Tunes (Beekman Hills Book 2)

by KC Enders

  “What’s going on, Francie? Why are you opening the pub today? Where are the boys?” I lay my hand on top of his, surprised to feel just how cold his skin is to the touch.

  “Aidan and Lissy are in Dublin, yeah. Finn and Jimmy are off, erm … picking something up from down in the city.” He shrugs his shoulders, the movement drawing my attention to how frail he looks—like he’s aged a lifetime since the summer. “And Kieran, I don’t know ’bout that lad. There’s potential with ’im, but his head seems to be in the clouds most of the time. Besides, it’s my pub. Not like the boss is going to let me go for resting a bit and sharing a whiskey with a lovely girl.” He smiles and winks at me, ever the flirt. “Now, tell me, what are you doing here in the middle of a workday—in jeans and a jumper, no less? Only reason people show up this early is if they’ve been scrapped or they are down on their luck in general.”

  I laugh lightly because only Francie can nail me down like that. Lis has always referred to him as the father she wished she’d had since her dad preferred to avoid the world, staying at the bottom of a bottle. But I guess Francie is one of the few people who sees right through my bullshit. Francie and Lis … and Gavin.

  “Well, I didn’t get fired,” I tell him.

  True to his observant nature, he waits for the rest of the story.

  “I quit. I’m going to maybe strike out on my own. Build my own clientele and focus on small businesses—the people my dad didn’t really want to be bothered with. It’ll take time, so if you happen to be looking for someone to fill in here and there, I’m available.”

  The answer is going to be a lovely, lilting no.

  Francie’s business model is an authentic Irish pub, staffed by authentic Irish men. It’s a solid plan, and it has worked out fantastic for everyone involved. He’s taken the guys—the McBride’s boys, Finn, Jimmy, Kieran and even Aidan—under his wing. He gave each of them a job and helped them find a place to live. And, most importantly, he’s given them advice, an escape if they needed it, and a purpose even if just for the time being. And they’ve given back much in the way of the claddagh that hangs from a gold chain around Francie’s throat. Love. Loyalty. Friendship.

  “You’d do that?” His question knocks me back in my chair. “I could use the help, Gracyn. I … I’m …” He struggles, blinking rapidly. Looking over my shoulder, he takes in the pub he’s built from nothing. With a bracing breath, he seems to bolster himself and nods. “I’d like that. Only for as long as you’re able though. When you’re back on your feet, you move on. It’s just temporary, yeah? And you’ll take on the accounting? We’ll be your first client, if you’ll have us.”

  I just nod because there’s something more going on with this man. Something that he’s not sharing.

  “Now, tell us what happened for you to walk away from your job.”

  Unable, unwilling to sit still any longer, I stand and move around, behind the bar. The story is far easier to tell while I’m moving, working, and being productive. While I fill the beer fridge and prep the fruit tray, I hit on everything—from meeting Gavin to our last call. The connection we have to the shit my dad said and things Brooks pulled. Everything. Every text I’ve sent. Every text that has gone unanswered.

  “So, Brooks … that’s his name? The one your dad was trying to marry you off to?” Addie, Finn’s girlfriend, asks as she plops down at the bar just around the corner from Francie. “Have you talked to him?”

  I fill a coffee mug for her, adding in a splash of cream, like I’ve seen Finn do. “I laid him low, MF’d him up one side and down the other, but he just kind of blew me off. I mean, how intimidating am I from an hour away? When he’d heard enough, he hung up on me.”

  Addie blows the steam off her coffee and takes a sip. “You happy with that?” She pins me with a look, her septum piercing catching the light from above her. “Because, if you feel a need to humiliate him a little more, I could totally help you with that,” she offers.

  “Yeah? How would you go about that?” I rest my elbows on the bar, leaning way over the cooler and racks of well liquors. It feels weird, being on this side of things. I’ve spent hours upon hours through college and since on the other side of the bar.

  Francie stands from his chair and heads back toward the office by the stockroom. “I’ll let you ladies discuss your evil plans. I’d like to maintain my innocence if I can. I’ll get you set up as an employee, Gracyn, and see if I can pull together what you need to access the financials for the pub. Erm, Finn and Jimmy should be here before it gets busy this evening.”

  “Thanks, Francie. Let me know if you need anything, okay? Lunch, a fresh whiskey. Hell, go home and take a nap if you need to.”

  He tosses me a wave over his shoulder, and when the door gently clicks shut, I turn to Addie.

  “Does he seem okay to you? He looks … I don’t know … tired.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ve asked Finn, but he brushes it off like he doesn’t want to talk about it, so I don’t know.” She types away at the laptop she always seems to have with her, and then she turns it toward me. She leans back and twirls her purple hair into a knot at the back of her head, sliding a pen through the mess to hold it in place.

  “What is this?” I ask, clicking on the pages she has stacked on her screen.

