Southern Rocker Boy (Southern Rockers Book 1) (4 page)

I looked back at the corner. Finally I shrugged. “What the hell?”

She led me toward the dance floor for an upbeat number, though she managed to keep in the circle of my arms as she gyrated to the beat. I spared her a smile, but I wasn’t planning to take it anywhere. Where could I take it? Back to my dinky little bedroom in a tiny apartment I shared with my mom and my sister? Yeah, that wasn’t happening.

A dance was all I could offer no matter how many times she may have cupped my ass in our provocative dance. I gave myself to it as much as I could, though my eye kept returning to that darkened corner, waiting to see that flash of red hair in my peripheral vision.

The door opened to a flurry of activity as the diminutive beauty emerged to a throng of admirers. I heard them before I saw her. She had changed out of her performance clothes, covering herself head to toe, wearing ripped blue jeans and a hoodie with a heavy metal logo on the front. She had covered her hair and hunched her shoulders to get through the fray, but her new fans wanted some of the special recognition they thought they were owed.

That several were already drunk helped nothing. One started pushing another, and she ended up knocked right into the crowd that she was so obviously trying to avoid. I abandoned my dance and my lovely dance partner without a second thought, darting over to the group of people who were dangerously close to forming a dog pile on top of her.

“Let her go!” I said as I pushed my way through.

“Fuck you, man,” one slurred before he attempted to swing at me. I caught his fist easily, turning it around his back before slamming him down onto a nearby table. Another asshole grabbed me from behind in a neck-hold. I jabbed him right in the ribs with my elbow as I used my foot to knock away another guy coming at me with a beer bottle. I sent him flying back into the antique jukebox, which crashed against the wall.

Two burly bouncers found their way into the fray, lifting one body off of another like toy soldiers. Before they could get to me, I got sucker-punched by yet another drunk. I was wiping blood from my chin as I rose to my feet. I glanced around for Lacy, to make sure she was all right, but she had used the distraction to disappear.

Smart girl.

I came face to face with Gaynell, who had a wet washcloth in one hand and a beer in the other. “You sure know how to make an entrance, don’t you, Mr. Riley?”

“I’m sorry about that, ma’am,” I said. “I thought your singer was in trouble. I wanted to give her a hand.”

Gaynell nodded. “I saw how it all unfolded, don’t you worry. There’s not one thing that happens in this club I don’t know about.” She handed me the beer. “Come to my office. Let’s talk.”

I glanced around again for Lacy, but she was long gone. With a small shrug of my shoulders, I followed Gaynell through the darkened club, up the stairs toward the office with a wall of windows overlooking the stage. She rounded a massive, polished desk and took her seat in a cushy red chair. Behind the desk was yet another Texas star, bold and bronze, hanging proudly as the most prominent piece in the room.

The rest of the room had been filled with photos of headlining celebrities going back some twenty years. She stood side-by-side with them with a big smile on her face, with an older, more portly and balding man flanking them on the other side. There were even photos of presidents and politicians. It was clear this club, and this club-owner, had seen and done some impressive things. “Please,” she said. “Have a seat.”

I did as I was told, taking my hat off to hold in my lap as I waited.

“I liked how you handled yourself. Forceful but fair. You wouldn’t, by chance, be looking for work? I can always use a good bouncer.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know about that,” I said. “I just moved to Austin, honestly. Started a full-time job at TX Hill Country Plastic and Steel.”

“Factory work,” she said and I nodded. “Seems a waste of your talent, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

She glared at me under one playfully arched eyebrow. “I thought I told you about that.”

I smiled. “Gaynell.”

She leaned back with a victorious smile of her own. “That’s better.” Her eyes swept over me with genuine appreciation. “God, if you could sing I’d put you on stage tomorrow.”

I chuckled. “No. I don’t sing.” Not in public anyway. Not outside a church. But I didn’t tell her that. “Besides, you have a great singer now.”

