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I moved to retrieve my car keys from my purse, but he still held on to my arm. “What?”
His eyes, which were more gray than blue under the cloudy sky, roamed over my face. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” I jerked away, forcing him to finally let go of me. “Why?”
“You look…off.”
I huffed. “Such a compliment.”
“No, I mean it.” He trailed me to my car. “You sleeping all right?”
I unlocked the doors with my key fob and furrowed my brow, lying. “I’m fine.”
The last few nights, I’d had headaches and skipped my daily runs. Maybe that was why I’d felt so off, because my routine was out of whack.
“You seem tired.”
“Jesus, Hargrove. If I wanted to feel bad about myself, I’d go dig up my middle school yearbook.”
He smirked at me. “Sorry.”
“Anyone ever tell you not to apologize if you don’t mean it?”
He shrugged his answer, standing so close to me his foggy breath broke over my face. It smelled like the mint gum he always chewed.
Even though it was freezing out, my neck heated the longer I stood with him, and I needed to get away. “I’ll see you back at the office.”
His gaze took one more trip around my face before he leaned in even closer to me. “Last one back buys lunch?”
I forced a laugh at the juvenile challenge then opened my car door. “You’re on.”
CHAPTEREIGHT
Dean
I’d always loved music. I first learned how to play the trumpet when I was a kid, then taught myself how to play guitar in middle school. It was the latter that led me to forming a band in high school with my best friends. We called ourselves the Anchormen for the Will Ferrell movie that we were all obsessed with. I played guitar, Patrick had been on bass, Gabe on the keyboard, Ethan on drums, and Hank on the mic since he was born for the spotlight. If we got real wild, sometimes Gabe would take out his sax for some sweet ’80s melodies, but mostly, we had played covers of our favorites: the Who, the Stones, Zeppelin, the White Stripes, Foo Fighters, Ben Folds Five. All the greats.
Now, we still played our favorites and had expanded to include some others, like Coldplay and Maroon 5, ever since Ethan started urging us to learn songs just so he could impress Laney. As if she wasn’t already grinning like a loon from her seat in front of the small stage at Walt’s.
After finding Tony and Jerry to replace Patrick and Gabe on bass and keyboards, we accepted a standing gig on the third Thursday of every month. Walt’s was a small dive, wide enough for booths on one side and tables next to the windows on the other. The little stage was up a foot off the floor in the corner, while the long rectangular bar took up the middle, and since there weren’t many seats open, anyone who needed one would be zigzagging around to the back to grab them.
Hank, in another one of his brightly colored Tommy Bahama shirts, swiped a rag over his forehead, taking his good old time, playing to the crowd like he was the Asian James Brown. He pointed his sweaty towel out to where his wife sat with Laney. “This next one goes out to the prettiest girl in the world, Angela Lau.”
Jerry played the first few chords of “True Love” by Pink, which I supposed Hank dedicated to his wife in irony, a song about hating someone so much it could only be true love. Though with the way that oaf acted, like an overgrown teenager, Angela was a saint. She laughed and propped up their two-year-old, clapping little Grayson’s hands together.
Once the chorus kicked in, I backed the vocals and strummed away as Hank sauntered out into the crowd, offering his wife a lap dance. She merely blotted his temple with a napkin. It was then, as I tipped my head away from the mic to laugh, I noticed her.
Taylor Novak.
For a moment, I forgot what I was supposed to do, and Hank had to thump me on the arm to get me back into working order, finishing out the song about wanting to strangle someone else while confessing they were in love.
Taylor stood there, eyebrows raised, her dark eyes wide with surprise.
Me too.
I couldn’t stop staring. Like spotting a Yeti.
And certainly not because she wore a tight black turtleneck that shaped to her form.
