Last Good Man: A Crown Creek Novel

by Theresa Leigh

  I looked over at the small, rickety stage. "You mean, here?"

  "No, Madison Square Garden," he deadpanned. "Of course here."

  I grinned. "You want to put me on as opener or closer for the small town dreamers?"

  "What, we're not good enough for you?" He was smiling, joking, but there was a hard glint in his eyes.

  I laughed. "Sure man. I've been dying to play a half-empty bar. Just to switch it up, you know? I was getting tired of huge crowds of people screaming my name. It'd be nice to go back to being ignored in the corner of a bar."

  A shadow passed across Taylor's face. I looked at him, and then Jack who was studiously looking away, draining his beer at a rapid clip. I swallowed and lowered my voice like I was letting them both in on a secret. "It's just... not many people know I'm in town, and we're kind of trying to keep things private, be there for my family."

  "Nah sure, sure, I get it. Bad timing." He whistled between his teeth as he swiped the bar with his rag, but the friendliness had dissolved from his demeanor. "What can I get you?"

  "Another one?"

  "That's five dollars."

  "Guess your drinks aren't on the house any more," Jack chuckled, having watched this whole exchange.

  "He can afford it," Taylor said, smiling through a snarl.

  I had fucked something up and I didn't know what it was. That was the fucking problem with coming home. These people all thought they knew me, but they had no idea.

  I slapped down a twenty and stood up. "Keep the change."

  Chapter Two

  Ruby

  It was the last bag of kitten food on the shelf and it was marked reserved. "Looks like it's got your name on it!" Randi cackled. "Literally!"

  I grinned at her pun. The bag did indeed have my name on it. Or rather, the name of my nine week old kitten. 'Reserved for Ginger Riley,' was written across the front in black Sharpie. "Thanks, Randi," I said. "You're a life saver."

  "She's eating well?" The owner of Fur Real Pet Store was covered in cat hair the way any good pet lover should be, and she was very interested in Ginger's appetite. "My last litter of fosters took a while to get used to dry food."

  "No she never stops eating," I sighed. "It helps fuel her mayhem."

  "That's why we love them," Randi said, handing me my card back. "They help make life interesting."

  "That's for sure," I agreed, hefting the bag off the counter. "Take care now. I'll probably be seeing you really soon!"

  "Stay warm!" she called. "And make sure you shut the door all the way? Wind gets it and it goes flying open."

  I nodded and braced myself before heading back out to my car. The damp threat of snow was hanging heavy in the air. Winter was coming on fast. Luckily there was a bag of yarn in my car, just waiting to be turned into a warm, cozy hat.

  I was headed to my monthly knitting club, a ritual I held as sacred as a church service. The fact that I had to get cat food meant I was running late now, and that wouldn't do at all.

  I threw the door open, and then caught it before the wind sent it slamming into the building. I lifted my knitted scarf up around my mouth and hurried, head down, to where I'd parked my car on the street a few doors down. I was rushing right past the Crown Tavern when the door of the bar swung open.

  "Ruby?"

  The wind was still whipping around me but I suddenly felt very warm for some reason. "Jonah," I said. "I thought you'd be gone by now."

  It was a pretty bitchy thing to say, I'll be the first to admit. But it was the truth. Claire had told me he was leaving right after the funeral and here it was days later.

  He walked towards me, a little stiff legged. Something about the glaze of his eyes and the set of his mouth made me wonder if he was drunk. At one-thirty in the afternoon. "Did you want me gone?" he asked, somehow managing to sound both arrogant and wounded at the same time.

  I shrugged like it made no difference to me, but inside I was burning up with curiosity. Why was he staying? How long was he staying? And what happened? I couldn't imagine it was out of missing his family. He and his brothers had been fighting for years.

  Jonah wrinkled his nose like he could read my thoughts. "Well I hate to disappoint you, but I'm not."

  "Why not?" I blurted.

