“You think that’s funny?” Boone demands, probably thinking I’m batshit crazy, and rightly so.
“What’s funny is you think I could pay it. Maybe if I’d sold you out the other night. Maybe then I’d have an extra ten bucks to do a damn thing, but I don’t. I respected your privacy. I didn’t even hit you up for cash to keep quiet like my cousin did.”
The past and the present collide in my head as I continue my rant. “You want to know why I didn’t? Because I don’t need the Fishbowl famous for another country music legend dying there. Guess you’re lucky you made it out alive.”
19
Boone
Ripley’s drunk.
Not even drunk. She’s blitzed. Hammered. Shit-faced. And she’s the cutest frigging drunk I’ve ever seen, even if she’s a little on the crazy side.
Her words about dying stop my thoughts cold.
“Wait, what are you talking about?”
“You. Good thing you didn’t go to the bathroom or you could be another dot on the tourist map showing where you died.”
That’s when it hits me.
Ihaveheard of the Fishbowl before. Everyone has. How did I not remember?
Rumor has it that the owner’s wife was Gil Green’s mistress, and they were screwing in the bathroom when they were both murdered while there was a bar full of people just outside the door. No one heard their cries for help, but the gossips couldn’t decide if it was because of the performance going on right then or if they didn’t have a chance to scream.
The owner was cleared because he was serving drinks during the murder, and there was no evidence he hired a hit man to kill his cheating wife and her lover. No other suspects were ever seriously questioned because no alternative motive could be identified.
According to gossip, business tanked practically overnight, except for the gawkers. All the little things that Ripley had said the first night I met her, and the next morning when I picked up my car, finally come together to complete the puzzle.
Ripley’s mother was murdered in the bar she’s fighting to keep afloat.Jesus fucking Christ.
Instead of the hundred different thoughts rushing through my brain, I ask, “Do you live above the bar or somewhere else?”
“Above the bar, but I can walk. It’s not far.”
I ignore her and pull out into traffic. There’s no way I’m letting her walk.
“Not happening.”
“You’re not the boss of me, Boone Thrasher. Let me out of this car!”
She can yell all she wants, but I’m not letting her out until she’s somewhere safe. I didn’t get her away from those two assholes inside the White Horse to leave her to the predators that could be walking the streets.
It’s clear she doesn’t think much of me, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to help her anyway. At least now her rule about celebrities makes sense. I wonder why Frisco never put it together? Or maybe he did and never mentioned it to me?
She grabs for the door handle again.
“Hey, settle down. I’ll have you there in a minute.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
I glance over. In the glow of the streetlights, her dark hair is wild around the stubborn set of her features. I’ve been out of a relationship for four days, but my dick doesn’t care about that as it goes half-hard at her headstrong declaration.I’ll tell you what to do and you’ll like itis my instinctive reaction.
Her contrary nature should piss me off, but instead it’s doing the opposite—which ends up pissing me off anyway.
Before Amber, I went through women like I went through towns on my early low-budget tours—one blurry night of fun and forgotten the next morning. But all that changed when I stood in the hospital as my brother walked out of the delivery room holding a little blue bundle up in the air as he called out, “It’s a boy.”
All those mornings of waking up next to a woman whose name I didn’t remember might have fit the stereotype Ripley has pegged me with, but in all other respects, I’ve never fit that mold. I don’t wear a cowboy hat and boots onstage. I don’t sing with a heavy twang. I break the rules and forge new ground. I refuse to be a stereotype.