“No, I wouldn’t,” she yelled back. “Because I was right about you in high school. You’re still a rich asshole and you still don’t deserve me. I quit, Mr. Prescott,” she said. “I quit this job and I quit you.”
“What’s going on here?” someone said to the right of them.
Beau bared his teeth. “Walk away, Fairgood.”
“Is he bothering you, Josie?” Colin asked, ignoring him. “Because if he is—”
That was a mistake. Beau made a quick calculation, before treating Colin to an uppercut. He’d been aiming for his jaw, but was just as satisfied, when his fist landed in the singer’s solar plexus. And even more so when Colin let out a thick, “Oooomphh!” and Beau felt him hunch over, setting himself up for one of Beau’s knees straight to the face.
“Colin!” Josie screamed behind Beau. He heard her quick steps as she pushed past him, to tend to Colin, who was probably laid out on the floor. Proving once and for all where her loyalty lied.
“Now you can quit,” he said.
CHAPTER 20
“I CAN’T BELIEVE HE DID THIS TO YOU,” Josie said, dabbing at the blood still issuing from Colin’s nose with the hotel suite’s tissue. They were now in his room at the top of the luxury hotel, tending to his wounds in an over-the-top room tricked out with an actual baby grand, heavy brocaded curtains, and beautiful white couches, which Josie was trying hard to keep free of Colin’s blood.
“Yeah, for a blind man you claimed wasn’t serious about rehabilitation, he managed to pack an impressive punch. And a knee.”
Josie studied his nose from a couple of different angles and plugged up his nostrils with two wads of tissue. “Can you breathe okay?”
“No,” he answered. “But that’s probably because you stuffed my nose with Kleenex.” His voice was muffled, but at least he wasn’t wheezing and she couldn’t here any telltale whistling sounds coming from his nostrils, which she knew, from working at the shelter, were signs you should watch out for.
“I don’t think it’s broken,” she told him. “But you probably want to get it checked out just in case. It’s hard to tell just by looking at it. And I’d hate for it to affect your singing voice.”
He shrugged. “Don’t worry about my voice, Jo-Jo. I’m what they call a personality singer. I can play the fiddle and write like nobody’s business, but my range ain’t all that great. Just about anybody could sing my songs better than I do. That’s why they’re so big on the karaoke circuit.”
She chuckled. “I like your voice. You might not have range, but your singing has character. I can hear you in every song.”
His blue eyes twinkled. “You been listenin’ to my albums, Jo-Jo?”
“Of course,” she said.
“If I’m remembering right, you never were much of a country fan.”
“I’m not,” she admitted. “But I made an exception for you because you were my friend.”
His eyes searched her face. “We’re not friends anymore?”
“No, we are,” she quickly assured him. “I’m just really sorry Beau punched you. And then kneed you. I mean, your face, it’s so pretty now.”
Colin waved his hands in the air. “But my fiddling hands remain intact,” he proclaimed. He flexed his biceps. “And this time it was more like Colossus versus the Green Arrow. So progress.”
Josie laughed. “You’re mixing up universes. DC and Marvel wouldn’t be happy.”
Colin shrugged. “Hey I got sucker punched and sucker kneed tonight. Cut this nerd some slack!”
Josie tilted her head to the side. “So all those hit records and this Captain America body and you still consider yourself a nerd?” she teased.
Colin’s smile dimmed. “Josie, I know what this looks like, the big career, the sold out stadiums.”
“The new body,” she added.
“The new body.”
“The big old honkin’ house you bought your mama.”
“The big old honkin’ house I bought my mama,” he repeated with a roll of his eyes.
“The high school girlfriends still pining after you. You know Mindy’s just dying for you to come by and see about her.”
Colin chuckled and nodded good-naturedly. “Okay, okay, I get it. It looks like I have everything now and I’m completely different.” His face grew serious then. “But Colin Fairgood, the skinny nerd you went in with on comic books every Wednesday because we couldn’t afford to buy them on our own, is still in here.”
“You’re still in there.”
Beau’s words from earlier suddenly echoed in her mind and brought tears to her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Colin asked.
Josie shook her head and pasted a smile on her face. “Nothing,” she answered quickly. Then before he could ask any more questions, she pulled another Kleenex out of the marble tissue box and used it to extract the tissue plugs she’d made for his nose. “Looks like the bleeding’s stopped. That’s a good sign. But like I said, you should have a doctor look at it.”
“I got a diagnostic test I could run right now,” he said. “I mean if it was really broken, it would probably hurt like hell when I did this, right?”
Then he leaned forward and kissed her, not in the tentative way of the kid he’d been in high school, but in the sure way of the man he’d become since then.
BEAU WAS JUST ABOUT TO THROW BACK yet another shot of bourbon when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. “Hey man, it’s me, Mac.”
He cursed. “Tell me Josie didn’t call you.”
“She didn’t call me, she texted me,” Mac answered. “Said I should come get you. I’m guessing she finally up and quit.”
Beau threw back the shot. “Yep. Somebody better came along. Colin-fucking-Fairgood. Can you believe that?”
“You mean that country singer, the one who did that one song with Roxxy Roxx? You serious, man?”
“Yeah, the country singer. He’s been after Josie since high school, and as soon as he found out she was free, he swooped in and took her from me.”
“That’s what she said?” Mac asked. “That she was quitting because she wanted to get with Colin Fairgood?”
“No, she said she didn’t like the way I was treating her. Said I deserve her. But that was bullshit. She split on me as soon as he showed up. Fucking Fairgood.” He tapped his empty shot glass on the bar and called out. “Bartender, I’m gonna need another one over here.”