by Rhys Ford
He chased the memory before it slipped away, turning nebulous when he concentrated harder. They’d teased one another, each claiming the other would move into their space instead of living in the place they’d bought. Miki longed for a studio, someplace he could wander into and throw out small pieces of brilliance while Damien fought to find the chords to match his best friend’s words.
“We were going to build a walkway between the two roofs. I was going to turn most of the bottom floor of mine into a garage for the cars I was going to buy—” Damien trawled through his memories as he slogged over the rough ground. Too caught up in his thoughts, he didn’t see the headlights coming over the rise.
Or the old Chevy truck that appeared around the bend and slammed into him.
Chapter 1
Standing in a river of stones
Drowning in sorrow
Water knee deep but cold
Even though my mouth is clear
I just can’t breathe anymore
—River of Stones
“HEY, boss, your cowboy’s back.”
Sionn refused to poke his head up from under the bar to look, but he didn’t need to. He knew who his manager, Leigh, was talking about. The rest of the staff at Finnegan’s Pub were too scared of him to tease, but the pub’s blue-haired, nose-ringed cliché of a bartender had no such qualms. Having worked for his gran first, then stayed on when he’d taken over, Leigh was as much of a legacy at Finnegan’s as the four-foot wooden leprechaun someone gave his gran at the pub’s grand opening. Both were impossible to ignore, mostly annoying and in the way, but without them, Finnegan’s would be missing some of its color.
Of course, Sionn thought when Leigh pinched his ass as he changed the keg out from behind the bar, the pub could sometimes do with a lot less color.
When his gran had been alive, she had a special hatred for street entertainers, tourists, and the English. She loathed them all with equal fervor, although if Sionn had to lay money down, he’d have said her dislike for Londoners outweighed them all. Tourists she had to tolerate. They paid the bills at Finnegan’s, coming in to spend their money to eat pub food right on the pier and watching the bay traffic float by the wide picture windows she’d reluctantly agreed to. San Francisco’s street entertainers were vermin too big for her to sic a ferret on, and if Sionn stood up, he knew he’d have a clear view of the very pretty guitarist Leigh liked to call his cowboy. She hated the windows most of all.
“No proper pub has windows, ye fecking git,” she’d muttered at his back, loud enough for him—and everyone else in the place—to hear. Maggie Finnegan was never one to let her opinion get in the way of good business, but she was going to make damned certain her grandson heard about it for as long as she had breath in her tiny Irish body.
The place lost most of its color when Gran passed, but Sionn could still hear her complaining about the light coming in off the bay and how it diluted the proper dark atmosphere a serious drinking man needed in his pub. Whitewashed walls and diffused sconces brightened the place up too much for her liking, but she soldiered on, willing to bow to change if it meant an extra dollar in the till.
She definitely had no complaints about the money that came in once tourists discovered Finnegan’s, and they’d certainly come. Jugglers had their place, as did the man who scared the crap out of people by hiding behind a bush, then screaming at them when they passed him.
Musicians, however, were a different story. Unlike the tourists and a brighter pub, she’d take great delight in running them off from in front of the pub, sometimes a bit too enthusiastically, hurrying them along with a swat of a broom or a bucket of ice water. Musicians, in her mind, were as much of a nuisance as pigeons. Except you can’t put them into a pie, the damned bastards, she’d grumble to Sionn during one of his after-school shifts.
Damned if he didn’t miss her.
He’d slunk home after the shooting, limping only slightly from the scarring in his thigh. Odd that he’d come to Finnegan’s for solace, something he’d not done even after Gran’s passing. But now, there he was, changing out kegs, slinging drinks, and calling out orders to the waitstaff like he’d never gone off into the world to protect the innocent.
Except he’d lost an innocent, and now the busker outside was his problem and his alone.
Many of the street musicians were familiar to him, but the guitarist they’d taken to calling the Cowboy was a new addition to the pier crowd. No one at Finnegan’s remembered seeing him before he showed up three weeks ago, but even Sionn had to admit the man was pretty to look at. At least as much as they could see past the rolled-brim cowboy hat he wore canted forward on his forehead.
