Everything You Are (Jukebox Heroes 3) Read online

  Everything You Are

  L.B. Clark

  Copyright 2011 by L.B. Clark

  Smashwords Edition

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual persons living, dead, or undead is purely incidental.

  This book is dedicated to:

  Ryan B., who gave me the words of wisdom I needed to make certain parts of this book work like I wanted them to. You inspire me more than you could possibly know.

  Erin, as always – thank you so very, very much for all you do to help me bring my books to life.

  And my mom, who instilled a love of reading in me long before I ever started school. I love you.

  Chapter One

  “Going to kill my boss. Stuck working a double. Sorry. Maybe next weekend?”

  I read the text twice before setting my phone aside with a sigh. Since I’d moved to Austin three weeks before, Lydia, my brother’s boyfriend’s sister, had been trying to drag me out to the infamous Sixth Street area to hit the clubs. She’d worn me down, and I’d agreed to meet her at a restaurant near the clubs. And now she couldn’t come out to play.

  While I polished off my overpriced faux gourmet burger, I considered the possibilities. I could go home and sleep, or read, or watch TV, but I was tired of staring at the walls of my crappy apartment. I could do something less daunting than walking into a club alone, but I hadn’t been in Austin long enough to know what my options might be. Or I could suck it up and wander around and check out the clubs. I had to spread my wings sometime. Besides, I’d already driven downtown and paid for parking.

  “To hell with it,” I said to myself as I flagged down my waitress for the check. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

  The night was young – in its infancy, really – and the streets and clubs hadn’t filled up yet. I had no idea how busy they’d get on a random Tuesday. I hoped I could find a place that was busy enough for me to fade into a crowd.

  I wandered down the streets, studying the signs and neon lights. I’d heard of a few of the bars, but I didn’t know much about any of them. I stood on the sidewalk for a while considering the advisability of choosing a bar by the eenie-meenie method. It seemed like a bad plan, so I kept walking.

  Just when I was ready to give up and head back home, I saw it – the little hole-in-the-wall that would become my first Austin nightclub experience. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but I liked the name – Haven. With all I’d been through in the last few months, a haven was what I needed. I took a deep breath for courage and headed inside.

  Haven’s heavy double doors opened onto a small foyer. A long counter with a register stood to one side, a jumble of brass stands and velvet rope on the other. I had just enough time to wonder why there wasn’t anyone manning the register when a curvy twenty-something with violet hair popped up from behind the counter.

  “Hi!”

  “Hi,” I returned, with far less enthusiasm.

  “No cover tonight. And I’m going to card you just because it would be rude not to.”

  I laughed and dug my driver’s license out of the back pocket of my jeans. Violet looked it over and then looked at me for a long moment before handing it back.

  “Wow,” she said. “I guess it’s good I card everyone. I thought you were my age. Guess I’m not too good at guessing.”

  “It’s not just you. I get that a lot.”

  “Not sure if that’d be awesome or annoying.”

  A couple of guys came in, and Violet told me to have fun and turned to card the college boys. I thanked her and stepped through the inner doors into the club.

  This early, only a few patrons milled around, sipping drinks and chatting over the piped in music. I recognized the song playing – a Journey tune that made my heart do a stutter-step. I’d been in the club for thirty seconds, and already I found myself getting maudlin over my absentee boyfriend. This did not bode well.

  I allowed myself a moment to think about my boyfriend, London, as I made my way to the bar. We’d been a couple for six months now. We hadn’t spent much of that time together, but I’d known it would be that way when I got involved with him. A long-distance relationship is a given when you’re dating a musician who spends half his life on tour.

  Forcing London out of my mind, I conjured up a half-assed smile for the cute – and obviously gay – bartender. His smile was a lot brighter and more genuine than mine.

  “Hey, sweetie. What can I get for you?”

  I half-sat on a stool and leaned against the bar. “I have absolutely no idea.” I paused for a split second before adding, “That’s not quite true. I don’t want gin or beer.”

  He cocked his head and looked at me, like I was a puzzle he was trying to figure out. “You look like a fruit drink kind of girl.”

  I nodded, and he started grabbing bottles.

  “I’m going to make you something special. If you don’t like it, we’ll figure something else out. But you’ll like it.”

  He managed to not come off sounding like an arrogant jerk, and I found myself intrigued. I settled onto the barstool to watch him work his magic, and before long a beautiful, fruity concoction sat on the bar in front of me. I took a healthy drag on the straw, and closed my eyes to savor the drink’s flavor.

  “Awesome,” I said.

  The bartender rewarded me with another of his million megawatt smiles. I paid him for the drink and took another pull or three before turning to survey the club.

  Haven was an unassuming neighborhood bar. Pool tables and dartboards stood on one side, but the main body of the club consisted of a small stage and a lot of four-seater tables. A narrow counter lined with barstools formed a perimeter around the cluster of tables.

  The seats nearest the stage were beginning to fill up. The college boys who’d come in after me had joined a couple of girls and were drinking beer from big plastic cups. At the next table, three women in dresses and heels sipped wine and laughed together. Farther down, a mountain of a man in a leather jacket sat hunched over, scribbling away at who-knows-what.

