. Luke was talking to a guy as a group of girls swarmed in behind him. Drunken, glazed eyes stared at him in hunger. Most of the girls had their hair matted with sweat, but they tried to look sexy, standing in their best seductive pose, waiting for Luke’s attention.
“No kidding,” I murmured to myself and went to the garbage bins. While pulling them out, I was rougher than was needed. When I hefted one bag out of a bin and set it down to reach for the second bin, Emerson shot past me.