Tattered Angel

Fishing a painkiller from his pocket, Riley downed it and the rest of his water, and regretted it not two minutes later when his bladder protested the amount of liquid he’d introduced to it. So much for sipping the whiskey, if he was leaving his table he wasn’t leaving that expensive shit unattended. One run in with ecstasy in a lifetime was more than enough, thank you very much. He slammed it back and let the glass clatter against the tabletop a little louder than necessary, drawing disapproving frowns from the couple he’d already managed to annoy as well as the Sommelier who no doubt would take his time returning to the table to see if Riley wanted another. Might be for the best, really. Was hard enough to catch a cab in this town when you could walk straight.

Making his way to the bathroom was easy enough, but stepping out, something caught his attention that sent him in the opposite direction of the dining room. Dishes clinking lightly against one another couldn’t dull the magnificently gruff, raspy words delivered with a ballsy enthusiasm that left Riley longing to join in.

Instead, he leaned in the doorway of the kitchen, observing the broad back of the over six-foot singer, who’s hair was either extremely dark, or the hairnet was making it look that way. He was rinsing dishes while a shorter man loaded them in a large commercial dishwasher, silverware rattling every time he shoved a dish in too hard. The song was a well-known favorite of the nineties, dark and growly in its original form, yet somehow, this guy was managing to make it both devastatingly haunting and rougher all at the same time.

Damn but something about him was familiar. Riley kept hoping for a glimpse of his face as he moved, but so far, all he’d been able to make out was the barest hint of a neatly trimmed beard. Even the curse words drifting down the hall as some poor unfortunate soul on the kitchen staff got one hell of a dressing down, couldn’t dull the edgy mystique of the song.

“Hey! You can’t be back here!”

Blinking, Riley tore his eyes off the singer to see the other dishwasher glaring at him. Of course, that ended the song as the man Riley had been hoping for a glimpse of turned, revealing intense gray-green eyes set in a face that drew a shuddering gasp from Riley.

“I know you,” Riley remarked, taking several shaky steps inside the room.

“No, you don’t.”

Bullshit! His voice, soft spoken but firm, unlike the blustering aggression of the other man, held a musical quality to it, as if he could never quite reign in the urge to sing. He hadn’t forgotten that quality either, despite the brevity of their one and only conversation.

“Actually, I do. I saw you play in a little dive bar in South Mississippi back when they were finding all those old bones and the place was practically crawling with feds. Saw you play about five years before that too. In Chicago, onstage at a huge ass arena. You were in the band that opened that night. We talked a little after the show, at some wanna be blues bar across the square. I said you played beautifully, you told me I was tone deaf.”

“Guess whoever it was should have added delusional too. Time for you to go back to your table, sir. Like my cousin said, you can’t be back here.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Riley could see the smaller man inching between him and the singer he so desperately needed to have a conversation with because holy shit, this guy right here was the answer to his prayers.

“Dez Conway. That’s your name, isn’t it?”

When the man froze with his hand halfway to the sink, Riley knew he hadn’t been mistaken. Not that he’d had any doubt in the slightest. If there were two things that stuck with him, no matter the circumstances, it was an amazing singer and a truly hot man, and Dez was both, and then some. Up on that stage, Dez had played the guitar and the keyboard. Hell, for one song he’d even broken out the goddamned bagpipes and reminded everyone in attendance that in skilled hands, it could be as wild and exhilarating an instrument as an electric guitar.

The bellowing from up the hall continued, punctuated with the declaration of an eggplant parmesan tasting like ass and not even fit to be served to the monkeys at the zoo. Riley visible cringed at the veracity of the words, and noted that Dez did too, eyes darting from the doorway back to Riley as the screaming voice up the hall proclaimed someone’s tears to be the last liquid the kitchen needed seconds before the unfortunate victim was told to leave and never return.

“Are you trying to get us fired right alongside that poor bastard?” Dez hissed, ignoring Riley’s question completely. Hell, he turned his god damned back on Riley and went back to washing dishes, but there was no mistaking the ridged set to his shoulders.

“No, what I’m trying to do is find someone with the ability to fill the vacant spot in my band left by a selfish bastard.”

“Well, then it truly sucks to be you, ‘cause I’ve got no interest in being part of a band. Got my fill of that shit over the years and all it did was leave me bitter and pissed off, which is never a good thing.”

“Yeah, just ask his former therapist."