Raze

  Raze is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Loveswept Ebook Original

  Copyright © 2019 by Roan Parrish

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN 9781984818331

  Cover design: Makeready Designs

  Cover illustration: Wavebreakmedia/iStock

  randomhousebooks.com

  v5.4

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Roan Parrish

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Huey

  In the corner of my bar, a cheerfully drunk man sang loudly and out of tune. My temples throbbed in rebellion and the man’s friends cheered.

  How the hell had I let Johi talk me into this?

  Johi passed me a bar mop, took one look at my face, and rolled her eyes.

  “Come on, it’s not that bad,” she said. “Just tune it out like you tune out all the stupid conversations people have in here every night.”

  A month ago, she’d caught me in a distracted moment and given me the hard sell: “Being a random dive bar that happens to be in Brooklyn might’ve been enough to stay in business in 2003, but at this point you need a draw. Karaoke is fun, inexpensive, and people have to drink to force their carcasses onstage to make a spectacle of themselves, so it’s good for business.”

  She’d emailed me links to the research she’d done and promised she’d be in charge, and I’d grudgingly caved. Everything she said made sense, and the bar could certainly use an income boost. We already had a small raised platform in the corner where live bands once performed.

  Johi had done everything, just as she’d said she would. She’d even gotten her roommate Derricka to emcee. And she’d clearly been right that the activity would draw a crowd.

  Now, though, I realized she was trying hard to keep a straight face. In fact, I thought she might’ve been trying to hide a smile all night.

  “Johi.”

  “Hmm?” she said casually—too casually.

  “Did you just win a bet with someone that you could convince me to do a karaoke night?”

  She gasped, as if mortally offended. “You wound me, sir!” Then she grinned.

  I sighed. “Was it Whitman?”

  “Dude, no. It wasn’t a bet—though now I realize I could’ve totally made some money off him, damn it. No, I just, uh…Don’t laugh, but I seriously love karaoke. Like, it will make me a hundred percent happier once a week to get to watch it. So I’m pretty pleased with the upgrade I’ve just given my life, that’s all.”

  I took in her bright smile as the tinny opening riff for the next song began in the background.

  “You…love karaoke.” I searched for the words. “Why?”

  “Aw, Huey, it’s great. It’s fun, and it feels like a treat when people pick songs you like. Every now and then you get legitimately great singers. But even when people are bad, they’ve chosen to let the world see that they’re bad in the service of having fun. It’s brave. Plus I like to look at people and try to guess what they’re gonna sing.”

  I narrowed my eyes and shook my head.

  “Well, consider yourself scheduled for Tuesday nights for the rest of your natural life.”

  She gave me two thumbs-up, made them into finger guns she shot at me, and winked, then moved off to help the customers who had just walked in.

  In the karaoke corner, a girl sang a ballad that I vaguely remembered being on the radio when I was in high school. It felt like a hundred years ago. She had a decent voice but was clearly nervous. As the song bled to silence, she covered her mouth with her hand and her friends exploded in applause. I guessed Johi would say she was being brave.

  I wouldn’t know.

  Derricka enthusiastically called up the next victims.

  They wound through the crowd, the woman tugging the man by the hand. She moved easily and seemed confident, her short, dark hair bleached in the front and her shoulders set. The guy trailing behind her looked slightly less enthusiastic, but when she grinned at him he rolled his eyes and grinned back.

  He was small and slender, with intense dark eyes and a dreamy smile. His hair fell to his chin in messy brown waves that he shoved back distractedly.

  I assumed they were a couple, but then the woman stuck her tongue out at the guy in a way that said friends or siblings.

  The song was projected on the screen behind them and I snorted a laugh. “Ten Hour Fall,” by Riven.

  Theo Decker, the former lead singer of Riven, was my best friend Caleb Blake Whitman’s partner. When I’d complained to Theo and Whitman at dinner one night about Johi making me have a karaoke night, Theo had grinned and said I should do all-Riven karaoke.

  He’d been joking, of course, and I’d left the song choices up to Johi—with a firm ban on They Die Roses, The Elsewheres, Danny MacDoyle, and post-1997 Marble Jubilee—but I looked up whether there even were Riven songs available, mostly so I could potentially torture Theo by sending him videos of people butchering his songs. There were only two songs available, and I told Johi to get them both. I’d forgotten about it until now.

  When the first chord played and Theo’s lyrics streaked across the screen, I didn’t look away. The man holding the microphone shoved his hair out of his face and shrugged self-consciously, but when he began to sing, he was good. Really good.

