“Someone special gave me that when I was sixteen,” he murmured, pulling on a pair of sweats. He disappeared in the bathroom for a few seconds and returned with a dark gray towel, pressing it against the worst of his claw marks on his ribs. He tossed the bloody towel into the hamper in the corner and picked up the old guitar by the neck. He sat on his unmade bed, his leg dangling off the side, the other folded under him. He plucked it distractedly.
“Perfectly in tune,” she murmured, closing her eyes at the notes. God, she’d missed the simplicity of plucking strings. When she opened her eyes, he was looking at her so strangely.
“What?” she asked.
Without a word, he shifted positions and put the guitar in her lap. She took it from him on instinct, her fingers finding her favorite chord, her right hand stroking the strings. Her heart heaved a sigh with happiness.
“Play,” he demanded.
She strummed a few more chords and plucked out a melody to one of her dad’s old songs he wrote for her mom. She messed up twice and replayed it until she had it committed to memory again. “It’s been years.”
“Don’t matter. Ain’t nobody here but us, and you’ve already impressed the shit out of me.”
So…she played, but she didn’t sing because she would cry. Happiness did that to her sometimes, made her eyes leak all the emotions she failed at keeping inside.
And holding this old soul—this old guitar—this possession that had known more love than most people, that had known more devotion just from a set of fingertips…well, it broke something inside of her. But the breaking didn’t hurt. Sometimes when a dam flooded during a rainy season and the water pushed and pushed, rose higher and higher, the dam might feel the break but, oh, the water—the water was free.
Juno hadn’t realized it, but she’d been in a rainy season for way too long.
And Rhett had just placed a crumbling dam in her hands.
Instead of singing, she would reward him for sharing this with her. She would share, too. So as she played, she told him a story.
“When I was a girl, I spent so much time in bars. I remember watching my dad play at this local place with my uncle. I would be doing my homework up at the bar with this nice bartender there named Layla, my mom helping me. And always, always, there was music in the background of my life. I can’t count the times I fell asleep in my mom’s lap at the late shows. And she would ask me, ‘Juno, why don’t we stay home tonight so you can sleep in your bed?’ And I would always say the same answer. ‘Because I never want to miss a show.’ When we were home, my dad was on his guitar, and he never told me to go away so he could write his songs. I was always just…there. That was my life. I had the best childhood. He can’t talk well, only whisper, but he would say that music was in his blood, and he’d given that to me. One day I came home from school, I was maybe seven, and he had an old secondhand guitar he’d bought at a pawn shop for me. And he set to teaching me. I started to imagine what it would be like to be on stage. He was…enthralling. Up there shootin’ whiskey between sets with my uncle, all eyes on him when he played. And that man can play. The first time he pulled me on stage, I thought I would piss myself.” She laughed at the memory. “I really did. I thought it would be so embarrassing, and I would shame my dad and my uncle. I froze. But my dad didn’t let me run off the stage. He just kept playing, and my uncle started singing my part. Eventually, I sang with him, and eventually my uncle let me take over the song. I loved music.”
“Loved. But not anymore?”
She smiled sadly. “I had this dream that I would find bands like the Beck Brothers and gift the world with real talent. That I would change the industry and give people music that spoke to their souls, not just their pocketbooks.”
“And?”
“And I never figured out how to do it. Not in time.”
“Juno?” he asked.
“Hmm?”
Rhett’s face was so serious and his eyes a dark blue as he asked, “Who’s your dad?”
“Brighton Beck.”
“Holy fuckin’ shit,” he said before she’d even finished the last syllable. “I knew it. I knew it had to be him or Dennison Beck when you were talking about how you grew up. Look at this.” When he lifted his forearm, it was covered in gooseflesh. “Juno Beck?”
She smiled and sang softly as she strummed the guitar, “That’s meeeee.”
“Holy fuckin’ shit,” he repeated, shaking his head in disbelief. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What does it matter?”
“It matters to me. You said you look up to me, right? You look up to what I was trying to do for the industry and for shifters? Who do you think I looked up to? Do my actions remind you of anyone? Your dad and uncle were who I idolized growing up. My Pride was falling apart, my life was falling apart, but I had one thing to focus on.” He gestured to her guitar. “Music. And when I was a kid, shifters had just come out and the world hated us, but your dad was making music anyway. Bear shifter, uninterested in fame, recording albums in some hole-in-the-wall studio called…”
He pulled his phone out, punched in some keys, and then laughed and shook his head again. He turned the phone around, and it was a picture of the studio they’d made in the office of Layla and Kong’s bar. And there she was in a little blue tutu and ballet shoes, legs crossed on a chair as she frowned down at a coloring book. Her hair was up in curly pigtails and her tongue was sticking out in concentration. She still did that when she was really focused. And there was her dad and Uncle Denny, both playing guitar and singing into a pair of microphones. The picture was an old black and white grainy image, and on the back wall of that makeshift studio was a sign the Ashe Crew had made for them that said Beck Brothers.
