Page 10 of Verses

Completely out. And we had practice—or at least a meeting—starting in a couple of hours.

I didn’t have the heart to ask, but the fact that he was sleeping told me he’d likely lost his job. If not, he was on the verge. Right now, though, that didn’t matter. “Kyle?” I asked softly, knowing the only way my voice would wake him was if he was already coming out of deep sleep. “Kyle?”

When he didn’t budge, I started moving his shoulder, hoping to pull him from slumber—but there was still no sign. Oh, God, please.

There was a definite possibility that he was using again. So I gave up trying to wake him, now on a new mission: to find his stash. I started rifling through drawers before digging under the bed, looking through the loose shoe boxes under there. By the time I was tearing through the closet, he yelled, “What the fuck are you doing, Hayley?”

“Looking for something.”

“Can you do it later?”

His response—although a little over the top—seemed too lucid to be drug-addled, so maybe he wasn’t fucked up…meaning it was time to change my focus. “Yeah, sure. Have you made a decision?”

“About what?” Sitting up in bed, he felt around on the nightstand for his pack of cigarettes and lighter before opening his eyes.

“How you feel about getting another lead guitarist.”

“Jesus, Hayley. I just woke up…and not ‘cause I wanted to.”

“It’s getting late. We have practice in a couple hours.”

“Not practice,” he said, sticking a cigarette in his mouth, lighting the end, and then drawing a deep breath of smoke into his lungs. He’d promised not to smoke in our apartment anymore, and I wanted to rag on him for it—but that would have been like pouring gasoline on a blazing fire. “Ameeting, you said. Remember?” His last few words were punctuated by a stream of smoke coming out of his mouth before he blew the rest of it through his puckered lips.

“Yeah…but we can’t really have a meeting about it if you’re not on board.”

“I still have time before then, right?”

God, he was infuriating—and I wouldn’t win this battle anyway. So long as he would reach a decision by the time we were at The Apothecary, I’d let it go. “Yeah.”

“So get the fuck out of here and let me sleep.”

My natural inclination was to keep the fight going—but I didn’t have any interest in doing that anymore. “Fine.” I picked up my wallet and keys off the dresser and exited the room, but his voice followed me into the tiny living area. “Where are you goin’?”

I lied. “To get something to eat. I’ll see you at the bar. Don’t be late.”

“Don’t be late?Why don’t you just fuck all the way off, Hayley?”

Fucking asshole. I couldn’t even muster up the energy to fling another good insult his way—so I just kept heading toward the door. My anger easily propelled me down the stairs toward the outside of the building, and I started heading east down the sidewalk, retracing my steps from earlier. It was less than a minute before I was crossing the railroad tracks that cut through town, a remnant of earlier days. That was always the spot where I crossed to the other side of Main if I was going to The Apothecary. When I went to work, I stayed on the north side of the street.

As I walked back through town toward what I considered its beating heart, I was inspired, wondering why I hadn’t thought of it before: Why not ask Wolf? The man knew every-fucking-body in Charlotte, not to mention all of Pike County. If anybody here knew guys who could play guitars, it would be him.

And I knew he’d be at the bar even before I got there.

Even though I’d lied about grabbing some food as an excuse to get the hell out of the apartment, my stomach rumbled, telling me I really was hungry. Maybe I’d munch on a couple ofpeanuts while picking Wolf’s brain and then grab some real food somewhere before practice.

Damn. I was going to have to start wearing a jacket regularly. Even though the air was warm enough, I was on the side of the street that got the shade. At least I’d probably be coming back with Kyle later, avoiding the chill that would set in at dark—but the days were getting shorter, the nights getting cooler, and wearing a jacket was a good idea.

This time of day, Charlotte’s streets were as busy as they would get. Schools had gotten out over the past hour and some people were getting off work and either coming home from Silver City or even bigger places, and that traffic would continue to trickle in until six or seven o’clock, about the time all the antique shops closed—and the grocery store wouldn’t be open much later. Even the few convenience stores, except for one, closed their doors no later than ten.

The bars were where everything happened in Charlotte after dark. Unless, of course, the high school had a home game. Then, almost the whole damn town was crowding the stadium.

Finally, I arrived at The Apothecary, and the music they played over the speakers when the band wasn’t there was wafting onto the sidewalk, inviting me in.

As always, it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting inside. There were no windows in the place, and I often imagined it was so that day-drinking felt less scandalous. Most of the patrons here, though, didn’t seem to give a shit if they were judged for drinking at a particular time of day.

When my eyes adjusted, I shifted my gaze over to the bar itself. There was one guy sitting at the end, a regular whose name I’d never known—but no bartender. That probably meant Wolf was doing something somewhere else, like bringing in delivery boxes from the back or checking the restrooms. I knew it wasfar easier for him to get things done in the afternoon than in the evening.

So I walked toward the bar and slid up on a stool. Reaching a few feet down the bar, I pulled one of the ugly brown bowls of pretzels over and put one of the sticks in my mouth. “Yuck!” I said, spitting the cardboard-flavored snack back into my hand.

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