Page 22 of Once Upon A Christmas Song

“Sawyer Cox.”

“Oh.” She sounded unsure what to do with that.

“He’s Nick Madison’s manager, and Nick’s the one who introduced us once he was out of rehab the last time. Sawyer is good with me concentrating on only my album, nothing else, which is exactly where my head’s at so… it’s all smooth sailing now.” He gave her that sexy, brain-melting grin as he released her hand.

“Yes,” she barely got out.

“And I heard,” he said, moving toward Simone, who was trying to glare a hole through him, “that you needed a band.”

Her arms were crossed tight, her nostrils flared, and I could tell she was going to open her mouth and flames were going to shoot out. He would be incinerated on the spot.

Taking gentle hold of her biceps, he met her narrowed gaze with his own. “I can promise to fill the place starting tomorrow night, Sy,” he said, using the shortened version of her name that she had only ever tolerated from him. “The guys all came back with me. We all needed to come home.”

She stood there like a stone. I understood. I had sugarcoated our end, Dawson’s and mine, with everybody else. The rest of them only knew what I thought was fair and right. But Simone had sat at the bar with me after closing and seen how broken I was, and she’d made sure I didn’t drink all the tequila we had. She was the one who sat with me, in silence, watching old movies and eating too much pie. And she was the one who, after a time, didn’t let me sit at home anymore, but instead dragged me to brunch with friends, terrible art exhibitions at galleries Michael thought we all needed to update our immunizations for before we went in, and to bowling—so much bowling—and, of course, dancing to ’80s music every Thursday night. When she and Michael had bumped into me getting coffee with friends one night while they were out, you would have thought I’d given her a million dollars. She was so happy and relieved, glad to see me returned to the land of the living.

I rediscovered how much I liked walking the Quarter late at night and had several people I enjoyed visiting, from fortune tellers to other bar owners. I went on the occasional date, and there were times when a man would stop me as I was walking around the club and ask if I wanted to go home with him when we closed. It was nice to be noticed and asked, but no one sparked my interest enough to want to sleep with them. I could wait to be struck by lightning…or not. If my love life was over, that was okay too. Maybe I only had the one great shot at forever, and though my friends all wanted me to stay hopeful, it really wasn’t something I worried about. Now, of course, having my larger-than-life ex around was not going to help anything at all. So honestly, I was all right having Simone stare at him with murderous intent.

“We were all gone too long,” Dawson continued, filling the uncomfortable silence.

Still nothing from her.

“Ben’s been home a couple of weeks now. He’s the one who told me I should come talk to you, see what you’d think of us bein’ your old slash new house band.”

Her ability to remain stone-cold silent and utterly still was both impressive and unnerving.

“Was there really a metal band here?”

To me, the growl in the back of her throat was not a surprise. It didn’t scare or concern Dawson either. The yell that followed that, though, that made me jolt, and it scared him just as bad. “Have you lost your goddamn mind?” she thundered at him.

Evie gasped, so did Xola, but Darcy just said, “Okay!” really loud, and when we all looked at her, she pointed to the back. There would be no yelling in the middle of the floor, where customers could both see and hear us.

Simone moved then, grabbing hold of Dawson’s arm and pulling him after her. It was funny, because even though he wasn’t as big as me—his muscles ran to sleek and toned, mine being harder and heavier—neither was he small. If he’d planted his feet, they wouldn’t have gone anywhere. But she was tugging him after her as though she could have actually made him walk if he didn’t want to. When he glanced over his shoulder at me, I only shrugged. Anything to do with him was her decision—she could be logical and impersonal about the business, I could not. He’d walked into the lions’ den; he was going to have to deal with the lioness himself.

I thought about following after all so he didn’t get eaten, but then I saw Xola and Darcy go after them. On their way toward the back, to my office, Simone leaned into the kitchen, and moments later Georgine joined them. It wasn’t the place for me, so I decided to go for a walk instead.

Before leaving, I apologized to Evie for wasting her time. “Hopefully we can get together later in the week and continue our discussion.”

“Are you kidding?” she said, like I was insane. “If Dawson West wants to play your venue, let him. Holy crap, Chris—may I call you Chris?”

“Certainly.”

“I mean really, even if he’s only here through Christmas and New Year’s, you’ll make enough money to audition a new band to take over in January. You don’t need me at all.”

“We might not⁠—”

“You’d be a fool not to let Dawson West and the Dregs play here for as long as they want. It’s been over a year since West put out any new music at all, but still, it’s all sitting in the middle of charts in rock, country, and lately, the ballads, in folk.”

None of this was surprising. He had a way with his lyrics, and even more importantly, the sound of his music. You only needed to hear a few chords to know the song was his.

“I have no earthly idea why the man doesn’t want to tour anymore. He could sell out arenas tomorrow and any smaller venues without a problem. I know there were substance-abuse issues, but he looks amazing right now. I’m betting he beat whatever demons he was wrestling with and is good to go.”

I hoped so. For him and no other reason.

“But again, I would take him for whatever time he wants to give you.”

And it was good advice, as long as it had nothing at all to do with my heart.

FOUR