Rhett pointed to the little girl. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
She didn’t know why she was tearing up. Maybe it was just because she hadn’t seen this picture in years, or maybe it was the good memories it brought her, or maybe it was holding a guitar again. “That was in the back of Sammy’s Bar. It was the best room for acoustics they could find. My dad and uncle didn’t have two pennies to rub together, but they didn’t need it. They just did their thing and stayed out of the spotlight and kept the attention on their music. I wanted more of that. And I never saw anything come close…until you.”
There was no humor in Rhett’s face now. No smile waiting to happen, no wicked glint to his eyes. There was only shock. “You came here. Out of all the mountains, out of all the Crews, you landed on my doorstep.”
“Maybe the universe thought we were supposed to meet.”
“Your dad… Apex experimented on him, right?”
She nodded. “They took him and my uncle when they were young. They cut out my father’s voice box to see if his shifter healing would grow it back.” She swallowed down the rage she felt every time she thought about it. “It didn’t.”
“But he didn’t let that stop him from making music.”
She smiled and shook her head. “My father is a very strong man. He just didn’t know it until my mom came along and pushed him in the right direction.”
“Apex made a drug,” he said suddenly. “A shifter can inject themselves, and it’ll keep the animal asleep. It has some side effects, though.”
She frowned and shook her head. “I…I don’t understand.”
“I have a sister. She’s an addict.”
Well, anyone could’ve knocked her over with a feather right now. “You have a sister?”
Rhett pursed his lips. “A twin sister. Her lioness is white like my animal. Blue eyes and everything. She looks a lot like me. But her animal…” He chewed the side of his lip for a few seconds. “Well, she doesn’t have much control. My father is Alpha of the Pride we grew up in, and he wanted us to be perfect. But my sister kept Changing, two, three times a day. And she Turned someone by accident. He had to bring them into the Pride and cover it all up. So he began giving her the drugs Apex made. They call the drug DeClaw. It’s not legal or approved by any government sanction. Your animal sleeps, but the side effect is you get high as fuck. And it’s addictive. My sister wanted to make my dad proud, and now she’s in a rehab center halfway from here to Portland. Guess how many times my dad visited her?”
“Perfectly in tune,” she murmured, closing her eyes at the notes. God, she’d missed the simplicity of plucking strings. When she opened her eyes, he was looking at her so strangely.
“What?” she asked.
Without a word, he shifted positions and put the guitar in her lap. She took it from him on instinct, her fingers finding her favorite chord, her right hand stroking the strings. Her heart heaved a sigh with happiness.
“Play,” he demanded.
She strummed a few more chords and plucked out a melody to one of her dad’s old songs he wrote for her mom. She messed up twice and replayed it until she had it committed to memory again. “It’s been years.”
“Don’t matter. Ain’t nobody here but us, and you’ve already impressed the shit out of me.”
So…she played, but she didn’t sing because she would cry. Happiness did that to her sometimes, made her eyes leak all the emotions she failed at keeping inside.
And holding this old soul—this old guitar—this possession that had known more love than most people, that had known more devotion just from a set of fingertips…well, it broke something inside of her. But the breaking didn’t hurt. Sometimes when a dam flooded during a rainy season and the water pushed and pushed, rose higher and higher, the dam might feel the break but, oh, the water—the water was free.
Juno hadn’t realized it, but she’d been in a rainy season for way too long.
And Rhett had just placed a crumbling dam in her hands.
Instead of singing, she would reward him for sharing this with her. She would share, too. So as she played, she told him a story.
“When I was a girl, I spent so much time in bars. I remember watching my dad play at this local place with my uncle. I would be doing my homework up at the bar with this nice bartender there named Layla, my mom helping me. And always, always, there was music in the background of my life. I can’t count the times I fell asleep in my mom’s lap at the late shows. And she would ask me, ‘Juno, why don’t we stay home tonight so you can sleep in your bed?’ And I would always say the same answer. ‘Because I never want to miss a show.’ When we were home, my dad was on his guitar, and he never told me to go away so he could write his songs. I was always just…there. That was my life. I had the best childhood. He can’t talk well, only whisper, but he would say that music was in his blood, and he’d given that to me. One day I came home from school, I was maybe seven, and he had an old secondhand guitar he’d bought at a pawn shop for me. And he set to teaching me. I started to imagine what it would be like to be on stage. He was…enthralling. Up there shootin’ whiskey between sets with my uncle, all eyes on him when he played. And that man can play. The first time he pulled me on stage, I thought I would piss myself.” She laughed at the memory. “I really did. I thought it would be so embarrassing, and I would shame my dad and my uncle. I froze. But my dad didn’t let me run off the stage. He just kept playing, and my uncle started singing my part. Eventually, I sang with him, and eventually my uncle let me take over the song. I loved music.”