She nodded as she glanced out of the window. “That’s just a temporary thing, to see how it all works out. I can’t have this kind of chaos in my club every week. You know how much that juke box costs?” She shook her head. “I have to make sure that the money coming in surpasses, by far, the money going out.” Her eyes scanned my lean, muscular frame. “That’s why I need good bouncers to protect my interests. That includes my talent,” she added with a slight gleam in her eye. She took immediate note of how that gave me pause. She grabbed a card from a sterling silver holder shaped like an armadillo.

It was like Texas had exploded all up in this joint.

“It doesn’t even have to be a full-time commitment,” she said as she scribbled something on her business card. “Fridays and Saturdays, about nine to close, giving you Sunday to recuperate. I’m flexible,” she added as she gave me the card with a flirty grin. “I’d certainly pay for the best. Fifteen an hour to start, at least.”

My eyes opened wide. That beat what I was getting paid at the factory. “I’ll certainly think about it,” I promised.

She rose from her desk. “Don’t think too long, Jonah. I need someone in place by next weekend. If you think tonight was crazy, imagine what it’s going to be like when we have sold-out crowds with some of the big-named acts that are coming through.”

I nodded as I listened to her tick them off one by one. I figured, like her, that her lineups could pull in the crowds, especially if someone like Lacy was the opening act.

I didn’t even bother sticking around to see anyone else. I headed out to my truck by ten-thirty. Before I could turn the key, I spotted someone across the parking lot kicking and screaming at a POS special with its hood up.

That someone was wearing ripped blue jeans and a hoodie.

I started the truck and drove slowly over to her section of the darkened, mostly abandoned parking lot. Most of the crowd, including those who were giving her the most grief, were all inside getting their buzz on, listening to the next act.

I rolled down my window as I got to her. “Having trouble?”

She whirled around to glare at me. When she saw my face she rolled her eyes. “I’m fine,” she said as she turned around to the stalled vehicle.

I stopped the truck and slid out. “You may be fine but your car is on its last leg.” I glanced down at the engine, which looked to be about a hundred years old. “Let me give you a ride.”

She glanced me over with disdain. “Yeah, no thanks.”

“Fine, then how about a jump?”

“How about get lost?” she snapped. “Go play Boy Scout somewhere else.”

She was clearly pissed, but I would have been too after what happened after her gig. “I’m just trying to help.”

“I don’t need your help,” she spat.

“Look, I know it’s been a rough night…,” I started but she whirled around, a tiny, fiery bundle of fury.

“Do you understand English? Get lost!”

My blood started to boil. “Fine! Stay here all night. See if I care.” I turned toward the truck, but before I got to the driver’s side I stopped myself. She wasn’t angry with me, I tried to remind myself. I couldn’t very well leave her there, not with all the aggressive drunks who had tried to get at her in the club. They wouldn’t stop at no, and that was no kind of guy to run into in a dark parking lot. I took a deep breath before I turned back and walked over to the car.

Her eyes widened as I approached. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m helping you,” I told her before I circled her waist with my hands and lifted her away from her car so I could figure out what was wrong with it. “Too bad you’re too damned stubborn to see that.”

“Fuck you!” she spat, hissing at me like an angry cat.

I ignored her as I fiddled with the engine. I sidestepped her to climb inside and turn the key. Nothing. I got out, rounding to the front of the car to test the connections. Despite the ancient car, the battery was new. I retrieved my tools from my truck and within a minute her car fired to life. She stood staring at me, stupefied.

“Connection was loose,” I told her as I put my tools back in the box. “Shouldn’t give you any more trouble.”

I put the tool box back in the bed of the truck before I hopped in the cab and gunned my own engine. She walked, reluctantly, to my window. “Thank you,” she managed.

I looked her in those big doe eyes, which were a lot more contrite than angry. “You’re welcome.”

“I’d offer you money, but…,” she trailed off, looking embarrassed.

