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Only then did I pull out my phone to call my brother.
“How’d it go?”
“He’s intense,” I admitted.
“Yeah. Think there was some sort of power struggle when his old man went away. Knowing how that shit goes, it probably got ugly.”
And in our world ‘getting ugly’ meant a lot of blood was spilled. To do that, you had to be able to shut yourself down.
Cian certainly seemed shut down.
“Other than that?” Fallon asked, and I could hear a baby crying in the background. He must have gone home after sending me out on the drop.
“He made a not so veiled threat about if the gun doesn’t work… and that was it.”
“Good. Alright. Thanks.”
“Yep,” I said, eyes scanning the street when my gaze landed on a storefront I’d probably passed a thousand times, but never really seen before. There, situated between a clothing store that changed every six months and an upscale restaurant with fenced-off outdoor seating, was a tall, skinny brick building with a small picture window and missable signage.
Jake’s Music.
Then, under that, a sign declaring they have vinyl, CDs, cassettes, and 8-tracks, both used and new, and instruments. As well as music lessons.
“Yo, Earth to Finn,” Fallon said, making me snap out of my thoughts.
“Yeah?”
“Asked if you were heading back to the clubhouse or going home?”
“Neither,” I said. “I’m gonna check out a record store,” I said, decision already made.
“A record… you know what… have fun,” he said.
With that, we ended the call, and I followed my newfound appreciation for music into my first fucking record store.
I was reaching for the door before I finally recognized the sensation coursing through me right then.
Excitement.
That shit was so fucking foreign.
But, welcome.
God, welcome.
So I chased that feeling inside the shop.
Never expecting for Lexy to blow through the doors not more than twenty minutes later.
I didn’t know a fuckuva lot about fate.
But this?
Yeah, it sure as fuck seemed like fate to me.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lexy
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I grumbled at my boss.
“Stop calling me,” he growled back at me.
I guess most of us music types were on the moody side of the personality spectrum.
“I want to come back to work.”
“And I said no.”
“Carl, come on. Please,” I pleaded. Yes, I was at the point of pleading to be allowed to come back to work.
“Christ, did you feel that?” he asked. “Never thought I’d live to hear hell freeze over. Or you use your manners,” he teased.
I loved Carl.
Carl was the dad that the universe should have given me. A bit of a loner, but decent enough with people because he had to be to own a business. He adored music, knew more songs than I would ever be able to hear, and loved in his gruff sort of way.
The problem was, he was also forcing me to take two years worth of vacation time until he felt I was healed up enough.
And I was going fucking insane.
I’d lovingly kicked out my sister two days ago. After waking up in the morning to find she had taken my entire CD collection off the shelves and reorganized them by, get this, alphabetical order.
It was a fucking crime against humanity.
If anyone else would have done that to me, they’d have been screamed at.
Because it was Lottie, I’d needed to take several deep breaths and gently tell her I wanted some alone time, that my social battery was about to burst.
And since she knew me, she’d relented, even though she didn’t feel comfortable leaving me.
I was fine.
Fine, damnit.
Fine enough to undo all the damage she’d done to my shelves and get them back in the right order—you know, by genre, and then mood.
I was also fine enough to go back to work.
So I stopped losing my mind with nothing to do.
“Carl, I’m going crazy at home.”
“So, don’t be at home,” he suggested.
“Where the hell am I supposed to go?”
“I dunno. See some friends. Go out. Live your life a little.”
“Says the guy with no friends who is a certified hermit.”
“Oh, kid,” he said, giving me that snorting laugh I came to know him for. “When I was your age, I was living in my van, following my favorite bands around the country. Remember sex, drugs, and rock & roll? That was my life. I lived, kid. And now I’m in the stage of life where I am icing my knees at home while telling the youths how badass I used to be.”
“Hey, you’re still a badass,” I insisted.
“Damn fucking right. And I want you to get to the storytelling part of your life, too. So go make some fucking memories.”
With that, he ended the call, leaving me letting out a string of curses as I paced my living room for a few minutes before grabbing my keys and purse, slipping on my shoes, and making my way outside.
