7. Lucky

7

LUCKY

T he five of us are back together.

I was honestly starting to doubt my confidence in this ever happening again. Something that was easy to do if I allowed it, considering we haven’t been in the same vicinity in far too long. Those doubts could have become very real and that’s exactly why I never entertained them.

Thank God for blind hope.

While I waited in Leo’s room for her to finish crying in the shower—something she is notorious for—the guys got to work on the rest of her place.

After hooking it up, Pete found a channel on TV playing nothing but black and white horror flicks, Mark threw in another one fifty on top of what he found in Leo’s dishwasher—something I’ll definitely need to ask her about—then ordered a fucking feast from one of our favorite places. Norm got her furniture up to snuff, set things up the way they used to be and by the time Leo came downstairs, we were all waiting with plates at the ready.

Each of us made sure to watch our girl eat at least a few bites every now and then because seeing her like this, it’s scary. Leo is still just as beautiful as the day we met her, but she’s wearing her trauma in an unhealthy way, and that isn’t like her. Which is something else we need to discuss.

Leo used to eat her feelings, binge on nothing but chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, double fudge brownies and soft baked peanut butter cookies. The only reason she never got to be four hundred pounds or diabetic was the fact that she also religiously ran at least five miles a day, loved to cook relatively healthy comfort foods, and drank nothing but black coffee, water and the occasional tea. Not counting the nights we’d convince her to get drunk with us. So, for her to be quite a bit thinner than I’m used to is a surprise.

She’s never dealt with her feelings well; she always saw them as a weakness and said it stems back to the way she grew up. Leo never elaborated on that and never shared stories from her childhood, but we know she was in foster care, and I’ve always suspected she went through some serious shit. Despite that, she has never once hesitated to tell us how she felt, she just had a really hard time showing it.

Glancing around the now darkened living room, I have to laugh. Mark is passed out on a recliner cradling an empty takeout container against his thick build, the button of his jeans undone to give his stomach some breathing room while The Birds flickers off his nearly bald dome. Pete and Norm are cuddled up on the couch, snoring and sharing a big fuzzy throw, Norm’s fading tan and lankier frame snuggled against Pete’s ebony muscles, the two of them close enough to share air.

Smiling to myself, I shift my gaze to the floor where Leo was camped out, but she isn’t there. I look around, my eyes struggling to adjust from the glow of the TV to the pitch black of her apartment until I see her on the balcony, a cloud of smoke leaving her lips, her alabaster complexion giving off an almost iridescent glow in the streetlight.

I didn’t notice her get up, didn’t even realize she snuck out there and honestly, that’s probably how she wanted it. I know she doesn’t want to have the talk we all need to, and I won’t force it, but at some point we have to in order to move forward. That is, if Leo even wants to move forward at all, let alone with us.

Snatching my cigarettes from the coffee table, I silently pad my way to the balcony and push open the French doors. I not-so-quietly settle onto one of the iron benches against the brick, light up then watch as a small smile curves Leo’s full lips.

“Still smoking that potpourri, I see.”

“Some things never change, cakes.” I inhale deep and follow her line of sight, Leo staring down into the street at a car parked across the way. I hit my cigarette hard and let the cool brick soothe my skin, giving it a little relief from the stagnant summer heat. “We were really something, weren’t we, Leo.”

Not a question, and I can see that her whole body relaxes slightly, which means she was definitely waiting for me to push the heavy shit right now. Instead, I’m going to make her remember the good.

“We were more than something. We were everything .”

I laugh, and she smiles at the sound.

Leo always said I had a great laugh, said it was one of her favorite sounds, and she loved it when us boys would get going because it was so contagious.

I hope she remembers that, too.

She flicks her cigarette over the railing then joins me on the bench, my six-foot-six dwarfing her even while we sit. She always liked that too.

“We really were. We were fucking everything. No one could do what we could. What we can do.” I glance at her but only for a second, I don’t want her to see the pain I know is in my eyes. I can’t help that though, not when everything about our time apart gutted me. “It wouldn’t take much to get it back. It’s not like your talent, our talent, fizzled out and disappeared. All you have to do is let us back in, all the way. You know how it works. You know?—"

“I’m just not ready yet,” Leo says as she looks away even though I’m not really looking at her.

I want to ask if she’s ever going to be ready, if she’ll ever fully let us back in, but I know that would only start shit so I sigh and lean my head against the brick.

“Do you remember our first gig? We practically had to talk you off a ledge, you were so fucking nervous.” We both chuckle a little at the not-so-far-fetched comparison. “Mark had to block the back door and every time we thought you were good, you tried to bolt.” I nudge her elbow, trying to pick a fight like I used to. “I never understood how someone who was made for music, who had it practically embedded in their DNA, could be such a chicken shit.”

