Only they struck close to home because these people knew Brek way better than Velma did. She probably was strung too tight for someone like him. That didn’t matter, though. They were figuring things out. Maybe. If he would just show up, already.
“If you’d bring a girl home more often, you wouldn’t confuse her,” Anna stage-whispered across the table to Jase, scrunching her forehead.
“If he brought girls home more often, he’d just confuse her more,” Zak replied, slicing another piece of cake. “We’d have a wedding every week.”
“The vedding is next veek?” Babuska asked Jase. “This is fast. Fast is best.”
“Yup, next week. Why wait when you’ve met the perfect girl?” Jase nodded to Velma and poured more vodka.
Velma’s jaw dropped to her toenails. “Stop,” she muttered and snatched the bottle, setting it beside Brek’s unused plate.
“Where did you propose?” Babushka’s eyes lit with joy.
“At the shop, yesterday. We’re all very excited,” Jase said, deadpan.
Velma stomped on his foot under the table. “Stop.”
“Jason,” his mother said in what had to be her best listen-to-your-mother tone.
“What?” He shoved another bite into his mouth. “She thinks we’re together. Might as well play along. Right, Sugar Lips?”
Velma stared at him, unable to close her mouth.
“She’ll forget tomorrow, anyway.” He shrugged. “Toss me more vodka so I can forget, too.”
“No more alcohol for you. And, seriously, ‘Sugar Lips’?” Velma pinched her not-sugary lips together.
“Tastes just like strawberries.” He winked at her.
She blinked, her cheeks burning. “What?”
Brek wouldn’t have told anyone what she’d done on the couch.
“Strawberries. Sugar Lips. Tell me I’m not the only one who gets that?” He held up his fork with a strawberry stabbed in the tines.
Velma opened her mouth and closed it again. Her phone vibrated in her purse. Thank goodness… It had to be Brek.
“Would you excuse me?” She grabbed her bag and pushed out her chair.
“Not a problem, Sweet Potato.” Jase grinned up at her as she stood.
She pulled out her phone and clicked it on without checking the screen as she headed toward the sitting room. “Hello?”
“Velma? It’s Pam.”
Velma’s heart stopped. She gripped the back of the sofa. Had something happened to Brek?
“Is Brek okay?” she asked, gripping the upholstery harder.
“I was hoping you could tell me,” his mother said, exasperated. “I’ve been trying to reach him for hours. Aspen’s water broke. We’re at the hospital. They say it shouldn’t be long now, and I figured he’d want to meet his nephew.”
Velma’s breaths went shallow. Brek had said a couple of days ago it was still too early. “Is she okay? Is the baby okay?”
“Everyone’s fine. Baby’s got the all clear to come. I thought Brek was with you?”
Velma shifted her phone to the other ear. “No, he had a meeting tonight. But I’ll go find him and make sure he gets there. Are you at St. Luke’s?”
“Yes. Hang on.” Pam mumbled something in the background before returning. “Let me know when he’s on his way?”
“Of course. I’ll be in touch.” Muscles in Velma’s neck cinched tight.
“Thanks, dear.” Pam disconnected.
He’d mentioned offhand the name of the club—what was it?
Velma clicked off her phone and tried Brek. He didn’t answer. She shoved a hand through her hair as she waited for his voice mail. “Brek, it’s me. Aspen’s at St. Luke’s. Baby’s coming. I’m on my way to find you…call me.”
Velma tossed her phone in her bag and hurried back to Jase. “Aspen’s having the baby. I need to get to Brek to tell him. Can you help me find him?”
She’d already brought up the search engine on her phone to check social media for the club name.
Jase dabbed his napkin against his lips. “By all means, let’s go clubbing. Thanks for dinner, Mom. I’ve got to take my fiancée to find her boyfriend.”
“Nice to meet you. We’ll talk next week?” Anna rose and squeezed Velma in a hug. The Dvornakovs were loud, and they were huggers. Velma would have to get used to both.
“Perfect.” Velma turned to go, but Babushka waited behind her, arms wide. Velma leaned down to squeeze her.
