Glancing in the direction of the door of Banked Track just past Priest’s shoulder, the same kind of piping running up the same kind of exposed brick.
The same kind or the same?
The voices in the bar became a dull hum in the background as I leaned in for a better glimpse.
And found a familiar face.
My ears burned and my stomach fluttered.
A familiar wool cap.
Adrenaline surged through me as my focus narrowed down to one single point.
It couldn’t be.
Pushing my drink aside, I scrambled onto the bar and leaned in closer.
Holy shit.
He was decades younger, but I’d know that crooked grin in the front row of the crowd along the edge of the picture anywhere.
Milton.
“Hey, young lady, no shenanigans in my bar!” Patti said as she hurried over.
I looked down to find an irate Patti glaring up at me. “Where was the banked track you played on?”
She glanced at the wall and back at me. “Right here, girlie. Now scoot off my bar, thank you very much. You’re a health hazard up there. I won’t have you messing with my A rating,” she muttered with a huff.
But I didn’t move. “You played here? In this very room?”
“Sure did. You can still see the scuffs in the wood floor from the support beams,” Patti said, glancing down at her feet, stomping her purple Doc Martens against a deep groove cut into the wood. “Now are you going to get off my damn bar and tell me what in the hell is wrong with you? You sure as hell aren’t drunk, you only had one drink.”
“I know how we can get the money for Crossroads. Where was your practice track?” Goosebumps raced over my skin as excitement, hope, the makings of a damn miracle bloomed in my chest.
Patti leaned in and propped her hands on the bar. “We practiced here.”
My breath stuttered in my throat. “There’s no other track?”
“I didn’t say that,” Patti said, her lips twitching, her gaze sliding over to Priest. “Seems like I remember there being one more around these parts.”
Priest glowered at the two of us, slapped his beer on the bar, and dragged his thumb along his bottom lip, his eyes narrowed in a one hundred percent I-think-the-fuck-not-glare. “No.”