Kellie was head and shoulders out the door. The bouncer nodded to her, turned to me, lifted a hand, and did a “get your ass in there” gesture to which someone at the head of the line groused, “Seriously, dude? Been standing out here an hour. What the fuck?”
I ignored the discontent coming from the line, muttered, “Thanks,” to the bouncer as I moved swiftly past him, got a, “No problem, sweetheart,” which was nice but probably had more to do with Kellie being a regular than me having good hair (or a great jacket). But I still turned my head and gave him a smile.
He gave me a wink.
He couldn’t be more than thirty-two, so that felt nice.
I let it feel nice, then let it go and moved to Kellie.
“This’ll be so worth it,” she declared before I could even say hello, her words strangely heavy with meaning.
She reached out a hand and nabbed mine as she spoke.
Before I could reply or figure out the weight of her words, she tugged me inside, the door closing the cold behind us, leaving us in the warm that wasn’t just the inside of a building but the inside of a bar heaving with people.
And this was when I realized my mistake.
I’d gone cold turkey on life when I’d ended things with Logan, so I hadn’t been to a place like this since then, except my brief visit to Scruff’s a few weeks earlier.
That didn’t count.
This was it.
This was where it was at.
This was one of a bevy of things back in the day that filled me up and kept life beautiful.
The sights. The lights. The people. The sounds. The vibe.
Electric.
Alive.
Not me.
So, so not me.
Not anymore.
I was there, feeling it, immune to it and missing it all at the same time, the last like an ache because when I’d had it, I’d had it with Logan.
Yes.
Big mistake.
Huge.
I had to get out of here.
I couldn’t go.
Dragging me with her, Kellie wended her way expertly through the crowd to a table back in the jumble around a stage where music was blasting.
Good music.
The band was excellent.
I didn’t look at the band. I concentrated on getting where Kellie was guiding me without slamming into someone in a chair or a waitress negotiating tables and bodies.
Kellie got us to her table, which was populated by two men and another woman, none of whom I knew, all of whom looked to us as we got there.
“These are my best friends for the night since they let me sit at their table,” she shouted, Kellie being one who could make friends anywhere (and did) and thus could go out without a girl posse (and did). She threw her arm out their way. “Jeff, Mark, and Helen.”
“Hey,” I yelled.
“Yo,” Jeff or Mark yelled back.
Mark or Jeff threw up his chin.
Helen smiled, gave a slight wave, then looked back at the stage.
Kellie tugged my hand again until I was sitting in one of the two vacant chairs.
She sat in the other one and expertly snagged a passing waitress.
“Twelve shots of tequila!” she shouted at her, and I felt my eyes get big. “Two for all, and four for my girl here so she can catch up!”
Four shots?
“Gotcha,” the waitress yelled back, and took off before I could stop her.
I leaned into Kellie.
“Babe, I’m driving!” I shouted.
“You’re also gonna be here awhile and my new buds got popcorn to soak up the booze!” she shouted back, tipping her head to the table.
I looked to the wax-paper-lined red basket on the table that had, on a quick count, seven popped pieces of corn and a plethora of unexploded kernels left in it. Then I looked back to Kellie, who was now eyes to the stage.
“Babe!” I yelled. She kept staring at the stage, bobbing her head and not turning to me, so I yelled again, “Kellie!”
She leaned back my way, attention never leaving the band, and yelled back, “They so need a dance floor here. This band makes you wanna move.”
She was not wrong. They were currently kicking the Black Crowes’ “Hard to Handle” and doing it so brilliantly, if Chris Robinson was standing at the bar, he’d be smiling.
My eyes started to move to the stage but stopped when someone slammed into my chair and my entire body jerked as my chair moved three inches toward Kellie’s.
“Whoa!” a man shouted, and I looked up at him. “Sorry!”
I smiled. “That’s okay!”
He grinned back and moved on.
I again was about to look at the stage when I heard, “Rumor was true! They get their old front man back whenever they come to Denver. And fuck if he doesn’t rock!”
This was shouted by Helen and I looked to her just as the band ended the song and she jumped up, as did everyone else at our table, at other tables, all the people obscuring my view of the stage, and the crowd roared its approval.
I started clapping and kept smiling because this wasn’t so bad. I’d do a shot, maybe two, order a Coke and listen to good music, sitting with my girl and her new friends. I’d be tired tomorrow but it wouldn’t kill me, Kellie would be happy and that was all that mattered.
Slower notes to a song I recognized started. The folks around drifted their asses back to their chairs and a familiar voice sounded over the microphone.
“This song is dedicated to a bitch named Millie.”
My eyes shot to a stage I now could see and my heart shriveled to dust when I saw Hopper Kincaid, back in the day a new Chaos brother, and by his words undoubtedly still a Chaos brother, standing front and center. His flame-tattooed arms were moving on the guitar he held. His eyes filled with hate were aimed at me.
“Not good to see you again,” he growled directly to me, the dust of my heart floating away on his words, Then he played a few more notes and launched in to the lyrics of Candlebox’s “Far Behind.”
I heard Kellie’s totally pissed off, “What the fuck?” but I couldn’t tear my eyes from Hop lacerating the bloody pulp of my soul with every word of a sad, angry song.
It was a fantastic song but I’d never really listened to the lyrics.
I listened to them then.
And I knew they might mean one thing to Candlebox.
They meant another to Hopper Kincaid and the family I once had that I loved called Chaos.