Rocked (The Everyday Heroes World) - Julia Wolf Page 0,31
Then I shot Rose a grin along with a wink. She pursed her lips in return. “Thank you for coming to my defense, Rose. I’m good now, but I’ll let you know if I need you. And before I leave, I’m going to need you to explain auras.”
She pointed to the brothers, who’d accepted my offer of taking a seat at my table. “Remember, I have scalding hot coffee back here. I don’t mess around.”
When she walked away, Jeff shook his head. “My mom has stories about her.”
“I guess she was the town drunk back in the day.” Shane rubbed his chin. “Now she’s sober and has become the town eccentric.”
I glanced at Rose, who was scrubbing the espresso machine. “I don’t know. As I’ve gotten older, I’m now of the opinion that normal is overrated.”
Jeff nodded, rubbing his chin just like his brother. “I feel that, man.”
Shane knocked on the table. “We came over to say we’re big fans and we have our own band.” He poked the insignia on his chest. “We’re all firefighters. We do a lot of covers—a lot of your stuff—and we’re playing in town tonight.”
Before I could speak, Jeff added, “We’re not looking for a record deal. None of us want to be famous. We love music, love playing, and the extra coin we make at our gigs doesn’t hurt.”
He stole the words from my mouth. I’d been all set to turn down passing on a demo to my agent, but now that I knew they weren’t after that, I was perplexed.
“Whatcha looking for then?” I folded my hands on the table. “Want to talk playlists? Ask me when my next album is coming out? Looking for an autograph?’
Shane and Jeff exchanged a look, then turned back to me. As expected, Shane took the lead. “I mean, all those things would be a fuckin’ dream. But the real reason we came over was because we decided to shoot for the moon. See, we’re playing at Hooligan’s tonight, and we were wondering if you’d sit in with us for a couple songs.”
“Dylan McCoy has sung with us a few times,” Jeff rushed to add.
Shane nodded proudly. “Yep. She’s really nice. She doesn’t love performing, but she’s become Sunnyville’s sweetheart. Half the shops in town have her music piped in all day.”
I snorted. “I don’t think I could even listen to my own music all day, and I fucking adore the sound of my own voice. That’s crazy.”
The boys laughed, and I considered their offer. I couldn’t remember the last time I played a bar. It was on the tip of my tongue to reject their offer, but fuck if I couldn’t use some applause. Plus, my pipes were getting rusty from disuse.
“Any other day, any other time in my life, I’d be saying no before you finished asking.” I straightened my mug on the table and both guys’ massive shoulders slumped. “It’s not any other day, though. It’s today. I’m doing this thing where I do the exact opposite of my gut reaction. So, I’m gonna say yes.”
Both of their eyes grew wide, and in an identical move, they covered their mouths, laughing and gasping.
You know, I’d heard the phrase “it’s better to give than receive” a thousand times over my life, but this was the first time I’d experienced it. The pure glee radiating off Jeff and Shane actually fucking moved me. I got a knot in my throat so big, I had to cough so hard, I probably sounded like a lung was about to make an appearance.
But damn.
Just damn.
Saying yes felt good. Not being a dick wasn’t even hard.
“You’re not going to cry, are you?” Okay, so maybe not being a dick was a little harder than I thought. But Shane and Jeff just laughed, slapping each other on the back.
“We’ll cry later, in the privacy of our own homes,” Shane said.
I chuckled. “Gazing at my poster above your bed?”
Jeff gasped. “How’d you know? Are the rumors true about you peeping in unsuspecting young men’s windows?”
I threw my head back, laughing harder than I had in a while. “Oh, it’s like that, is it? We’re old pals now?”
Shane shrugged. “Why not?”
I shrugged back. “Why not indeed?”
Eleven
Kat
Rhea came over when my shift ended so I didn’t “throw myself off a bridge or something”—her words, not mine. She knew I’d be wringing my hands over Ells being out of my sight, out in the wilderness somewhere. I hadn’t even gotten to see her off,