I held her gaze for just a minute longer before I said, “Don’t worry about it. Finding out you are a woman and not just a feral cat was payment enough.”

I left her sputtering behind me as I squealed out of the parking lot.

Mama was still up when I got home that night. I became concerned when I saw the stack of wadded tissue next to her laptop, where she was trying to organize our budget. I stepped in behind her to rub her shoulders. “You’re strung up tight, Mama,” I said as I tried to work the knots out of her weary shoulders.

She nodded. “I don’t think I’ll be able to relax as long as the wolves are at the door.” She held up an envelope from the IRS. My heart dropped. “We owe back taxes on top of everything else,” she said. “And penalties, and Leah’s new medicine is going to cost twice as much as the last one.” She sighed. “When it rains, it pours, I guess.” She took a deep breath and adopted a smile. “Please tell me you had a good night, at least.”

I sat at the table next to her, suddenly guilty I had spent the money I had, when it was clear she needed every single dime. “It was selfish of me to go out,” I said. “I won’t do it again.”

She dismissed my promise with a wave of her hand. “Don’t be silly, Jonah. You’re a man in the prime of your youth. Why shouldn’t you go out and meet people?”

I thought about Lacy with a snarl. Yeah. That had worked out
splendidly
. “You need me here,” I said.

She took my hand in hers. “I need you happy,” she clarified. “Please don’t add guilt on top of my worry.”

Her words gripped my heart. This was my Mama. Like I would ever bring her pain. I just wanted to make her life easier. I could already see the lines around her eyes, lines that weren’t there two months ago, when her husband was alive and she still had a home. I covered her hand in both of mine. “Helping you makes me happy, Mama.”

She reached for a hug and I didn’t deny her. It worried me how frail she felt. I realized then that she had lost at least twenty pounds from all the worry and stress. It scared me to think of a world without her in it. Leah and I would truly be orphans.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it even after I went to bed that night, scrubbed clean from my selfish night of debauchery that left me about seventy dollars poorer and even more frustrated than before. Sleep eluded me as I stared at the ceiling in my darkened bedroom. I wished I could rewind the whole night and give my mother the money she desperately needed.

But seventy dollars wouldn’t be enough. Not by a long shot.

I sighed and closed my eyes. For some reason I thought about Lacy, how she looked on stage, how she looked standing helpless beside her car. I remembered how she felt in my hands as I lifted her up, like a stray cat I knew could scratch my eyes out if I wasn’t careful.

It stirred something in my I couldn’t explain. My whole body fired to life just like her junky old car had the minute I fixed the connection. I knew in that moment I’d go see her again if I had the money. I wanted to see her, to hear her sing, to look into those big brown eyes.

I wanted more of anything… everything.

I glanced at the nightstand, where I had deposited the contents of my pocket. There, next to my keys, some change and my phone, was a business card. I reached for it and studied it for a long time, weighing my options. It was roughly $200 extra per week, which could certainly pad the kitty at the end of the month.

And I wouldn’t have to pay one red cent to get closer to that unusual girl I couldn’t stop thinking about if I tried.

I reached for my phone and dialed the cell phone number Gaynell had scribbled in ink on her card. She wasn’t even tired as she answered. “This is Gaynell.”

“This is Jonah Riley,” I said.

“Mr. Riley,” she purred. “I was wondering when you were going to call.”

“I’d like to talk to you about the bouncer job,” I said.

“Of course you would,” she said. “Meet me at the club tomorrow at noon.”

And for some reason that I couldn’t explain, I was excited about it as I put the phone back on my nightstand and curled into the blanket to sleep at last. I was presented with a problem and I was doing something about it. I knew my Daddy would be proud.

Mama was a little more reluctant when I told her about the following morning. “I don’t know, Jonah. A night club?”

“The money is good, Mama. She said at least fifteen an hour to start. Even working six-hour shifts a couple of nights a week I could bring in over seven hundred dollars a month. You can’t tell me that won’t help.”

