I settled into my spot, laying out my cards, my candles, the small cloth I used to create the right atmosphere. The cards were warm from being pressed against my body, and I shuffled them idly while I waited for my first client, letting the familiar motion calm my nerves.
The bar filled up around me as the sun finished setting. Bodies pressed together, voices rising to be heard over the growing din, the smell of beer and perfume and sweat mingling in the humid air. The Christmas lights twinkled. The ceiling fans turned.
Then someone stepped onto the stage.
I looked up. There he was.
He was beautiful in a way that felt almost offensive. Honey-blond curls fell across his forehead, artfully tousled, catching the stage lights like he'd been lit by an expert. His skin was sun-kissed bronze, smooth and warm, stretched over cheekbones sharp enough to cut. Amber-brown eyes that seemed to glow in the dim light, framed by lashes that were frankly unfair. A full mouth curved into an easy smile, dimples creasing his cheeks as he surveyed the crowd like they were all there just for him.
He wore a soft white t-shirt that clung to lean muscles, the sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms covered in tattoos—Cajun symbols and musical notes that wound up his left arm and disappeared under his sleeve. Linen pants hung low on narrow hips. His feet were bare on the stage floor.
He looked like trouble wrapped in honey. Like the kind of mistake you made with your eyes wide open and no regrets.
"Evening, everyone. My name is Remy Thibodaux." His voice was warm molasses, thick with Cajun accent, pouring through the microphone like something you could drink. He settled onto the stool and pulled the guitar from its case, cradling it against his body with obvious love. "Y'all ready to have some fun tonight?" He flashed that devastating smile at the crowd, fingers already finding the strings.
The crowd cheered. The bachelorette party screamed. Colette was already on her feet, swaying to music that hadn't even started yet. I stayed in my corner, watching. He opened with something upbeat—zydeco-influenced, fast fingers on guitar strings, that beautiful voice wrapping around lyrics in French and English. The crowd responded immediately, people pushing back tables to make a dance floor, bodies moving in the particular way of people who'd grown up with this music in their blood.
He was good. Really good. He knew it too—the way he grinned at the crowd, winked at pretty girls, turned every song into a conversation between him and his audience. Performance as seduction. Charm weaponized.
I wasn't impressed.
I'd grown up around performers. Marguerite had run in interesting circles before she'd settled in the bayou, and I'd met more than my share of people who could make you feel like the only person in the room while their eyes were already tracking their next conquest.
Remy Thibodaux was playing a role. I could see it in the way his smile didn't quite reach his eyes. In the slight tension in his shoulders that had nothing to do with the guitar. In the way his gaze kept sliding past people instead of really seeing them.
I went back to my cards, doing readings for a string of bachelorette party attendees who wanted to know about love and marriage and whether their boyfriends were cheating. The usual. I gave them truth wrapped in enough kindness to make it palatable, and they tipped well and stumbled back to their drinks, satisfied.
Then he played a different kind of song. I noticed the shift before I consciously recognized it. The energy in the room changed—settled, quieted. People stopped dancing. Conversations trailed off. I looked up.
Remy's eyes were closed. His fingers moved across the strings almost absently, picking out a melody that was achingly simple and devastatingly sad. When he started to sing, his voice was different. Rougher. Like he'd stripped away something essential and was showing the wound underneath.
The song was in French—old Cajun French, the kind that was dying out—and I didn't understand all the words. I understood enough. It was about loss. About guilt. About carryingsomething so heavy you couldn't remember what it felt like to stand up straight.
It was about a boy named Luc.
I watched him sing, and something in my chest cracked open.
This was real. This, right here—the pain in his voice, the way his jaw tightened on certain words, the slight tremor in his hands that had nothing to do with technique. This was who he was underneath all that charm and swagger. Someone broken. Someone grieving. Someone desperately pretending to be okay.
The song ended. The silence stretched for one heartbeat, two, three. Then the crowd erupted into applause, and Remy opened his eyes, and the mask slammed back into place so fast I almost wondered if I'd imagined it.
"Alright, alright!" He laughed into the microphone, easy and warm, like he hadn't just bled all over the stage. His fingers were already finding a new chord, his body already shifting into performance mode. "That was a sad one—let me make it up to you, yeah?" He winked at a woman in the front row, launching into something fast and fun.
The crowd roared back to life, and everything went back to normal. Except I couldn't stop watching him. Except I couldn't unsee what I'd seen. He finished his set about an hour later, drenched in sweat and grinning, the crowd chanting for an encore he graciously provided. Then he set down his guitar, grabbed a beer from the bar, and started making his way through the room—accepting compliments, flirting with women, being exactly the person everyone expected him to be.
I knew he'd end up at my table. I could feel him working his way toward me, could sense his attention even when he was looking somewhere else. The inevitability of it sat in my chest like a weight. Then there he was, sliding into the chair across from me uninvited, that devastating smile firmly in place.
"Well, hello there." His voice was silk and sin, his eyes roaming over me with obvious appreciation as he leaned back in the chair like he owned it. Up close, he smelled even better—river water and honey and warm cinnamon, with something like whiskey underneath. Alpha, but not overwhelming. More like an invitation than a demand. "You must be the fortune teller everyone's talking about." He gestured at my cards with his beer bottle, that smile never wavering.
"Am I?" I didn't look up from the cards I was shuffling, keeping my voice deliberately bored, my fingers moving in their familiar rhythm. "That's quite an assumption." I let the cards flow through my hands, refusing to give him the satisfaction of my full attention.
"Chere, you've got tarot cards and candles." He laughed, delighted, the sound rich and warm as he leaned back in his chair with the easy confidence of a man who'd never been turned down in his life. "I don't think it's much of a stretch." He spread his hands, gesturing at my setup with an amused grin.
"Maybe I just like the aesthetic." I finally met his eyes, letting him see exactly how unimpressed I was, one eyebrow arched in challenge. "Maybe I'm not actually psychic. Maybe I just tell pretty lies to people who want to hear them." I set down a card with deliberate precision, watching his reaction.
Something flickered in his expression—interest, maybe, or surprise. His smile didn't waver, but his eyes sharpened, really seeing me for the first time.
"Now that is a very interesting thing to admit." He said slowly, leaning forward with his elbows on the table, close enough that I could smell the beer on his breath mixing with that honey-cinnamon scent. His amber eyes locked onto mine with new intensity.