“Hey, made for it or not, that first show was terrifying. My brain may be hardwired for that stuff but my anxiety sure wasn’t.”

“Yeah, but then you got out there...” I shake my head as I close my eyes, picturing that first show and how it looked from my vantage point. I saw magic that night, and I wanted more of it. “This completely different entity took over. Once the songs started rolling in, it was game on, and we could see the fear melt and evaporate. You took the world by storm that night, cakes.”

Leo knows I’m right. She couldn’t argue with me if she wanted to. And she also knows I’m trying to make her remember how that felt to try to get her to listen to me.

“I always thought I was the only one like me. The only one who could hear a song once and be able to play every part, sing every lyric, live every note. I could practically see the music, the way it floated through the air.” She pauses as she lifts her hand, wiggling her fingers to mimic her words, and I can tell she’s thinking over her next ones as she lights another cigarette. “I felt like such a freak. I never considered it a gift or a talent. Until I met you, I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. I was a lost warrior without a tribe...”

Leo smirks and I smile at the term of endearment. We always called her our warrior, mainly because she was scary, and she always referred to us as her tribe of misfits because we were just as lost as she was. But we found each other, and everything changed. That little bit of nostalgia is exactly what I want from her right now.

“Then fate, in the form of Justine, brought you into Mother Loves Cafe, and you were thrown in with the four of us numbskulls. At the risk of sounding completely creepy, I knew from the second I saw you that you were what was missing. I don’t know how or why, but the day I walked in there and saw you sitting behind the counter with Justine, my spidey senses went ape shit.”

Leo smiles and gives me a side eye. “You are a total creep.” Then her nose scrunches up the way it always does when she’s thinking. “That wasn’t the first time we were introduced, though.”

I shake my head and think back to the day I first saw her. I had gone to Mother Loves to blow my paycheck on the beignets Justine makes, they were the best I’d ever tasted and I had a mild obsession with them.

I was working at the music store a few doors down and normally blew my cash on pieces for my kit, but that day I had a craving for some baked goods so I walked over on my lunch break. I was barely twenty-three years old, a struggling musician trying to pave my way, and when I opened the door to see the most beautiful girl I’d ever laid eyes on sitting there with Justine, my heart did this weird flutter-stutter-stop thing and I froze.

After a few awkward minutes of gawking and blocking the doorway, I spun around and left. I didn’t even get my damn lunch.

“I do remember Justine going on and on about The Ravens though, just gushing over you guys before you played her place. The hometown boys destined for greatness . I honestly didn’t expect to see what I actually saw when I went to that show. After everything she told me, I thought you were going to be four clean-cut, all-American heroes or some shit.” Leo laughs and my heart does that same little flutter-stutter-stop thing it has every time since the first time I saw her. “Man, was I ever fucking wrong.”

“You know how Justine can be, she could care less about your story, she saw what she saw and that was all that mattered. For some reason she saw the four of us assholes and knew we were better than we allowed ourselves to be. And she knew you were our missing piece the day she met you, just like she knew we needed you before she even brought you to the cafe.” I push my unruly hair out of my eyes and grin. “Justine’s one hell of a talent scout.”

“ Vous avez raison .”

Now, I know Leo dropped the French to try to break up some of the heavy feelings she’s experiencing, telling me I’m correct in that Parisian tongue but she knows it drives me fucking nuts when she speaks any other language—especially French, just not for the reasons she thinks.

My family is multilingual.

We speak incredibly fluent French and Italian at my parents’ house, French was for my dad and Italian for my mom. My mother insists on speaking Italian all the time despite living in New Orleans for over fifty years so when we talk, although rare, she won’t engage unless that’s how we do it. And my brother is a huge mama’s boy so he mostly speaks to me in Italian as well. Which are just a few of the reasons Leo thinks I don’t like it when she speaks either language.

The truth is, it drives me nuts because I like it way too much coming from her smart mouth. Way too fucking much.

“I know I’m right.” I laugh away the incredibly inappropriate feelings that want some attention. “Still with the French. You should be glad I can understand it, otherwise we’d have serious beef.”

On the very few occasions that Leo has convinced me to have an entire conversation with her in French, I got so turned on I had to leave the room before the end of it. My feelings for her have always been ridiculous and confusing as hell but you throw in something like that, and I had to take cold showers and avoid her for days. Our friendship, the band, they were always more important than ruining what we had to explore the undeniable spark that has always been between us.

So, Leonor has always had to remain in the friend zone, and I hate it more some days than others.

