Resonance, page 14
“No?” I took the guitar gingerly, afraid it’d either explode or trigger some kind of alarm if I handled it. Shit, it might. Real talent had touched this thing, had signed his name on this thing. I waited for smoke or a lightning strike. For Chet’s ghost to appear and laugh at me.
“Got the boot one time a few years back for taking a mandolin out of a glass case. It was an antique.” Dan shrugged. “Told ’em I was thinking about buying it but that I’d just changed my mind.” His grin was all teeth. “Now go on.”
CHAPTER 15
Owen sat at the very edge of one of the fancy armchairs and played with his eyes squeezed shut.
The song he’d played at Howie’s had been bluesy; this was more folksy pop with a lilting melody that carried gently from verse to chorus before crescendoing sharply at the bridge.
He blinked his eyes open after, and his expectant expression made me realize I’d gotten sidetracked staring at his mouth.
“Is that something new?”
“Yep. It’s not finished yet. There’s this one part that doesn’t feel quite right.” He fiddled with his strings.
“Near the end of the chorus?”
He smiled. “So you hear it, too.”
“It’s incredibly minor, but yeah.”
I stood and retrieved the Dolly guitar from the wall, tuning it as Owen watched, that smile creeping higher over his lips.
“Can’t resist, huh?”
The funny thing was, I usually could. I usually didn’t have even a remote desire to meddle in someone else’s songs. But as we sat there playing through Owen’s and fiddling with different chord progressions and vocal rhythms, I found myself falling into the pace of our back-and-forth. Even enjoying it. Owen could sense where I was trying to go and join in before I finished. And I could do the same when he was leading. Then, we launched into a few Eagles covers, as if we were both reluctant to break the tether between us.
At the end of “Hotel California,” he shifted the guitar off to one side and smirked at me. “Bet this was one of the first songs you learned.”
“Correct.” I chuckled.
I took both guitars and hung them back on the wall, then turned back to Owen as he drifted among the shelves of records. “You ever busked downtown before?”
“Busking?” He made a face. “Seems like a waste of time; no one’s paying attention, and the tips are for shit. Feels like begging.”
“The tips aren’t the point. The point is doing it. The point is observation and experience. Get cozy with a patch of pavement and play. Most people aren’t interested; they’re focusing on where they’re going next, or the person beside them, or their upcoming mortgage payment. Their kid who’s being a little shit.” I rested my hand on the shelf where he’d stopped and was idly tilting record sleeves out, examine their covers and pushing them back. Owen didn’t want to hear what I was saying, I could tell. But he was listening. “Your job is to make them pay attention, make them care, give them something that sneaks into their brain and draws them out, turns their head. When you do that, you know you’ve got something. That’s what it’s all about. Emotional communion, making someone say your story is my story and my story is yours. It’s pure and primal and can’t be tainted like blood or water or politics because it goes deeper than all that shit.
“So you want to know real time if you’ve got something good? That’s how you do it. You make people stop because they can’t not listen to what you’re telling them about themselves.”
Owen considered in thoughtful silence.
It was easy to see he didn’t want to do it. Hell, I’d never wanted to, either. “I like your songs,” I told him. “I would’ve stopped for both of them. They feel real to me.” They were, like him, engaging and vibrant and all encompassing. The impact was lost when he got nervous onstage, and that was a damn shame. But it was fixable.
Owen blushed under the praise and ducked away with a mumbled thank-you, heading toward the bank of windows. I trailed behind him after nudging some records back into place. The yard beyond the windows rolled in verdant greens toward a pond.
“I’d love a view like this,” Owen said wistfully.
“It’s nice, yeah. But nothing you can’t see from a single story and a third of the mortgage payment,” I tagged on, and caught his smile in profile.
“Are you buying anything today?”
“Nah, don’t think so.”
He nodded and continued staring out the window for a few seconds before turning abruptly to face me. He squared his shoulders, and a flicker of unease moved through me.
