Hix didn’t need to take Gemini in. Even with Hix not a regular at his club, Gemini wasn’t a stranger in town or in the town’s business. He went to Town Board meetings. He had kids at the school. He was involved.
He was also short, had his hair cut close to his scalp and a precisely groomed, thin mustache over his top lip. Even though he couldn’t be more than five six, he was burly, had wide shoulders, sturdy legs and a stomach that protruded but didn’t give any indication the man wasn’t fit.
That said, his height or build didn’t matter.
Not with Gemini.
With Gemini, it was about presence.
He had that, not just in his place, a place he’d inherited from his momma, who’d inherited it from her daddy and so on. A place he grew up in that was just him, every inch of it.
He was also that anywhere he went.
Why he had it was something you couldn’t put your finger on and Hix had learned with that kind of thing, you didn’t try. He was who he was to the Dew Drop, the town, the county, and since that was a force of class and intelligence, you didn’t question it.
“She’s in back, touching up perfection,” Gemini told him, and Hix held back a sigh at his comment and what it shared he knew about why Hix was there.
“Like to have a word with her,” Hix replied.
Gemini looked to his club but did it shaking his head and speaking to Hix. “She’s back on in a few.” His eyes went to Hix. “I’ll get word to her for her next break.”
“Thanks,” Hix muttered.
“Always like repeat business, but ’specially glad to see you here,” Gemini noted. “Word around town . . .” Gemini shrugged. “Started off good enough, then nothin’ more juicy to gnaw on happened, things began to turn.”
It didn’t surprise Hix that Gemini was giving him indication he not only liked Greta, but looked after her.
And with the other info he shared about things beginning to turn, something Hix had not heard, now he knew it was good he’d taken his seventeen-year-old son’s advice.
“Had my kids this week,” Hix murmured.
“Mm-hmm,” Gemini murmured back.
Hix shifted on his stool to face the man closer on, this regaining him Gemini’s focus.
“You’re makin’ it clear she’s your business, and I understand that. But with respect to you and the same you obviously give to Greta, just to say, we connected. She’s a good woman. But we’re not goin’ there and she gets why. I’m here as a friend and ’cause I like to listen to her sing.”
Gemini didn’t break eye contact when he repeated, “Mm-hmm.”
“That’s all I’m gonna give you, man,” Hix said low.
Gemini’s head tipped to the side, but all he said was, “I’ll get word to her you’re here.”
With that, he glided away, melting into his club with an ease borne of being born to it and a coolness that no one could imitate no matter how hard they tried.
The bartender had served his beer through this and Hix took a sip, watching the piano player come out before Greta made her return.
But when she did a minute later, he had to suck in breath.
She had a different dress on. This one a shiny dark-red satin that had gathers all around her middle and hips. The deep vee of the front dipped low to show cleavage, her arms were bare, the hem cut above her knee.
Her hair was pulled back in a huge mess of curls at her nape, fat curls falling around her face, the ends of some brushing her collarbone.
She also had big, rhinestone earrings dropping from her ears, more of that bling on a wrist, and a pair of spike-heeled sandals with big chunks of bling encircling her ankles and gold straps across her toes on her feet.
And her beautiful face was made up like it had been last Saturday.
Dark and bold.
Shit.
Fuck.
She was gorgeous.
So gorgeous, it took a beat for him to realize she was scanning the tables in front of the stage nervously as she gracefully, even in those heels, but also very quickly made her way to the piano player as subdued, respectful applause broke out at her appearance.
She bent to the piano player and said something. He shook his head. She put her hand on his arm and kept talking. He kept shaking his head, saying a few words, and then he was scanning the crowd.
Hix saw the piano player’s glance linger slightly on him before he looked right in Greta’s eyes and spoke very briefly.
She stiffened and paled before she turned away from him and walked equally stiffly to the mic set up at the end of the baby grand, center stage.
“Hey, ya’ll,” she said in it, and the applause that came after that was louder. “Thanks for hanging. Time to give you a bit more.”
She barely finished saying that when the piano sounded and the clapping stopped instantly.
Not because she didn’t deserve more.
Because they were glad she was back and they wanted silence so they could experience fully what she was about to give them.
And right then, what she gave them was Rihanna’s “Stay.”
It was also then he got why she’d had her conversation with the piano player.
She hadn’t wanted to sing that song. A song he’d heard in passing but the words coming out of Greta, her piano player taking the mic above the keyboard to accompany her when the time came, he heard every fucking word.
He also knew, since she didn’t want to sing them, just what they meant.
And each word beat into him as he watched her stand in front of that club and lose herself in the song, her eyes closing, her body not swaying an inch, her fingers staying wrapped loosely around the mic stand without budging, just her lips moved as she poured her yearning all over them.
All over him.
Shit.
Fuck.
She ended the song, smiling and not looking anywhere near the bar in a way he suspected she guessed that was where he was, while the patrons showed their approval and as the rest of the band—a drummer, two guys taking up guitars—walked up and took their positions on that small stage with her.
Once the band was ready, she immediately went into “Come Away with Me” by Norah Jones, and Hix heard it, he liked it, she sang it beautifully. But mostly, through that and the songs she sang after it, he sipped his beer and retreated back to where he had to go to pull his shit together so he’d have it tight when she walked up to him in that dress, those shoes, with her hair like that, her face like that, after she sang that first song.
When she completed the set, she said in her sweet voice through the applause to the audience, “Thank you. Gonna take a little break but I’ll be back.”
The applause ran deeper as she smiled, lifted her hand slightly in a lithe gesture of thanks and farewell-for-now and walked off the stage.
After she disappeared, Hix fought ordering another beer. It wouldn’t make him drunk but that didn’t matter. In his position, he had to live his life as an example.
Normally, this wasn’t taxing.
But right then, he needed another freaking beer.
She came through some dark curtains hanging over a door to the left side of the room, and her eyes hit him briefly before she made her way to him slowly when someone stopped her, having to touch shoulders, say some words, bend over to listen to a few.