Page 40 of Pin My Alpha
“Nothing big. Open mics. Bars that paid in drink tickets.”
“You own the bar now. You have all the drink tickets.”
He finishes drying a plate and sets it carefully in the rack. “Moved up in the world.” He looks over at the guitar, then away. “I used to play more,” he says quietly. “Before.”
Before the first bar failed. He doesn’t have to say it.
I hold the songbook out. “Play something.”
His eyes narrow. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not?”
“I cooked for you.”
“That’s not an answer.” I take a step closer. “Coward.”
He just stares at me for a second, then shakes his head, a low sound of frustration in his throat. “You’re a menace,” he mutters, but he crosses the room.
He sits on the edge of the couch, hunching his shoulders over the guitar. It looks out of place in his hands, too delicate. His fingers, scarred and blunt from work, move over the strings with a weirdly careful touch, like he’s handling something that might break.
I have a file for every version of this man I’ve met. The owner, the alpha, the guy who is too old and too steady and a threat for reasons I can list on a spreadsheet. This doesn’t fit. This is an operational anomaly.
He finds a chord, and it’s rough, a little out of tune. He adjusts a peg, his head bent, listening. Then he starts to play. It’s a slow, simple melody I half-remember from the classic rock station my mom used to leave on in the kitchen. He doesn’t sing, just lets the notes fill the space. The room feels smaller.
My knees lock. I’m standing in the middle of his living room like an idiot.
Then he starts to sing, his voice low and rough at the edges, not quite on key. It’s not a performance. It’s the opposite of one. It’s just him, making a quiet sound in his own apartment, and I’m here to hear it.
This is worse than sex. Sex has a clear objective. There are rules, a playbook. I know how to call the shots, how to leave before the lights come on. This is a man playing a sad song after feeding me dinner. There is no manual for this. I am a consultant with no data.
The last note fades. The silence that follows is loud.
I clear my throat and sit on the far end of the couch. “You’re not terrible.”
A corner of his mouth lifts. “Thanks.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
He sets the guitar carefully on its stand. “Wasn’t planning on it.”
He doesn’t move away. He just sits there, on his end of the couch, and the space between us feels charged. He reaches into the milk crate beside him and pulls out a record, sliding it from its sleeve without looking at me. “You pick the next one.”
“I don’t know any of these.”
“Even better.”
I lean over and pull one out at random. The cover is a guy with a ridiculous collar and the expression of someone who just remembered leaving the oven on in 1973. Declan glances at it and lets out a quiet huff of a laugh. “Good choice.”
The needle crackles before the music starts, something with a slow bassline that settles under my skin. He leans back against the cushions. I stay sitting up, one leg tucked under me. An exit strategy.
“So you gave up the gigs for the bar?” I ask. Back to business. Back to facts.
He rubs a thumb over the worn denim of his knee. “For the first bar.”
The music plays. I want to push, to ask for numbers and dates, for the details that would make this a story instead of a feeling.But something in his posture shifts, his shoulders drawing in slightly, and I stay quiet.
“I was twenty-five,” he says, his voice low. “Thought I had it all figured out. Found a cheap lease in a bad part of town. Poured every cent I had into it. Every hour.” He looks at his hands, then back at the record player. “It lasted eighteen months.”
