Page 5

FIVE

TRENT

Don’t answer it.

I bit my bottom lip, fixated on the lit-up phone and the name on the screen. Bouchard. The phone call could only mean one thing: a VIP table with our name on it. Okay, maybe two things, a trip somewhere fun. Or three, a cruise. A lot of things actually, but the upshot would be the same: trouble.

I liked Alexander Bouchard. He played for the Richland Renegades, the NHL team not far from Norwalk, and he loved a grand opening. Or a mid-sized opening. Or a late night of drinking and women and fun. Really, he loved anything exciting and loud.

I warred against myself, tossing the phone on the coffee table and sinking back onto my couch when I so desperately wanted to answer it. But a night with Bouchard practically guaranteed bad decisions with our faces plastered all over the Internet in the morning.

My phone buzzed on the coffee table.

Bouchard

Weekend trip to Vegas. You in?

I loved Las Vegas. I liked bright lights and gambling and drinking and gorgeous women in cocktail dresses.

I could use a weekend in Las Vegas, too. I’d practically turned into a choir boy in the last two weeks. Two endless weeks. Two weeks of yoga and kickball. Late night video game sessions and prepared meals. Strength training and drill work.

I almost felt like the season hadn’t ended. What would two days in Las Vegas hurt?

Fuck yeah.

My finger hovered over the “Send” button before I erased the message.

I’m staying out of trouble, man. Have fun without me.

He sent back a frown emoji. I groaned, covering my eyes with my arm and throwing my phone back on the coffee table before I could retract my earlier text.

The phone buzzed again, shattering my resolve. A second ask was the universe telling me that it was totally okay to go to Las Vegas, see a show, play craps, and get bottle service from a VIP table.

If Bouchard asked again, I’d go.

Derek

You up for some trivia?

No, I was up for getting wasted. I was up for late night parties and questionable women.

Yeah, sounds like fun.

The brewery Derek suggested wasn’t one I’d visited before.

I’d frequented all the breweries with enough investors and capital to grab prime real estate in downtown but Bent Crook Brewing sat far outside the city center.

Edging the outskirts of the constantly growing city, Bent Crook didn’t have shiny mash barrels or etched glasses. Instead, folding tables dotted the interior of the gutted warehouse. The crowd skewed young and alternative. A few kids running around the open space and even fewer nice cars in the parking lot.

I eased my Lambo into a gravel spot next to a fairly new Rivian and prayed to the car gods that no one damaged it. Then again, if I drove some shitty coupe from the 90s, I might punch a nice car too.

I spotted Derek immediately, holding court over two tables pushed together. I recognized a few faces too from the kickball team, and, as always, Kit. She gave me a curt nod rather than a wave, which was nicer than her previous greetings.

I tried not to take it personally, but I couldn’t help it. People loved me. Women loved me. Kit did not. The snacks seemed to help, but after stacking up a plate at halftime, she disappeared into her room for the rest of the night.

Just as well. Derek’s team took a turn for the terrible, and we eventually shut off the game and watched a movie before I called it a night.

“So, what kind of trivia are we doing?” I turned to the words projected onto a white sheet hastily thrown over a pair of two-by-fours. “Music trivia? You could’ve warned me.”

“Kit said the same thing.” Derek picked up his beer and took a sip.

“I suck at music trivia,” she said at the same time as me.

There. At least we had something in common.

“I only listen to EDM,” I admitted. “Or whatever pump-up songs my teammates play.”

“I listen to podcasts. And audiobooks.”

“Nerd,” I teased, even though I had a fully loaded list of podcasts on my phone.

She rolled her eyes as she took a sip of beer. For a flash, I might have spotted a grin. A barely perceptible one, but closer to a smile than I’d ever gotten before. Enough of a transformation that, in the right light, by the right person, she could almost be pretty.

I hadn’t clocked it before under a ratty ball cap and baggy workout clothes. But off the field and out of her scrubs, she had an Audrey Hepburn-vibe: big, brown doe eyes, soft wavy dark hair, and a smattering of barely visible freckles over her cheeks and nose.

Cute pretty. Not sexy pretty.

“I’m gonna grab a drink.” Leaving my conversation with Kit on a temporary high note, I sauntered over to the bar. A sexy-pretty girl across the bar caught my eye, and I talked to her until the emcee called for the game to start. After exchanging numbers with the woman, I returned to the table.

Derek sat next to Gavin, the bald baker from the kickball team. I surveyed the table for an empty spot. The only empty seat was next to Kit.

Damn it.

“Did you just sigh?” she asked, eyes narrowing when I slid in beside her.

“No,” I lied.

“Derek made me promise I’d be nice.” Kit’s attention wandered toward the white sheet. Tinny punk played loudly over the speakers hung haphazardly around the rafters. “Monkey Station.”

The band name sparked a memory from high school: hanging out in a friend’s house, smoking weed, and listening to an album on repeat.

