Leaving Amarillo(43)
“So why even go?”
His entire body goes rigid beside me. When he answers, it’s practically through gritted teeth. “Can’t really be avoided. Julian would cut us off if I weren’t at least trying to get officially into the business, so to speak. In his eyes, everything we do is pointless unless we get a major deal with a legit label.”
Sounded a lot like Dallas’s perspective. I could relate. “Julian?”
“Our financial backer. He was sitting up front with me when I drove you to the stage the other night.”
Ah. I’d wondered who that guy was. “I see. So he pulls all the strings?”
“All the ones not attached to instruments, yeah, pretty much.”
Afton’s voice is so much tighter than usual, I search my brain for ways to change the subject but come up empty.
“That seems . . . complicated.”
He sighs. “It can be. He’s also my uncle and pretty much the only person in my family who supports my decision to be a musician—or squander my potential and quash every dream my father has ever had for me, if you ask my parents—so yeah, it gets tense and messy from time to time. But that’s what keeps life interesting, right?”
Thankfully we’ve arrived at the restaurant before I have to answer. Afton pays the cabdriver, tipping way more than I would have, and the man practically leaps out and hurdles the hood in order to open the door for us. He gives Afton a card and tells him he can call him directly and he’ll pick us up when we’re ready.
Stepping aside, I raise my eyebrows at my date. “So this is how the other half lives? Good to know.”
“Other half?” He gives me a questioning smirk and I laugh.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a cabdriver offer to come back and get me. Or open my door. One almost ran me over when I didn’t get out fast enough.”
“You must not have been wearing that dress. Pretty sure that’s why he offered.” Afton winks at me and I shake my head.
Now I’m the one blushing, probably as deeply as the shade of red I’m wearing. He offers his arm and I take it. Walking in the back entrance into a private dining room, I feel a bit like a celebrity. And like a big fat phony. I’m a jeans and Chucks and ponytail walks into a greasy diner kind of girl. Not a designer shoes, sexy dress, updo using a private entrance to a swanky restaurant chick.
Tonight, I think as both my chin and my shoulders lift a bit higher than usual, maybe I’m both.
Immediately upon entering Crave, I find myself in a sleek room with mahogany ceilings, marble floors, and a fireplace in the corner. People of all ages are clustered into groups and scattered around the room.
The conversation is so boisterous and loud it fills the space in the private dining room. Waiters deliver sushi to the people seated at round tables covered in slate-gray material that probably costs more than my dress did its first time around. Afton takes me by the hand and we migrate between the high standing tables where mostly men are drinking liquor in short squat glasses and discussing people by names and labels. I don’t recognize many, but I’d bet a year’s worth of tips that Dallas would.
After my date says a few obligatory hellos and makes the necessary introductions, calling me “the Very Beautiful and Talented Dixie Lark” as if they’re supposed to know or care who I am enough times that I want to jump out one of the ceiling to floor-length windows that make up one wall of the room, we make our way to the bar and Afton orders himself a scotch before turning to me.
“Um, sweet tea is fine.”
He grins. “Trust me, another hour of this and you’re going to wish you’d ordered something much stronger.”
Little does he know, I don’t plan on staying another hour. He orders me a Long Island iced tea instead and I go with it.
Turns out, he was right about things getting pretty bland pretty fast. After hearing him have the same conversation with four different groups of people, I’m ready to tell the bartender to line up shots on the bar and keep them coming.
I sip my second Long Island iced tea and pick at the spicy tuna roll with my chopsticks. Thank goodness I have a toothbrush in my bag. Several times throughout the evening I check my phone, as if I expect Gavin to be texting me a countdown. T-minus twenty-six minutes until Operation Free Deadbeat Mom commences.
He doesn’t, and I’m annoyed at myself for expecting him to and being disappointed. That’s not his style and he made it clear this wasn’t something he wanted me along for.
Hope is a funny thing, though. It continues to build in my chest even after being deflated time and time again. So maybe it’s a stupid brain-dead thing that refuses to learn from experience.
At a quarter to midnight, I excuse myself to the ladies’ room to empty my bladder and brush my teeth before the top-secret road trip to Potter County. Afton stands as I leave and I can’t help but think that one day, he is going to make some girl very happy. He’s charming, sweet, attentive, polite, and not overly full of himself even if he has every reason to be. But try as I may, my heart remains utterly unaffected unless in the presence of a certain drummer who will be here in a few short minutes.
I can’t contain the smile that fills my face as I walk to the ladies’ room. I’m still smiling when I step out of the stall and am caught like a deer in headlights in front of my own reflection. My eyes widen and my mouth opens slightly, as does the woman’s in the mirror. But I barely recognize her.