Page 2 of Once Upon A Christmas Song

“Boss?”

“Sorry, I was just thinking how pretty you are.”

Darcy gave me an indulgent smile. “You were zoning out is what you were doing,” she teased me. “But c’mon, what was the name of the band?”

I had to think. “Um, Cult of Meat?” I offered.

“No,” Xola said, reaching for the limes to start chopping them up for drinks. “I think it was Cult of Means.”

“Where are you guys getting cult?” Pete Rasmussen said, like we were all dumb, as he filled the ice bin, his arms like tree trunks, making the process quick and easy. “It was Cut of Meat.”

“It was Sweet Meat,” Elsa said, putting her tray on the counter. “I think they were going for the whole the-sweetest-meat-is-closest-to-the-bone saying, but that’s just weird.”

“Ewww.” Xola, who was vegan, gagged.

Getting out my phone, I looked at the name on my Excel spreadsheet. “It was Cut to the Meet,” I announced. “Like meeting someone.”

They were all looking at me like they’d smelled something bad.

“The fact that none of you knew their name tells me they sucked. Not memorable at all.”

“Oh, they were memorable,” Darcy assured me with a roll of her eyes.

“Just not in a good way,” Xola chimed in.

“Well…” Thad, my third bartender, grimaced. He was working the day shift for the rest of the week to learn more tips from Darcy and Xola. “I mean, it was wrong from the beginning, am I right?”

Lots of nodding from everyone.

Pete grunted. “A metal band on Frenchmen Street, boss? What were you thinking?”

All eyes on me.

“Something new?” I announced cheerfully.

Xola snorted, which was incongruous coming from a woman who looked like she’d stepped out of a fairy tale. With her long black box braids with magenta highlights, and flawless deep-umber complexion with gold undertones, she was stop-you-in-your-tracks beautiful. When there were men at the bar who hadn’t seen her—they would be talking, not paying attention, and then she’d ask what they wanted in her husky voice—it was fun to watch them get caught in her amber stare. I enjoyed seeing men of all ages go mute. Small perks of the job.

Not that owning a venue like La Belle Vie wasn’t fun. I loved it. My dream had been to have a place in the Quarter, and I realized it at thirty-one. Now, at thirty-six, I thought there would be more to my life than work. I had always pictured someone with me. I had, in fact, pictured someone very specific before he blew town, seeking fame and fortune. And unlike our last band, he had quickly found both. But thinking about Dawson West was a mistake, and after all the time it took me to purge him from my system, I was not going back for anything. And more importantly, thinking about my lost love did nothing to fix my current problem. We really needed a band.

Later that night, as Shenandoah was onstage, I kept my head down and made sure not to make eye contact with anyone, catching up on my paperwork and cleaning projects.

“Really?”

I groaned and lifted my head, meeting the beautiful gray eyes of my manager, my second-in-charge, the woman I’d been smart enough to hire the moment she walked into my place five years ago, after I’d owned the club for two whole weeks. She’d glanced around, then caught my gaze.

“You need help,” she’d stated. “You’re trying to do too much.”

She was not wrong. Trying to be all things when I was a back-of-house guy, not the type to be front and center, had been a mistake. In Simone Howard, I found someone who was amazing with the public, which I was not. We had the perfect division of labor. She told me to think of work like a ship. I took care of the crew, made sure we had all the supplies we needed for the voyage, and she navigated and talked to the people in all the ports. I liked the metaphor. At the moment, though, I did not enjoy how I was being looked at.

“What?” I asked defensively.

She tipped her head slightly toward the playing band.

Groaning, I put my head down.

“Dazzle me,” she goaded.

“I thought, yanno, from the name, that they were probably a country band.”