I did this because Deke was prowling out.
One of the guys in the band took the guitar. I quickly mumbled my thanks and other musician brethren stuff and ran off the stage, jumped down, pushed through the applauding, shouting crowd and hit the door to hit the chilly night and see nothing but a full parking lot.
I looked left. I looked right. And lucky for me (or not, as the case I would have to find out would be), he was a man who was easy to see, even at a distance.
“Deke!” I shouted, dashing that way, my long, spangled gypsy skirt flowing back, my cowboy boots hitting the pavement not drowned out even if the music inside was leaking through the concrete walls of Bubba’s. “Deke!” I shouted again as I saw him throw a long leg over a bike. I was no longer dashing, now I was sprinting.
He looked at me and watched me make it the last fifteen feet, stopping on a near-skid at his side and taking in a huge breath.
I peered into his impassive face.
“Deke,” I whispered.
“Shouldn’t’ve cut the set short,” he replied.
“I—”
“Get it, Jus,” he stated, his words clipped. “You bein’ Jus. Just Jus. That bein’ important to you, ’specially at a time like this. Get it. Probably not easy bein’ you. Dad like that. People wantin’ a piece of you.”
I moved closer, not sure whether to lift a hand and touch him, watching his face intently.
“I was gonna—”
He jerked his head to the bar. “You got what your dad had. You should do something with it.”
My mouth snapped shut.
He didn’t know me.
Or at least the Justice Lonesome part of me.
Then he proved me wrong.
Partially.
“Gettin’ this out there, we met,” he announced.
“What?” I was again whispering.
“Years back. Night my ma had her first heart attack. We met at a bar up in Wyoming.”
He remembered?
Wait.
The night his mother had a heart attack?
Again.
Wait.
Her first one?
His eyes went to my hair then back to me. “Bad night, heard word, took off, nearly lost her,” he stated emotionlessly. “It’d be her third heart attack few years later that finally did her in but that first one shook me. Your hair. Those eyes. Knew I knew you from somewhere, musta blocked it because that night and the next however many fuckin’ sucked. Saw you today with your notebook. Came to me. Met you that night and you had a notebook almost like that. You were at a dude ranch. You don’t remember but we met.”
“I do,” I told him quietly. “I just thought you didn’t.”
He nodded, sussing it out immediately.
Maybe.
“So no Justice.”
No, dammit.
I didn’t give him Justice.
I got closer. “Deke—”
“I get it. Must be hard, bein’ you.”
“There’s more to tell.”
“Not really. Got a famous dad. Shit ton of money. Even more talent. He’s gone, don’t pay attention to that shit but still know the media feeds off anything just as long as it’s shitty. Go into a frenzy they got the shot to feed off your grief. Your brother bein’ an asshole, more fuel to that fire. You disappear in the mountains. I get it.”
Actually, thankfully, the media had not yet locked onto what Mav was doing.
I didn’t share that with Deke at that juncture.
“It’s that and it’s other stuff, Deke,” I told him. “Can we go somewhere? Talk?”
“’Bout what, Jus?” he asked. “I get it.”
“The other stuff,” I repeated.
“You don’t gotta give me what you don’t wanna give me. Got no call to own it. Don’t want that call. Made that clear so you know that.”
At his words, I took a step back.
He looked down at my feet then up at me.
It was late. Dark. But Krystal and Tate didn’t mess around with lights in their parking lot.
I saw his flinch before he hid it.
He knew the barb he’d thrown stung and did that in a big way.
We’d been dancing around the fact that I was at one place, he was in another and we both knew what one wanted and the other didn’t.
That being me wanting him and Deke not wanting me back that same way.
He’d pushed the boundaries back, gave me the friendly.
But he’d done it never being a dick about establishing precisely what those boundaries were we’d never cross.
Until now.
“Jus—”
“You look like you’re rarin’ to get home so I’ll let you do that,” I muttered, shifting to move away.
Deke caught my forearm.
I turned my eyes to his.
“Jus,” he said softly, his hand putting on pressure like he wanted to bring me closer.
I put pressure on the other way, slipping it out of his grip.
“See you tomorrow, Deke.”
I started to walk away.
“Jus—”
I turned back to him.
“Sorry about your mom,” I said. “Hate that happened. I’m really sorry. Both parents gone, that sucks for you and I get that’s in a big way. But I hope you don’t take it wrong when I say it’s good to finally know why you stood me up.”
Another flinch before, “Jussy—”