Tunes

by KC Enders

  That last show was different than the rest of the tour. It was cleaner, more visceral. It was the best possible end to a shitshow of a tour. And the closing song … Lord, I don’t know how they did it, but Kane, Ian, and Nate convinced me to play “One” as the final song of the final show in the final city of the tour. And, yeah, something about it felt very final. But it felt completely right.

  Since then, I spent a couple of weeks off in the world. Getting lost as much as I could—Iceland, Norway, anywhere cold and dark and remote. I needed time to think about everything. About Gracyn and the way things had started and twisted and shifted and ultimately imploded, going tits up.

  While I sit at the bar of Sasha’s restaurant, that blinking light is an ominous presence. It takes up more space than it has any right to.

  “Can I have another whiskey? Neat, please,” I ask the bartender as she walks by.

  It’s not the same chick from the night I found Gracyn again. I probably shouldn’t even be here out of all the bars in New York City, though Sasha assured me that Brooks had been on the blacklist since Kane and I ran into him here. But still …

  I drink my whiskey, look around the cramped dining room, and check my phone again. That bastard of a light is still blinking, mocking me. I sip at my drink and order some food, hoping the light goes away.

  When the bartender delivers my food, she automatically refreshes my drink. “Sasha said to fill you up.”

  “Thanks. She busy back there?” I wanted to be close to family. I probably should have gone home to Virginia to see my parents, but I’m here instead. Maybe Virginia was too far from where I really wanted to be.

  “Slammed. You need something else?” the bartender asks, running her fingers through the short black hair framing high cheekbones and dark, almost black eyes. She’s pretty but not my thing.

  I glance down, and the light is still blinking happily away, reminding me of who is my thing.

  “Nah, I’m good. Actually, can I get this to go?” I pull my wallet out and peel off some bills. Finishing my whiskey in one swallow, I tuck the cash under my empty glass and nod a thank-you as I grab my boxed food and head out into the night.

  My mind is made up. That blinking light is going to have to get bent. But there’s really only one place I can go to listen to her message.

  The cab ride up there is short enough to almost make it silly, but snow is falling steadily, and as it is, I’m well aware that I’m risking freezing my balls off to do this.

  “Thanks, man. You have a good night.”

  Snow blankets the entrance to Central Park, muffling the sound of my footfalls. The weather doesn’t make a shit of difference in the city that never sleeps. The bustle of the city barely dims until I’m in the park, heading straight toward my bench near Strawberry Fields. It’s been months since I was here, almost a lifetime ago.

  As I weave my way back to the quiet spot where I wrote “One,” unknowingly singing it to Gracyn as we sat back-to-back, I see a man wrapped in what amounts to little more than rags, shuffling his way out of the park.

  “Here you go. Dinner’s on me.” I hand him the boxed-up bar food, wishing I had ordered something heartier, more substantial to offer.

  He meets my eye and hits me with a, “Thank you,” before moving on.

  “Hey,” I call out, stopping him. “Take this, too. I don’t need it.” I hand him my MetroCard and turn back, walking deeper into the park.

  Using my boot, I brush the snow from the worn wood of the bench seat and park my ass. My hands are toasty warm in the pockets of my coat, the right one gripping tightly to the phone case. The purple-and-black tiger-striped phone case that I couldn’t seem to resist when I got back stateside and upgraded my phone. The cracked screen is gone, replaced with a brand-new model—and a light that I can practically feel blinking at me.

  What the hell am I doing here? In New York, in this park, on this bench. The answer is in the blink. In the insistent red light that, for a change, I can’t find my way to ignore. My hands chill almost instantly as I pull them from my pockets and swipe the screen, finding the voice mail app right there, ready to get this done. I tap at the screen and take a deep breath as Gracyn’s voice floats through the speaker and directly to my heart.

  “Hi. Hey, it’s me. I, um … I wanted to call and tell you that I’m sorry … for everything. Just everything. Um, and I know I was kind of relentless, maybe even a pain in the ass while you were on tour, but … okay, yeah, I was totally a pain in the ass, but I just wanted to talk to you, wanted to make you understand.

