Bounty (Colorado Mountain 7)

Deke’s obviously didn’t because he kept talking.

“For them, a nice night out turned into a memory they won’t forget. They’ll be tellin’ that shit to their grandkids. You made it that way, walkin’ up to them, givin’ ’em your time, givin’ ’em all the good you got in you. Watched you do it, Jussy. You just bein’ you lit up their worlds for as long as you were at their table.”

As I tried to regulate my breathing which had gone erratic at Deke’s compliment, Deke reached out, found my hand, curled his around it and pulled both to his thigh.

And his voice was lower, filled with sheer beauty when he continued.

“Don’t think I’ve ever been prouder in my life than watchin’ you handle those people. No way to describe it. ’Cept pure grace.”

I squeezed his hand and my voice was different too, lower, but husky when I replied, “Thank you, baby.”

“Your dad see that?” he asked.

I cleared my throat and looked to the dark road. “Kind of. Usually it was him giving that to people.”

Sweet memories filled my head of watching him do just that for as long as I could remember.

Memories that I noted were just sweet, without any of the sting that memories of Dad had been causing since he’d passed.

And that sweet was something else Deke had given me—keeping me together even as I fell apart, letting me get things out it was unhealthy to hold in, paving the way for me to move on, release the bitter, keep the sweet.

“He taught me how,” I finished.

“Born to it and still, both a’ you know what it means. Don’t take it for granted.”

“No, we both know what it means,” I confirmed.

Or Dad knew. And he’d taught me.

Deke was silent. This stretched and I let it.

Deke ended it.

“One album, Jussy. You say you like what you do but, baby, you haven’t explained to me what it is you’re gonna be doin’.”

This was noted conversationally. I felt no tension in the cab, heard none in his words.

He wasn’t asking to gather information, assess if our paths would down the road divide.

He was just asking.

“I write songs,” I answered. “Sometimes, if I like the artist, I produce. It’s rare, though, that I go in to do that. Produce, I mean. It takes a lot of time and,” I rubbed my thumb along the side of his hand, “until recently, I wasn’t big on staying in one place for very long.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, amusement and approval in his tone.

That was when I fell silent.

Deke didn’t fall into it with me.

“One album, babe.”

I looked to him. “What?”

“It’s been a while. When you gonna do another one?”

When my hand squeezed his that time, it was involuntary.

“I don’t record anymore,” I shared.

He shot a glance at me.

“Say again?” he asked the road when his eyes went back to it.

I looked back to the road too. “I don’t record. Like I said, I just write. And sometimes produce.”

“You don’t record.”

The way he said that made me turn my head his way again.

“No, Deke. Not anymore.”

There was no pause before he asked his next, but when he asked, he asked gently.

“You wanna tell me why?”

I looked back out the windshield. “It wasn’t for me.”

“What wasn’t?” he asked. “Parts of it or the whole thing?”

A wise question.

“Parts of it. I…” I hesitated then noted, “You read up on me.”

“I did.”

“So you know the story.”

“Read it but didn’t think it was the whole story, Jussy, seein’ as you’re young and you got amazing talent. Thought there were more chapters to be written.”

“I lost my drummer to an overdose,” I announced. “He was Dad’s drummer before he went on the road with me. So he was family. And I was the leader of the band then. That means I didn’t take care of one of my boys. I didn’t look out for him.”

Before Deke could put his two cents in, I went on hurriedly.

“I know it wasn’t my fault. I get that, really. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a part of me that feels I hold some responsibility. And, well…that happening shook me.”

It was then his hand tightened what seemed like involuntarily in mine.

But I gave him more.

“And the schedule, Deke, it’s insane. On the road. On a bus. On a plane. In a car. In a hotel room. Up early for press. Interview after interview trying to answer the same questions that are asked over and over again, doing it in different ways, trying to seem engaged. Dog-tired by sound check. Amping for the performance to be so jazzed at the end you can’t sleep. Booze all over the place. Drugs easy to get. Everything. Illegal. Prescription. And everybody wants to be your friend because you can get them backstage or get them introductions to the people who’ll make their dreams come true or they can just take off with all the shit folks shower on you for no reason, just because you can sing and you have a famous last name. You’re open to being used, open to shit that is seriously unhealthy for you, finding yourself needing it just to get through the day, doing your best to deny that, turn your back on it and keep going.”

I looked to him, took a breath, but I wasn’t done.

“All that happens and if you’re lucky, it grows. Then you need to build a wall to stay behind, to keep away from all that shit, to stay safe. And suddenly, you’re behind that wall. What I do, Deke, it isn’t about being behind a wall. It isn’t about keeping myself shielded from the people who love the stories I tell. It’s about us being two halves of a whole. I love what I do and I’d be happy doing it just for me. But they love what I do too and it’s indescribable how amazing it is that what I give is something they want to take. It isn’t like there would be no me without them, yet it is. We’re one. You remove yourself from part of that, you’re missing something crucial to the process. No one can live without their other half.”