Next Song I Sing (NEXT TIME AROUND) by Donna McDonald Page A

bragging days are mostly behind me. I may not even miss them.”
    “Blue halter with the matching blue eyes got you that hooked?” Sam asked, feigning shock.
    “You are an observant man,” Max said sincerely.
    “I’m a bartender. I miss nothing. She busted you, Cutie,” Sam said, laughing.
    “She did,” Max agreed, “but I gained some points back playing and singing with them last night.”
    “Not as many as your brother got,” Sam said, still surprised at Jasper.
    Jasper had always been a serious man. Even in his thirties, he was discreet and sedate with women. Sam found it genuinely hard to believe Jasper was acting so forward with this one, no matter how good she looked—or sounded.
    Max laughed. “You don’t even know the half of it. I think Jasper was copping a feel at the pool today. Chloe was wearing this black bathing suit with all kinds holes in it. Jasper kept trying to cover her up with a towel. Then he sat next to her at one of the pool bar tables so close that they were bumping each other. Next thing I know, Jasper is leaning over to cover her, and her face is turning the color of her mai tai.”
    Sam laughed so hard again that he had to lay his head down on the bar. “You’re lying. Jasper Wade did not cop a feel in public.”
    “I am not lying. Get this—it happened right after Rayonna interrupted my lunch to inform me that Jasper was lousy in bed,” Max told him. “I can understand her being upset about him not sleeping with her last night, but she didn’t have to insult his manhood to me.”
    “That’s fucking bullshit anyway, in case you’re concerned,” Sam said, shocked that Jasper’s ex would say such a thing to his brother. The woman was incorrigible. “Jasper may have settled down some after he got married, but he didn’t become a damn eunuch. I know him better than that.”
    “I didn’t believe her either, but I wonder if Jasper may have settled down a little too much over the years,” Max remarked. “I have no doubt Jasper was faithful, but I don’t think he was ever in love with his wife. Between us, that’s the only piece of sorry I feel for Rayonna. Mostly I wish she would leave and never come back.”
    “Don’t look now, Maximillan, but I think you’re growing up,” Sam said.
    “Keep scaring me like that and I’m going to fall off the wagon,” Max threatened.
    “No you won’t,” Sam told him. “Wicked Wade is not going back on the sauce. You want back on the ice a lot more than you want a drink.”
    “True,” Max said, sipping the coke. “Now I can only hope the ice will want me back. If it doesn’t, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
    “You’re a damn good piano man,” Sam said, grinning.
    “There’s a difference between a hobby that makes some pocket change and a real job,” Max said, wiggling his eyebrows. “It would be terrible if I had to sell my body and start endorsing products for a living. But I guess I’d have to suck it up. Life can be hell sometimes for famous jocks like me.”
    “Do you remember meeting me when you were seven years old?” Sam began, not really expecting an answer to his question. “Jasper brought me home from college with him for a long weekend. Your parents were in—I don’t remember—Aruba or someplace. You were being cared for by the lovely Nanny Baldwin, who was also a double-D in case you ever wondered. She remains the epitome of my best experiences with women. Time and distance can pull some great relationships apart.”
    Max laughed at Sam’s story and shifted on the stool. “I do remember that time. Jasper promised me then that once he finished college, I could come live with him.”
    Sam nodded. “And he kept that promise because that’s just who the stuffed shirt is under that superior tone he uses with most people.”
    “Yes, that’s God’s truth,” Max told him, laughing. “My stuffed-shirt brother is my hero.”
    “Mine too,” Sam said sincerely, setting the glasses he’d