The Beautiful Truth

// 20

"Barton!" Micki exclaimed, walking precariously in her heels toward us from the bar. "Play us a sonnnng. Pretty please?"

Barton turned from watching me deliver the final blow in our third game of darts. "What?"

Micki stopped and half-sat on the edge of the currently unoccupied pool table. "Look, it's Open Mic Night."

She waved our attention to the far corner of the adjacent bar room, where a stool, a microphone, and a badly abused acoustic guitar stood.

"Maybe in a little while, Mick," he hedged.

"Come on..." she persisted. "You know you want to."

I just laughed. He wasn't getting out of here without playing a song.

"Hey where's Talyn?" I spoke up, not seeing him next to Alex at the bar, where the raven-haired barkeep was chatting up our friend.

Micki's attention span seemed to diminish the more she drank. Upon seeing her...whatever Alex was...making conversation with the girl behind the bar, she flitted off to reinsert herself into his awareness, and forgot all about begging Barton to play for us, and the handful of other patrons in the place.

"Hey look," Barton nudged my arm gently and nodded back toward the corner with the microphone and the guitar. "You didn't tell me Talyn could play guitar, too."

I looked up to see my best friend sitting on that previously unoccupied stool, tuning that beat up instrument as if he'd been doing it for years. Well, Talyn always looked like he'd been doing anything he tried for years. I'd always hated him for it.

"Ah, actually, I had no idea," I frowned. And that was the god's honest truth.

Before I had the chance to react any farther, he was grinning and talking into the microphone. That Oklahoma drawl was thicker than ever. I rolled my eyes.

"Forgive me, I've never played in public before," he began, softly picking at the strings. "But just one song. Um, Sawyer, you pretend to hate this song, but I know better."

He pulled the beginning bars out so long that I didn't recognize it at first. Barton picked it up before I could, and just stood next to me, smirking at his own knowingness.

"Guy's got talent," he shrugged, stepping closer next to me.

And then I recognized the song. A split second later, Talyn was singing, rather well, actually, Don't Stop Believin'. And I stood there, immobilized with shock.

Same song—small town girl...livin' in her lonely world and all that, takin' her midnight train to a-nee-wherrrrre... But hearing him sing it, it took on a whole knew life, replacing the familiar piano with that pitiful looking guitar, which played like a dream, contrary to what its appearance would have a casual observer preconceive.

"How can you hate this song?!" Micki exclaimed, barely breaking my transfixion.

"Shh, shh..." Alex calmed her, both of them having rejoined us as Talyn finished playing.

"I..." I stammered, "I don't hate this song, I hate how drunk people scream it when it plays at parties..." I finally managed, literally shaking my head to clear it.

Around me, my friends all clapped, Micki cheered loudly, and the bar, which had filled up slightly in the last ten minutes, voiced its approval. Talyn grinned, and seemed genuinely bashful—a rarity—when he said thanks to the room of patrons.

"Your turn, Barton!" Micki cheered, pulling on his arm and practically towing him toward the stage.

"Oh my God, Evan! Hey!!" someone said and grabbed my arm.