“The Play, Monkey, Play album,” I said, drawing my eyes down from the ceiling to Kit. “They were the first band I ever saw live.”

“With Gideon Piper on drums?”

“He wasn’t the drummer.” I said, feeling a little smug about correcting her about my favorite late 2000s one-hit wonder. The one bit of music trivia I actually knew. “Arch Cassen was the drummer.”

“He wasn’t the original drummer. Cassen subbed in as drummer after Piper slept with Mike Hill’s girlfriend, but Piper played on the original album.”

I shook my head. “No. This was my favorite band in high school. I knew everything about them.”

“Well, apparently you don’t, because Piper was the original drummer before he got kicked out and joined The Lunatics.”

Kit's unflappable confidence was impressive, but she didn’t know what she was talking about.

I smiled. “No. That’s so wrong. I’d know that.”

Kit opened her mouth to argue when the DJ interrupted us. “Name the band who sang this one-hit wonder and the name of the album. Bonus point for the drummer credited on the album.”

“See,” Kit said, her lips set in a line. “Drummer. It wasn’t Arch Cassen. It was Gideon Piper. Derek, Monkey Station, Play, Monkey, Play , and Gideon Piper for the bonus point.”

“No,” I reached across Kit, covering the answer sheet so Liam couldn’t fill it out. “Arch Cassen was the drummer.”

Kit batted my arm away. “Gideon Piper.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Her eyes grew wide. “ I don’t know what I’m talking about? Me? Excuse me, Texas, but why else would they ask about the drummer if it wasn’t Piper? What the hell has Arch Cassen done in the last fifteen years other than play with shitty cover bands?”

She had a point, but I was in too deep. “I don’t know. Maybe because he didn’t get famous while Mike played with Hot Tea and Rich became a director.”

“Please, someone, back me up,” Kit appealed to the rest of the table. Our teammates exchanged a few confused shrugs, but no one came to bat for either of us.

“So, what should I put?” Gavin asked nervously, pencil poised above the answer sheet.

“Gideon Piper,” Kit said.

“Arch Cassen,” I said louder.

“What should I put?” Gavin asked Derek in a hushed tone.

“Just leave it blank,” Derek muttered under his breath.

Kit opened her mouth, ready to argue, and then shut it again. Her brown eyes narrowed. “Actually, you know what? Put down Arch Cassen and when we get it wrong, you’ll look like an absolute idiot in front of everyone.”

Gavin coughed. “No one else even knew the song, so I’m not sure he’ll look like an absolute idiot.”

We both glared at Gavin. He shrank into his seat.

But a win was a win. I slipped the paper out of Gavin’s hand and scratched down my answers with a smug smile. Gavin eyed Kit before taking the paper up to the DJ.

She sipped her beer. “Favorite band? Sure.”

“That was my favorite band in high school. I know everything about them. You’re misinformed.”

She snorted but kept quiet.

“Alright, looks like everyone knows their early 2000s alt rock bands,” the DJ said over the speaker. I rested an arm over the back of Kit’s chair just to annoy her. She slanted her eyes at me with a frown and leaned away. “But it looks like only one team guessed the bonus question right.”

“Not us,” she murmured.

“Monkey Station was the band, and their debut album was Play, Monkey, Play .” The DJ paused for dramatic effect, drumming his hands on the table in front of him. I grinned at the thought of Kit’s incoming apology. “And the drummer on the EP was Gideon Piper.”

My stomach dropped, but I tamed my expression before Kit’s incoming gloat.

“What’d he say? I don’t think I heard him right.” She tilted her head toward the DJ. “That didn’t sound like Arch Cassen.”

Ignoring her, I pulled out my phone, looked up the band’s Wikipedia page. Sure enough, Gideon Piper was listed as the original band drummer. My stomach churned.

“You were right,” I groaned.

“Wow, the acoustics in this place really are terrible. I couldn’t hear that either. Could you say it again? A little louder for the rest of the team to hear why we didn’t get the bonus question.”

Gavin sank further down the table. Derek looked like he wanted to throttle his best friend, but I couldn’t help but find a little humor in the situation. Sure, she was annoying, but in this case, also right.

“Hey, team,” I shouted, catching the attention of all the surrounding tables. “I was wrong. Kit was right. She knows more about Monkey Station than me.”

She closed her eyes and rocked in her seat with a pleased smile. “God, you love to hear it.”

“Don’t get used to it. I’m going to decimate you if they ask about any other obscure late 2000s punk one-hit wonders.”

“I think that was your one shot, and you blew it. The rest of the questions are going to be about Beatles albums and boy bands.”

Sure enough, neither of us could answer a single other question the entire night. After we soundly lost, I returned to the bar to flirt with the girl from earlier. Derek stopped by on his way out for the evening to say goodnight with Kit in tow.

She lingered, pursing her lips as she studied me. Her narrowed eyes roved up and down my body before she gave me a brief nod. “Night, Texas.”

“Night, Kitten.”