Page 35 of Melody

“You’re not wrong, but you don’t want to burn any bridges.”

Pedro laughed. “Like I care. It’s just a job for a big corporation. We’re talking about the rest of our lives.”

Maria asked Adrian, “Does he talk like this at work?”

“He’s almost worse.”

“How do you keep your job therenow?”

Pedro finished the beer in his bottle. “I bust my ass. I get more shit done than half the crew while I’m there.” Looking at Adrian, he said, “Except forthisbeast.”

Adrian frowned. “Hardly.”

“The difference is I don’t give a fuck about the long term with a job. When the boss ishaving a discussion,” he said, momentarily changing the tone of his voice to sound like someone else, “I tune his sorry ass out. And if I take a long bathroom break, let him yell at me. I’ll tell him where to shove it.”

When Maria gave Adrian another glance, Adrian simply nodded, affirming that Pedro wasn’t exaggerating.

“Boss makes a dollar. I make a dime. That’s why I shit on company time.”

Kyle laughed and everyone else smiled. Maria asked, “Did you make that up?”

“No. I heard it once and memorized that shit—and it’s been valuable work advice ever since.”

Wolf, a twinkle in his eye, said, “Why don’t we get back to planning—unless you’d all rather wait.”

Maria said, “Oh—I gotta get back to the merch table. Let me know what I miss.”

While they discussed details about the spring tour, Kyle only half paid attention. He tried not to be obvious when he glanced over at the bar in Scarlett’s direction, but he was waiting for things to die down. When Impending Cataclysm stopped playing, it helped, because slowly the crowd thinned out. Then Intent to Murder talked for a while with the members of the headlining band, letting them know their plans so far.

Hayley and Wolf were the first to leave the bar that night, but the other two couples in their band followed shortly after.

Finally, the moment Kyle had been waiting for. Performing always gave him a natural high after the first few minutes of jitters, but a woman often had the same effect. The time he and Scarlett had already spent together had confirmed that she wasn’t just another lay—she was something more. Even if they only remained friends, Kyle wanted to get to know her in the most intimate of ways, and his mind had rarely strayed from that thought since their date earlier in the week.

Kissing her had been the spark that had ignited the flames burning inside. Her lips, her tongue were so sweet, her small but strong body pressed against his. Even holding hands on Razor Ridge Drive had amped his desire.

He wanted her in the worst of ways—but she’d let him know, at least on Monday, that she wasn’t ready.

He was hoping against hope that her resistance was temporary—and, as he’d promised her in the beginning, he was nothing if not persistent.

And patient.

Although there were still quite a few patrons in the entire place and plenty of bodies on the stools around the bar, Kylemanaged to find three empty ones all together and he picked the one in the middle. It was only a second before Scarlett noticed him. She said, “I thought maybe you’d already left.”

“I told you I was gonna come see you.”

“Yeah, I know, but it’s been chaos up here.” Stray locks of her brown hair had escaped from the ponytail, an indication that she’d been too busy to notice. It made her look cuter than ever.

“You look like you’ve had a hell of a night, Tink.”

Her smile grew wider then. “It’s better now.”

“I get it, though. It was a packed house. Al told us there’d be lots of people, and he wasn’t lying.”

“Yeah, but what made it worse is Denise had to leave early. Her grandbaby was taken to the emergency room for something and she had to watch her daughter’s other kids.”

“So you had to tend the whole bar by yourself?”

“No, Al helped—but usually on a night like this, it’s all three of us and we still struggle to keep up. If it was just drafts and shots, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But that’s okay—I’m not complaining. I’m pretty sure I made a killing on tips tonight. I won’t know about the credit card tips till tomorrow. Usually, Denise cashes me out before I leave but Al said he’d do it in the morning.”

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