Page 14 of The Bridges I've Burned

I was only going to be here for a day anyway.

The less I told my brother, the better. It would make it easier to leave all this behind.

Slipping my phone in my pocket, I headed inside.

I was used to loud bars. I liked loud bars. They were my lifeblood and my church.

But this? This was like walking into the middle of a rabid catfight on speakerphone.

God, my ears are bleeding.

Whoever thought it would be a good idea to give drunk people free rein to a microphone was truly evil.

The person currently up on the tiny stage was massacring a Johnny Cash song. I had the sudden urge to pull out my phone and record it for Hendrix’s older brother, who was named after the singer.

But even I wasn’t that mean, even though the grouchy fucker kind of deserved it.

I headed straight for the bar, opting for a drink first.

This might not have been my smartest idea. But then again…it wasn’t like there was a drive-through Taco Bell in Ocracoke.

Like the rest of the place, the bar was packed. I squeezed myself between a guy in a Hawaiian shirt—clearly on vacation—and a gorgeous woman. At first, I thought they might be together, and I quickly pulled back, not wanting to interrupt a date. But then I noticed the body language and something else that caught my eye.

A flash of white hidden behind the woman’s dark hair—an earbud.

Had I not noticed that she was alone, in a karaoke bar, I probably wouldn’t have been so hung up on that one tiny detail.

People wore earbuds for all sorts of reasons. Music, audiobooks, podcasts—all valid reasons. But some also found they helped with sensory issues. We had a bartender back at Creed’s who never worked a single shift without a pair.

But then why wouldn’t she just leave? Why willingly sit in this musical nightmare?

I examined her a bit closer. In a sea of flip-flops and shorts, she stuck out like a sore thumb. Her black jeans fit her like a glove, accented her generous, feminine curves. Everything she wore screamed money—from the manicured nails to the Louboutin bag that hung beside her.

Hendrix had sisters. They told me things.

Her dark hair was styled perfectly with soft waves that brushed the olive skin on her bare shoulders.

She was flawless.

Flawless and perfect.

And she probably knew it.

Living in LA, I’d met dozens of women like her, and I swore, once you met one, you’d met them all.

I stepped forward, intent on one thing and one thing only—getting my hands on an ice-cold beer. If I was going to make it through the next twenty-four hours, I was going to need it.

The guy in the Hawaiian shirt to my left was talking loudly, his actual date—or wife—indulging him as he complained about the cost of groceries while he flagged the bartender for another overpriced drink.

The irony.

I glanced over at the earbud woman, who was still seated quietly to my right. As I turned, my elbow accidentally nudged her phone, causing the screen to light up. My eyes instinctively glanced down.

I’m a nosy motherfucker. What can I say?

Miss Louboutin was, in fact, willingly sitting in a karaoke bar, by herself, drowning out the bar with her earbuds. But that wasn’t the most interesting thing about her.

And her music taste was…startling.

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