“Our first gig was so electric,” Leo says wistfully, giving me a bit of what I’ve been hoping for. “I was worried people would hate us because we were doing nothing but covers. I was even more worried the fan base you had already built would hate that you added a chick, changed the name, and scrapped your originals. You talk about my nerves like they were completely unwarranted.” She giggles a little and nudges me back. “I had some pretty fucking valid concerns.”

“Yeah, but we had to reestablish ourselves as The Ravens featuring our new leader, Leonor Poe . Going out there with the put a song in a hat, we’ll draw it and play it on the spot gimmick was an explosive way to get noticed. Which totally worked, I might add. It opened the door for us to write new stuff, build a bigger fan base, gain publicity and start touring. Shit, we toured North America. Three times.”

Leo looks a little torn between love and longing as she gazes out into the night, her cigarette resting between her delicate tattooed fingers, her eyes lingering on a few brighter-than-normal stars.

“We were like no other band out there. All of us oozing with talent. Hell, between the five of us we have yet to find an instrument we can’t play. You were the driving force behind expanding our horizons, you know that, right?” I bump her knee with mine to make sure she’s listening. “Once you got through that first show, man, you really came to life. You pushed us to be more than we were, to exceed the expectations we had set for ourselves. We were signed to a legit independent label because of what you did. We still are, you know...” I shake my head, knowing that this is a battle for another day. “And your name. Fuck, it couldn’t have been more perfect. Leonor Poe and The Ravens . Shit, man, it was gold.”

“You know it isn’t my real name, though.” Leo stands with a smirk as she heads to the railing.

“Yeah, yeah, some asshole thought it was cute to give you the last name Poe when they found you on the steps of that firehouse. Your only identification was the note pinned to your onesie that read My Sweet Leonor, but after some digging, they were able to at least give you your real last name, I remember the story, but come on. There could not have been a clearer sign than that.”

Leo shakes her head with a smile but it quickly slips off her face as her eyes move back toward the street. That same car is still parked there, which wouldn’t normally be odd but it’s two in the morning which makes it a no parking zone, and it is way out of the norm to see a Lamborghini Veneno on this side of town.

I watch her wrap her arms around her body, visibly uncomfortable with the vehicle’s presence, her eyes straining to see through the tinted windows.

Then a flash goes off in the front seat before the car peels out of its spot, the smell of burning rubber left in its wake, causing Leo to gasp and jump back. And I’m there in two long strides wrapping my arms around a seriously shaken Leonor.

“Sorry, I wasn’t expecting that.”

I squeeze her a little tighter and start guiding her back to the doors. “It’s pretty late anyway, we should get you to bed. You’re headed back out to the mansion in a few hours.”

Staring at the space the sports car left has this feeling in the pit of my stomach growing with unease, and I want nothing more than to hurry Leo inside, lock the doors, and keep her safe.

“I’m not ready to go back in yet. And—shit...” She grunts as she runs a hand down her face. “Fuck me running.”

“What? What’s wrong? Did something happen at work?” I steer her toward the bench because I’m trying to play nice, and if Leo isn’t ready to go in, so be it. “Is everything ok?”

“That’s actually why I called you. There was something that happened, I mean, nothing crazy but I was so damn angry...”

Leo starts in about what happened with the douchebag funding the restoration at the mansion, how he lit into Justine because she had a tattooed and pierced artist cleaning up his paintings and before I know it, we’re talking shit about our days the way we used to.

I always lived for these moments. Moments when it was just Leo and I, talking about everything and nothing, the two of us connecting in a way so deep it was hard to tell where I began and she ended.

Moments like this are how it always should be.

This is the forever kind of shit we all need.

PETE

I scowl as I watch the stupid Lambo speed down the street, tires burning up the pavement, only streaks of smoking rubber left behind.

Totally killed my vibe, and my plans.

The one where I joined Luck and Leo on the balcony for a smoke before we did a little more catching up.

There wasn’t a lot of that happening while we ate, and we watched the older flicks to keep our girl calm so chatting wasn’t really on the table then either.

It was worth it, though.

Being in the same room, breathing the same air as Leo after we lost her? Yeah, it was fucking worth it to keep things surface and light just so we could do that, but I won’t let it last too long.

There’s way too much baggage following all of us around, and I’m not about to let it weigh anyone down much longer.

I was still going to wait, I’m not that big of a prick. Sharing a smoke with two of my favorite fucking people didn’t have to be heavy but I was hoping for more than the bullshit about Alfred Hitchcock and how many shrimp kabobs Mark and I could eat.

After that shit with the fancy ride flying down the street, the moment has passed. It scared the fuck out of Leo, I saw the way she jumped, and Luck is going to have to work a little harder to keep her on the level because of it.

That’s fine.