“Did you bring me here to fire me?”
I barked out a laugh, because goddamn that had come out of the blue. “What the hell put that idea in your head?”
Owen swallowed visibly. “I… well, you said you weren’t buying anything, and usually you wouldn’t ask me to come… and… Ivy…” He cut himself off with a wince.
“Ivy what?” I prompted him, gaze narrowing.
He grimaced. “Well, it’s possible that she overheard something maybe she wasn’t supposed to overhear about all the shops being in trouble, so I figured…”
I rubbed the back of my neck. Shit. “There’s some truth to that, yeah, but I’m working on it. The Nashville store is okay for now, so I haven’t wanted to say anything just yet.”
“Is that why Ru has been out playing more?”
“Partially, yeah. He’s a stubborn ass. Insisted on giving up his manager’s salary. Threatened to walk altogether if I didn’t agree.”
Visible relief flooded Owen’s expression, and as he let out a long breath, that unsettled feeling stirred restlessly inside me that he’d thought for even a second I’d brought him here to fire him.
I lifted one hand to the window casement beside his head. Owen tracked the movement, big green gaze flickering between my mouth and my splayed fingers, and damned if temptation didn’t rocket through me like I’d swallowed an 80 proof shot of it. I leaned in, one inch closer to complicated as his gaze locked with mine. “Owen, I wouldn’t do that. I—”
“Gentlemen, is there anything in particular that’s sparked your interest?” The voice belonged to a woman with her blonde hair in a severe bun that looked like it was pulling the skin of her face taut. Her expression suggested she was afraid Owen and I were about to do something to make her clutch the pearls around her wrinkly neck. She might’ve been right, but she was for damn sure a good cooler.
I spun a half step away from Owen as he smoothed a strand of hair from his forehead self-consciously. “It’s a nice collection, but I think I’ll be passing today.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Grim. I hear you’re quite the collector.”
“I’m sorry to say it, trust me.” I gave her the same polite smile I’d given the guy downstairs. “If the estate would consider coming down on that Atkins, I think I know someone who might be interested. But not at the list price.” She frowned as I continued. “That Dolly Parton, though, it’s worth a lot more than you’re asking. Might want to have your appraiser take another look at it. To my best knowledge, that particular guitar was handcrafted by a guy named Pearson. Passed on about a decade ago, but there’s only a few dozen of them out there with that body style.”
“Of course,” she said smoothly, clasping her hands in front of her. “I’ll have him take another look.”
As we exited the room, me following behind Owen, I let my hand skim his lower back briefly, just long enough to revisit the curve of it, then pulled away. Complicated. Right.
As we got back on the road, Owen started chuckling, and I cocked my head at him. “What?”
“Nothing, just thinking about something Ru said last night.”
I thought he might be lying, but I didn’t press. “Y’all stay much longer after I left?”
“Ru finished his beer and was probably gone fifteen minutes after you. I stayed a little longer, yeah.”
I shifted around in the driver’s seat and tried to pay attention to the road. “Good time?”
Owen’s lips formed an O, and then he laughed again, this time a full-bodied sound that rang through the cab. “You’re fishing right now.”
I grunted and found an air vent to fiddle with.
“You could just ask me if I went home with him.”
“Jesus, Owen, I’m not going to ask you that. It’s none of my business. It’s—” It really wasn’t, but I wasn’t doing a good job of snuffing the small flame of jealousy that flared back to life when I thought about the guy who’d been talking to Owen. Complicated.
“I didn’t.” Owen looked mighty amused. “He did say you kicked the back of his chair, though—thought you were gonna put the fear of god in him if he said anything else.”
“I might’ve.” I reached for the radio dials and twisted one until classic rock poured from the speakers.
“Huh. Your radio works just fine.”
“So it does. Guess it was just a temporary glitch.”
