Page 44 of Verses

“That’s the plan.”

Maybe now we could really start to heal in earnest.

CHAPTER 12

Every day of the week, I practiced my art. Rain or shine, happy or sad, good day or bad—it didn’t matter, because it was something I had to do. Singing was almost as crucial as breathing.

I didn’t know how much the guys practiced on their own, although I knew Kyle did off and on. Sometimes he would even pull out his guitar and strum while sitting on the couch. I also knew that he’d been practicing more lately, but he’d been doing it over at Adrian and Pedro’s so they could work on our chosen cover songs together.

My practice sometimes came in the form of continuing to perform live…but it wasn’t always the same as our practices at The Apothecary. There was a place called Sal’s on Petroleum Street, the other main thoroughfare through town. Main went east and west while Petroleum went north and south and those streets shared Charlotte’s only stoplight.

So why did I go to Sal’s? Because he had karaoke most nights of the week. In fact, that was the only thing that made his place stand out from the dozens of other bars in Charlotte. That and it had been theonlybar on Petroleum until a new microbreweryopened up across the street at a diagonal last summer. Locals wondered how long it would last but tourists seemed to like it.

As for me and my purposes, there were a couple of bars in Silver City that offered karaoke now and then. They would have been better choices for plying my trade, so to speak, because I would have a bigger crowd watching, but there was the matter of my car.

It was unreliable, to say the least. The stupid hunk of junk rarely worked and, when it did, I didn’t trust it to drive the seven short miles to Silver City. And when I got there, would it even bring me back home? I hadn’t driven it in months because the battery was dead.

Sal’s made perfect sense because I could walk there, no matter the weather or anything else. Even in the winter it was a great choice because it was only another block and a half away from The Apothecary. However, unlike at our practices, I never sang any Intent to Murder songs at Sal’s. I only sang covers. Of course, that was the nature of karaoke. They didn’t have our music to play for people to sing to. Maybe one day after we had a record contract…

I knew over time that I had been amassing fans for our band because I had people who would regularly come on Sunday and Monday nights to Sal’s in hopes of seeing me. Now that the band would be practicing on Mondays, I planned to only be here on Sunday nights, because I didn’t want to strain my voice by doing two gigs in one day. One of the perks of singing at this particular spot was that sometimes when Sal was tending bar, he’d give me a drink on the house.

Unlike Marv, Sal appreciated that I brought people in. It seemed so weird, here in tiny Charlotte, that my vocal talents would be recognized and even sought out—but, when I thought about it, I knew if a younger Maria Brink had been singing herebefore In This Moment had broken big, I probably would have come to listen to her.

What was really cool was that Sal had made sure to get some of the songs I’d requested over the past two years, some of my favorites that were in my vocal range. Although I would sometimes sing tunes normally sung by men (compositions by Godsmack, Korn, and Avenged Sevenfold), I usually focused on female artists for obvious reasons. From the 80s, I found songs by Lita Ford and Heart that I loved, but my favorite all-time artists were In This Moment, Halestorm, and The Pretty Reckless. I tried to mix it up every week so I wasn’t singing the same stuff over and over. I figured people didn’t want to hear the same thing every week any more than I wanted to sing the same old shit.

On this particular Sunday night, I was performing one of my favorite Lita Ford songs, “Back to the Cave.” Because of where the tiny stage was in the bar, I didn’t notice the front door open—but when I saw a person walking inside, I realized I knew that guy.

He wasnota regular customer of Sal’s.

Suddenly, my hands started shaking, so I gripped the mike tighter, causing my knuckles to turn white, as I wondered what the hell was going on.Why was he here?

As I finished the song, I closed my eyes, simply focusing on the words and the tune, trying not to think about him.

Not yet anyway.

What the hell was he doing here?

When the song ended, I slid the mike into the stand and stepped off the platform, sauntering toward the bar and the man who’d entered the building.

“I didn’t know you drank here, Wolf.”

“That’s because I don’t.” Even in the dim light, I could appreciate how he looked. He wore a leather jacket that hepeeled off, revealing a snug black Harley t-shirt that highlighted his firm pecs and the tattoos on his biceps peeking out of the sleeves, creating a hell of a picture. But it was the twinkle in those green eyes of his and the smirk on his face that had me captivated.

“So whatareyou doing here?”

“You’d said something about performing karaoke here regularly—and since this will be my only Sunday night off for the foreseeable future, I thought I should check it out.”

I wondered what I should make of that. “Should I feel flattered?” After all, he’d said he wanted to checkitout, not me.

“I leave that up to you, little songbird, but I’d love to buy you a drink while you ponder.”

Maybe hedidhave some feelings for me, and I thought I might know how to find out.

First, though, the drink.

“Hmm. Okay. Hey, Sal.”

“Yeah?” he said, placing a beer in front of one of the guys at the end of the bar. I’d never quite known what to make of Sal. He was middle aged, probably a year or so older than Wolf, with thinning hair and a pot belly. Although he was a friendly enough guy, unlike prickly Marv, there was a sadness behind his eyes that he tried to hide with a smile that was usually far too wide.

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