Rain on the glass, reminds me of you
A sip of hot chocolate, a song played in blue
Lyrics written on a postcard
Melody slick, deep, and charred
Anyone not loving you
Ain’t trying that hard
Shout at the moon, dance in the rain
Give me your heart, I’ll keep back the pain
—Rain and the Blues
IT WAS damned good to be home.
San Francisco welcomed them like it took back all of its children, spitting out rain and coyly hiding behind a fan made of fog and seagulls. The streets were slippery and packed with tourists looking to be scammed by the eternally going-out-of-business jewelry stores dotting Chinatown, while street performers set up tiny fiefdoms along the piers, charming hapless pedestrians out of bits of cash and coin.
The band scattered nearly as soon as the tour bus came to a stop, going their own separate ways, away from the Crossroads where they’d meet to play and sing. It would take them all a few hours to reconcile themselves to the road not moving beneath their feet and the bed smelling like home.
Miki wasn’t sure Kane was ever going to get the smell of Dude’s pee out of his sneakers after the dog got so excited at seeing Miki, he’d pissed all over Kane’s feet. It’d been hard to leave the terrier behind, but the band had one last gig to play before calling the tour done.
Finnegan’s.
A blackboard sign under the covered patio announced the pub was closed for a private evening event, but the doors were open, and from the cluster of off-duty cops gathered around the entrance, Miki guessed no one was waiting for the band to show up before they started partying.
The foot traffic on the pier was light, not odd considering the erratic rain slicing over the shoreline, but the pub was definitely packed with loud voices and clinking glasses, both Irish in one way or another. The air held a splash of the ocean, a tint of fish and salt with the peculiar sea-foam whiff of water birds. The bridge’s beams strung lights through the mist, speckles of flares and dots cutting through as the nearby buildings began their evening business. Somewhere close by, someone spun cotton candy, threads of vanilla and berry sweet peeking out from between the waves of sardine and sourdough.
Chatter ebbed and flowed, a tide of sound from the meandering groups of people along the walk. Every once in a while a burst of laughter erupted from Finnegan’s, as hearty and rich as the stew Donal made on cold nights when the family showed up to be fed. One of the women standing in the crowd turned out to be Kiki, and she flicked a wave at them with her beer bottle and continued on with her spirited conversation with the two blond men standing next to her.
“So, Finnegan’s. It’s like your Moby Dick, isn’t it? Like you’re Mum’s?” Kane said, rocking back on his heels and watching Miki drink in the sight of the pub they’d always been forbidden to play in front of.
“Damie got here first,” he reminded his lover, shifting his knee to better balance the weight of the electric guitar he’d brought with him. “Without me too.” He took a breath, then spat, “Fucker.”
There were already too many Morgans to keep track of, but there seemed to be more of them, or at least more Irish than Miki ever knew San Francisco had, much less under one roof. A taller, younger version of Brigid appeared to be holding court by the bar, her accent as thick as the Guinness Connor was carefully pulling into a glass. To her right, Braedon leaned on the rail, his glower nearly as fierce as Connor’s, but the girl paid him no mind. A few feet away, Donal stood with a black and tan in one hand and his other arm around his wife’s shoulder, a faint blush coloring Brigid’s round cheeks when he bent down to whisper something in her ear.
“Hey, that’s my cousin Cassie.” Kane nodded at the young woman. “On my mum’s side. She’s a Finnegan, of sorts. You’ll have to come meet her.”
“Later, K.” Miki had to shout slightly over a chorus of hellos when a group of detectives spotted them. “Got to get my gear set up. I’m here for a gig, remember?”
“Fucking musicians,” Kane muttered playfully. “Fine, but after the show, Sinjun, you’re mine.”
“Always am.” They brushed fingertips, a discreet kiss of skin. Then Miki headed to the makeshift stage. “Tell Kel I said hey.”
Forest was already behind the drums, tightening one of the skins or maybe replacing it, Miki wasn’t sure, but the drummer gave him a nod, then dove back down behind his kit. Rafe was busy uncoiling a cord but flashed Miki a broad smile. It was going to be a casual gig, worn jeans, old T-shirts, and a two-foot stage held up by blocks of wood and risers. The amps were small, and their gig pretty much depended on the pub’s sound system, but the black-painted stage felt good beneath Miki’s boots, even if it creaked a bit to the left.