  Addie’s a crazy-talented web designer, quirky with her ever-changing hair color and her sharp wit. Honestly, there’s no one in the world who could better handle Finn. And I’ve known that boy for years, watching him flirt his way through the pub … until he met Addie.

  “Just some hard-core porn sites.” Her head subtly bops back and forth, like she’s thinking about how to say what’s next. “We can sign him up for all the free trials … maybe anonymously order some … accessories and have them delivered to his office …” She lets the thought trail off, gauging my reaction.

  “Yes. Yep. Oh my God, that’s perfectly wicked,” I tell her. “I love it.”

  Chapter 40

  Gavin

  This is it—the last stop on the tour. I don’t know whether I can’t wait to get home or if I just want to get lost in another country for a while. I’m fucking exhausted.

  I’m fucking done.

  Kane pushes through the door into our dressing room. “Gav, man, let’s shake it. I got people to do and—”

  “Christ, don’t you ever get sick of it?” More than ever, I can’t understand Kane and his special commitment to his man-whore ways. I tried. But the reality is, all I’ve ever wanted is one person who speaks to my soul. And, because of that, I’ve spent this entire tour stuck in my head.

  “Nope. It’s one of the perks. I’d be doing our fans a disservice if I cut back.” Kane reaches a hand down the front of his nearly threadbare jeans, and I swear to God, it looks like he’s fluffing for the photo shoot Rand arranged. He pauses when he catches me staring and bites at the hoop on the side of his lower lip. “Wanna help?”

  I slam back what’s left of the whiskey I poured to get myself through this three-ring shitshow. “Fuck off,” I toss over my shoulder, leaving him to his prep.

  His offer is the last thing I can deal with right now. Rand is talking with someone about his vision, what he wants to capture and portray in hopes of alleviating rumors and presenting a cohesive blah, blah, blah. Yeah, the shitshow is my doing. All mine.

  “You’re here. Great. But where’s Kane? I told him—” Rand is in full handler mode, tablet in one hand, phone in the other.

  “Probably stroking his ego,” Ian says.

  “Stroking somethin’,” I mumble, running my fingers through my hair. “How long is this going to take?”

  The photographer is at the table on the opposite side of the room, clicking lenses into place, loading memory cards into camera bodies.

  Kane strolls in with the rest of my bottle of whiskey in hand. “Depends on your cranky ass. Play nice, and we can all play nice before we hit the stage.” Lifting the whiskey to his lips, the fucker doesn’t just take a s
ip; he licks the bottle. Stroking it with his tongue, dipping into the neck of the thing.

  If we hadn’t just spent the past two months all up in each other’s shit, that would be fucking uncomfortable, but at this point, nothing Kane does surprises any of us.

  Rand and his photographer pose us, move us, and arrange us like mannequins. But the more they fuck with us, the shittier my attitude gets. My phone is buzzing in my pocket like it has been since I got it back. And, because I just want this shit over with, I ignore it.

  And ignore it.

  And ignore it.

  But, with the way Rand has us practically on top of each other, trying to project our cohesiveness or some shit, Kane feels every vibrating demand. “God help me, either answer her or give me five minutes alone with that thing vibing where it can be useful.” He turns toward me and puts his hands on his hips. “Talk to her. Give her a chance to say her piece. You’ve been dumber than I’ve ever seen you with this.”

  Rand asks the photographer, “Mr. Kearney, do you mind if we take a minute? I’m sorry. I know you’ve got someone meeting you shortly. This’ll be quick.”

  I don’t hear his response, nor do I give a shit if this is inconvenient for him. I’m not dealing with this—any of this—now. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Just … shit. Here, it’s off.” Flipping them the screen, I show it around the room and shove the phone back in my pocket. “Let’s just get this shit done.”

  But no, that’s not how this works. Evidently, this is a goddamn intervention, and I have no escape.

  “Have you talked to her at all since you got out of prison? Doin’ hard time change you that much?” Ian tosses out.

  “Nimrod, it wasn’t fucking prison. I spent three nights in a holding cell and walked my ass out. And no. I tried and … whatever.” I really don’t want to do this, not now.

  “But you called. I was with you,” Nate says calmly in his super-reasonable voice. “What happened?”

  “Yeah, I called. Gave her a chance, and that fucking dick from New York—the asshole—was there when she answered her phone stupid early before work, so …” I throw my hands out, arms spread wide, just waiting for their infinite wisdom on this, waiting for them to catch my meaning, but five sets of eyes stare at me like I’m the idiot. “Listen, I’m not doing the Sarah shit again. I’ve had my fill of cheaters. Not again. Never again. He was with her first thing in the morning, getting her coffee, mumbling some shit about not forgetting her coat because it was cold out.”

  “You sure of the time difference? Time zones can be a bitch, man,” Nate says, looking pointedly at me.

  “Of course I am.” My temper is getting short and fast. It’s grating my last nerve that they’re all making me the bad guy. “I’m not the one who was fucking around, so back the fuck off.”