The next morning I got up with the sun, cruised through downtown toward the shop, and found myself circling back around the block near lower Broadway. I pulled off into a no-parking zone and stared down the street running parallel to me in disbelief. On the corner of Fourth, Owen stood with his back inches from a wall, eyes closed and lips moving. I rolled down the window and the sound of his voice came to me. Faintly, very faintly born on the crisp breeze.
AURAL ADDICTION, EPISODE #20 TRANSCRIPT:
Owen: Are you wearing glitter?
Dan: Do I look like a guy who wears glitter?
Owen: There’s some on your temple, so maybe.
Dan: Well, it’s not intentional, trust me.
Owen: So where’d it come from?
Dan: No clue. Could just be a reaction to being around you. Like hives.
Owen: I know you probably didn’t mean that as a compliment, but I’m totally taking it as one.
Dan: Maybe I meant for it to be a compliment.
Owen: Welllll, in that case, I’m gonna to need some more warning in the future when you plan to shake my faith in your grumpiness like that.
Dan: That’d take all the fun out of it.
CHAPTER 16
“Dan!” Owen hollered as he flung my office door open, startling me so soundly my hand flinched on the computer mouse and the tracking arrow went skittering across the screen. His cheeks were pink, eyes wide, and I started to rise instinctively, thinking there’d been some kind of disaster out on the floor.
“You will not fucking believe who’s out front.” He put his hands up as if he thought I might leap up and try to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him, and then took a long, deep breath. I dropped back into the chair and exhaled a matched sigh. Owen was a gift to celebs everywhere. When he fanned, he did it with absolute dedication. Which meant I was usually treated to a show at least every few weeks, what with the influx of actors and musicians who’d been planting roots at an increasing clip over the past decade. We got some big names wandering into the shop every now and again, sometimes with photographers in tow. There’d been a few documentary filmmakers who’d set their interviews here or filmed it for B-roll footage. Owen flipped his shit in every single instance. I’d found it jarring at first. Now as I folded my arms over the table, I had to bite back a grin.
Owen exhaled slowly and flapped his hand near his cheek. “Fuck, I can’t tell if I’m having a panic attack or about to bust a nut.”
“You bust a nut right here, you get to walk around the rest of the day with it drying in your pants,” I told him, trying to ignore the twinge of heat that slithered through me. “Meanwhile, I’m about to bust your skull if you don’t get on with it.”
“Ryder. Ryder fucking Preston. And I know you two don’t… well, whatever, and god it’s probably going to be awkward as hell, but Jesus, he’s still Ryder fucking Preston. In Grim’s. Like walking through the door in these jeans that… why is it that jeans can be fucking art on certain people? Like on you. Don’t get me started on that, though, because boss-employee line that we’re both pretending we didn’t already cross and all.” He gestured between us. “And he smiled at me, all casual like and friendly. All, no big deal…”
Owen buzzed on like a snapped wire flopping around in a storm. I think I’d known. When I consulted the tightness that had settled across my shoulders, yeah, I’d suspected. My gut put the logical factors together—the show in town, the email, rumors that Ryder had bought a place somewhere downtown—before my conscious mind was ready to acknowledge them. And though it was unexpected, it also felt somehow inevitable. Pops and jolts of emotion rushed through me like fireworks, raising my blood pressure as I stood, then sat, then stood up once more, shaking my head at myself for my own disorder.
Owen tilted his head curiously at me, then sobered as I sat down. Again. I was my own damn version of musical chairs.
“Wow. That was really insensitive of me. Fuck.” He put his hands to his cheeks and dragged them down.
I waved him off. “It’s fine.” He was just being his excitable self, and in a way it was a relief. I didn’t want him to walk on eggshells around me.
Owen ducked his head, then peered at me between the fan of blond that fell around his temples. “His scruffy-jaw game is way weaker than yours, and he looks a little tired. Especially around the eyes. Kinda like fish eyes you see at the grocery store?” He let his jaw go slack and stared dully at me to enhance his description, then grinned when I started to smile. “Okay, that was maybe too far. He doesn’t look like that. The jeans thing is a dead heat, though. Sorry, there’s nothing I can do about that. It’s probably just the pair he’s wearing, honestly. I’ll bet in a pair of off-brands, his butt would look all saggy.”