It was sort of an unspoken agreement between the four of us that Lucky be the one to ease our girl back into things. We all have our strong suits when it comes to Leonor, but he was the one who could bring her out of whatever unhinged line of thinking she was following, and back to earth where she regained her reasoning abilities.

Considering she managed to ghost us for three years while we lived no more than fifteen miles apart, we need Lucky to work his magic.

Doesn’t mean I didn’t want in on it.

Because I really fucking do.

Hell, we all do, we want our girl back, and we want to fall into the same comfortable, safe, happy little bubble we floated around in for a decade.

It’ll happen, the secret optimist in me believes that, but it’s not going down tonight.

And that’s fine.

I look out the window a little longer, making sure that car is actually gone before I turn to my people sitting on that iron bench.

Leo looks calmer now, like she can finally take a breath, and judging by the smirk on Luck’s face, he’d agree. Which is good enough for me right now.

I tuck my cigarettes back into my pocket and turn to head toward the kitchen but jump right out of my skin when I come face to face with Norm.

“Everything ok?”

I scowl in his face for a beat then sigh. “They’re fine.”

“What was with all the noise?” His teal eyes flick toward the French doors over my shoulder before reconnecting with mine. “It sounded like drag racing or something.”

“Close,” I grunt as I brush by him, resuming my walk to get a beer.

“Was it just one car?”

“Yeah. Fancy sports car.”

“Over here?” Norman whispers as he quickly follows me past Mark. “That’s kind of weird, isn’t it? This isn’t a bad neighborhood or anything, but no one over here would own something like that. Between the price and how close the Main Quarter is, it doesn’t really make sense.”

I roll my eyes as I round the island and head to the fridge.

He’s not wrong about any of that, I was already thinking the same thing, but it’s almost three in the fucking morning and I’m not looking to get into another conspiracy theory or some shit right now.

Any other time? Sure.

Debating everything under the sun with Norm is one of my favorite fucking pastimes but I don’t do well when I’m running on no sleep, especially after the day we’ve had.

“Pete?” Norm stops at the edge of the counter as I pull out a beer. “You don’t think it’s anything to worry about, right?”

I stop halfway to the drawer where I know Leo keeps her bottle openers and look at him with a soft smile.

“Nah, man. I’m sure it’s nothing.” I know exactly where his concern is coming from, we’ve been down this road once before and it split the five of us up between hospitals and jail, and a hell of a lot of therapy.

He blows out a breath as he nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure you’re right.” Norm looks over at Mark with a crooked smile as he snores exceptionally loud. “It’s probably nothing.”

“Right.” I point my beer bottle at him as I go to open the drawer. “We’re all here, back together again. Leo is on track to keep us around; it’ll be like old times before…”

My words dry up on my tongue as I look down, my brain refusing to accept what my eyes are clearly seeing.

“You find the bottle opener?” Norm asks as I pull my phone out of my pocket and turn on the flashlight before shining it into the drawer.

I shake my head as I reach inside and pull out the object on top. “Not exactly.”

With my pulse pounding in my ears, I set the small patchwork voodoo doll on the counter, trying to ignore its missing eyes as I stare.

No fucking way.

I quickly go back to the drawer, pulling out envelopes addressed to Leo, her name written in what looks like charcoal, several dried out black roses, and a pair of smashed eyeglasses.

“Oh my god,” Norman gasps as he comes to stand next to me. “Is that?—"

“I… I don’t know. It can’t be, there’s no way.” But I can’t really deny it, not when I’m looking at the same shit we were finding four fucking years ago.

We stare at the morbid blast from our fucked-up past for a few more seconds before Lucky opens the French doors, then quickly scoop everything back into the drawer and slam it closed.

“What are you two doing up?” Leonor whispers as they cross the living room, the two of them actually smiling as they head toward us.

And those smiles are the only fucking reason I don’t bring up what Norm and I just found.

Instead, I hold up the bottle in my hand and give it a shake. “Thirsty.”

“Yeah,” he chimes in. “Super thirsty.”

“I’m gonna hit the sack,” Leo says with a skeptical look. Thankfully she yawns and doesn’t ask any more questions, but Luck is staring at me like he wants to.

I try to give him the we’ll talk tomorrow look as I ask, “You going up, too?”

“In a minute…” He arches a brow in my direction then looks to Leo. “If that’s cool?”

She nods, hesitates briefly—probably debating on saying goodnight to me and Norm the way she used to—then sighs before she turns to head upstairs. The minute she’s out of sight, that’s when the entire mood changes.

“Spill it,” Mark says out of nowhere, the fucker somehow waking up and coming over without anyone noticing. “Whatever is in that drawer has you seconds from shitting bricks, and you need to tell us why.”

With an annoyed huff, I do.