  For a second a keen pleasure burned in his eyes. Like he was happy to have my attention. Claire always said he was a spotlight hog growing up and his behavior after the breakup of the King Brothers only proved it further.

  But then his eyes dulled and his mouth turned down. He spoke like the words got stuck in his throat. "Change in management."

  "Yeah?" That was interesting. The reason Gabe hated Jonah so much had something to do with management.

  He nodded, looking me right in the eye. "He fired me."

  I hoped like hell he couldn't see how funny that was to me. "Really? He fired you? He can do that?"

  The corner of his mouth tugged up. "Apparently? I didn't know either."

  "Why?"

  He shrugged. "Still trying to figure that out."

  I looked at him again. Whether it was his connection to Gideon, or something wholly his own, I couldn't deny that there was some kind of connection with him. I felt like I could read hi, see past all the shiny rock and roll bullshit to the real guy lurking underneath. There was a story here and I was dying to hear it.

  And he was dying to tell it too. I could tell by the keen gleam that shone in his eyes again. It was the same kind of gleam my kindergartners got when you got down to their level and listened to the story they were bursting to tell. I shifted the bag of cat litter in my arms. I was going to be terribly late for my knitting club meeting. "No, really, why'd he do it?"

  He blinked. He wasn't expecting me to pry and that pleased me for some reason. "What?"

  I lifted my chin. "I can see it all over your face. You're dying to bitch about what happened, so go ahead. But can I set this down in my car, first?"

  Chapter Three

  Jonah

  Stung, I followed her to her car, and as I did, I took another look at her. I thought I liked long hair in girls, but there was something about the way her thick, dark hair framed her face. She looked like some kind of portrait, especially with the way the wind pinkened her cheeks. The short hair added to her instead of taking something away.

  I remembered how she used to look, that long thick hair tumbling around her face like a curtain. It was too much, I realized. Like gilding a lily or something.

  She opened the back door of her bright green car and plopped the bag into it. Then she emerged with a woolen cap that she immediately plopped on her head. Once she pulled on matching mittens, she looked at me and folded her arms. "There," she said. "I'm ready now. Let's hear the story."

  I was still stuck on what she had said a few minutes ago. "Dying to bitch about it?" I repeated.

  She paused, hesitated.

  "Is it that obvious?"

  Her smile broke wide and spontaneous, like it caught her by surprise and she clapped her mittened hand over her mouth to catch her laughter before it took over. Then she eyed me warily. "You gonna get all pissy?"

  "Do I usually?"

  "Pretty much."

  "What makes you say that?" I genuinely wanted to know. "You barely know me."

  She took a breath and let it out. "I know everything I need to know."

  "What, what my sister says?" I asked, incredulous. "What Gabe says?"

  Her face hardened a little. "I know you haven't been home in two years."

  I was starting to get angry and the beer in my bloodstream wasn't helping matters. "Kind of hard when I'm always on a fucking plane, don't you think?" I snarled, more sarcastic than I wanted to be.

  Her lip curled a little and I could tell she wanted to argue with me but didn't know enough about my life to protest. "So why did you manager fire you?" she pressed.

  I looked down at her fierce little face. "Boy you like to twist that knife, don't you? You're supposed to be a kindergarten te
acher?"

  She ignored me. "Let me guess," she mused. "He wasn't up to your standards?"

  It felt like she was deliberately poking at a sore spot. I laughed, a short, mirthless sound. "He fired me, remember?"

  "Fine." She crossed her arms. "Okay, here's another idea. He wanted to do something different. Maybe go home for the holidays once in a while."

  "He let me go because I had a shitty show!" I suddenly exploded. All the anger I'd been holding back - promising myself that I'd have my revenge by being an even bigger success now - burst out of me in a flood. Like she'd cracked a hole in a dam I'd only just erected. "One fucking shitty show out of like a million. One tiny slip up and that's all it takes." I looked down. "And it wasn't even my fault," I finished, aware that I sounded sulky and not caring for once.