She sighed as she sat beside me, in front of her own plate of bacon and eggs. “Of course it would help. I just don’t you to work your life away. You’re young. You need to be out mingling and meeting people.”

“It’s a nightclub, Mama,” I said gently. “That’s where I’d go to mingle and meet people anyway. You know that.”

She pursed her lips. “Fine. But save some time in your busy schedule for your family, would you? We kind of like having you around.”

I laughed as I reached across the table for a hug. “Sundays belong to you and Leah. I promise.”

I arrived at the club ten minutes to noon and was instantly ushered up to Gaynell’s office, where she was conferring with the older man from all the photos. “Jonah,” she greeted with a smile as she beckoned me into the room. “I’d like you to meet my husband, Ty Hollis.”

“Mr. Hollis,” I greeted with the strong shake of a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Good to meet you, son,” he said with a loud, booming voice. “Gay tells me that you helped us with some trouble last night.”

“I tried, sir. I’m afraid it got out of control quickly.”

Ty chuckled. “It tends to.”

Gaynell laughed as she patted her husband. “Ty worries because he’s out of town on business quite a bit.”

Ty gave his wife an indulgent smile. “Southern Nights has always been Gay’s baby, but she can always use a strong, young buck to help her manage things. Glad to have you aboard,” he said with a slap on my back before he exited the room.

“He does know I haven’t actually applied for the job, right?” I asked and Gaynell laughed.

“Who needs a background check when you have good instincts?” she asked. I didn’t know what to say, which only made her laugh more. “John Bivens is a personal friend of ours,” she explained. “I called him first thing this morning to ask about you. He had a glowing reference.”

“I’ve only worked there a week,” I said.

“That’s all it took,” she shrugged. “Please, sit.”

I did as she instructed and she pushed some paperwork across the desk. It was consent to a background check. I cocked an eyebrow at her.

“I didn’t get to the top of the club scene in Austin without crossing all my T’s and dotting all my I’s, honey. I don’t think anything will come up but if it does, I’ll just can your ass.”

I was okay with that because I knew she wouldn’t find so much as a traffic ticket. I filled out the paperwork as she talked. “One thing I liked about you was that you are more defensive than offensive. A lot of guys who apply for bouncer work just want a paid way to beat up people. I had to fire my last guy a week ago when he split some guy’s head open. I can’t afford those kinds of liabilities.”

I nodded to indicate I understood.

“There’s also the issue of underage kids tipping bouncers to let them in the front door. I fired two guys doing that a month ago. I’m not going to risk my liquor license because someone wants to impress some barely legal college chick.”

Again I nodded.

“I run a tight ship. It’s strictly by the book. That’s why we have the reputation we have. That’s why we can bring in major superstars from all over the world. I’ve worked hard to build that reputation and I’ll shoot the balls off of anyone who jeopardizes it.”

I looked up at her. There was a defiant gleam in her eye that convinced me she meant what she said.

“But,” she said as she leaned forward, “you take care of my interests and I’ll take care of you. I’ve taken at least five acts to the national stage in almost as many years. I know how to fill the club and I share the wealth with the loyal people who help me meet my tremendous goals.”

She got up and walked to the window, beckoning me with her hand. I glanced down in time to see Lacy, in jeans and a T-shirt, rehearsing that night’s set. “She has potential,” Gaynell told me. “But she’s a little like a squirrel. You can hand her the biggest nut in the world and she’ll take her sweet time taking it from your fingers. She’s inherently distrustful. I get the feeling she’s ready to bolt from this gig the minute something turns sour, like she’s waiting for it. Last night was the first real test. If you weren’t there to handle it, I’m not sure she’d be here today.” Gaynell turned back to me. “I’m hiring you specifically to protect her.”

Something fluttered in my stomach. It was almost too easy. I wanted to see more of her and here I was with an offer to get paid for the privilege.

“I’m not sure she’ll take that well,” I said, thinking of the night before when I practically had to manhandle her just to start her car.