  “I hope that, someday, you can find it in your heart to talk to me again. I love you, Gavin. I don’t know how or when it happened, but I do. I didn’t think I was truly capable, and it’s crazy when I think about the amount of time we’ve spent with each other. Like actually in each other’s presence. It’s pitifully less than a month.

  “But, dear God, the discussions we had on the beach, the way you challenged me to reach deep within myself and search for answers to things that really scared me. And all the encouragement you offered. That stuff just came so naturally for you. Jesus, I’ve … I’ve never gotten that.

  “Outwardly, my family looks cohesive and supportive, but that’s just an illusion. Something to show the world, and you know—you know—it’s all fake. God, I envy Bryan and his disappearing act. I felt like I had to make up for what my dad thought of as Bry’s deficiency. And, Lord, my mother. Maybe, someday, she’ll find it in her to just tell my dad to fuck right off because he has not slowed down in the least.

  “Gavin, I wish I could talk to you. I miss you. I miss the way you look at situations like this, the way you can delve into it and pick it apart. Lining up the possibilities for inspection, dissection, and then ultimately make sense of the muddled mess.

  “Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I gave you the impression that I only wanted to have fun. That I wasn’t committed. That I was anything less than you deserved. I’m sorry that, for as strong and badass as I like to think I am, I totally missed the way Brooks had manipulated things with us. The way my dad had engineered shit with Brooks and me. And I know—God, I know—no matter how many times I apologize, no matter how many ways I say it, I can never … never, ever apologize enough for that fight, the charges, the way my dad had you thrown into jail. Shit, did you know he’s best friends with the magistrate of Beekman Hills? That it was my dad who kept you from going up for your preliminary hearing. Gavin, I … I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.

  “Shit, I didn’t mean to ramble away like this. I meant to just … just let you know how bad I feel. How I can never make it up to you. And …”

  She sighs, obviously considering the rest of what she’s going to say.

  “And that you’re my one, too. That’s the song, right? The one from Central Park? That feels like a million years ago and a thousand miles away. I wish I could go back, Gavin. Just go back to the beach … to that bench … and do things so differently. I love you.”

  With the final words ricocheting around in my brain, I tilt my head back, staring up at the sky. The falling snow tickles, caressing my nose and cheeks and lips, like her voice reaching deep and invading my heart.

  Chapter 42

  Gracyn

  I check the clock above the back of the bar as I replace the shiny bottle of Redbreast Irish Whiskey and move on to the Powers and Jameson, polishing each bottle of uisce beatha—or water of life. The glass shelves sparkle for the first time ever. Francie has always demanded that his pub be clean, but the guys have different standards, and since the bar is dead and I still have a while until I’m out of here, I clean until there is nothing left to clean.

  The glasses are washed, the fridges are stocked, and the couple sitting at the corner table has full drinks, not needing a thing from me.

  With nothing left to do but wait for the hand of the clock to tick over to ten, I pour myself a whiskey, settle on to a barstool, and pull out my t
ablet to read. Finn is back in the office, doing paperwork or napping, maybe talking with Addie. Who knows? But Francie insisted that I not close the pub by myself, even on a cold, snowy night like this. He’s still looking out for all of us, even as it becomes more and more evident that something’s going on with him. Something he’s not telling us about.

  A gust of frigid air blows snow in the door as a tall dude bundled up and hunched in on himself against the weather stomps the snow off his boots.

  Shivering a little, I stand just barely glancing at him and take my place behind the bar, asking, “What can I get you?” With my arms crossed, I try to rub some warmth back into me.

  “Hey.”

  I snap my head up at that gravelly voice, that one word. Gavin walks up to the bar, beanie pulled low, hands shoved deep in his pockets. His whiskey eyes swirling with some kind of emotion. And my heart stutters and skips in my chest.

  “Hi. You’re here.” My observational skills are astounding.

  He pulls his hand out of his pocket and rubs it down his jaw, the scruff rasping against his palm. “Is that okay?”

  It’s been far too long since I’ve seen him in person.