  I thought Ruby might throw me a bone now. Give me some sympathy, maybe pull me down into one of her nice hugs. I was having that feeling again. This moment wasn't dipped in several coats of memory. This was new. Brand new, and I wanted to keep feeling this way.

  But she just kept looking at me with that disbelieving smirk on her face. "Not your fault? Whose fault was it then?"

  "It was a storm!" I cried. "Blew up outta nowhere."

  "So an Act of God got you fired by your manager," she said, sounding completely skeptical. "Really?"

  "Listen, you can scoff all you want." I was freezing, but under my jacket collar I was burning up. This chick had some kind of nerve. "You stand here and pretend like you already know what I'm going to say because what? You hung out in my house when you were a kid? You read an article about me in the tabloids? You saw something on the internet that made you hate me?" I rolled my eyes. "Oh, I know. Maybe some asshole blogger made you believe I kick puppies for a living, right?" My shoulders sagged. "Or maybe you listened to Claire one too many times."

  Ruby pressed her lips together. When she spoke again, the skepticism had drained out of her voice, which I was grateful for, but it had been replaced by resigned disappointment, which only made me more mad. "She wanted to be part of it, you know. Claire did." She shook her head. "You guys never gave her a chance."

  I felt my mouth fall open and closed it with a pop. "You think I didn't fight for that?" I demanded. I was shouting on a street corner like a lunatic. And here I'd been so fucking worried about some errant Twitter user being inside the bar. I was putting on quite a show for any local who wanted a lot of retweets.

  Deliberately I lowered my voice. "Listen. Claire's the best singer out of all of us. I know this, but they wanted the King Brothers. We were more marketable to little teeny-boppers that way."

  She blinked. "Say that again."

  "What? Teeny-boppers?"

  "No. That Claire is the best singer out of all of you."

  I swallowed. "Well she is."

  "You ever tell her that?"

  "Plenty of times."

  She leaned in closer, just a little bit, but enough for me to inhale the sweet smell of her. She smelled like sugar. "I think she could stand to hear it again," Ruby said. "I think you should tell her."

  "What's the point of it now, though?" I wondered. "She's not trying to break into the business any more. Hell, I'll be honest with you. I'm not even sure I'm going to be for very much longer. It feels like I'm getting blacklisted and I don't even understand why."

  It was the first time I'd said those words aloud. First time I'd even allowed myself to think them. It felt like I was making some kind of priestly confession on a windswept sweet corner to this dark-eyed girl. I looked down at her, feeling like I'd given her some kind of weapon to use against me. I looked down at her, fully expecting her to use it.

  A flicker danced across her face, tiny expressions I could barely catch before they were gone and replaced with another one. She seemed to be having some kind of internal debate with herself. Silence stretched out between us for one breath, then two, while I waited for her to stab me with the knife I'd handed her.

  But she was still silent.

  Unable to stand it any longer I shifted back from her and looked away. I rolled my eyes. "Well whatever. You asked and I answered. I didn't leave and I'm going to be around a while until I find another manager."

  The play of expressions on her face slowed and then settled. The debate was over and she'd made a decision. It was written so clearly across her face I felt like I should be able to read her mind and know what she had decided.

  "What are you going to do with yourself?" she suddenly asked, all of the hostility gone from her voice.

  "No fucking clue." I glanced at her again. "What do you think I should do? Since you know everything about what I am doing with my life?"

  "I'm not in charge of you."

  "Well I need a manager," I reminded her. It felt imperative that I be able to joke about this. "What do you do with your time? Teach night classes?"

  She blinked at me, amused. "I have a life outside of my job, you know."

  There was that brand-new feeling again. Suddenly I was burning up to know all about that life. "Yeah? What do you do?"

  Was that a blush? She tossed her head, and I got the feeling she was still getting used to the short haircut and how it didn't fall over her shoulders any more. "Very important things," she deadpanned.

  I could feel a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. "Oh, I don't doubt it."