“Oh, I know she won’t,” Gaynell said. “She’ll probably fight you like a rabid wolverine.”

“You’re really selling this position,” I told her with a wry smile. “Are you sure there isn’t some kind of hazard pay?”

She chuckled and walked away from the window. “At the end of the day, she needs this gig every bit as much as we need her. She’s not going anywhere. She’ll acclimate just like every singer I’ve managed before her. It may take a little convincing at times, but if she’ll let me, I could make her a star.”

I nodded as I continued to stare down at Lacy. She handled the band with prowess, confident in her musical direction. She knew what she was doing, and clearly she had a unique look and special talent.

I believed Gaynell one-hundred-percent that she could turn her into a singing sensation.

Gay spent the next hour going over procedures and policies with me, in detail of what I could and couldn’t do as the new muscle of the club. Lacy was wrapping up rehearsal as we went downstairs. Gay stopped next to the stage to formally introduce us. “Lacy, I’d like you to meet our new bouncer, Jonah Riley.”

Lacy’s eyes hardened as she looked down at me. “Is that right?”

“After the hullabaloo last night at the stage door, I realized I had to hire reinforcements so that you could get safely from backstage to the exit. I told you that your act would excite the crowd.”

She sneered at her boss. “I think that had more to do with what I was wearing,” she said.

“Speaking of which,” Gaynell said, completely bypassing Lacy’s attitude, “we need to talk about what you are wearing tonight.”

“I can pick my own clothes,” Lacy shot back.

“Of course you can,” Gaynell said. “If you want to go shopping at the local flea market, that is,” she added with a smile. “I make superstars here. If you want to dress like a bartender, I can put you behind the bar. But if you’re going on the stage, you are going to damn well look like you belong there.” She let that hang there to see if Lacy would challenge her. She took a deep breath, but she didn’t. “Let me see the set,” Gaynell said as she held out her hand.

Lacy glared at her, glared at me, and then walked to the stand covered in sheet music. She thrust the paper into Gaynell’s hand. She leafed through the pages, staring over the edge of her half-moon glasses that had been previously hanging from a jeweled strand around her neck. “What’s this?” she asked when she got to the last few pages.

Lacy squared her shoulders. “It’s my song. You know, the one I auditioned with.”

Gaynell took the pages out of the stack, handing everything else back to Lacy. “We talked about this. No new music until you’ve proven yourself and developed a following.”

“So… when? When you have to hire two bouncers to protect me instead of one?”

Gaynell was nonplussed. “You got it.” She turned to me. “Come on, Jonah. Let me introduce you around.”

After we got out of earshot, I turned to Gaynell. “How come she can’t sing original material?”

“Because it is original,” she answered bluntly. “You put an act up there with untested material and you ensure that crowds won’t even darken the door before the headlining act takes the stage. New act? New songs? They simply can’t connect to it, not in a noisy, crowded nightclub where every single sound is fighting to be heard. It becomes white noise that people can take or leave. That’s not an environment I wish to foster with the stiff competition I have here in the music capital of Texas. I want people here the whole night. I want them in on the party, singing the songs and drinking my booze.”

She glanced back at Lacy. “She’s got good stuff. Strong songs. Amazing presence. But if she doesn’t win over the crowd past that giant “Fuck-You” she stamps all over her face, she’ll never get a chance to really show it. She hates it now, but she’ll thank me for it later.”

I nodded. I didn’t know if she was right or wrong, but the photos in her upstairs office slanted the odds slightly more in her favor.

I ended up staying the whole day at the club. Gaynell and Ty sprang for dinner at a nearby steakhouse, where they were treated like royalty from the time they walked in the door. I didn’t care how it looked. I had the waitress wrap up half my prime rib so I could take it home to Mama and Leah.

I barely had time to say hello before I was changing and heading back to Southern Nights the time it opened at eight o’clock. I offered to come in early, not just to maximize hours, but also so that I could see Lacy again.