Page 29 of Forever Flames: Padraig & Stevie
“It shouldn’t be a fucking weight. It’s a privilege,” he snarls.
His words scrape. Not because they’re wrong. Because they hit too close.
Liam and I were born to walk beside each other. Stevie and I were born to be soulmates. How could I ever choose?
We fall quiet and our surroundings come back into focus. The parking lot next to The Big Dipper buzzes with a kind of static energy I didn’t know Spokane had. Neon bleeds out the door every time someone stumbles through it.
“Let’s go see if this chick’s our singer and take it from there.” I gesture to the building.
The place reeks of stale beer and overripe perfume. The floors are tacky underfoot. Colored lights pulse overhead. Dollar bills hang from the ceiling like jungle vines. A pack of girls in plastic tiaras screech-laugh by the bar.
Then a voice slices through the noise. The room hushes like it’s been slapped.
Low. Smoky. The kind of tone that leaks into your bloodstream and takes its time. Like Ella Fitzgerald soaked in red wine with a little dose of Amy Winehouse and a sprinkling of Adele.
I don’t breathe. Liam doesn’t move.
The woman’s dress clings to her like a dare. Midnight-blue satin, dipped low in the back. Long enough to brush her calves. Her hair’s jet-black and wild, tumbling in loose coils down to her waist. Her lips are painted dark purple, like bruised plums. Sea-glass green eyes catch the overhead light and fracture it.
She hits the chorus and lifts into another register entirely. Clear, bell-pure, like she ripped a hole in the ceiling and dragged heaven down with her.
We’ve found her. If she’ll have us.
Liam turns to me slowly. The look on his face says it all.
After the song is over, the crowd explodes into cheers. She introduces herself.
Felicity Clark.
Our future?
“She’s a vibe.” I nudge him. “Would she evenwantto join a Celtic rock band?”
“Don’t know.” He grins. “But we’re gonna find out.”
The lingering crunchiness of our previous conversation evaporates. This is Liam at his best. Fueled by a feeling. A spark. A whim. The most magnetic person I’ve ever known. I spend half my life reassuring him and the other half trying to catch up.
The next song isn’t one I expect. She slows it way down. The piano drops into a lazy, minor-key intro, then slips into the first line ofYou Don’t Own Me. Not the bubblegum version. This one’s molasses and velvet. Full of broken glass and long stares. She doesn’t wink. Doesn’t flirt. Doesn’t perform for anyone.
She’s in her own world. Even the way she delivers the chorus—fragile, restrained, then suddenly soaring—is perfection. She makes every man in the place sit up straighter. Liam goes still beside me, frozen. Like he’s afraid to miss a note.
The drummer watches her intently like he might miss a cue. The upright bassist closes his eyes, swaying like the strings are leading him instead of the other way around.
She launches intoBennie and the Jetsnext, completely reworked in a strange, lilting jazz rhythm, her phrasing twisted and playful, like she’s rewriting the song as she sings it. The band keeps up, barely. They’re good, but she’s better.
“She’s not merely singing,” Liam murmurs. “She’s bending sound.”
He’s right. Her voice changes with every bar. Growls into the lower registers, floats up into a falsetto so clear it rings in my teeth. Her vibrato is tight and controlled. The mic barely picks her up in the softest places, so the crowd leans in.
She has them—and us—by the balls.
When she startsHere Comes the Sun, I think of Stevie. The way she sings the song every morning while she brushes her hair without even realizing it. I wish she could be with us now to experience this magic, but she needed to spend time with her own family.
I text her a video.We’ve found our singer.
Felicity hits the final note with her arms raised and body arched like she’s pulling the sound down from somewhere divine. Then she lowers the mic, gives the tiniest nod to the band, and finally smiles.
The room erupts. It’s a bar in Spokane, Washington, not Carnegie Hall. The crowd treats this show like it’s both.
