Page 5 of Resonance
Reading my expression, Ru grimaced. “Sorry, man.”
“It’s business, right? It’ll keep the Gatlinburg shop open a little longer.”
He lifted his coffee cup for a sip, then bit the corner of his thumb. “Sure you won’t just ask Les and Evan for a loan or some charitable contribution? You know they’d do that shit in a heartbeat. God only knows how much their last album made.”
“No.” I cut a hand through the air in a decisive dismissal. Yeah, it was humbling, but not enough for me to start looking for handouts masquerading as loans. Which I couldn’t really afford anyway. I’d seen the cracks in the hull a year ago and had been bailing water ever since. But I wasn’t ready to give up yet. And I wasn’t going down without a fight.
“Stubborn and prideful,” Ru grunted.
I grunted back, then added, “You left theHoardkey out.” I tossed the ring to him. “Owen got ahold of it.”
“Sorry. Oversight.”
I shrugged. “I was thinking of getting him a master key, letting him open and close some if he wanted? That’d help you out, too, yeah?”
Ru arched a brow, seeming surprised. “Yeah? I mean, I think he’d love that.”
“Sure, why not. It’ll make him feel good. Get one of those lanyard things if you think about it, though, god knows he’ll somehow manage to forget it’s around his neck.” Owen wasn’t that bad. Klutzy, yeah, but not inept. And he was other things, too, nearly elfin the way his wild blond hair framed those big eyes. Quirky. Funny. I ran a hand down my cheek and pushed the thoughts aside.
“Will do.” Ru saluted me and rapped his knuckles atop my file cabinet. “I’m doing Howie’s tomorrow night per usual. Oughta come.”
“I’ll probably pass. How’s that album coming, by the way?”
He paused in the doorway. “Don’t ask.”
“If you’d get out of that damn honeymoon phase with Quinn, you’d be further along.”
“You’d know, I guess.” The minute he said it, he looked like he wanted to take it back. “I didn’t mean it to sound sarcastic like that, I just meant… you should still be playing.”
“It’s all good.” I waved him out.
Chapter 3
“Not it!” Ru backed away from the glass entry door of Grim’s as he invoked the oldest, most immature, and yet still totally legit bailing method, then turned and raced for the barricade of the front counter like hellhounds were after him. I glanced up from the pile of dust I was sweeping from beneath the display racks to see what had sent him hotfooting.
“Not fair!” I called out, glimpsing the hulking mountain of entitled flesh that was country-pop phenom Terryl Black stalking across the parking lot. “I wasn’t even looking. I call a redo.”
“No way. I’ll pull rank on this one. Dude always smells like onions. I get migraines sometimes, you know.”
I shot Ru the bird as I set the broom aside and scowled. “He always looks at me like I’m bug guts on his fancy boots. C’mon, Ru, at least he’s only a mild pain in the ass to you.”
Ru shook his head and folded his arms across his chest, making a face like a petulant child, which wasn’t a look that worked very well on him. Too built, too hot. I enjoyed the comedic effect of his effort, though. For all of a second, because then Terryl was stepping through the door, bringing the promise of ass badgering thick in the curl of his lip. He already looked like he was hunting for trouble.
I cranked up the wattage on my smile to try and head his scowl off at the pass. In the months I’d worked here, he’d come in several other times, and usually Dan handled him himself, sometimes Ru. But Dan wasn’t present at the moment, sadly for us all. “Hey, can I—”
“Hot as shit out there,” Terryl interrupted. “Not sure what the hell happened to winter. Get me a water, will ya?” He stopped just inside the door and stared at me, sure enough, like I was stink on a mule. And it was fifty degrees, not exactly sweltering, but whatever. That was how he was. I wondered if he was aware that everyone referred to him as Coattails behind his back. He could barely play the guitar, and he had okay pipes, but mostly he had luck and the connection of a true legend—his father—on his side. It appeared to have done ugly things to his personality—assuming he’d had one in the first place. Even Dan had trouble hiding his distaste for him, and Dan was like the Obi-Wan of industry diplomacy.
“Sure thing, let me get that—”
“Right here, heads up,” Ru called, and tossed me a cold water bottle that I fumbled a few times before handing it over to Terryl. He took it and knocked it back like a horse at a trough. I was fun-sized next to him, and as he peered down at me while he guzzled, I got the distinct impression he liked that.
“Looking for anything in particular today?” I activated my secret weapon, the customer service smile I’d perfected over the last four years of dead-end retail jobs. Ru said it made me look like a vacant-eyed robot. But that was because he knew me. No one else noticed it, I didn’t think.
Terryl looked me over like he was just now seeing me as an actual person, and his expression got tighter, eyes narrowing for a second before he flicked his gaze behind me, then rolled his shoulders. “I’m donating to a fundraiser. I know Dan’s got some rare stuff around here. I need something good and expensive.”
I had to clench my jaw to keep an eye roll in check, but I funneled the desire into broadening my smile agreeably and gesturing him ahead of me toward the back. “Keys?” I called out, and Ru dug them from his pocket and threw them in my direction. This time I caught them smoothly, no fumbling.Awesome. It really was the little things in life sometimes.
I hurried to catch up with Terryl and skirted around him to unlock the door to the Hoard. Within the windowless room, which Dan had duded up with wall tapestries and an old oriental rug, were glass cases and mahogany display racks he’d made himself containing some of the greatest albums known to man, handwritten original lyrics by a number of artists, signed memorabilia, rare photographs, and show posters. It was my favorite room in the shop, and the average customer never got to see it.