“You going to run him off?” Leigh’s bony elbow dug a divot into his shoulder, and she leaned her weight into him, watching as he clicked the last connection together. “It’s kind of nice, you know. The stuff he plays. Classic.”
“But not Irish,” Sionn grunted, shoving the heavy tank into place. “We’re an Irish pub. He’s out there playing whatever the fuck he’s playing. He can go do that in front of Sciloni’s or something.”
“People like it, and just because you’re Irish, doesn’t mean it’s not music.” She straightened up, shaking out the ribbons she’d used to tie her Smurf-hued hair into ponytails. “I like it, and technically, I’m the manager. You’re just pitching in, remember?”
Sionn didn’t need that reminder that he was drifting along. He wasn’t needed at the pub. It ran fine without him. Probably better even, but he had nowhere else to go, nothing else to do. Damn, he needed to get his shit together and figure out what he was going to do now that he’d walked away from being a body shield for rich people.
“Finnegan’s doesn’t do music, remember? No buskers, no darts, and no telly, other than during the futbol finals. That’s the rules, Leigh girl.” He wiped his hands on one of the bar towels, then tossed it into the laundry bin to be washed. “I’ll go roust him. Don’t fuss at it. I’ll take care of it.”
“I’m not fussing at it, Sionn,” she sniped at his back as he went around the bar to the front of the pub. “I’m just wondering when the hell you got so old.”
The afternoon had started off clear, but the mists were rolling in, bringing the promise of rain with them. A light drizzle dusted over the crowd, driving the less dedicated inside. The busker was wedged sideways under Finnegan’s awning, his ass resting on the top railing of the wrought iron fencing surrounding the pub’s slender outside patio.
With his back to the pub, all Sionn could see of the man was his long black hair and the rolled-brim leather cowboy hat he wore low over his face. The past few times the busker had set up in front of Finnegan’s, he’d moved on before Sionn could send someone out to dislodge him. Sionn stopped at the entrance and stood under the awning, moving to the side to let an older couple in matching neon shirts and cargo pants amble their way into the pub.
In that moment, the musician looked up from his playing, stilling the strings on his acoustic guitar with the flat of his hand. The soft sunlight touched his face and brought the man’s sensitive mouth sharply into Sionn’s focus. His long fingers played at the frets on the guitar’s neck, and Sionn stole a glance at the man’s partially hidden face.
A faint scruff darkened his angular jaw, shadowing a cleft in his squared off chin. The man’s eyes were hooded, a clear Mediterranean blue shining out from behind his long black lashes. Leaning forward, he reached for the cash lining his case’s belly and plucked the bills out. Despite the chill, his slender arms were bare, and his graceful, slim fingers shoved the paper wad into the pocket of his worn-out jeans. Specks of white powder dappled the side of his Becky Bones T-shirt, the victim of an overfilled machine at a crappy Laundromat.
Torn Levi’s and a cheap cotton T-shirt had never looked so damned good as they did on the man’s lean body.
His eyes met Sionn’s gaze as he came around the railing. A flicker of something burned in their depths, an interest hot enough to st
oke the long-dormant fires of arousal in Sionn’s belly. The guitarist shrugged and bent over again, scooping the coins he’d earned into a faded Crown Royal bag.
The man’s ass was as incredible up close as it was when Sionn had seen it through the pub’s front windows.
“Let me guess. The old lady wants me gone.” The man’s voice was a shock, a taint of Britain roughing up his California drawl.
“So you knew my gran, then?” There was a surprise. The woman had left San Francisco to its peace more than a year ago, and before then, Leigh’d managed Finnegan’s, freeing his grandmother up from the day-to-day business. For the guitarist to actually have known Maggie Finnegan, he’d have needed to be around before she’d handed the keys over to Leigh. “Sorry to tell you this, but she passed a bit ago. I own the place now.”
The cowboy hat cocked slightly, and the man stared off into the distance before replying curiously, “That’s too bad. I think I liked her.”
It was an odd way to put it… thinking he liked her. People were never on the fence with Gran. A person either was engulfed by her gruff nonaffection or feared her wrath, but hardly anyone straight out thought about liking her.