  The song was rangy, full of sustained notes that slid up and down the scale. The man loosened up as he sang, grinning, and the audience watched in surprised delight as he killed the song. He sounded nothing like Theo, really—no one did—but his voice had the same elastic ability to resonate at the low notes and tinkle at the high ones.

  The woman sang the second verse and she was great too. They sang the chorus in harmony and I fumbled to open a video on my phone. I got the guy singing the third verse before someone approached for a drink. Once I’d served him, I shot a text off to Whitman and Theo: Someone’s ready to take your old job, Decker. And I attached the video clip.

  The crowd applauded enthusiastically for the duo as they sat back down, and my phone buzzed with a text.

  Whitman wrote: Wow he’s pretty good. Got nothing on you though baby.

  The persistent hollow ache in my belly was a hunger for something unnamable, and Whitman’s casual endearment stirred it ravenous. I pressed the heel of my hand to my stomach like I could feed it from the outside. It never worked, just left me with a tender bruise under my ri
bs.

  I had watched Whit fall in love with Theo and seen a version of my friend I’d never known: someone softer, brighter, stronger, and with far more to lose.

  I’d been suspicious of Theo at first. How could I not be? When your oldest friend and sponsee who left the music business in order to stay sober starts dating a rock star, it’s hard to see that ending well. Letting go enough to love could bring with it the dangerous kind of abandon.

  When I first met Theo, I was prepared to give him a stern talking-to. But when Whitman went to the bathroom, Theo turned big gray-blue eyes on me and thanked me for taking care of Caleb all these years. He promised me that he’d do everything he could to take care of him too. I didn’t like to admit it, but I’d been a bit of a sucker for him ever since.

  Whoaaaaah! Theo texted back. He’s great.

  Then a minute later: Riven is looking for a new lead singer after that disaster of a guy they hired last year. Huey you should tell the guy you’ll pass his info along and give it to me!?

  I snorted.

  Right, because when guys who look like me and work behind a bar tell young men he could make them a star they should definitely believe them and give out personal info. No dice.

  Whitman sent back a crying laughing emoji and a picture of Theo’s face set in a cringing sulk.

  By the time I looked up to serve the next customer, the man was gone.

  * * *

  —

  The next week he was back, hair tied up in a messy ponytail that left too-short strands curling at his neck, revealing high cheekbones. I had a fleeting moment of gratitude to Johi for making me do karaoke night, then crushed it.

  He’s back, I texted Theo.

  Dude, Theo replied, I showed that vid to Coco and she said they’re seriously interested in at least talking to him. Pass it along?

  Coco was Riven’s guitarist and Theo’s friend. I wasn’t surprised that Theo was trying to help Riven even though he’d left the band. He was a sweet guy, and he loved to help people.

  I sighed and wrote, I’ll try.

  Thanks man!!! Theo followed this up with a picture of his puppy, Solo, sitting on Whitman’s chest, tongue out and tail a blur of wagging directly in Whit’s face. Solo says thank you too!

  I slid my phone back in my pocket and looked up to see the other half of the Riven duet at the bar.

  “Hey,” the girl said. “Can I have two gin and tonics?”

  I nodded. “See your ID?”

  I glanced quickly at her birth date and filed away her name—Sofia Rainey—before starting on the drinks.

  Should I mention Theo’s offer to her, so it would seem less like I was trying to prey on the man? Or would that just seem like I was trying to do the same to her?

  She smiled perfunctorily at me as she took the drinks and turned away before I had the chance to say anything at all.

  When the duo took the stage again, I was just as impressed as I’d been last time. I was no pro, but I’d spent long enough around musicians to be a decent judge.

  Their voices were strong and clear, and the crowd responded enthusiastically. The man smiled as he sang and bobbed his head, hair falling from his ponytail. He was wearing a pastel yellow T-shirt with a smiling cloud on it that looked shrunken and worn soft with age. When he raised his hand to swipe at his hair, the hem rode up to reveal a flash of smooth, pale skin and a dark spot of sweat under his arm.

  My gut tightened. He was beautiful. I wondered if I’d see his picture on a newsstand someday or hear his voice on the radio.

  I tore my eyes away and focused on my to-do list: clean the faucet in the bathroom; patch the hole in the screen in the bedroom window; buy paper towels; find another breakfast idea to up my protein intake; start flossing after every meal instead of twice a day.

  Then the items on my list that were less concrete. My sponsee Morgan was having a rough time. Their mother was dying and their siblings expected very specific things from them. The stress of the situation, compounded by their complicated relationship with their mother, had them in a vulnerable mindset. I was worried about them, and everything they’d said at today’s meeting had made me want to pick up the phone and decimate their sisters. Tell them that it was awful they were losing their mother, and maybe they should ease the hell off their sibling if they didn’t want to lose them too.

