Drive(24)

I rattled on with a little more bounce in my step. “That’s the thing about music: don’t take your back up for granted. You could have Don fucking Henley playing for you.”

Reid paused his feet, his lips twisting in a small smile he was trying to hide.

I was too interested in the present to give him any more of a history lesson. “Wow, so you were a band geek. You’ll have to thank Mr. Burris when you get big.”

“You haven’t even heard me play,” he said as he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his jeans.

“I’ve heard your band. They wouldn’t keep you if you couldn’t play. I bet prom was hard on you.”

The brief flame highlighted his smug smile before he blew out a steady stream of smoke in my direction. “I screwed the prom queen in her little blue dress before the king picked her up.”

I stopped my feet and waved the stench away. “Okay, ew. And wow.”

“I got good at a lot of things in high school, little sister.” There was a split second of something in his eyes before it disappeared. “Mostly being high,” he admitted before he threw the cigarette he’d only taken a few drags of in the street and crushed it with his boot.

Aside from the occasional stray car, we were alone. And my mind was spinning with questions.

“Tell me about your parents.”

“I have a mother and father.”

“And.”

“You’re shit at taking a hint.”

“No, I’m good at avoiding them.”

“They live in Nacogdoches.”

“Did you grow up there?”

“Yes.”

“Come on, Reid, throw me a bone.”

Another corner, another vacant street full of warehouses.

“They’re both drunks. I see them once every couple of months.”

Panting, I sped up again, my legs burning from the race I was enduring. “I’m sorry.”

“Why would you be sorry? They aren’t dead. They’re drunks.”

I shrugged. “That’s why I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. There were perks to being David and Courtney Crowne’s kid. No curfew, no rules, and no punishment. We got along just fine.”

I pressed my lips together because I didn’t believe him. My mother spent a solid year once getting drunk on White Russians after she’d given birth to my brother, Pete. He came out without having taken a single breath. It was the worst day of our lives and every day after. We’d not only lost our brother, we lost our mother, fearful we would never get her back. I called it her Russian Depression. Shit got real, really fast. Having a drunk parent was very similar to having an absentee parent. My father threw her in the drunk tank when he decided enough was enough, and she hasn’t touched a drop since. It seemed she came back to us a little more guarded, a little less carefree. She also started taking birth control, which was a big old Catholic no-no, and my mother was old school Catholic. But she beat it. And I respected the hell out of her for it, even though she didn’t come out of it stronger. Reid’s earlier words rang true. Some people can only take so many punches. I knew life wasn’t as cut and dried as I thought it was, but I hoped I never hit my knees. And if I ever did, I hoped I was strong enough to recover.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated, which seemed to put him on the defensive.

“They fed me, they put a roof over my head. Hell, my father managed to keep his job for twenty years on a fifth of gin a day. That’s a feat.”

“And your mother?”

“Can we be done with the questions?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Five blocks later, he opened a metal box next to a lone door of a small, gray building on the side of one of the warehouses. Inside, the stale smell was the first to breach my nose as I eyed the missing tiles in the ceiling and the littered hallway. It looked like a house for junkies. I heard the faint sounds of rehearsal in each room, but it was mute enough to where I could hear Reid’s footfalls.

“What’s this shit hole called?”

“The Garage.”

“The Closet would be a better name.”

“Mute, Stella.”

“Yes, sir. So, what’s your style? You said you and your ex didn’t mesh. Who influenced you?”

He paused at a door with “6” written in permanent marker then looked back at me.

I covered my mouth and mumbled through my fingers, “Got it.”

I could barely hold in my excitement when he pressed at the hesitant door with his shoulder until it gave. I’d watched dozens of rockumentaries about garage bands and seen countless interviews about rockers who’d gotten their start in minuscule rooms just like the one I stood in. Three sets of eyes found us as we closed the door behind us. Old school egg crates were hastily stapled to the poster board walls and there were beer cans everywhere. Ben was the first to break the silence.

“What are you doing here?”

He addressed me directly, and Reid didn’t come to my defense. “I invited myself.”

Ben smiled, and I wondered if he remembered me, until he looked past my shoulder.

“She’s not with you?”

Reid looked between us with drawn brows. I explained quickly as two other guys sat on a red plastic couch, sipping beer mutely and eyeing me with interest. I addressed Reid first. “We met at the bar the night of the show. He gave us some tickets.”