A rolling grumble of thunder was the only warning they had before the granite-dark cloud bank turned black and let loose its rain with a pounding fury. Panicked for his instrument, the musician hopped over the railing and put the acoustic down on one of Finnegan’s café tables. Sionn grabbed the hard-shell case and handed it over, a few remaining quarters rattling back and forth on its red velvet lining.
They stood under the awning, both drenched to the bone, and watched the storm whip through the pier, driving away the late afternoon crowd. Slender waterfalls formed along the overhang, curling through the dips in its scalloped edge. The cold settled in behind the rain, and the man beside him shivered in the icy breeze, an avalanche of goose bumps covering his pale skin.
“Hang on. I’ll get you a towel,” Sionn murmured.
“Nah, I’m good.” The man removed his hat and shook off as much of the water from the brim as he could. His thick black hair was damp at the ends, curving down the length of his neck. “Just going to get wet again trying to get home.”
Empty piercings lined his left ear, and Sionn counted at least five before the hat was back on his head, the brim pulled down low again. Emptying the remaining coins from the case, he checked the velvet and obviously found it dry enough to put the guitar into the shell and latch it closed.
He didn’t know what came over him, but Sionn couldn’t have been more surprised when he said, “You can stay until it stops, boyo. Maybe get a cup of coffee inside.”
It sounded like an invitation to sit and talk, and Sionn wondered what alien bug had crawled into his brain and taken control. Other men were for sex and company while watching a game. If he wanted more, he had a pack of male cousins nearby he could do things with… if he actually wanted to do something other than work and be a hermit at home. Offering the musician a cup of Finnegan’s dark-roasted brew was as foreign a thought to him as wearing a pair of pink frilly panties.
Yet here he was, eyeing up a long drink of a musician and thinking about adding a dose of cream to his darkness.
“That shit is not going to be stopping anytime soon.” The smile Sionn was given nearly blinded him, and a hint of a dimple peeked out from under the man’s unshaven face. “No worries. I’ll head out.”
He edged past Sionn, their damp shoulders brushing as he went by. The touch was enough to send Sionn’s cock into a simmering thrum, and he gritted his teeth, sucking in a mouthful of cold air to quench the unexpected want of the man walking by him.
“You can play here. Set up on the far table if you want. We’re never so busy we need all the tables out here, and it’s going to be raining on and off for the next couple of months. It’s a good place to get tips.” After the coffee offer, Sionn was beginning to wonder if he was somehow stroking out and his mind was dancing off down a yellow brick road of its own making. He fumbled, trying to get some control of the situation, but all his tongue seemed able to offer was weak at best. “Just… try to play something other than classical. That shit puts me to sleep.”
“Duly noted. Thanks.” He tipped his fingers to the hat’s brim. “I’ll bring something else to the table tomorrow if I come by.”
“You got a name?” Sionn called out to the musician before he dashed off into the downpour. “The girls inside will want to know or they’ll just keep calling you Cowboy.”
“Shit no, blues and Southern rock yeah, but not country. Okay, maybe a few of Cash’s and Parton’s, but that’s about it.” Once again, the man’s blue eyes raked over Sionn’s face, searching for something he obviously didn’t find when he shrugged helplessly. “Dee. You can call me Dee.”
“Good to meet you, Dee.” Crossing his arms, Sionn watched the musician duck under the awning and sprint across the wide walkway toward the city streets beyond the pier. Glancing up at the furious heavens, Sionn sighed heavily and crossed himself, slipping into the thick Gaelic he’d spoken with his grandmother. “Forgive me, Gran, but I promise, he can play here only as long as it rains. Then he’s out on his own again. I’ll give you that, Gran, if you just let me stare at that ass for a few hours a week. That’s all I’m asking.”
THERE was enough in the guitar case’s belly to carry him over for another week, something Damien was fucking happy about since his fingers were practically bleeding from the acoustic’s thick strings. He’d expected something to happen when he’d played outside the pub. Every time he set up, his shoulders tightened and a flicker of a memory washed through him.
