Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 43920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
“Where are you guys getting cult?” Pete Rasmussen said, like we were all dumb, as he filled the ice bin, his arms like tree trunks, making the process quick and easy. “It was Cut of Meat.”
“It was Sweet Meat,” Elsa said, putting her tray on the counter. “I think they were going for the whole the-sweetest-meat-is-closest-to-the-bone saying, but that’s just weird.”
“Ewww.” Xola, who was vegan, gagged.
Getting out my phone, I looked at the name on my Excel spreadsheet. “It was Cut to the Meet,” I announced. “Like meeting someone.”
They were all looking at me like they’d smelled something bad.
“The fact that none of you knew their name tells me they sucked. Not memorable at all.”
“Oh, they were memorable,” Darcy assured me with a roll of her eyes.
“Just not in a good way,” Xola chimed in.
“Well…” Thad, my third bartender, grimaced. He was working the day shift for the rest of the week to learn more tips from Darcy and Xola. “I mean, it was wrong from the beginning, am I right?”
Lots of nodding from everyone.
Pete grunted. “A metal band on Frenchmen Street, boss? What were you thinking?”
All eyes on me.
“Something new?” I announced cheerfully.
Xola snorted, which was incongruous coming from a woman who looked like she’d stepped out of a fairy tale. With her long black box braids with magenta highlights, and flawless deep-umber complexion with gold undertones, she was stop-you-in-your-tracks beautiful. When there were men at the bar who hadn’t seen her—they would be talking, not paying attention, and then she’d ask what they wanted in her husky voice—it was fun to watch them get caught in her amber stare. I enjoyed seeing men of all ages go mute. Small perks of the job.
Not that owning a venue like La Belle Vie wasn’t fun. I loved it. My dream had been to have a place in the Quarter, and I realized it at thirty-one. Now, at thirty-six, I thought there would be more to my life than work. I had always pictured someone with me. I had, in fact, pictured someone very specific before he blew town, seeking fame and fortune. And unlike our last band, he had quickly found both. But thinking about Dawson West was a mistake, and after all the time it took me to purge him from my system, I was not going back for anything. And more importantly, thinking about my lost love did nothing to fix my current problem. We really needed a band.
Later that night, as Shenandoah was onstage, I kept my head down and made sure not to make eye contact with anyone, catching up on my paperwork and cleaning projects.
“Really?”
I groaned and lifted my head, meeting the beautiful gray eyes of my manager, my second-in-charge, the woman I’d been smart enough to hire the moment she walked into my place five years ago, after I’d owned the club for two whole weeks. She’d glanced around, then caught my gaze.
“You need help,” she’d stated. “You’re trying to do too much.”
She was not wrong. Trying to be all things when I was a back-of-house guy, not the type to be front and center, had been a mistake. In Simone Howard, I found someone who was amazing with the public, which I was not. We had the perfect division of labor. She told me to think of work like a ship. I took care of the crew, made sure we had all the supplies we needed for the voyage, and she navigated and talked to the people in all the ports. I liked the metaphor. At the moment, though, I did not enjoy how I was being looked at.
“What?” I asked defensively.
She tipped her head slightly toward the playing band.
Groaning, I put my head down.
“Dazzle me,” she goaded.
“I thought, yanno, from the name, that they were probably a country band.”
“Mmmmm-hmmm.”
“I mean, how could a country band be bad?”
“Tomorrow,” she said, one eye closed because the yodeling was just a bit off-key and had, I suspected, run straight up her spinal column to her brain, “you will invite the very nice booking agent who dropped off her card last week, to lunch.”
“I’m cooking my lobster gumbo,” Georgine informed me, taking a seat on the barstool beside me. “That way we’ll impress her.”
“We have to do something,” Xola agreed, sliding in next to Simone, gesturing at the emptiness that was our club at the moment. “Because people cannot dance and drink and sin while being reminded of God.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“Now listen,” Simone began. “I love church, and as you know, I sing in the choir every Sunday morning, but this? This ain’t it.”
No argument there.
TWO
After closing that night, Simone had come into my office as I was contemplating my next step. I was sitting in my fancy chair behind my enormous U-shaped desk, which I loved because it was the first thing I’d bought when my business was on solid ground. Before that I had an unsteady card table and plastic drawers.