Page 13 of August Lane

CHAPTER FIVE

A ugust left King’s Kitchen to find a place where Luke wasn’t sitting inches away from a steak knife. She couldn’t shake the way he’d looked at her. Like he’d finally found her after years of searching. Like she was the one who had disappeared.

She drove east until she reached the gravel road that ended at Delta Blue’s driveway.

The club was built like an old juke joint, with new additions that had been haphazardly attached over the decades.

One of them had been a one-bedroom apartment where Silas King lived but refused to call home.

According to her uncle, “That word means more than a bathroom and a bed.”

Inside, Delta Blue was cold and dark. The heat index was over a hundred degrees, and Silas had the air cranked to arctic levels.

The temperature shift made it feel like stepping into another world, which was fitting since she’d always considered the bar a sanctuary.

It was a place for customers to commune in a shared love of roots music, songs that reminded them of making out with their childhood sweetheart or the sting of their first shot of whiskey.

As a child, August would pretend to sing for sold-out crowds on the Delta Blue stage.

She grew up listening to a diverse roster of local musicians while sweeping floors and washing dishes for spending money.

For the past few years, on the nights Birdie’s nurse would sleep over, August would come here to drink and pretend to be someone else.

That woman was giggly and unencumbered, always looking for a good time.

Sometimes she found it. Sometimes she’d end the night in strange arms, sweating out demons with some musician she refused to tell her name.

She’d say call me Songbird and sing a little if he wanted, then revel in how his eyes would ignite at her high notes.

She never let on that they were anything special, but she’d smolder under that gaze. Remember how to burn.

August headed straight to Silas’s office.

The door was open and, like always, she was struck by how much older her uncle looked.

Her mental picture of Silas was born in his favorite Westerns, the mythical man in black.

He used to wear dark clothes and have a thick beard that obscured most of his face.

These days, his beard was streaked with gray and his clothes were a clash of bright prints in breathable fabrics.

He even wore reading glasses. They were perched at the end of his nose while he glared at spreadsheets covered with red notations.

Silas hated computers, so he printed everything, even emails.

He also hated the business part of owning a business, like managing finances and keeping track of inventory.

Delta Blue was his baby, so he forced himself to do what was needed to keep it open.

He also owned King’s Kitchen, which would have closed years ago if it hadn’t been for August. She helped him manage it but refused to accept a formal title.

It felt too permanent. An official acknowledgment that she’d never work anywhere else.

August sat in a wobbly leather chair she considered hers.

She was one of the few people willing to sit in his presence long enough to hold a conversation.

Half the town was convinced he was a criminal kingpin who ran drugs out of Delta Blue and used King’s Kitchen to launder money.

When August asked why he never corrected them, he’d said he was providing a public service.

“People need a bogeyman to feel safe. Evil they can see.”

Silas didn’t seem surprised by her sudden appearance. He moved to the window, cracked it open, and tapped a pack of Marlboros against his palm. It was his patiently impatient way of asking whether the conversation was worth his one smoke a day.

“That asshole,” she hissed, and motioned for him to share.

“Which one?” Silas ignored her request for a cigarette. He flipped open a lighter and cupped the small flame in his hand. “Terry Dixon? That dude owes me a hundred dollars. Or are you talking about his wife?”

“Luke.” She hated how his name felt in her mouth. Saying it felt like forfeiting something.

Silas exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Luke, who?”

“ Luke ,” August repeated, with emphasis that jarred recognition in his eyes.

“Luke Randall finally called you?”

“He’s here. He showed up at King’s. Sat in the same booth and ordered the same food as if he’d walked through a fucking time machine.”

Silas studied her face. “How’d he look?”

If someone had told August she wouldn’t recognize Luke Randall when he walked through the door, she would have called them a liar.

She’d memorized that man through the lens of teenage obsession.

He was her baseline. She’d rejected dates that looked too similar to him and recoiled from touches that weren’t similar enough.

That she’d know Luke if she ever saw him again was such a given that it didn’t merit thinking about; it was as pointless as worrying about her next heartbeat.

The stranger she’d seen today had been bearded and broad, with sinister-looking tattoos that made her hesitate before approaching him.