“Grandbabies come soon, yes?” the old woman asked.
Velma glanced up to Jase and glared.
“Nah, we want to wait and get to know each other better.” Jase tugged Velma’s sleeve. “C’mon, Baby Cakes. You’re driving.”
“Because…vodka?”
“Yup,” he replied, heading toward the front door. “Whisk me away in your chariot.”
They ended up parking over four blocks away from the club. Apparently, word had spread quickly of Dimefront’s impromptu gig. Dozens of paparazzi hung out on the sidewalk in front of the expansive nightclub. The corded line to get inside wrapped all the way around the building.
People spilled into the alley and lounged on curbs while police lights flashed nearby. Velma’s stomach twisted itself into knots. How would she ever find Brek in this mess?
“Well, this is a cluster.” Jase zipped up his windbreaker jacket with The Flower Pot’s company logo across the back.
“We could try reasoning with the bouncer.” Velma nodded toward the hulky guy with the buzz cut standing guard at the entrance.
Jase squinted at the crowd that grew by the second. “Or you could flash your tits. That might work better.”
Velma’s cheeks burned. She refused to look at Jase. “This isn’t Mardi Gras.”
“Ahh…but it could be. See? I wouldn’t even peek at yours, because they belong to my buddy and that would be wrong.” He gave her a look like he was teaching a really important first-grade lesson. “The key is, you’ll start a trend. It’ll be like a wave at a stadium, but way better.”
“I can see why you and Brek are friends.” She refused to acknowledge his suggestion with anything more. Instead, she squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. “I’m going in.”
“Right behind you,” Jase said, gesturing ahead of them.
Before her nerves took over, she looked both ways and hustled across the street. She stepped onto the curb and headed straight for the door, marching right up to the muscled bouncer, chin held high.
“Sorry, miss,” the deep baritone of the huge guy’s voice washed over her. “Line’s the other way.”
“Hi.” She nodded at him. Be brave.
“Hi,” he replied, his face a stone mask.
She raised her hands in front of her. “You probably think I’m here trying to meet that band.”
“Probably.” His expression didn’t change.
Ugh. He didn’t get it.
“I’m not. I assure you that I don’t even like their music. Seriously, it’s all overly loud nonsense and cussing.”
That cracked the mask. Bouncer dude squinted toward her.
“No, I’m looking for my boyfriend,” she continued. “He manages Dimefront. Brek? You probably know him. His sister’s having a baby, and he needs to go meet his nephew. So, I’m just going to sneak in, find him, tell him, and leave.” She nodded and moved to get past, reaching for the handle of the door.
“You’re Brek’s girlfriend?” He shifted to step in front of her.
“Yes.”
He looked her over top to bottom. “Not how this works. Nice story, though.”
“Hey, bitch? Get in line like the rest of us,” a teased-up groupie shouted from behind the velvet rope.
Velma ignored her and tried once more. “Please.”
“Please?” he asked. “So polite. Hang on. Hey, Jack?”
Another even hulkier guy ducked out from a stool near the doorway. Velma moved her head up, up, and up to meet his eyes.
“Seems this lady nee
ds to find Brek because he needs to go meet his nephew. She said ‘please.’ You want to handle this for me?” Mr. Bouncer said.
Was she mistaken or did he flex his arm muscles? Whether he did or he didn’t, they rippled under his formfitting black Henley.
“His sister’s having the baby right now,” Velma added to drive her point home.
“That right?” Jack lifted his chin, his squint matching the other man’s.
Velma gripped her purse and adjusted the strap on her shoulder. “Yes.”
Thank goodness, they were finally getting somewhere. The burly dude could be reasonable. She tossed an I-told-you-so look to Jase.
“Follow me.” Jack jerked his chin toward the edge of the building.
“Thank you so much. You have no idea how important this is for him. His sister went into labor early. It was a whole thing. Everyone’s been so worried.” Velma dodged a wad of gum on the sidewalk as she scurried along after him. “Is this the way to the back entrance?”
