Page 144 of Nevermore
“I know,” he says with a nod. “I’m really fucking proud of you, though. Even if it doesn’t seem like I’ve noticed how hard you’re working on dealing with all of this.”
Titling my head back, I look up into those gunmetal gray eyes and grin as I drop my hands to his ass and grab a healthy handful. “This helps.” I smile wide as Lucky chuckles. “Twenty minutes, right outside. Then you can show me how proud of me you are when we get back to the hotel.”
With one more hard and sweet kiss, I leave one of my amazing men to wait in line while I walk outside to finally breathe.
Mikey’s Muse.
My eyes trace the big red letters monogrammed on the glass door, following each sharp line until my stare wanders to the window on the left. Posters for local shows and the festival coming up, flyers and signs for private instrument sales or lessons. There are a few want ads, people looking for lead guitarists or vocalists and even if I haven’t had the balls to even think about this place in almost four years, that makes me smile.
The boys had something similar in this very window ages ago and I’ll never forget watching them take it down after I joined the band.
My gaze slides back to the door, landing on the sign flipped to say they’re open and for some reason, I’m compelled to go inside.
I’m not sure what it is, why the urge to walk into what I’ve considered the gates of hell is so strong but it is, and I swear it’s almost like I have an overwhelming urge to make sure Hastings isn’t sitting behind the counter.
He’s dead and gone, he’s never coming back, but I never got any closure with that and at the very least, knowing that sick bastard isn’t lurking in this music store waiting for me to come in and buy something might be a way of getting it.
Gripping the handle tightly, I will my hand to stop shaking before I pull the door open, instantly stepping back in time to when this was a staple of my day to day.
Everything looks the same; pianos and guitars to the right, classical instruments to the left. The amps and soundboards, the mics and turntables are in the middle with the drums and bigger instruments all the way at the back. The register is still againstthe wall to the left, the counter absolutely covered in band and brand logos and sitting on a stool behind it is a guy who makes this feel even more like a blast from the past.
He’s big, probably six one or two, wide as hell and very pretty while he flips through a music catalog. He has tattoos up and down both arms, a few more creeping up his throat and neck, and when he glances up to give me a quickwelcome to Mikey’sI catch a glimpse of the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen.
I nod to him as I start wandering through the store, the nostalgia I’m flooded with over seeing someone like that sitting behind the counter at Mikey’s, it’s unreal.
I used to come through that door almost every day to see Lucky, who was a big, beautiful tattooed man behind that same counter.
I’d bring him beignets and we’d browse catalogs for the equipment we needed. Sometimes I’d come in here and sit and play a piano until he closed the shop. I bought my first guitar here, hell, I bought most of my instruments here, and Mikey’s was somewhere the five of us spent hundreds of hours even after we started getting noticed.
Smiling to myself I mindlessly grab a neon green ukulele and start strumming a few notes, weaving through the stringed instruments before I get to the woodwinds.
Mikey’s Wall of Fame.
My smile grows as I stop in front of it, my eyes immediately catching on another memory.
Every musician who’s ever made it big and happened to grace the doors signs the wall. There’s autographs from legends to locals, people as notorious as Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty to the NOLA born and bred The Four Horsemen of Doom and Death Shroud.
And on the far right edge, right in my line of sight, is the black outline of a raven with the names of five kids scribbled inside it.
I run my finger over the faded sharpie, tracing Mark’s chicken scratch and Pete’sLaGravebecause that’s all he ever signs. Lucky’s five leaf clover—because,lucky—with his initials inside, Norman’s giganticNs in his first and last name before I stop at mine.
My signature is like everything I do; it starts out legible and clear, the direction perfectly straight. Then about halfway through it turns into a hurried and jumbled mess and by the time you get to the end, it’s nearly unrecognizable.
That was all so long ago, almost twelve years if I remember correctly.
Lucky drove us down here before the ink had dried on our very first contract and made sure we signed the wall. Mikey even took a picture of the five of us with our signatures then framed one for each of us that we hung up in our houses with any other big moments captured on film.
I follow the outline of the raven, thinking back to that day and how excited we were, how our lives were about to change in so many more ways than we could have imagined.
It’s strange really, walking through that door and expecting to have a meltdown or panic attack, maybe walk into the waiting arms of a ghost who I refuse to let haunt me anymore. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting but I do feel more at ease than I figured I’d be, and I can tell some kind of weight was lifted off my shoulders, even if it was small.
“I don’t see any cases for this,” I say as I set the ukulele on the counter. “Do you have something in the back, maybe?”
The dude behind the register shrugs and keeps flipping through the magazine. “Shoulda been out there.”
Oh good, he’s a rude fuck.
“They weren’t.”