  A young, long-haired guy with a guitar case in his hand stopped to say something to the guy in the leather jacket, and I found myself reaching for my phone. This time it wasn’t London I was thinking of, but his best friend, Brian. Brian was a musician, too – a guitarist. He’d suffered a horrible injury a few months before and had been forced to give up playing guitar for a while. I hadn’t heard from him or his girlfriend, my best friend Dylan, in a day or two, so I fired off a quick text to her.

  When I looked up again, the guy with the guitar was up on the stage, fiddling around with...something. I love music and concerts, but I won’t even pretend to know anything about the technological stuff that musicians use. In my world, pickups are something you haul furniture in and boards are what you use to build shelves.

  Dylan answered my text, and we messaged back and forth for a little while. I finished my drink and ordered another. Checked Twitter and Facebook. Wondered why I was sitting in a bar doing this when I could be curled up on my couch at home.

  And then the canned music switched off and a voice welcomed us to Open Mic night at Haven. The first brave soul was introduced – Mike something, I think – and the long-haired guy with the guitar launched into an acoustic version of a somewhat popular song. He played well, changing the song up enough to keep it interesting without losing the soul of the original version. It was a great way to start things off. He followed it up with a song he told us he’d just written. I thought it needed a little polish, but his voice and the lyrics drew me in. When he stepp
ed offstage, I applauded along with the rest of the rapidly filling club.

  A female duo came next. They sang a couple of country songs, both originals and both pretty good even though they were a little sappy. As the girls gave up the stage to a fat, middle-aged guy, I picked up my drink and headed for the railing around the seating area. I wanted a better vantage point and knew if I didn’t grab a seat right then, I wasn’t going to find one. I lucked out and landed a spot near the stage.

  The fat guy turned out to have a great voice...and no sense of cadence. I tried to concentrate on my drink, on the crowd, on anything but the trainwreck on the stage. When he finally walked away from the microphone, I breathed an audible sigh of relief. The woman sitting next to me laughed.

  “Amen, sister,” she said, and raised her glass toward me in a little salute.

  The emcee’s voice came over the speakers again, but instead of announcing the next act, he asked, “How you guys doin’ tonight?”

  There was a smattering of cheers and applause, but most of the room carried on with their private conversations or, like me, kept sipping at their drinks.

  “Come on!” the emcee said. “It’s a beautiful night, you’re sitting in a bar in one of the most awesome cities in the world, you’ve got a drink in your hand...how you doin’ tonight?”

  The cheers and applause were quite a bit louder this time.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  A big guy in a leather jacket stepped up onto the stage, and I realized it was the one I’d seen earlier. He stripped off the jacket and tossed it onto a chair, then turned his attention to adjusting the microphone stand on the stage, dragging it up a few more inches so that he didn’t have to stoop to speak into it.

  “Michael, come on up here, buddy,” he said.

  While Michael – the long-haired musician who’d opened the show – slid his guitar out of its case and plugged up, I studied the guy at the microphone. He looked like he should be tackling quarterbacks or wrestling bears or something, not playing emcee in a club in downtown Austin. He had to be as tall as London, who came damned near to topping six and a half feet. Where London was long and lean, this guy looked like he bench-pressed city buses for fun. His spiky hair, tiny silver hoop earrings, and black eyeliner made an odd counterpoint to his barrel chest and bulging biceps. Somehow, he made it work.

  Michael said something to the guy at the mic, who said something back. Then Michael started strumming his guitar, and the emcee started to sing.

  I didn’t recognize the song, but it didn’t matter. From the first note, I was enthralled. The singer’s voice would have been enough on its own, but he also knew how to work the crowd. He owned the stage, without resorting to special effects or theatrics. He was a born performer.

  The song ended, and the audience went a little nuts. I clapped along with the rest of the room, hoping we’d be treated to another song. For once, I got what I wanted.

  “I’ve got something new for you guys,” the singer said. “I heard this the other day, and I thought to myself, I need to show this song to my friends over at Haven.” A few of the patrons whooped and catcalled, and he flashed them a lopsided grin. “Anyway, here it is. I hope you like it.”

  The song was another unfamiliar one, but it had the kind of beat that entices people to clap along. I found myself singing the chorus the second time it came around, as well.

  The singer twisted his hips in something that wasn’t quite a dance move, and I found myself admiring the way the denim of his jeans hugged his wide hips and sturdy thighs. I felt heat rush into my cheeks as I dragged my eyes upward. It didn’t help much. Instead of hips and thighs, I found myself staring at tanned biceps that would have made Popeye jealous. The edges of tattoos peeked out from under the skin-tight sleeves of his t-shirt, and I wondered what sort of designs they might be. That, at least, seemed safer than drooling over the guy.

  When the song was over and the next act had taken the stage, I found myself pulling out my cell phone to text London. I missed him. And I felt a little guilty about ogling another guy.

