~Tahlia.

Thankfully, avoiding my mother enough to prevent another confrontation the next morning was no difficult feat, as she seemed to be avoiding me as well. I overheard from my brothers that she had called for breakfast to be brought up to her room, and aside from briefly crossing her exiting the restroom at one point, I never even caught a glimpse of her.

Not needing to worry about her served my purposes as well, given I already had a mission to accomplish that day. I needed to meet up with Keene and smooth things over with him. To be fair, I still would need to have some words with him for serving as a complicit pawn in Mother's game, but I now understood the fault wasn't his. He had misstepped, not aimed to deceive me all the time I had known him.

Conveniently enough for me, when I dialed the number for the Abrams' telephone, Keene was the one who picked up. The tension weighing on his voice when he first answered seemed to dissipate as we talked, and he gladly agreed to pick me up for lunch at a taco place downtown. My mood began to improve as I got dressed, realizing I finally had a chance to redeem my most prized friendship while still drawing closer to the Candorian who had left such an impression on me. Now, neither would exclude the other.

When Keene pulled up in his car, I had already been waiting for a minute or two on the porch. I swiftly got inside, and off we went. We engaged in light topics of conversation to begin with as we drove, as I didn't wish to prod Keene on the important matters while he still focused on driving. Soon enough, we had arrived at the taco shop, ordered our food, and sat down to wait for the waitress to bring our meals to us.

"So Keene," I began, edging into the heart of the matter between us, "I have a question for you."

He clasped his hands together and leaned forward. "Ask away."

"What do you think it would take to deceive me?"

A frown crossed Keene's face, and he let out a confused laugh. "I'm not sure what kind of question that is...? A whole lot of effort, I imagine; you're pretty smart."

"You aren't exactly wrong." I remarked with a disarming smile. "More specifically, what would my mother do if she were attempting to deceive me?"

"Get your father in on it, I suppose."

"Or alternatively, what about using my best friend as a pawn? Might that work?"

"Me?" Keene squinted. "Probably not ... you'd see right through that."

"Well, that I did."

"I'm not sure I know what you mean...?"

"Sure you do, silly. I've seen through my mother's ruse, Keene. You can drop the act. Your profession of love was too sudden to be genuine, and I've gotten to the bottom of that matter. Why would you play along with that, though?"

Keene scratched the back of his neck. "She ... your mother's pretty persuasive, I guess. I'm really sorry, Tahlia, I really am. She just—"

"I know what she did. Hard as it may be, I'm trying to forgive you. She must have backed you into quite the corner, and frankly, I don't want to know what all was discussed between you two. It may be difficult to move on from this chapter, but I need your promise you won't let anything come between you and me like that again."

"You have my word. Again, I'm really sorry I even participated in that."

"Good. I must know, though, was there any truth to that? Even a little?"

Keene's lips tightened. "Well, I'd be lying if I said that to keep our story consistent, I didn't come to ... appreciate you in a different way. But if you can work to forgive me, then I can definitely work to move past any of that."

I slowly nodded. "Fair enough. Well, overall, this has been a very strange chapter in our friendship, but all the years we spent together before now still mean much to me. No reason we should lose all that because of my mother's agenda."

"Of course."

"Now, she did say something to the effect that you had concerns about Declan just as she did. On her part, I can easily tell that's because of prejudice on her part, but where did your concerns come from?"

Keene's eyebrows inched close together. "I never said that. I mean no slander, but..."

"She lied. That hardly surprises me."

"Yeah ... I did somewhat worry about him being able to actually provide for you if you two did pursue anything serious, but I don't even remember saying anything to your mother about that. As your friend, I would have told you about any serious concerns, not schemed to force your hand."

I smiled. "I'm glad to hear that. And I'm glad to see the tacos are coming."

Keene turned around just in time to see the waitress coming bearing two plates loaded with three tacos each, along with an array of dipping sauces. We thanked her profusely when she set the plates down before each of us, and then with an amused "toast" with our tacos, we dug into lunch. Much had been mended between us, and for that, I found myself content.

