Page 25 of August Lane
She stared at him. “Why do you do that?”
“What?”
“Talk like you know me.” She thought about her journal, but then immediately put it out of her head. If he’d found it, he would have told someone or returned it by now. Keeping it for three days without saying a word made no sense. “We only had one conversation.”
“Oh, so you do remember. I thought you got amnesia the minute you saw my face.”
The hurt in his voice surprised her. It had never occurred to her that their conversation at the fair had been as meaningful to him as it had been to her. For August, it had been a brief, unguarded exhale that made her realize how long she’d been holding her breath. But she didn’t want to talk about it in front of their classmates.
Luke flattened his hand over his pencil collection and rolled them under his palm. August watched the movement, her eyes drawn to a bruise on his wrist. “What happened?”
He slid his hand under his desk and glanced at the clock. “We should probably finish working on this.”
August gestured at his pencils. “Why do you have so many of those?”
“So I always have a sharp one.” He shot a quick, judgmental look at her pencil, with its tip blunted into the wood, barely usable. August picked it up and waggled it between her fingers.
“Does this bother you?”
He frowned and folded his arms. “No.”
“You look stressed.”
“I have a sharpener if you want to use it.”
“Why would I do that when there are four perfectly good pencils right here?” She reached for one of his. He grabbed her hand to stop her. August laughed and said, “Why are you so possessive?”
“I’m not,” he replied, his firm grip softening into a cradle before slipping away. “Maybe you just have that effect on me.”
She pressed the hand he’d held against the desk, using its cool temperature to erase any lingering warmth. Then she leaned in and asked in a lowered voice, “Did you take my notebook?”
CHAPTER FIVE
2023
August left King’s Kitchen to find a place where Luke wasn’t sitting inches away from a steak knife. She couldn’t shake the way he’d looked at her. Like he’d finally found her after years of searching. Likeshewas the one who had disappeared.
She drove east until she reached the gravel road that ended at Delta Blue’s driveway. The club was built like an old juke joint, with new additions that had been haphazardly attached over the decades. One of them had been a one-bedroom apartment where Silas King lived but refused to call home. According to her uncle, “That word means more than a bathroom and a bed.”
Inside, Delta Blue was cold and dark. The heat index was over a hundred degrees, and Silas had the air cranked to arctic levels. The temperature shift made it feel like stepping into another world, which was fitting since she’d always considered the bar a sanctuary. It was a place for customers to commune in a shared love of roots music, songs that reminded them of making out with their childhood sweetheart or the sting of their first shot of whiskey.
As a child, August would pretend to sing for sold-out crowds on the Delta Blue stage. She grew up listening to a diverse roster of local musicians while sweeping floors and washing dishes for spending money. For the past few years, on the nights Birdie’s nurse would sleep over, August would come here to drink and pretend to be someone else. That woman was giggly and unencumbered, always looking for a good time.
Sometimes she found it. Sometimes she’d end the night in strange arms, sweating out demons with some musician she refused to tell her name. She’d say call me Songbird and sing a little if he wanted, thenrevel in how his eyes would ignite at her high notes. She never let on that they were anything special, but she’d smolder under that gaze. Remember how to burn.
August headed straight to Silas’s office. The door was open and, like always, she was struck by how much older her uncle looked. Her mental picture of Silas was born in his favorite Westerns, the mythical man in black. He used to wear dark clothes and have a thick beard that obscured most of his face. These days, his beard was streaked with gray and his clothes were a clash of bright prints in breathable fabrics. He even wore reading glasses. They were perched at the end of his nose while he glared at spreadsheets covered with red notations.
Silas hated computers, so he printed everything, even emails. He also hated the business part of owning a business, like managing finances and keeping track of inventory. Delta Blue was his baby, so he forced himself to do what was needed to keep it open. He also owned King’s Kitchen, which would have closed years ago if it hadn’t been for August. She helped him manage it but refused to accept a formal title. It felt too permanent. An official acknowledgment that she’d never work anywhere else.
August sat in a wobbly leather chair she considered hers. She was one of the few people willing to sit in his presence long enough to hold a conversation. Half the town was convinced he was a criminal kingpin who ran drugs out of Delta Blue and used King’s Kitchen to launder money. When August asked why he never corrected them, he’d said he was providing a public service. “People need a bogeyman to feel safe. Evil they can see.”
Silas didn’t seem surprised by her sudden appearance. He moved to the window, cracked it open, and tapped a pack of Marlboros against his palm. It was his patiently impatient way of asking whether the conversation was worth his one smoke a day.
“That asshole,” she hissed, and motioned for him to share.
“Which one?” Silas ignored her request for a cigarette. He flipped open a lighter and cupped the small flame in his hand. “Terry Dixon? That dude owes me a hundred dollars. Or are you talking about his wife?”
“Luke.” She hated how his name felt in her mouth. Saying it felt like forfeiting something.