Jack didn’t reply. They came up to a group of people and he stopped, pointing to a crack on the concrete. “Wait here.”
Gah, no.
“This is the end of the line.” Velma gestured to the group that wrapped around the building. There had to be over five hundred people standing in front of her.
“Sure your boyfriend won’t mind waiting to meet his nephew when he’s watching Dimefront play their set.” The way he said “boyfriend”…he didn’t believe her.
She deflated.
“Tell him I said congrats.” Jack moseyed back to the stool by the entrance. Velma glanced up at the never-ending mass of bodies. Her heart sank.
“Told you, you should have lifted up your shirt. If I had jugs, I’d do that all the time.” Jase stepped up beside her, his hands in his pockets. “I’d get the best parking spots, never have to wait in line…it’d be awesome.”
“Where were you?” she asked, her tone deep, her face hot.
“Right behind you.” Jase gestured to where the bouncers huddled.
“You didn’t even think to help?” She dug for her phone in the hope that Brek might have called.
Jase lifted a shoulder. “Figured you had it covered. You were on a roll. That part where you said you didn’t even like Dimefront? Epic. Everybody likes them.”
“I don’t,” she muttered. After tonight’s outing, she liked them even less.
Velma glanced through the large windows of the club, searching for Brek. She stepped out of the line and mashed her palms to the cold glass, scanning the overflowing club. “Oh my gosh. There he is.”
He leaned against the side of a table, near the back of the room. A huge smile covered his face, and he tossed his head back because something was apparently hysterical in his bubble of life. Interesting, Velma wasn’t finding much funny out there on the chilly sidewalk.
Brek gestured wide with his hands, a beer dangling between his fingers. The woman next to him in a tight skirt, displaying an abundance of cleavage, burst into laughter. She gripped his biceps with her perfect red fingernails.
She squeezed.
Brek’s bicep.
Over his ever-present T-shirt. Velma didn’t need him to take it off to know the woman had squeezed right where the dragon’s tail blended into the tribal ink.
Velma actually felt her blood get hot and her eyes go wide.
He glanced to the tight-skirt lady. She went onto her tiptoes and whispered something into his ear.
Velma’s stomach turned, and her throat got thick. It didn’t take a degree in body language to know what the woman wanted.
“That’s not good,” Jase mumbled from behind Velma. “Danger, bud. Danger.”
Brek glanced to the man next to him and nodded, disentangling the woman’s fingertips gripping his arm. He said something to her, and she pouted her ridiculously overpainted lips. Then she tucked something into his hand.
Oh heck no. The hairs on the back of Velma’s neck prickled. That woman had no business passing her phone number to Brek.
“Toss the number,” Jase said under his breath. “C’mon. You’ve got an audience.”
Velma held her breath. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He was her Brek.
“Don’t worry. You’re way prettier than she is. She’s only pretty in the obvious way.” Jase crushed her to the glass as a group pushed past them. “Shit. They need some crowd control out here.”
“The obvious way?” Her body still scrunched up against the window, her gaze focused on the slip of paper Brek held with the bottle of Coors.
Velma couldn’t pull her gaze from Brek’s fingers…the note…the bottle. Would this be her life? Always unable to get ahold of him? Even his family couldn’t reach him. And how much of a chance would she ever have with the band groupies surrounding him all the time?
“You know it doesn’t mean anything if he keeps the number. Nothing. Means nothing,” Jase said with absolutely no conviction.
Brek laughed again and dropped both the bottle and the note on a random table as he followed the guy, skirting behind the back of a booth.
Jase fist-pumped and moved backward as the crowd shifted. “Told you. Never doubted him.”
Velma turned, poking Jase in the chest. “What do you mean? The obvious way?”
“You know, like…she’s got all the fake…you know, I think I’m going to shut up now.” Jase raised his hands in surrender.
Velma shuffled toward the end of the line and slouched against the big blue mailbox. They had already lost their place, and the line had grown another twenty people deep. “There’s no way we’re going to get to him.”
