The club was quiet when I entered. I usually showed up early before we opened on Saturdays to set up the karaoke system. But my feet were dragging today. Over the past few weeks, I’d come to dread karaoke night. Ever since I’d performed that idiotic song about watching some girl singing karaoke, a horde of women had flooded the stage every Saturday, butchering that very same piece, as if I’d automatically think their performance was better than hers had been.
I never did. She never came back. And I grew even moodier.
I blamed my coworkers entirely.
Every single fucking one of my friends at the bar had paired off. Even the new guy Knox had snagged Felicity—the lucky bastard. It was messing with my head, making me write stupid songs about girls I didn’t even know and had only seen once across a crowded club.
It was jealousy. Plain and simple. I’d never been able to get what all the other guys had. Seemed like the only thing I could score were one-night stands, and honestly, that wasn’t really my thing.
Getting all up close and personal, sharing my most private business with a near stranger...yeah, just...why? I still partook when I was hard up, but I really didn’t see the appeal, didn’t get why some men thought it was such a grand lifestyle. It sucked ass if you wanted my opinion. With no idea how a one-night stand liked it best and with only one shot to do it right, sex was always like a roll of the dice. I either struck it lucky and left her happy or failed miserably. And sex was the only thing that ever happened with one-night stands, which just seemed empty and pointless.
One day, I wanted to know a woman inside and out, know what made her breath catch and her toes curl. I wanted to know what made her smile, or what pissed her off. I wanted to be able to just cuddle with her on a couch and eat popcorn while watching a movie together, talk music, argue which was the best band ever made, just hang out with a person I wanted to be with. I—ah hell. I wanted a girlfriend.
I was the freaking lead singer in a rock band and I wanted to be in a goddamn committed relationship.
I know, I needed to get my head checked.
“Hey, Hart.”
I jumped out of my skin at the call, not realizing anyone else was in the building. I hadn’t seen Pick’s car parked outside either.
“Step back in my office for a minute, will you?” he called, appearing in the opening of the back hall and motioning me forward.
Knots immediately formed in my stomach. Frozen to my spot on the stage, I watched him turn away and disappear down the hall.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath.
I’d been avoiding Pick lately. I think he knew it and had respected my stance because he’d been letting me dodge him. So I was extra worried what this conversation was going to be about.
Regret clung to my lungs as I took a deep breath and then hopped off the stage. I never should’ve told him what I’d told him. But ever since the night Felicity had mentioned he’d been abandoned by his mother at the hospital when he was born, it had bugged me, gnawed at my conscience, evaded my every thought.
Because my mother had left a baby at the hospital after giving birth to it.
Two years before she hooked up with my dad, she’d been sixteen and in love with some mechanic at a local garage. I guess things between them had been intense. At least that’s what she’d always told me. My bedtime stories had consisted of tales about how amazing her life had been before I came along, before my drug-dealing dad had dragged her into his world and turned her into a crack whore, then knocked her up with me.
Once upon a time, she’d been happy and in love with her humble mechanic. Her parents had warned her to stay away, calling him a no-account drunk, so she’d run from home to be with him. And since he’d been nineteen or so and living on his own, he’d taken her in. They were together about four months before she got pregnant. Life was perfect then, she’d always claimed. She and the true love of her life were going to start their little family and live happily ever after.
Until her mechanic was gunned down right in front of her during some drive-by shooting.
Watching him die had upset her enough she’d gone into premature labor and given birth to a little boy on the same day her beloved had been slaughtered. It was all too much for her to take in; she couldn’t even look at the baby after it was born. She’d snuck out of the hospital in the middle of the night and wandered the streets a few days before she tried going home to her family, but by that point, they refused to have anything to do with her.
She was homeless and sleeping in dirty alleyways when Miller Hart stumbled across her during one of his sales. He’d offered her drugs if she’d...well, I like to block out that part of her story, so I prefer to think he only offered her a warm, dry place to stay.