The Edge of Never, Wait For You, Rule: Scorching Summer Reads 3 Books in 1

I can hear a band playing inside.

Andrew holds the door open after a couple comes out and he takes my hand. It’s not a huge place, but it’s cozy. I look up at the tall ceilings, noticing the many photographs and license plates and beer lights and colored banners and old signs hanging around on every inch of space. Several ceiling fans hang low from the wooden ceiling. And to my right is the bar that, like just about any bar, has a TV on the back wall. Even through a mild throng of people a woman working behind the bar raises her hand and it appears she’s waving at Andrew.

Andrew smiles at her and waves back with two fingers as if to say ‘talk to you in a few’.

It looks like all of the tables are taken and there are people dancing on the floor. The band playing along the back wall is really good; some kind of blues rock, or something. I like it. There’s a black man strumming a silver guitar sitting on a stool and a white man singing with an acoustic secured to his front by the guitar strap. A heavyset man is on drums and there’s a keyboard on the stage, though it’s unoccupied.

I do a double-take when my gaze skims the floor and I see a scruffy black dog looking up at me and wagging its tail. I reach over and scratch it behind the ears. Satisfied, it waddles over next to its owner sitting at the table next to me and lies at his feet.

After waiting a few minutes, Andrew notices three people get up from a table not far from where the band is playing and, pulling me along, he walks me over and gets it.

I still feel off from the hangover and my head isn’t completely free of pain, but surprisingly enough, as loud as it is in here, it’s not making my headache worse.

“She’s not drinking,” Andrew points at me and says kindly to the woman who had been standing behind the bar.

She had weaved her way through the people and over to our table by the time I sat down.

The woman, with soft brown hair pulled behind her ears, looks to be in her early forties and she’s smiling so hugely as she takes Andrew into a bear hug that I’m starting to wonder if she’s his aunt or a cousin.

“It’s been ten months, Parrish,” she says, patting his back with both hands. “Where the hell have you been?”

She smiles down at me.

“And who is this?” She looks at Andrew playfully, but I detect something else in her smile: assumption, perhaps.

Andrew takes my hand and I stand up to be properly introduced. “This is Camryn,” he says. “Camryn, this is Carla; she’s been working here for at least six of my atrocious performances.”

Carla pushes him on the chest, laughing, and she looks back at me. “Don’t let him lie to you,” she points at him and raises both brows, “this boy can sing.” She winks at me and then shakes my hand. “Good to meet you.”

I smile at her likewise.

Sing? I thought he played guitar here; I didn’t know he sang, too. I guess it doesn’t surprise me. He already sort of proved to me that he can sing back in Birmingham when he hit that ‘alibis’ note in Hotel California. And every now and then while we were riding in the car he would forget I was there—or not care—and let his vocals loose on any number of classic rock songs funneling from the speakers.

But I never expected that he has actually performed somewhere. Too bad he didn’t bring his guitar; I’d love to see him perform tonight.

“Well, it’s good to see you again,” Carla says and then points to the black man on the stage. “Eddie will be glad to know you’re here.”

Andrew nods and smiles as Carla makes her way back through the small crowd and to the bar.

“Do you want a soda or anything?”

I wave my hand at him. “No, I’m good.”

He remains standing and when the band stops playing, I realize why. The black man with the silver guitar notices Andrew and smiles as he sets the guitar against the chair and comes over. They hug much in the same way he and Carla had and I stand up again to be introduced, shaking Eddie’s hand.

“Parrish! Been gone a long time,” Eddie says in his thick Cajun accent. “What it been, a’yea’?”

Carla had sounded somewhat Cajun, too, but not as much as Eddie.

“Almost,” Andrew says, beaming.

Andrew seems really happy to be here, like these people are some long-lost family members and he’s never been at odds with any of them. Even his smile is warmer and more inviting than I’ve ever seen it before. In fact, when he introduced me to both Carla and Eddie, his smile lit up the room. I felt like I was the one girl he finally decided to bring home to meet the family and by the looks in their eyes when he introduced me, they felt like that, too.