  A derisive snort comes from the corner of the room, the corner where the dude with the camera is watching this mess go down.

  “You got something to add to this?” I practically spit at the guy.

  “I do, yeah.”

  His brogue has me only half-listening to him at best. Mentally, I’m planning my exit and deciding whether I’m taking the whiskey bottle with me.

  “Whatever. I’m out.” I turn and grab the bottle from Kane’s hand, not caring that he just tongue-fucked the thing.

  But that smooth accent follows me. “If nothing else, you need to be a real man.”

  Well, doesn’t that just whip my head around? “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he says coolly. “From what I heard before you started acting like an arse, you were a true gentleman. Put that bloody prick in his place for making assumptions about our Gracyn, for treating her like she was less than the amazing person she is. Sound familiar?” Arms crossed over his chest, the guy looks intimidating as hell, like he could kick my ass.

  “How do you know that shit?”

  “I know who you are. My fiancée and I have been cleaning up your shite while you’ve been off, fuckin’ around across Europe—”

  “What?”

  “Lis, Gracyn’s best friend? Christ, Lis has been your cheerleader for almost two years—since Gracyn came clean about meeting you at the beach.”

  My eyebrows pop high, reaching for the sky.

  “That’s right. Since the summer after you met … something about a concert in Beekman Hills that G missed, covering bar hours for her friend. She has been utterly selfless—keeping the peace, making sure everyone is taken care of and has their needs met. Standing up for her brother, tending to her mum’s whims, and trying to work day in and day out with her da. That girl would bend over backward to help someone in need.

  “Christ, the whole fucking pub was championing for you. But you just act the prick now. Think the worst—the absolute worst of one of the kindest, most giving people I know. You don’t deserve her. She’s far too good for you. And, as soon as she’s got her feet back under her, she’ll take the world by storm.” He pushes off the wall and starts breaking down his equipment.

  Rand looks from the photographer to me and back again. “We’re not done, Mr. Kearney—”

  “I’m quite through actually. My Lis will be here in a moment, and I’m not sure there’s anything worth capturing here as it is.”

  Yeah, that was all for me. Fuck.

  “Wait, what do you mean, ‘got her feet back under her’?” I ask, approaching the table he’s got his equipment spread out on. “What happened?”

  The guy’s shoulders tense as his hands work automatically, packing lenses and cameras into the little compartments of his bag. “She’s a hard worker. She’ll build her client list and make her own success.”

  “She resigned. Left her job at the firm that’s been in her family for three generations,” a tall, curvy redhead says from the doorway. “She’s been struggling since her dad won’t give her a recommendation, but Gracyn’ll be fine. She’s working her ass off, and she won’t have to tend bar for long.” She extends her hand to me, saying, “I’m Lis. And let me be perfectly clear; you are the only thing Gracyn and I have ever had a fight over. She deserves better than to be dismissed like this. So get yourself together and man up. Either tell her there’s no hope and make a clean break or go sweep that girl off her feet because nothing less will do.”

  I stutter, but nothing of use comes out, my brain churning on what Lis and the dude who can only be Aidan have said.

  “I gotta …” I turn away from the subdued chaos of this anxiety and find my way out to the dimly lit stage.

  Staff members come and go but are mostly lost in the shadows, so I grab my acoustic and plant my ass. When all else fails, the slide of my fingers along the strings, playing mindlessly, is the best fix for anxiety, the only way to work out what I need to.

  Eyes closed, I shut off my brain and let go. Lost in the haze I will to fall over me, the chord progressions morph and change, taking form until the soulful sounds of the song battle and fight their way out of me.

  One glance across the room

  Was all it took to notice you.

  One nod, one wave,

  Hair shining in

  The sun’s rays.

  One smile, one touch,

  Had I ever felt this much?

  One chance to show

  Everything you’d need to know.

  One kiss, and I was done

  When all you ever wanted

  Was fun.

  One night,

  Wrapped tight,

  Everything just felt so right.

  One night

  We shared,

  It would always be unfair.

  One apology,

  A rush out the door.

  Did you ever want me, want me?

  One chance to show

  Everything you’d need to know

  One kiss, and I was done.

  I just wish you’d wanted

  More than fun.

  One time,

  You were mine,

  Only once

  In my
life.

  It’s time to move on.

  Will I ever move on?

  As the chords fade, I realize what the problem with this song has been all along. The missing something. Kicking back through the bridge, I add the final piece.

  One chance to show

  All I need for you to know.

  Every single kiss,

  You’ve brought me to my knees.

  I don’t want to move on.

  One kiss, and I was done.

  Baby, you’re my one.

  Chapter 41

  Gavin

  I stare at the blinking light on my phone. That tiny blinking red light that screams and rants and raves … heralding from the rooftop that I have a voice mail from Gracyn. Her text messages have dwindled since we played Dublin.

  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.