“C’mon, think positive. We could always climb on the roof and break into the club.” Jase stared at the top of the building. “I could hop on that Dumpster, climb up and grab the edge of the window, slide to the side and see if any of them are open. It’ll work.”
“And you could break your neck in the process, which means Brek will lose his best friend and Babushka will hate me. Do you have any money?” She reached for her wallet. She only had a twenty. Darn.
He raised his eyebrows at her. “Uh…yeah. Why?”
“Like, cash? We could slip a hundred dollars to the bouncer and see if that helps our case.” She pulled a handful of change from the depths of her bag. No dollars. Crud.
He shook his head. “Already tried that.”
“When?”
“About the time you were going off on how much you dislike the band. Didn’t work. Do you always carry that many pennies with you?”
“No.” Velma dropped the money back into her purse as a charge went through the air. She glanced back to the windows. The guys from Dimefront took the stage and the crowd outside screamed in response. Velma craned her neck but couldn’t see Brek anymore.
Muscles in her chest tightened. The throng surrounding them shoved each other to get a better view of the band. People pushed all around them…well, her… Where the heck had Jase gone? She glanced back and forth, searching for him.
More bodies pressed her farther from the building, toward the street. She waved her hands over her head and shouted, “Jase?”
She needed to get out of here. The vibe had gone from annoyed-but-waiting to get-the-heck-out-of-my-way dangerous. Holding her purse tight to her side, she headed to cross the street just as a police cruiser bleated a siren. She’d made it to the curb when a rowdy group heaved by her.
Tottering on her heels, she fell hard against one of the cars parked along the street. Crud. That hurt. She rubbed at her hip.
“Velvet?”
Thank goodness.
She closed her eyes, squashed away the sour ache in her chest, and glanced up to Wayne. She flashed back to when they were seven, and she had biffed it on her bike. He’d come to her rescue then, as well.
His arm holding her waist, he helped her across the street to a concrete flower planter in front of an all-night convenience store.
“You okay?” He dusted some nonexistent dirt fro
m her shoulders, holding her a little too close and lingering a teensy bit too long.
She slumped to the edge of the planter, taking care not to crush the azaleas. “I’m fine. I’m just…I’m trying to get to my boyfriend to get him a message.”
“Ah.” He frowned, stepping in front of her. Wayne was generally soft spoken, but he had to raise his voice to be heard over the crowd. His radio crackled on his shoulder. He said something in return.
“You should probably get back to work.” She nodded to another group of people headed up the sidewalk toward the club.
“Backup just got here. I’ll see you to your car first.” He held his palm out to her.
She shook her head and waved at the building. “I have to get in there. Brek’s sister…she’s having her baby and he’s going to be an uncle and he’s not answering his phone.”
“Velma.” Jase jogged to her, out of breath. “Holy shit, it’s a mosh pit.”
“She fell,” Wayne said, rubbing her shoulder.
Fine, so she had taken a small tumble. It hardly counted.
“I saw. That car totally came out of nowhere. Way to nail the landing, though.” Jase raised his eyebrows at Wayne’s hand resting on her shoulder. “Who are you?”
“Wayne. Friend of Velvet’s,” he replied. Velma absolutely noticed that he didn’t offer his hand to Jase. Nope. It stayed right on her shoulder. She subtly shifted to try to knock it free.
Didn’t work.
“We grew up together.” Velma checked her phone. Still nothing.
She shook off Wayne’s hand, still on her shoulder. This time he let it fall.
The radio on Wayne’s shoulder crackled to life.
Velma couldn’t make out what they said on the other end. “What’s happening?”
“Crowd’s too big. Fire marshal’s clearing the sidewalk.” Gosh, why did Wayne’s eyes always have to be so freaking kind?
“There’s no way in, Jase. How are we going to get in ther—”
Jase put a finger up to her lips. “No more blah-blah. Go home and put some ice on your ass. Let me do this my way.”
Gah. His way involved climbing on a Dumpster. With a side of breaking and entering.
She batted his fingertip away. Enough already with all the craziness of this night.
Going Down On One Knee (A Mile High Matched Novel Book 1) Page 21