Miki ignored the wolf whistle coming from somewhere in the crowd behind him as he unzipped his jacket and slithered out of the black leather. Quinn came up to the stage to grab the cord end Rafe held out for him, and Miki glanced around for his guitar relay but couldn’t see the equipment box.
“Where are the relays?” It dawned on him what Rafe was doing, and Miki groaned. “Why aren’t we doing this wireless?”
“Pub’s old. It’s got a lot of steel beams and shit. Ceiling’s low, and there’s interference bouncing all through our amps. So….” Rafe held up a cord. “We’re old-schooling it today.”
“Shit.” Miki looked around at the stage floor. It was a tight space already, but having cords underfoot was going to be a bitch. “Well, not like we’re going to be jumping around up here anyway.”
“Not unless you want to look like you’ve been in a fight when we’re done. One wrong step, and you’re over the edge of the stage.” Forest popped up from behind the drum kit. “Okay, I’m good. Skin came loose coming over here. And I needed to get something underneath one of the pedals. Stage’s wonky.”
“I got this. You hook up the mic. Q’s already strung that out and taped it off in the back.” Rafe unlatched Miki’s guitar case. “And where’s your evil twin, Sinjun? He come with you guys?”
“They left before we did.” A phosphorus coil of panic flared up along the base of Miki’s skull. “Fuck.”
He took a quick breath, shoving in a huff of air to cool the rising electric heat building up in his chest. They were supposed to play in less than half an hour, hadn’t done a sound check because up until that afternoon, there hadn’t been a stage, and now their lead guitarist was missing.
“Nothing’s happened to them, Sin,” Forest reassured him, crossing to the front of the stage with a few long strides. “They’ll be here.”
“Then we can kick his ass for not helping set up.” Rafe grimaced. “You’re excused, Mick. That knee of yours—”
“It’s doing okay. Better than a sharp knife to the gut.” He rubbed at his side where he’d taken the hit in Boston.
“Hey, still don’t know if it was a knife,” Forest reminded him. “Well, in Boston.”
“Right,” Rafe scoffed. “Because the riser tore itself open and attacked him. And what about that guy in Vegas? Anything?”
“Don’t know, and that kind of pisses me off,” Miki confessed.
“He’s probably not too happy about it either. Being dead and everything.” Tapping Miki’s leg to move him aside, Forest began to set the mic stand in place. “There’s D.”
“Hey,” Damien grunted as he mounted the short stage. His black cowboy hat tumbled from his head when he slung off down the cases he’d brought with him. Scrubbing his wet hair back, he reached for the hat. “Sorry. Ran a bit late.”
“You left the house an hour before we did. You guys were supposed to head straight here.” Miki sniffed at Damien’s shoulder. “And you took a shower after breakfast. How’d you get your hair wet?”
“Raining hard just out front, maybe?” Rafe leaned forward and looked out of the pub’s pier-side windows. “’Cause you’re soaking wet, and it’s only drizzling back here.”
“It’s wet under his hat.” Forest took one of Damien’s guitars. “Hat’s dry.”
“Huh.” Rafe craned his neck. “And Murphy’s got a huge fresh hickey on his neck.”
“Shit. Stan’s still in town.” Miki narrowed his eyes. “You guys went and fucked on the tour bus. Jesus, you… dude, really?”
“Yeah. Kinda. Really. Don’t like stupid rules, Sinjun, so… challenge accepted, and Stan gets to spend the weekend with his family in a nice hotel.” Damien smirked and slid his Phenix’s strap over his neck and around his shoulder. “Now, where the fuck are the relays? We’ve got a pub to bring to its knees.”
THE GIG was more walk down memory lane than anything else, a mishmash of classic rock and Sinner’s Gin songs, and they began to take requests when Riley set a bucket with TIPS scribbled in Sharpie on the edge of the stage. Their set list ran the gamut, delving deep into the archives of their minds for old standards about Texas floods to a silly tune about chicken dances. By ten Miki was dead tired, but his nerves were thrumming, high on the music they’d played for nearly four hours. After an hour break with the tip jar overflowing, they’d returned to the stage and played a rollick of blues until last call at 2:00 a.m.