When the broad-shouldered, gray-eyed man strolled out, he’d gotten a clear flash of a small crook-nosed woman with wild silver hair and her thick Irish-scented shouts for him and Miki to find someplace else to beg for money. Something clicked in his head, bringing with it a throbbing ache, but he was grateful for the pain, welcoming it alongside the idea of a cat-and-mouse game they’d once played with the curmudgeonly pub owner.
It all came back to him… too easily, he thought. The days spent shuffling through the touristy parts of San Francisco, setting up his case and playing whatever the crowd seemed to fancy. He ran the gamut from classic rock to pure classical, all the while peering at passing faces, hoping to see the one man he’d come to the Bay City to find.
Miki St. John.
The wind picked up as he walked, carrying the scent of salt water and fish with it. He was cold and soaked through, and his guitar case banged against his thigh when he took the steps up to the flophouse he’d scored a room at. Stepping over the legs of a drunk sprawled across the narrow walk-up landing, Damien grunted a hello at the old Chinese woman who seemed to live in a chair next to her room door. She grinned back at him, a slender crooked pipe clenched between her nicotine-tarred teeth.
It was four flights up before he reached the tiny attic space he rented for a hundred a week. Cramped, the ceiling was almost too low, and he had to duck around the bare bulb hanging by a fabric-wrapped cord from the room’s crossbeam. He’d left the thin window open, hoping a fresh breeze would suck out the heat, but despite the coolness outside, the air still felt sticky.
The room was Spartan, but Damien was fine with its bareness. A few apple boxes held the clothes he’d foraged from charity bins, and the full box spring that came with the room rested on the floor next to the window. He’d freeze in the winter, but for now, under the cool night air blowing through the patched window screen was the only way he could sleep.
Wind meant he was someplace where the windows could be opened. Something the hyped-up sanitarium denied its patients.
He put the acoustic down, leaning the case lengthwise against the wall. The electric guitar and piggyback amp he’d scraped up money for called to him, but Damien held off, resisting the urge to drown himself in the sharp buzz of music. Instead, he opened the case’s string compartment and dug out the pieces of paper he’d printed out at th
e library.
He sat down on the bed and took the time to smooth out the creases in the paper before studying the printouts, trying to glean anything he could from the articles.
From all accounts, Miki St. John had withdrawn from life, barricading himself behind the brick walls of his warehouse fortress. A photographer captured a shot of Miki near his front door, an elaborate mix of fluid metal, polished wood, and glass. The door tickled at Damien’s memories, and they darted through his mind, elusive silvery fish emerging out of unplumbed depths only to skitter back down when he tried to catch them.
He consumed the articles, reading through the account of Miki’s stalker and his murdering spree. Miki came out the survivor, but Damien knew his brother would be shaken down to the bone at having to revisit the dark places Miki had left buried in his past.
“Stupid how I remember that shit, isn’t it, Sinjun?” He traced the edges of the photo, wishing he was there to hold Miki as he fought off his demons. From the looks of things, the singer might have hooked up with someone, a steely-eyed muscular man with a fierce scowl and strong profile. “Is he helping you out there, Miki? You finally decided to find someone to love? Good for you.”
He was surprised to find there wasn’t a whisper of jealousy inside of him—he was actually fucking happy about it. For so long, Miki was his and his alone. Sure, he’d shared the lithe street rat with Johnny and Dave, but when push came to shove, it had always been the two of them. Knowing someone else could make Miki smile made him feel pretty good inside.
“’Course, we’ll see how I feel when I finally find you, yeah?” Damien snorted. “For all I know, I’m going to get mad pissed and try to punch him out.” He studied the slightly out of focus photo. “He looks damned huge. Hope he’s taking care of you. Shit, maybe even get you to talk….”
He’d wasted so many hours trying to convince Miki to talk to someone about the horrors he’d lived through, but the man he called brother wasn’t having any of it. He wasn’t ready… didn’t want to… couldn’t look at it… all excuses to fend off Damien’s attempts to heal over Miki’s cracked psyche. For everything he couldn’t remember about himself, he knew twice as much shit in his waterlogged brain about Miki’s life before he became Damien’s brother.
