“Nope,” V says. “You talk, I’ll serve.”
I’d squeeze Darren’s hand if I could, but he’s picked up a stack of coasters to shuffle while he tells Beau, Adrian, and Noah about his father’s existence, sudden appearance, and ties to Supine’s audition at Trailhead. Beau's heard pieces of the story for years, and none of it is all that unusual, especially for men who spend so much time listening to much taller bar tales, but Noah and Adrian aren’t used to seeing Darren’s natural brightness dim like this, his confidence a magnet that’s drawn people to his side for as long as they’ve each known him.
Beau knows Darren better—far more so than I do—and his warm brown eyes narrow to something carefully chilled. “He’s here tonight, then?”
I reach for Beau’s shoulder again, some kind of respect for his elders the only reason I don’t get knocked aside, and I put enough pressure there that he has to look at me when I lower my voice to speak.
“Don’t cause a scene. Darren doesn’t need two of us being dicks about this, and I’ve already had plenty to say.”
“And not for the first time,” Adrian mutters.
Noah takes a quick swig of his drink. And whether it’s the fact that I haven’t let him go or his desire to avoid a fight between Adrian and me, Beau finally relaxes.
“Okay, fine, but—”
Anything else Beau wanted to say gets lost to loud laughter from the opposite end of the bar, an impressive level of noise given the speakers filling the room with Happily Never After and no small amount of longing. We all look over at a woman with purple hair, her hands gesturing madly as she tells a story that leaves a few people doubled over and one wiping away tears. I can’t see Riley’s face from here, but they’ve found no reason to step away, and their willingness to forgive the sins of someone else’s father is something I’ll let slide tonight.
Enough other emotions are running high.
“I guess we don’t even have to ask,” Adrian says.
“Drew fucking Barrett,” Beau growls. “Why’s he gotta have your dimples?”
“Pretty sure I have his,” Darren answers.
“So, you said he wants to have lunch with you, but you’ve been blowing him off?” Noah asks.
“I haven’t blown him off—just told him I’ve been busy with all the band stuff and we could do it when things settle back down.”
Adrian plays with his glass and then tilts his head. “You think he’ll disappear again if you don’t hire his friends? Are youhopingfor that?”
“I have no idea what I’m hoping for,” Darren sighs. “And I'm not convinced he'll stick around evenifwe hire his friends. He doesn't have a great track record of staying close to people who are supposed to matter. Then again, maybe the band—”
He shrugs, and I bite my tongue—still or again—and soothe the sting with my beer. Darren doesn’t look at me.
Someone changes the subject, and everything goes back to being a rowdy Saturday night.
With Darren busy, I talk to the other three, any latent animosity between Adrian and me easy to ignore when Beau and Noah make every story funnier than it has any right to be. I limit the number of times I look across the bar, maybe for my own good as much as anyone’s, and I go back and forth with myself about whether I want to spend a few minutes in the beer garden just to feel the late January chill. In the end, I start on my second Guinness just as Happily Never After wraps up their set, and I think I’m too far in already when Supine is ready to take the stage, my blood warm and humming along with music they haven’t played.
V is the one to introduce the band, and it makes plenty of sense when she owns the bar, but I’m almost certain Darren would’ve done the honor if it hadn’t required eye contact with the past.
Beau presses his huge hand to my thigh, and it’s only then that I realize my leg was bouncing, a tell that doesn’t belong to me at all.
“Hey, handsome, if that fucker needs the shit beat out of him later, you know I’ll be right by your side—or in front, if you’d let me,” Beau says. “But Darren looks okay tonight, unless there’s something you think I’m missin’?”
I find some skepticism and aim it at him. “Right. When did you stop knowing Darren better than the rest of us?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he shrugs. Supine’s first song starts with the curly-haired one taking the mic, and Beau goes on. “I fell in love with someone new, stopped starin’ at my ex-husband three or four nights a week, wasn’t in the loop about his father, didn’t spend Thanksgiving with him—”
“You were there on Christmas.”
“That I was. Any chance you’re goin’ to San Diego in a fewweeks?”
I open my mouth to answer, then take a sip instead. Beau’s question is loaded, and we both know it, his challenge barely hidden when Darren’s trip for his mother’s birthday is a long-established fact. The two of them made the drive together for years, but as Beau said, he’s moved on to other things—another relationship—and he wants to know whether Darren has done the same.
Of course, I won’t be going to San Diego. I can’t imagine Darren would want to introduce me as the friend whose bed he crawls into when he doesn’t want to be alone. Too many other friends could be introduced to her the same way, and an affinity for trivia only gets me so far.
“No, Darren is not taking me to meet his mom,” I say, my beer still in my hand when I turn toward the music again. “He was right about Supine, though. I like them already.”