dying as he tries not to laugh. I look over to the bar where Cole and Travis are also looking our way. Cole gives me the biggest, dumbest exaggerated eyebrow waggle I’ve ever seen, and Travis, with that knowing smile, better not be getting any ideas about getting us both in the van tonight after the show.
“Why are they staring at us?” Millie says.
“Because they’re pigs,” I say.
A big, drunk grin spreads across Millie’s face and she turns to look over her shoulder at Cole and Travis. Then she looks back at me with a smirk and I know what she’s thinking as she licks her lips like that but quite honestly, I’m just not that drunk. Unfortunately, Millie is and before I can manage to duck and avoid it, she plants a big, openmouthed kiss right on my lips, right there in the middle of the club, and oh fuck, spinART’s in the house, too. Great.
I can’t bear to look around me. I don’t want to see just how much attention we’ve drawn. But when Billy Broadband cries, “Whoa, Millie! Let me run to the car and get the camera, girl,” and I hear cries for an encore and Circle Time is still in the middle of their set, I can imagine the size of the spectacle Millie has just made of us. I know I’m turning red, for sure, and I think Joey just dropped his drink and Cole fell off his barstool and I can’t see Travis right now, but if his boner isn’t a mile long, then I have to admit, I’m a little disappointed in him.
Thankfully, all the dudes who take pictures of bands are near the front of the stage and don’t get us on film. Because that’s all I need right now.
Millie pulls her face back and laughs and I am sure I’ve turned a deep crimson, because, Jesus effing Christ, this isn’t the shore, folks. We’re not working at Frank’s Chicken House here. We are performing artists in this town, and I, for one, like to be taken seriously for what I do—and that’s sing and play guitar. I’m not here to dance on a pole, with all due respect to the exotic dancing community—they do their thing, I do mine, and mine is not to earn a living giving drunk guys hard-ons. Come on, now.
Anyway, I can’t even stay mad at Millie. She’s also too damned adorable when she’s drunk.
Travis extricates himself from some conversation at the bar and weaves his way through the crowd over to where we are. The look on his face is tough to read because there’s no questioning that he’s completely amused. But he’s coming to rescue me, that becomes obvious when he plants himself right between Millie and me and bends down to my ear to say, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. Now Millie gives me a long, lingering kiss on the cheek before she heads back over to the bar and Travis’s eyes flash with the fantasy of something he’s definitely not getting tonight. Not for all the vodka in the bar.
“That was not my idea,” I say.
“I know,” he says. “I thought you were going to wring her neck.”
“Well, she’s not that bad of a kisser,” I say.
He tries not to react. He glances past me, over to where Millie is sitting at the bar, and then back down at me. He narrows his eyes.
“You’re going to be in trouble if you keep that up.”
“I think you’re going to be in trouble if I keep it up.”
“Jesus, Emmylou,” he says, shaking his head. He laughs and then turns his attention towards the stage. “How’s Julia holding up?”
“She’s managing,” I say, nodding in her direction. She’s playing fine, not her best set ever, but who can expect that under the circumstances? It’s still good enough that the spinART rep is bobbing his head to the music and not checking his watch.
It’s near the end of Circle Time’s set when we all notice Julia is not okay. They’re playing a crowd favorite, “You and Me,” one of the oldest songs in their set, and tears stream down her face and now nothing is funny. Nothing is cute.
“Oh shit,” Joey says. “Poor Julia.”
It’s just so fucking sad, and now we’re all standing here unable to take our eyes off of her, unable to breathe as they careen through the song, pretty terribly. Matt is oblivious, that fucking dick. Dan can’t see because her back is to