Drive(21)
“Fuck me,” Lexi said as she gaped at him while he held the mic like a master, his sneakers on either side of the stand expertly tilting it in the direction he decided to take it across the stage.
Slightly stunned, I watched as he worked the mob, and Lexi shook off her shock to walk to the bar. She caught a tiny bartender’s attention. “Who’s playing right now?”
“Dead Sergeants,” she said as she waited on a drink order. With a grudge, I nudged her to order. She laid the last ten bucks we had on the bar. “Can I get two shots of whiskey for ten bucks?”
The bartender pocketed the ten and poured two heavy shots of whiskey and winked at Lexi.
“Thank you!”
We clicked glasses as we both started stomping along with the band. They were exactly the refreshing mix of talent I’d been dying to encounter since I got to Austin. It seemed like a lot of their songs were original and weren’t half bad. But while I fixed on the music and the effect on the fans for my first article due in sixth months, Lexi fixated on the man she’d mere hours before dismissed as nothing but a free drink.
“It’s okay,” I consoled her. “He could have been a creep.”
“But he’s not. He’s a hot ass front man.”
“Maybe not hot. Cute.” Even I didn’t believe that line of bullshit.
“Oh, fucking look at him! Who do you think you’re kidding?” she scolded with a sigh. “I won’t talk to him. I can’t. I was too much of a bitch,” she said, disheartened. “But, God, just look at him.”
“That ought to learn ya,” I said on a laugh. “He really is talented. One of thousands in this city, Lex, don’t forget that. There’s always another front man.”
She turned to me, determined. “You’re right. Now let’s find someone drunker than us to buy us one more drink.” She pushed us past a few lingering people at the bar and yanked my arm so I was forced to dodge a protruding leg that could have caused me to face plant. Stumbling, I smacked the leg and caught myself directly in a lap. Something stiff and bright green brushed my cheek, and I looked at it with faint recognition before I apologized. “Sorry, dude, so sorry,” I offered, refusing eye contact before I yelled at Lexi, who was still trying to pull me in her direction. “Damn it, Lexi, slow down!” She looked back at me and apologized to the guy I’d just run over. “Sorry!” Submersed in the show, we were five songs into Dead Sergeants’ set when they took a break. Lexi had managed to get us a few more shots of whiskey with her persuasive tongue. I was close to hitting the wall when Usher starting to sing “Yeah.” In the year 2005, it seemed a rule among the masses, myself included, when “Yeah” was played, wherever it was played, the protocol was to lose your fucking mind. Some songs had that power, and within seconds, I was on the dance floor with Lexi as we danced like a couple of drunken sluts. It was everything I hoped my birthday would be. Until I hit that wall.
Hazel eyes seared into me as I hung my head, blank to the remainder of the night. Somehow, I knew the man staring at me from the recliner had saved my ass, and the ass of my snoring best friend on the floor. “Sorry. For whatever I did. Please don’t tell Paige about having to get us home.”
“Your secrets are safe with me,” Reid said as we both stood up at the same time. I tugged my skirt down and averted my eyes. “I hate this feeling.”
“What feeling?” he asked, his deep voice penetrating the dark room.
“The feeling that I have to apologize after a night like that.”
“So, don’t,” he said before he took a swallow of his beer and handed it to me. “Happy birthday.”
“What? No lecture for ‘little sister?’”
Reid paused at the door. “There’s nothing I can tell you, Stella. Nothing that you don’t already know.”
It was the first time he’d said my name, and it sent a small fire through me, despite my aching head. “But I’m safe?” The words tumbled out just as he opened the door. The porch light temporarily blinded us both before he slipped out without an answer.
21 Questions
50 Cent/Nate Dogg
“La Migra, La Migra, get down!” I yelled as I ran into the kitchen at The Plate Bar. Two of the cooks hastily dropped what they were doing and ran for the back door. I howled with laughter until my sister tapped me hard on the forehead.
“Damn it, Stella!” She took off after the fleeing cooks as Reid stood next to me at the stainless-steel counter, cashing out his tickets and thumbing through his tips.
He lifted a perfectly arched brow. “Do I even want to know what La Migra means?” he asked as the cooks resurfaced seconds later and proceeded to call me the devil, and several other choice words in our tongue.
“She told them border patrol was here and to get down,” Paige said as she rounded the corner and made her way back toward me. Her lips trembled as she tried to hide her laugh. “That’s so wrong, Stella. Why would you do that?”
“It was a drill,” I said as the cooks shot daggers from behind the counter, causing Reid to burst out laughing. I sauntered up to the line and blew them individual kisses before I reminded them of the earlier conversation they had that I overheard. Only one of them had the decency to lower their eyes.