* * * *

~Declan.

The five-piece ensemble I'd put together with Chip and Madden's help was working out well. Raiden played bass and guitar more as a hobby than as his main profession, so that did present some problems, but we could work with that. He got along well with the rest of us and clearly wanted to learn, so far be it from us outcasts to cast him out.

Over the course of our first rehearsal, as well as the second we had the next day, we came to realize Rudy's talents as a composer were another unearthed skill he had. We worked to iron out several tuneful ideas he had and make them into viable songs ripe for performance. Apparently, well as Mr. Justice paid, he left little room for compositional creativity other than his own. With us, though, Rudy felt more comfortable to come into his own.

Chip must have eaten something spoiled in his never-ending quest for calories, because when we were setting up for our third rehearsal, he revealed that he'd scheduled for us to play at one of the local taverns that very night. He knew we'd barely prepared enough to coherently make it through one tune without stumbling and needing to iron something out, but yet he'd already gone to do something so brash?

"You're insane." Madden said simply, nicely summing up the matter once he'd heard Chip out.

"I really do think we have something good going here." Chip insisted, "Really, all we need to do is work out six or so tunes right now, and we can have a nice hour of music to present."

"That's only if we take really long solos."

Raiden laughed, glancing up from tuning his guitar. "Rudy's good at that."

Rudy shrugged, an amused smile crossing his face. "I can be a bit long-winded, I guess."

"Even so," I said, "this is a bit early for us to already be putting on a concert."

Chip shrugged. "What do you want me to do, cancel? That'll be even worse for our reputation than if we just have a bad gig, which I doubt anyway."

Nobody was really able to argue with that, so we went about the hard work of preparing six tunes for that night. Half would be old standards that weren't all too difficult to play, and the other three would be Rudy originals we managed to bring together in time. By the time we finished, not everything was perfect, but we'd probably be able to pass it off.

Chip drove us to the tavern, which turned out to be a cleaner and neater place than I'd previously imagined. A clear aisle between two rows of tables led up to a generous stage where we set up and prepared for whatever was ahead for us. For me, I felt a sense of impending dread, but put on a brave face anyway and steeled myself.

Our first tune went pretty well. Starting with a catchy riff in the bass, followed by drums and piano joining in to accompany it, Rudy's original somehow sounded even better played out in the open, to our intrigued patronage. Soon, me ad Rudy joined in with the dreamy melody consisting of a series of harmonies that floated atop the foundation set by the backing instruments.

Overall, the first piece, called "Sunset" seemed to go over well with our audience. We didn't do quite as well on some of the standards especially, but I think the onlookers appreciated what we were trying to do enough to ignore some of our mistakes. Of course, maybe some of them were drunk enough they would have appreciated anything, but still.

By and by, our first performance together drew to a close, and as we packed our instruments away, some of the more thoughtful members of the audience stopped by the stage to thank us for playing. One man in particular caught Chip's attention, which intrigued me as well.

He looked vaguely familiar, a balding man with round glasses and a towering figure clothed in a well-fitted suit, but I couldn't place who he was. At any rate, he chattered with Chip with occasional remarks directed to Rudy. Something about playing at his tavern next week in place of another band that had cancelled. And of course, Chip agreed without consulting the rest of us.

When we packed into Chip's car, Raiden cleared his throat. Being the farthest from the conversation, he must have heard the least, so he asked a simple, "What was that guy saying?"

Chip laughed. "That was only the owner of the biggest tavern around here, Cozy's Cavern Tavern. We're playing for him next week."

I tuned out of the rest of the conversation, because the idea of playing there again seemed poetic to me. Cozy's was a regular spot of Mr. Justice's, and the place I'd been fired from his band. That had been the catalyst for my entire journey leading to playing with these guys in the first place. The fact we'd all now be playing there was just too perfect.