Page 12 of Faking It With the Small-Town Bad Boy

“Join the club of scorned lovers, alright.”

It hits me now, and I turn in my wobbly barstool to see him leaning

on the edge of the wood top, lacquered surface, his eyes darting

through each bottle on the shelf nearby. His focus lands on the

whiskey, a choice that I assume has led to many of his worst

behaviors in Rally since I’ve known him.

He was a quiet, standoffish kid in school who carried his saxophone

around like it was a security blanket. It wasn’t until he was out of

high school that his rebellious streak really started to take aim at the

town. That started with stealing my father’s motorcycle and then

telling a judge my father let him borrow it.

My dad had a soft spot for Percy though—for reasons I will never

understand—and he took the heat for the accident. Still, it didn’t add

to the stress already plaguing my father at the time. We’d just lost my

mother, her cancer-ridden body still fresh in my distant memory,

and the bills were starting to add up from her stent in the hospital.

So my father didn’t need to deal with Percy Elrod and his rebel

streak.

Apparently, it doesn’t seem that his streak has ended yet.

“That’s right. Farrah left you, didn’t she?” I whisper.

He gives me a knowing glance, one that I think he’s offering in

warning, but I don’t typically heed those, anyway. Instead, he looks

to his bandmates and waves them away, watching them gruffly

exhale while they slowly trickle off the stage and head out the back

door, cigarette packs in hand.

Percy slips onto the barstool beside me, his fingers knit on the edge

of the bar while his focus is still weaving through the lit bottles on the

far wall in front of us.

I can’t help but notice the earring in his ear, only on one side with a

blackish jewel that looks like an obsidian stud.

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