  “I’m just surprised.” I pick up my whiskey and take a good swallow, finishing off what was in there. I reach behind me for the Redbreast, refill my glass, and pour one for him as well.

  “Thanks. I, uh … thanks.” He raises the glass to his lips and lowers it again before even taking a sip. “I got your message.”

  “Yeah? I just left that a couple of hours ago. Were you here? In town?”

  Gavin pulls off his beanie and shoves it in his jacket pocket. “Can I sit?” he asks, his hand gripping the top of the barstool in the middle of the bar, right in front of the taps.

  I wave him over to where I was sitting when he came in. As far from the one occupied table as we can get.

  “Thanks,” he says, settling on to the barstool. “Yeah, I was in the city, having dinner at my sister’s restaurant—the one where we ran into each other.”

  He shrugs out of his jacket and lays it across the seat next to him. Pushing his sleeves up, Gavin leans forward, resting his arms on the bar top. He rolls his glass between his palms. “I didn’t want to listen to it. Wasn’t ready to deal.”

  I have no right to even hope for anything good to come from this. I know it’s not entirely my fault, but I have managed to make a mess of this thing between us the whole way through.

  “So, I left. Went to Central Park and sat my ass on my bench. When I couldn’t make myself ignore it anymore, I listened to your message.” He tilts his head ever so slightly, just enough to look at me with a side-eye. “That song—the one we finally played in Dublin—you heard it?”

  “Yeah. Lis and Aidan were there. She might have sent me a video. Um, we would talk in the mornings, Lis and me, back in New York in the park, so she recognized it. And, when I heard the words”—I shrug my shoulders up and keep them there, the tension coursing through my body—“I thought … I hoped that you were reaching out to me. I don’t know. That’s probably stupid … totally conceited of me.”

  The couple in the corner stands and puts their coats on. The guy approaches the bar to take care of their tab. I slip out of my seat and run his card, handing over the receipts and a pen. The chick with this guy can’t seem to take her eyes off of Gavin. She practically trips over her own feet; she’s so focused on him, barely holding herself back.

  “Are you Gavin Keller?” she asks when she just can’t stand it anymore.

  “Nah.” Gavin laughs, pushing his hand through his hair. “I get that a lot though. Poor bastard must look a lot like me. Y’all have a good night. Drive safe.”

  The door shuts behind them, and the pub is empty. Just the two of us.

  Gavin swirls his whiskey back and forth, rolling it, watching the amber fluid undulate across the glass. “It’s not … conceited or stupid. I think, in a way, I was but maybe not consciously yet.” He stares at his drink, at the bar, anywhere so that he doesn’t look at me. “I, uh … I couldn’t open myself up to that again. Couldn’t be vulnerable like that. Couldn’t risk my heart again.”

  Arms wrapped around my chest, shielding me from I don’t even know what, I suck in as much air as I can. I brace myself for what I’m sure is going to take a lifetime to heal, though the scars will undoubtedly mar my heart forever.

  Staring through the top of the bar, I ask, “Why are you here, Gavin? I’ve done nothing but fuck this up, so why come all this way to Beekman Hills?” Not really certain that I’m prepared for the answers, I push the words out on a whisper.

  And the silence only grows heavier between us. Time seems to stop, and when the weight of it becomes too much, I lift my head, finally looking at him, searching his face for some sign of what he’s going to say.

  “Fuck’s sake, did that couple finally leave? ’Bout bloody time. I thought they were goin’ to stay for last call.” Finn barrels out of the office, talking a mile a minute, until he stops dead in his tracks. Speechless for the first time that I have ever witnessed.

  “You’re … it’s … erm …” As his cheeks flame red, he rests his shaking hands on his hips. He clamps his lips together, even as his eyes pop open wide. Of course, he would pick the very best moment to bust into the room, as only Finn can. Blowing out a cleansing breath, he tries again. “You’re Gavin Keller, yeah? I was there, you know. Saw the fight at Gracyn’s da’s office. I went to the police station, told them what I saw, that … that the bloody prat started things. And, Christ, man, you never should have been arrested. That was absolute shite. And you missed your fuckin’ flight and the first show? Jaysus, how much trouble were you in? The band seemed tense through the whole tour, like somethin’ was up, yeah? I wanted to … hoped that I could make it to your last show and all—I’m from Dublin, right—but Aidan decided he was goin’, so I got stuck here …” And on and on and on. He’s in full fanboy mode, and he prattles on until the need for air pauses his stream of consciousness.