  London didn’t answer right away, which wasn’t too surprising. He was playing a show that night, some charity function. I wasn’t too good at keeping track of the time differences, but I was pretty sure he was in the middle of a gig. I tucked the cell back into my pocket and tried to keep my attention on the here and now.

  There were a few more acts – a couple of singers with guitars, a three-piece band, and another female duo – and then the emcee returned to the stage. After I found myself staring a little too hard again, I finished off my third drink, settled my bill, and headed for the front doors. I could wander around in the crisp autumn air until the alcohol had worn off and then go home and curl up with a book and a mug of hot chocolate.

  I waved at the purple-haired girl as I crossed the foyer and stepped outside, pausing just past the threshold to enjoy the feel of the cool October night on my flushed face.

  “You’re not leaving already are you?” a familiar voice asked as the doors closed behind me.

  I turned toward the voice and found myself face-to-face – well, okay, face-to-chest—with the very person who’d made me flee the club.

  “Yeah, I....” I couldn’t think of a good excuse for leaving, so I just shrugged.

  “Bill didn’t scare you off did he?”

  “Bill?” A flicker of memory stirred, and I realized he was talking about the guy who’d taken the stage as I was leaving. “Wanna-be Elvis? No, he didn’t scare me off. He wasn’t that bad.”

  The guy laughed. “Wanna-be Elvis. Never noticed it before, but you’re right – he does kinda look like the King.” He leaned back against the bricks of the building and smiled at me. “You okay to drive?”

  “Probably not,” I admitted, “but I’m not planning on trying, not for a while anyway.”

  A frown-line furrowed his brow, and he pushed away from the wall. “You’re not gonna wander around by yourself?”

  I shrugged. “I’ll probably drunk-dial my boyfriend, get his voicemail, leave a message I’ll regret later, call my best friend, apologize profusely for interrupting her in the middle of doing god-knows-what to her boyfriend, get hit on by an old-drunk guy, and then go lock myself in my car and listen to my iPod until I feel like I can drive home.”

  He stared at me in stunned silence for a moment, then grinned and shook his head. “Save yourself a headache – come back inside for a while.”

  I cocked my head to the side and studied him.

  “Why do you care?”

  He shrugged. “Do I need a reason?”

  “Yeah, I think maybe you do.”

  He grinned again. “I could tell you it’s in my job description.”

  “But that’s not the reason. That’s just a convenient excuse.”

  “True.”

  “And you did catch the part where I have a boyfriend?”

  “Yeah, I did. But he’s not here, and I am.” He paused for a second, his grin fading. “Wow. That sounded like a bad pickup line. What I meant was he’s not here to look out for you.”

  Anger flashed through me. “I don’t need him to look out for me,” I snapped.

  He held his hands up, palms facing me. “Sorry! Sorry.”

  I turned away from him, clenching my jaw and my fists and willing away the tears that were stinging the backs of my eyes. The truth was that I wanted London there to look after me. Need him to, no. Want him to, hells yes. I was tired of being strong, and I was tired of being alone.

  “Hey,” the guy said, his voice soft and low. “Just come back inside, okay?” There was silence for a second, then he added, “I’ll sing you a song. Anything you want to hear.”

  His teasing, wheedling tone was almost enough to make me smile. Almost.

  “Anything?” I asked, cursing my voice for shaking with unshed tears.

  “Anything.” Another pause. “Well, anything I know. And, like...in my range, but...yeah.”

  I le
t out a little hiccup of a laugh and turned toward him. I knew I should go, but this random guy was the first person to take any kind of interest in me since I’d moved to Austin. I didn’t count Lydia, since we were practically related.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He smiled, an uncertain, almost shy smile. “Okay,” he repeated. He stood there smiling at me for a long moment before he tugged his hand out of the back pocket of his jeans and offered it to me. “I’m Chris, by the way,” he said. “Chris Marshall.”

  I shook his hand. “Elizabeth Morgan.”

  “It’s good meeting you, Elizabeth Morgan,” he said.

  And strangely enough, I knew he meant it.

  Chapter Two

  I followed Chris back into the club, trying to ignore Violet’s raised eyebrows. My seat at the railing had been usurped by a forty-something biker chick who was trying to pass for twenty-five – and failing. Chris ushered me past her to a table near the stage, the one he’d occupied earlier. Michael was sitting there now, and he nodded a greeting as I took a seat beside him. He pushed a small stand mic across the table toward Chris and then slumped back in his chair to watch the pretty but talentless girl on the stage.

  Chris flagged down a waitress, asked me if I wanted a soda, and then proceeded to more or less ignore me. To his credit, he was kind of busy. I’m not sure what he was doing, but it involved shuffling a lot of papers in between announcing the Open Mic acts. I didn’t mind being ignored, and it would have been rude to talk over the music – or what passed for music - anyway.

  A little while later, Chris leaned in to speak into my ear. “I’m up next. You know what you want me to sing?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing about long distance relationships. And nothing by DPS.” The last thing I wanted was to hear a song by my boyfriend’s band.