King’s was close enough to the state highway to attract men who’d lost their good judgment years ago—roaming insomniacs looking to ride someone with one foot out the door.

Luke had been hunched over the laminated menu with a stiff set to his shoulders, as if he were resigned to being jumped from behind.

“He looked…” August faltered as she remembered how it had felt when Luke said her name.

Like a delicious jolt of energy. An illicit charge.

She used to crave that feeling. Each day, she’d find those molten eyes and let that energy stoke her desire.

For him. For their music. She’d go home high on their stolen glances.

That’s what seeing him again was—a new hit of an old narcotic. It had made her panic when he’d tried to touch her. She didn’t know what would happen if he did. What she’d do.

“Different,” she told Silas. “He looks older, like we all do.”

“I mean, how was he? Did he speak to you?”

They weren’t having the same conversation.

She’d come there looking for commiseration while Silas seemed thrilled at the prospect of Luke’s return.

She should have known. The two had bonded from the moment she’d introduced them, with Silas eventually becoming a father figure when Luke needed it most. But as far as she knew, Luke had ghosted Silas for more than a decade, too.

That her uncle seemed unbothered by it made her even angrier.

“That man had a multiplatinum hit single and is married to the biggest country music star in the world. He’s doing fine.” August folded her arms. “Even had the nerve to apologize.”

Silas paused. “Good.”

“No, not good. I don’t want an apology. I want—” The memory of his near touch rose again, taunting her.

“I want him to leave me alone.” August rubbed her face, trying to scrub away anything that might betray her thoughts.

You shouldn’t want someone you hate. It said something bad about her. That there was a wire loose somewhere.

“You sure all this is about Luke?” Silas tossed his cigarette out the window. He grabbed a chair and sat across from her. “You’re out here drunk and getting into fights. That’s not like you.” He sagged in his seat. “Did you go to that meeting I recommended?”

August had attended one of the grief support group meetings Silas referred her to.

She’d sat in a room surrounded by people who had experienced more loss in a single day than she may ever see in a lifetime: wives who’d lost husbands, twins who’d lost siblings.

One woman had left her four-year-old alone in the bathtub to get a towel and came back to find the girl unconscious.

“She had a seizure,” the woman had said, devoid of emotion, like there was nothing left to feel.

The idea of processing her grief through their suffering felt cannibalistic. Her loss was so small in comparison. Everyone had been waiting for Birdie to pass since her diagnosis. She hadn’t recognized August in a year.

“I went ,” August told Silas. He looked annoyed, so she added, “And I’ll go back. Things are just really busy at King’s.”

“That’s a lie, but you can keep it ’cause you clearly need it. Promise me you’ll talk to someone about what you’re dealing with. That includes Luke.”

“I dealt with Luke already.”

“Burning his CD in a trash can doesn’t count. You ain’t a goddamn witch.”

She shrugged. “The Chicks say it’s okay to hate a man forever. It’s very healthy.”

Silas frowned. “What chicks?”

“Dixie Chicks.”

“Oh. Why’d they change it?”

“Because Black lives matter now.”

“Ah.” He returned to his desk and stared at the spreadsheets without reading them. “Maybe you should listen to him. I know he hurt you, but it sounds like he’s trying to make things right.”

August remembered how surprised Luke had been to see her. He’d claimed not to know she still worked at King’s, which meant his apology hadn’t been a priority. His first trip home in thirteen years, and she came second to eggs and bacon.

“You don’t know him like I do,” she said. “Luke’s only here because he didn’t have a choice.”

Silas frowned at something to her right. Mavis glided into the room dressed in a formfitting red power suit that probably cost more than August paid for her apartment.

“What’s the point of having a phone if you never answer it?” She dropped festival flyers on Silas’s desk. “When was the last time you spoke to August? We need to figure out how to tell her that Luke—” Mavis straightened and spun around, finally sensing another person in the room. “Oh. Hi.”

August stood. “You’re too late. He showed up at King’s earlier and made me take his order.”

Her face hardened. “Asshole.”

“Right?”

“Hold up now,” Silas said, lifting a hand. “He tried to apologize.”