  “So, you’re a fan?” Gavin chuckles, standing to shake hands. “Good to meet you … Finn, right? Gracyn’s told me all about you.”

  Finn all but faints dead away on the spot. Not only is the guitarist of his favorite band here, in the pub, but he’s also touching him. Yeah, he totally busted in on a heavy moment, and I might just be dying in the wake of unanswered questions, but watching the king of suave turn into a babbling pile of mush is priceless.

  “She has? Yeah? Wow, I … wow. Erm, can I have your autograph? I, erm …” Finn searches the bar, and without letting go of Gavin’s hand, he lunges for a cocktail napkin. “Will you sign this?”

  “Absolutely.” Gavin extricates his hand from Finn’s and leans over, grabbing a pen from near the taps. He signs with a flourish and digs deep into his pocket, pulling out a guitar pick. “It’s not much. I don’t have anything with me really, but I seem to have these things on me regardless. I’ll bring you more swag next time I’m up this way, a’right?”

  “Yeah, that’d be fuckin’ grand.” Finn stares at the napkin for a moment before looking from Gavin to me and back again. “Does that mean you’ll be up here regular-like?”

  “That depends”—Gavin shrugs—“but I really hope so.”

  Chapter 43

  Gavin

  “So, I’m feeling like Finn and I are best friends now,” I say, smirking at Gracyn as she locks the door of McBride’s behind us.

  It took a bit, but Finn finally caught on that we had maybe been in the middle of something when he went all crazypants over me being in his bar … pub. He corrected me on the distinction. The establishment is a pub; drinks are served on the bar.

  “Pretty sure he’ll tell everyone that you are. Sorry about that. He’s a little—”

  “He’s great. No worries.” I follow her to her car, not quite done. I have so much more I need to say to Gracyn.

  She looks around the lot, empty other than her car and I assume Finn’s. “You
didn’t take a cab all the way up here, did you?” She ducks into the back seat and pulls out a snow brush.

  “No.” I laugh, shifting from one foot to the other, trying to keep my balls from freezing off. “The train and then a cab … Uber, whatever. Here, let me. You get in and warm it up.”

  I take the brush from her and clear the snow from the car. She reaches in and starts the engine but shoves her hands in her pockets and watches me.

  “What’s the plan then?” She looks adorable in her puffy black coat, a deep purple slouchie covering her blonde waves.

  In the light of the streetlamp, her cheeks are all rosy and pink, probably from the cold, but goddamn, I’m not done here.

  “I don’t know. I want to finish what we started before Finn busted up the party, but we can … I’ll grab a room and maybe we can have coffee tomorrow?” Lord help me, I don’t want to wait. I say a silent prayer that she—

  “Just get in. Kate’s gone home for a couple of days, so …” She leaves a suggestion hanging between us.

  I don’t know if it’s an invite to just finish the convo or for a night on the couch, but I’m wishing and willing to explore my options.

  After my fit over the idea of Brooks being in her apartment and then the satisfaction of finding out that I was wrong, I take in every detail of the place. There are such distinct differences in style; I wonder how she and Kate manage to occupy the same space.

  “Can I get you anything? A drink, something to eat?” she offers, dropping her boots by the door and chucking her jacket on a small bench.

  “Nah, I’m good,” I say, though handing off my dinner catches up with me, and my stomach rumbles. “Or something light would be great. Sorry.”

  Smiling, Gracyn opens the fridge and pulls out a couple of chunks of cheese, some prosciutto, and sausage, arranging everything on a cutting board. She adds some crusty bread and some grapes before grabbing a bottle of wine and some glasses. “You want to get the board? Napkins are in the last drawer on the left.” She points across the small kitchen before heading into the next room.