  "Important things that I'm actually very late getting to."

  "Oh no, I do apologize," I said, bowing a little. I was starting to enjoy this. "Please enlighten me as to the important activities I have so callously kept you from."

  She nodded, looking impressed. "Nice vocabulary!"

  "I read a lot on the road. But seriously, where are you headed?"

  She licked her lips. "My Stitch and Bitch."

  I blinked. "Your what now?

  "That's my important activity," she declared loftily. "I knit."

  I couldn't hide my laugh. "Knitting? What are you, an old lady?"

  She lifted her chin again. "It's something I like and I don't need judgment from a man who actually sang the words 'Party crazy don't be lazy."

  This time it was my turn to blush. "Fine," I said. And made a decision of my own. "Then I'll come with you."

  She blinked. "What?"

  I didn't want this to end. I didn't want to go home. I didn't want to watch her drive away and take all this brand-newness with her. "I need a manager," I said. "You seem to think you know everything about what I have done and what I should be doing, right" I teased, liking the way she ducked her head away from me. I nodded. "So I'll come with you and you tell me what to do, sound good?"

  Chapter Four

  Jonah

  The Stitch and Bitch, as she called it, was held in a coffee shop that I vaguely remembered as being a bank back when I was a kid. Ruby went to the door and then paused and looked at me with her mittened hand on the handle.

  "What?" I asked.

  She gave me a half-smile, like she wasn't fully able to commit to a whole one. "You're really coming in? To a knitting circle?"

  I shrugged. "Appears that way."

  Her voice had this soft quality when she asked, "Why are you doing this again?"

  I looked down at her. That feeling was still hovering in the air, an intangible excitement. Ruby was the only thing that had made me feel that way in months. Ruby with her heart shaped face and big dark eyes. Ruby with lips so red they made her name a cliche. She was a hardass but being with her felt like discovering a new country.

  "Not sure," I finally said, realizing I was taking way too long to reply to her question. "Maybe I need a new hobby."

  Her lopsided, reluctant smile twitched a little. Something passed over her face, making me wonder if I had said the wrong thing. Maybe I should have mentioned how pretty she looked in that bright red hat of hers. "Did you knit that?" I asked, gesturing to the beret on her head.

  She nodded.

  I leaned in for a closer look. I didn't know shit about knitt
ing, but I could see the care that went into it. It was the same idea as writing a song. No one knows the amount of work that goes in to three minutes of music. "Did it take a long time?"

  "About a week."

  I pressed my lips together. She was wearing some kind of light scent, maybe her shampoo. It was oddly springlike in this frigid weather. "That's a long time."

  "Not really. It's just something to keep my hands busy. When I'm knitting, my mind is a million miles away."

  "What do you think about?"

  That guarded look returned to her face. "Mostly about how nice it is to be left alone."

  I stepped back and grinned. "Point taken."

  "Jonah?"

  "Yeah Ruby?"

  "I'm fucking freezing."

  I hadn't noticed. For some reason I was really warm.

  I walked into the coffee shop and instinctually started looking for the knitting circle. It was ingrained in me to interact with my fans, and some level of instinct put me on the lookout for the gray and white heads and arthritic hands. The amount of fan mail the King Brothers got from nursing homes was always surprising, and also slightly disturbing. But I was certain that even if Ruby didn't like me, these grandmas sure would.

  I was looking for the grandmas. And looking. And looking. Until Ruby tugged on my coat sleeve. "Are you coming? Did you change your mind or something?"

  I looked around, feeling strangely frustrated. "Where are they?"

  She gestured to a clump of girls in the far left corner, gathered around a clump of shoved together tables.

  Did I say girls? Excuse me. They weren't girls, they were women.

  Young women. Hot women.

  I looked at Ruby wide-eyed. She was giving me a look that told me everything I needed to know about what an idiot she thought I was. She let her eyes roll slightly before gesturing for me to go ahead. "Sit down. I'll introduce you."