“Your honesty is refreshing,” I said sardonically, then chuckled in spite of myself. “Send him in. Try not to hyperventilate. Take a couple of deep breaths. Offer him a water.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Get one for yourself. And stop looking at his ass,” I tacked on.
Owen gave me an eager nod, then took another deep breath that lifted his entire rib cage before he let it out, locking eyes with me as if he wanted to demonstrate he was paying attention. Just before he crossed over the threshold, he slanted a look back at me. “Final footnote: I’ve never seen your butt look saggy. Like, ever.”
And yeah, I might’ve returned the favor and checked out Owen’s ass as he continued on, just to see if there was any truth to his jeans theory. It was irrelevant, though; I’d gripped those cheeks hard enough in Arkansas to experience firsthand just how high and tight they were.
A minute later, Ryder sauntered in larger than life, like he was dragging his stellar career around in his aura.
“Ryder,” I said, as if it hadn’t been years since we’d had any kind of verbal communication. I stood and considered the hand he extended over the top of my desk with a raised brow and a sharp gaze before gripping it. Brief, perfunctory.
“D,” he replied. I didn’t like the familiarity. The only people who called me D these days usually wanted something out of me I no longer had any desire to give. My brother, for instance.
“I figure you know what I’m here for. No need to beat around the bush, huh?” Ryder parked his ass on my desk as I crossed the office to shut the door and leaned up against it, folding my arms over my chest. Defensive move—everyone knew that bit about body language. But I was feeling a little defensive at the moment. He looked good. Better than I wanted him to. Concert footage was from a distance, magazine articles were airbrushed, and I thought for sure I’d find some goddamn fault, searched his face like there’d be some stain, some birthmark or memento of our history. But all I saw was the same old Ryder. It unnerved the shit out of me.
And I didn’t like the fact that he’d taken over my desk.
I pushed off the door and walked back to the chair behind the desk, forcing him to swivel awkwardly to maintain eye contact. After a moment, he gave up and slid into one of the chairs in front of it. Better. That was an old dance between us I’d always won in the past. Often in more satisfying ways. “You never minded beating around the bushes, that I could recall.”
“Nah, I didn’t. Enjoyed myself back then,” he said blithely. “A lot of them wax nowadays.” He brushed the tops of his thighs and met my gaze. “Recall you enjoying yourself some, too. You want to keep riding down memory lane? I’ve got some other memories we could harp on.” A shadow passed over his expression, and I blinked away from the recognition it stirred in me.
His presence was like the corner of nail dragged along an old scar, the nerve endings mostly numb, mostly dead to all but the most acute contact. This qualified as acute. “I already told your manager I’m not interested in a reunion tour.”
“I heard. Saw the email, too.”
“And?”
“And I’ve gotten worse at taking a hint. More stubborn. Comes with age, I guess. We become more ourselves. Isn’t that what they say?” Ryder thumbed his jaw as he glanced down at my desk. I’d left a folder open there and reached reflexively to snap it shut as he continued. “I think this would be just as good for you as it would be for me. Maybe better. Maybe you need the income boost more than I do.” The rise of his brows was meant to drive the point home.
His manager could have sniffed it out. Or he could’ve. It wasn’t as if it was a secret the Knoxville store had closed, but it would’ve required some digging to know exactly how much water I was under. Guess he’d been paying more attention to me than I’d figured. “Funny you mention stubbornness. I’ve found the same to be true for me. I’ve gotten better at taking a hint, though. I can probably thank you for that.” A brief, mollifying sting flashed through his eyes before they steeled, still undeniably Ryder. Spitfire and lightning. “I’m starting to think maybe you didn’t know me all that well before, either, because a tactic like this? It’s the wrong move. My answer is no.”
