Page 54 of Grumpy Bear

He plucked the phone from the bag of rice and tapped it. “Shit. It’s still not doing anything.”

“You haven’t charged it yet.”

He brought the phone back to the bed, and I plugged the dangling cable into the wall for him. He leaned back against the headboard, staring at the black sliver of glass, but his foot found my calf and he absentmindedly caressed me with his toes.

“You worried about all the texts you missed?”

“Huh? No. I, um… I don’t get texts.”

I frowned, confused.

He finally looked at me again. “The phone actually doesn’t work as a phone. I mean, like data and calls and texts. It got cut off recently.”

I could tell he was ashamed to say it, so I nodded casually.

“But I can still use the internet on WiFi. Email and stuff. Access my music. I have a tuner app I’m embarrassed to say I’ve become pretty dependent on the past several years.”

“Speaking of.” We both looked across the room at his guitar.

“Yeah.” He blew out a pained breath, rubbed his eyes, and groaned. “I’m afraid to find out.”

“You know, if you want to play the Hummingbird…” After overhearing Jim and Luke talking about it, I had already made up my mind to offer, even before Jim had cornered me at the bar and yelled at me about it.

“God.” Luke shook his head. “That’s an awesome guitar. But it’s also a really special personal item that belonged to someone important to you who passed away, and I can totally understand why you might not want someone else messing with it.” He paused for breath. “I can string mine up tomorrow and see how it sounds. It might be okay.”

“Well, either way, Jim’s right. You should play at the bonfire. If you want.”

“Did he say something to you?”

“Yeah. He said, ‘Let that poor boy play Wayne’s fucking guitar.’”

Luke laughed. “That was a great impression of him.”

“It wasn’t.”

“No, not really.”

“Do you want to though? Play, I mean. I’m assuming you came to Edgewood looking for gigs, right?”

“And a job. And a place to live. And a new life.”

I waved my hand in a flourish, indicating the cabin and the campground. “Package deal.”

His eyes narrowed. “It’s quite a package.”

My cock stirred, rolling slowly across my thigh.

Luke’s tone went serious again. “It’s not like I’m trying to make it big. Not anymore. At this point, I just want to play and write. Big gigs. Little gigs. As long as I’m getting to do what makes me happy. I mean, sure, when I was a teenager, I had big dreams about becoming some kind of star, but that changed.”

“What changed it?”

“Life.”

“Men?”

“Yeah. A couple. I have a pretty lousy pattern in that department.”

“Assholes.”