  But it was nearly impossible to explain to people who hadn’t been there. To describe the way the solid ground beneath your feet could narrow to a trembling tightrope stretching across a gulf in the space of an hour, and how it could expand just as quickly back to what felt like ground.

  The ground wasn’t the ground. The mind was the ground, and it was all we had. It was capricious and contingent. It was everything until it was nothing.

  “Um, hey?”

  I was crouched down rearranging the shelf beneath the bar, when I looked up to see a smiling cloud. Then I stood to my full height and the man wearing it tipped his chin up, eyes widening slightly in his flushed face.

  I was used to the varied reactions to my size. Tall, broad, and heavily muscled as I was, people tended toward intimidation, aggression, or competition.

  “Hi,” he said, now that he had my attention. “Can I get two G&Ts?”

  “ID?”

  He slid it across the bar. Felix Rainey. Siblings, then.

  I made his drinks slower than I needed to, trying to find the right words. When I put them on the bar, I kept my hand on the glasses.

  “Want to tell you something that I’m aware will sound like I’m a creep. I hope you can hear the content of what I’m saying anyway.”

  I winced internally as the guy—Felix—narrowed his eyes.

  “Okay?” he said skeptically.

  “Last week when you sang Riven, you were good. I…I mentioned it to Theo Decker. Who used to sing for them,” I added, in case he was just a casual fan. His eyes got huge, then narrowed again.

  “You know Theo Decker.” His voice was flat with skepticism.

  I nodded.

  “Riven’s looking to book a new lead singer for their upcoming tour. They hired someone who didn’t work out. Theo mentioned you to the band and they’re interested in auditioning you.”

  I thought that went fairly well.

  “They’re interested in what now? Are you— Is this a prank?”

  Felix was looking at me like he couldn’t tell if he was supposed to be angry or impressed.

  I’d known this wasn’t going to come off well.

  “One sec,” I muttered, grabbing for my phone. “Stay put for one sec, okay?”

  He nodded once, frowning.

  I called Theo, hoping he was around and would answer. When he did, I launched right in.

  “Decker, I got the guy here at the bar. He doesn’t believe I know you, obviously.”

  “Omigosh,” Theo said. “Uh…lemme talk to him?”

  I held my phone out to Felix.

  “Theo Decker,” I explained, and I thought Felix was going to throw the gin and tonics in my face and then leave. But curiosity must’ve gotten to him, and he took the phone.

  “Um. Hello?”

  I watched as his suspicious, put-upon look became curious, then he rolled his eyes.

  “Adrian, is that you, you fucker?”

  Well then.

  “ ’Cuz if you’re starting this shit again I swear I’m gonna show up in your room in the middle of the night and this time it’s not just gonna be jelly you’re picking out of your hair.”

  His disgusted expression froze, then he went completely still and pressed his fingers against his ear to block out the din of the bar. He looked up at me slowly, eyes huge, and his mouth fell open.

  “Holy shit,” he said into the phone. Th
en he covered it with his hand and said to me, “This is Theo Decker.”

  I nodded once and cleaned the bar top carefully, forcing myself not to listen. By the time they were done talking, it was probably the cleanest spot in the city.

  “Theo?” I asked when I got the phone back.

  “Dude, thank you!” Theo said. “I’m gonna meet up with him and bring Coco with me. She’ll decide if they should bring him in for a real audition. Can we meet at the bar? I got the sense Felix didn’t really want to meet somewhere private, given that he apparently thought I was someone pranking him until I sang.”

  I snorted. Of course, that was what had convinced Felix.

  “Yeah, that’s fine. I can open early for you if you want.”

  “Thanks, man. We’ll figure it out. I got Felix’s info.”

  “All right,” I said, and hung up.

  Felix was gaping at me.

  “I…don’t know what to say,” he said.

  I shrugged. “Then don’t say anything.”

  He stood there for a minute, then shrugged and said, “Okay.” He walked away, leaving his untouched drinks sweating a pool on the bar top.

  * * *

  —

  The morning of Felix and Theo’s meeting, I went through my routine meticulously. It was a Monday, and on Mondays I went to my NA meeting, to the gym, then to the grocery store. I didn’t deviate from my schedule unless I absolutely had to.

  When I got home with my groceries, I put the dry goods away in their places, decanting beans and rice from my bulk bags into their glass containers and neatly grouping cans in the cabinet. I did some quick prep, cutting carrots into sticks and placing sheets of paper towel around lettuce, rolling avocados into a paper bag to ripen, and washing apples and grapes. I ran through the meals I would cook that week and added a few things to the shopping list on the refrigerator.