Ears still ringing and his voice turned to broken glass from the hours he’d spent slinging out vocals, Miki was grateful for the cold beer Kane pressed into his hand. He was even more thankful for the soft arm couch Sionn’d placed up by the pub’s wood stove and the upside-down milk crates he could use to rest his feet on. The others eventually joined him, shoved away from brooms and damp towels with a fierce admonishment to go sit down, have a beer, and just enjoy themselves.
“We’ve been enjoying ourselves since we plugged in our shit,” Damien grumbled as he sat next to Miki, a thick weariness in his voice. “God, this beer is good.”
“Anything cold’s good right now, but yeah, Sionn’s got a good lager going.” Rafe stretched out on a tapestry-upholstered love seat to the right of Miki. Then Forest shoved at his feet. Lifting his legs, he groused playfully, “Fuck, goddamned drummers. Always wanting in my space.”
“That’s ’cause you leave so much of it empty,” Forest countered, sitting down on the love seat only to have Rafe put his bare feet in his lap. “Really?”
“Hey, they don’t smell.” Rafe wiggled his toes. “Much. Not like your playing.”
“I’d say fuck you, but everyone already has,” the drummer retorted, reaching for the open beer Damien offered him. “Thanks.”
“Hey, good show.” Damien hefted his beer bottle at the band, then leaned against Miki, resting his head on Miki’s shoulder. “You fucking killed it, Sin.”
“Feels like I swallowed rocks. We went too long.” The beer soothed his throat and settled in his stomach with a happy glurp. Yawning, Miki stared off toward the bar, where their lovers stood talking to Donal. Kane lifted his eyes from whatever Connor was showing them on a scribbled napkin, and Miki’s heart sped up its beat. “Shit. Look at them. Gotta be dangerous to have that much hot in one corner of a building. Place is going to catch fire, and we’re all going to burn to death.”
“Nah, Braeden’s outside. He’ll save us.” Forest yawned, and it spread to Rafe, who slapped him once they were done. “Hey! Dick.”
There was a noise at the door, gleeful but cautious, and then Kane’s face dimpled with a gigantic smile. Miki was too tired to turn around and look. Resting his head back on the couch and closing his eyes, he let out a sigh and felt his muscles slowly unknot.
A pair of heels crossing the pub’s hard floor normally would have gotten his back up, but it’d been a month since he and Brigid rubbed each other raw. The gait was wrong—the music of the walk was off. His eyes flew open, chasing the tantalizing whisper of a rhythm ghosting through his mind. The flavor of the beat was less… expressive, gentler, as if coaxing something or someone out of a tight space.
Blinking, Miki stared up at Edie’s hawkish, pale face and yelped.
“Shit, Edie! A fucking warning!”
Miki sat up, nearly losing his beer. The others stood up around him, going in for a hug or, in Rafe’s case, dipping Edie back and kissing her on the cheek.
Slender to the point of gaunt, their manager, Edie, was all sharp angles, her suit tailored in tight and her mouth glazed with a bright coral lipstick. She’d done something with her hair, lightening it to a caramel brown, and softened the severity of the bob cut along the line of her strong jaw. Yet her hands were still soft and slightly cold when she cupped his face and her laugh as husky as ever when he bent down to kiss her faintly wrinkled cheek.
She’d been the only person in the world who’d given a shit about him when Miki’d thought he’d lost his entire life. It’d been Edie who cajoled him to eat and railed at him to get out of the house. She’d also been the first one to ever order him to fall in love, and she’d celebrated like a mad woman when Kane finally moved in to the warehouse. She was Dude’s fairy godmother and the one woman in Miki’s life who he’d allowed to boss him around.
In so many ways, Edie was as much a mother to him as Brigid, and his eyes stung with a fierce regret when he realized he’d never ever told her how much he’d needed her when he’d been drowning.
“Hey, it’s good to see you.” He meant it, and as he wrapped his arms around Edie’s slender body, her breath hitched, and she patted his back. “Shit, we didn’t know you were coming up or we’d have waited for you.”
“I was going to surprise you, but I had to miss my first flight. Someone… a woman… came into the office, and well, I had to speak with her.” Edie’s pack-a-day voice turned reedy with emotion. “I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’m just going to say it. Sinjun honey, this woman says—and we’ve got to take this with a grain of salt—but she says she knows your mother.”