“Loved. But not anymore?”
She smiled sadly. “I had this dream that I would find bands like the Beck Brothers and gift the world with real talent. That I would change the industry and give people music that spoke to their souls, not just their pocketbooks.”
“And?”
“And I never figured out how to do it. Not in time.”
“Juno?” he asked.
“Hmm?”
Rhett’s face was so serious and his eyes a dark blue as he asked, “Who’s your dad?”
“Brighton Beck.”
“Holy fuckin’ shit,” he said before she’d even finished the last syllable. “I knew it. I knew it had to be him or Dennison Beck when you were talking about how you grew up. Look at this.” When he lifted his forearm, it was covered in gooseflesh. “Juno Beck?”
She smiled and sang softly as she strummed the guitar, “That’s meeeee.”
“Holy fuckin’ shit,” he repeated, shaking his head in disbelief. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What does it matter?”
“It matters to me. You said you look up to me, right? You look up to what I was trying to do for the industry and for shifters? Who do you think I looked up to? Do my actions remind you of anyone? Your dad and uncle were who I idolized growing up. My Pride was falling apart, my life was falling apart, but I had one thing to focus on.” He gestured to her guitar. “Music. And when I was a kid, shifters had just come out and the world hated us, but your dad was making music anyway. Bear shifter, uninterested in fame, recording albums in some hole-in-the-wall studio called…”
He pulled his phone out, punched in some keys, and then laughed and shook his head again. He turned the phone around, and it was a picture of the studio they’d made in the office of Layla and Kong’s bar. And there she was in a little blue tutu and ballet shoes, legs crossed on a chair as she frowned down at a coloring book. Her hair was up in curly pigtails and her tongue was sticking out in concentration. She still did that when she was really focused. And there was her dad and Uncle Denny, both playing guitar and singing into a pair of microphones. The picture was an old black and white grainy image, and on the back wall of that makeshift studio was a sign the Ashe Crew had made for them that said Beck Brothers.
Rhett pointed to the little girl. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
She didn’t know why she was tearing up. Maybe it was just because she hadn’t seen this picture in years, or maybe it was the good memories it brought her, or maybe it was holding a guitar again. “That was in the back of Sammy’s Bar. It was the best room for acoustics they could find. My dad and uncle didn’t have two pennies to rub together, but they didn’t need it. They just did their thing and stayed out of the spotlight and kept the attention on their music. I wanted more of that. And I never saw anything come close…until you.”
There was no humor in Rhett’s face now. No smile waiting to happen, no wicked glint to his eyes. There was only shock. “You came here. Out of all the mountains, out of all the Crews, you landed on my doorstep.”
“Maybe the universe thought we were supposed to meet.”
“Your dad… Apex experimented on him, right?”
She nodded. “They took him and my uncle when they were young. They cut out my father’s voice box to see if his shifter healing would grow it back.” She swallowed down the rage she felt every time she thought about it. “It didn’t.”
“But he didn’t let that stop him from making music.”
She smiled and shook her head. “My father is a very strong man. He just didn’t know it until my mom came along and pushed him in the right direction.”
“Apex made a drug,” he said suddenly. “A shifter can inject themselves, and it’ll keep the animal asleep. It has some side effects, though.”
She frowned and shook her head. “I…I don’t understand.”
“I have a sister. She’s an addict.”
Well, anyone could’ve knocked her over with a feather right now. “You have a sister?”
Rhett pursed his lips. “A twin sister. Her lioness is white like my animal. Blue eyes and everything. She looks a lot like me. But her animal…” He chewed the side of his lip for a few seconds. “Well, she doesn’t have much control. My father is Alpha of the Pride we grew up in, and he wanted us to be perfect. But my sister kept Changing, two, three times a day. And she Turned someone by accident. He had to bring them into the Pride and cover it all up. So he began giving her the drugs Apex made. They call the drug DeClaw. It’s not legal or approved by any government sanction. Your animal sleeps, but the side effect is you get high as fuck. And it’s addictive. My sister wanted to make my dad proud, and now she’s in a rehab center halfway from here to Portland. Guess how many times my dad visited her?”
