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“Don’t tell me he stole money?”
“See, there you go,” Priscilla said, the old woman getting angry. “You ain’t no better than you were then. Wanting to believe the best, but unable to get away from the worst. He deserves better than you.”
“He lied to me, Priscilla. You can stand there and be the authority on Tyler O’Neill, but he’s lied to me at every turn.”
Priscilla nodded. “He does do that,” she said. “Hard to blame him, though. With no real momma—”
“Oh, stop,” I snapped. “Enough of the poor-Tyler-O’Neill story. Tell me about the money,” I demanded, a shimmering feeling crawling up my back, telling me that my world was about to get knocked around again.
“You know Tyler sends checks after every storm?” Priscilla asked.
The floor rushed away from my feet. “No,” I said, my voice firm.
“Remy bought those trailers outside of town with the last one, gave all those musicians and their families a place to stay.”
I couldn’t have moved if I’d tried, and Priscilla just kept going, knocking down my version of Tyler like a punching bag.
“He sent another check just recently. We bought the land those trailers are on, and we’re going to use the rest of the money to build permanent houses.”
“Why do you need him here?” I asked, my voice a whisper. “If you have the money, why do you need him?”
Priscilla shook her head as if disgusted by all that I didn’t know about Tyler.
But I did know. Everything I’d learned about him that summer—that knowledge that I’d torched and buried—returned as a ghost, taunting me.
That boy who’d grown up without a mother, with only a false idol for a father. That boy who had more charm than shame, more heart than sense—that boy needed a home. And people to love him.
“Because he needs us,” Priscilla said. “He needs to build those houses about as bad as we need them. And if you’re going to ruin that, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, Chief.”
I was numb. Shaken.
“You going to ruin that?” Priscilla asked.
Maybe lying, I wasn’t sure, I shook my head and Priscilla watched me for another second before walking away.
I need to leave. I need to be far away from Tyler tonight.
But the pieces of myself—my skin, my heart and my aching sex—wanted to stay here. Wanted to find out the truth.
The screen door opened at my back and the heat and laughter and clink of glasses and plates flooded out, surrounding me with the sounds of the living.
The band started warming up again. The piano’s big chords reverberated through my body. It was a wave, a current, and it swept me up and carried me inside.
The air tasted like spice and sweat. The band roared into their set and the dance floor was packed.
Through the bodies, I saw the band, and the world, my heart, every function of my body—stopped.
Sitting at the piano, a narrow fedora low over his eyes, a wrinkled linen shirt open over a damp white tank top was Tyler O’Neill. His fingers working the keys, his feet on the pedals, his whole body coiled and curled, pumping and shifting, working the piano as if it were a life-and-death race to some finish.
I didn’t know how long I watched him, but I was suddenly aware of my heart thundering in my chest, in my fingers, between my legs. Sweat beaded between my breasts, along my spine, and I felt like I had on too many clothes. There were simply too many things between my skin and the air that touched Tyler.
I felt everything I’d felt that summer when we came out here almost every night. Me, sick with love and lust, and Tyler, working up the nerve to play with the band. We’d sit in the corner, his fingers on my leg under the table, or on my arm or back—playing me as if I were a keyboard.
“Go!” Tyler yelled, lifting his sweaty face to the thin black accordion player and they smiled at each other, sliding in and through some riff, some narrow and bright tunnel of music until finally the accordion player threw up his hands.
“I give, man, I give.”
And then it was just Tyler.
He ran the back of his hands across the keys—a flourish—and stood up, the bench collapsing backward as if grateful for the break.
Remy’s erupted into applause.
Tyler raised his arms and bowed back to the band, lifting a longneck from the floor and taking a long swig, the muscles of his neck flexing as he swallowed.
I felt flush watching him, hot and full. Ripe.
Miguel, Richard, Remy’s, the music Tyler created—all of it turned to black and it was just Tyler.
Always Tyler.
TYLER
I took the back door out into thick swamp, needing an escape from the gratitude and shameless women. Shameless women were usually my kind of woman, but tonight it felt all off. I was avoiding thinking about it too hard because I had a sinking suspicion that Juliette was at the root of that sudden and unfortunately timed change of heart.
