Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 111980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
“Do you really need to be a broody ass just because we slept together? You’ve been nothing but a stubborn grouch since the night you fucked me to pieces on my couch, and I asked you to go so I wouldn’t climb you again. Get over yourself, you, you, you Virgo.”
Yes, I bet he’s a Virgo. This is such Virgo behavior—precise, rigorous, analytical, driven to be useful, compelled to be responsible.
He’s being so damn responsible at work. Mister Proper. Mister Serious. Mister Professional.
But I’ve had enough of it.
Soon enough, I’m on Mallard Street in Duck Falls, peering ahead for a spot. But the street is packed to the gills. Hmm. There’s no lot for the bar, so I round the block, then ease over to the curb. When I cut the engine, I take a deep breath. I’m still a little worked up. But, miracle of miracles, Roxie’s AC has dried up all my sweat. Yay me.
Muscle memory sends me scooting toward the passenger seat, but I stop, drop back down into the driver’s seat, then open the door. I smile. It was a nice thing he did.
And we’ll be even now when I bring him his phone and do a nice thing for him.
Squaring my shoulders, I head down the street, turn onto the block where Pour Decisions is located, and weave through evening crowds. I didn’t realize Duck Falls was so busy on a Thursday night, but this is the place to be it seems. My gaze swings from one side of the block to the next, counting the bistros, and wine bars, and a pottery studio with an evening class.
I come up to Pour Decisions and it’s a…dive bar. He’s doing a yappy hour at this den of iniquity? With red brick, dark windows, and a smudged beige door, this looks like the place where you order a whiskey straight up after your wife leaves you. The bartender slides it your way and starts a tab for a long night.
With some trepidation, I pull the door open, and I’m standing in a small, dark entryway, its walls draped in black curtains. Music plays from inside the bar, but I can’t quite make out the song or see the bar from here. A bored, burly man with a shaved white head and a long gray beard glances up from a podium and grunts out, “ID.”
I’m not usually asked unless I’m ordering a drink. “Here you go,” I say, tugging my wallet out of my purse and showing it off. “Is this a twenty-one-and-up night?”
He scans it with bored eyes. “Always is.”
“Okay then,” I say, all chipper since apparently that’s my lot in life—to try to make grumpy fuckers smile.
It doesn’t work, but I soldier on with my mission. With Sawyer’s phone in hand, I push open a creaky door at the end of the entryway that takes me into a dimly lit bar.
Huh. This is going to be an interesting spot for a yappy hour, that’s for sure. I figured dog toys and weave poles with wine and craft beer, but it’s all peanut shells and dart boards.
It’s packed though. Stuffed with people who are drinking, laughing, toasting their beers.
Then cheering to…a karaoke machine. It’s sitting on a low stage, the wood baseboard stained with Budweiser and Jack Daniels over the years. The opening notes of the song it plays are familiar. The audience is already pumped, even though no one’s singing yet.
I scan for Sawyer in the crowd when an older guy—maybe in his fifties—in skinny leather pants and a T-shirt that says I Love Facts, bounds onto the stage. His salt-and-pepper hair is buzzed to a fade, and his dark-brown arms are covered in colorful snake and skull tattoos. He brings the mic to his mouth and booms into it a raspy voice. “And now…the one you’ve been coming to see every Thursday night. The one you count down the days for. The one, the only…Sam Silversmith.”
Okay. So that’s the guy Sawyer’s meeting with. Which means Sawyer has to be somewhere in this crowd. I spin around, hunting for him one more time, right as a rich, melodic voice croons one of the most familiar opening lyrics ever written…about a small-town girl living in a lonely world.
As the voice carries, the hair on my arms stands on end.
There’s no way.
That can’t be.
In slow-mo, I turn around, my jaw coming unhinged as my gaze lands on the man onstage. He’s wearing mirrored aviator shades, jeans, and a gray T-shirt that says I’m with the Band. Leather wristbands slide down his strong arms. A temporary tattoo of a red rose on top of an old-fashioned microphone covers one forearm. His hair’s not neat. It’s a wild mess. He’s singing one of the most famous karaoke tunes ever.
Sawyer is Sam Silversmith.