Page 29 of Once Upon A Christmas Song

I made no comment, just stared at the ground.

“We can go somewhere else,” he said, and I looked up at him. “But we don’t want to.”

I nodded.

“I mean, Christmas is in a week and a half. Wouldn’t it be easier if it was just us playing at the club like old times?”

“Of course it would. That’s why I left it to Simone, Darcy and Xola, and Georgine. They’ll be fair, and they’ll want you, I have no doubt.”

“It only makes sense, right?”

I nodded.

“That’s smart of you, Chris, not to let your heart get involved. But you always were smart. I respect the kind of businessman you are.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, look, we’re just in time. Here they come with the verdict.”

Simone squealed behind me, which made sense. She was happy to see Ben. Everyone loved the man. He was one of the calmest, kindest, most chill people I’d ever met in my life. We’d never needed a bouncer at my club when they were there, because if anyone got unruly, Ben would walk over and talk them down. In their absence, I’d taken care of that part myself. I had the height and muscle for the job, but I’d noticed ever since everyone was allowed back out after the height of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 that no one wanted to get up in my face anymore, at least not at my place. Those who enjoyed being around people again just wanted to have fun. Plus, as a rule, our clientele leaned toward drunk and wanting to dance, not drunk and angry.

“Do I have a job?” Ben asked Simone.

“Yes, always,” she cried happily, racing through the door of the club and into his arms. She leaped, and he caught her. They were pretty cute.

I didn’t look at Dawson. I didn’t want to, and more importantly, I didn’t have to. Simone could talk to our accountant, and he would draw up the contract giving the band half of the drink sales from whatever time they went on to close. We never charged a cover, it was too hard to keep track of, and we would have had to close the window shutters so people couldn’t stand around outside and listen. The alcohol and food sales made us our money, and adding something on top of that seemed like a bad idea.

Standing, I told Georgine I would go pick up Cami since I was starving anyway.

“That’s perfect,” she said, and when I glanced at her, she was smiling. “I have some extra specials I’m trying out for dinner.”

I nodded and started up the street toward the corner. When I made the turn, I could honestly say I wasn’t upset that Dawson hadn’t come after me. Us, me and him, that was over and done, and we should let it go. Seeing him again had thrown me for a loop, but next time, I’d be prepared. I could handle things as long as they didn’t leap out at me. I’d never been a fan of the jump scare.

FIVE

Cami, as Georgine had told us she’d asked to be called since she was a precocious three-year-old, was in my estimation the smartest now six-year-old on the planet. She always had something interesting to tell me, like facts about the Milky Way, what desert was the hottest, or how male seahorses, instead of the females, carried their babies. She had learned to play the recorder much better than the other first graders—so when I went to the school assembly, I knew she was not the one horribly off-key. Simone had not been sure about that. Of all of us, she was the only one who merely tolerated Cami, which of course made the little girl utterly determined to get Simone to like her. It was, as far as I could tell, a work in progress.

Cami attended a Catholic elementary school, not because she or her mother were religious, but because Georgine liked the idea of small classes, individualized instruction, a well-balanced curriculum—and that she could get all that and not pay a million dollars a year. Parochial school was not as expensive as private school. Her mother, Dr. Wallis, had offered to pay for Cami to go to one of those STEM schools, which meant science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but Georgine didn’t like the idea that her baby would be stuck there, in after-school care, all the way across town, until her mother could pick her up. Georgine felt that walking the Quarter every day with one of us was much better. And also, being that close in case of an emergency was a great advantage, not to mention the fact that on her route from school to the club people knew her daughter, waved, asked about her grades, and actually waited as she pulled out science projects or ribbons from PE, all of which made Georgine even happier. It took a village and all that, and Georgine liked that her daughter was part of the community.

I was walking down the sidewalk toward the school—you did not want to be driving on one-way streets in the Quarter on the cusp of rush hour, that was madness—when I heard, “This is smart,” and nearly tripped over my feet. “Walking is definitely the way to go,” Dawson concurred, as if we’d been discussing this all along.

He must have run to catch up with me, and in his sneakers, with cars driving by beside me, I hadn’t heard him. The cowboy hat and sunglasses didn’t fool me for a second, but since no one was screaming out his name, I was guessing his disguise was allowing him to blend in with the other mere mortals on the street.

His hands were on me because of the staggering I’d been doing a moment ago, making sure I didn’t do a face-plant into the cracked sidewalk.

“What’re you doing here?” I asked, noting that the hand gripping my bicep and the one on my abdomen were not moving.

“I was at the club, as you recall.”

“Yeah, but⁠—”

“And I wanted to talk to you.”

I shook my head, and he slowly let me go.

“No? I can’t talk to you?”

“I just wanted to walk for a bit and then pick up Cami.”