Friday night at the Fishbowl is usually a little bit busier than the other nights of the week, but tonight is nothing like normal.

A few tourists showed up with their guidebooks around five o’clock and peeked into the women’s restroom as if expecting the dead bodies of my mother and her lover to still be lying on the floor. That’s not the surprising part, though. That happens at least three times a week.

The surprising part came when they took stools at the bar and ordered drinks. With alcohol. The expensive kind.

Okay. Good sign.

Earl and Pearl showed up and took their regular seats around seven, and Esteban woke up from his nap.

“Old fart. Old fart,” he crows.

Another regular, Jim, who hasn’t missed a Thursday or Friday night in over a decade, crosses to the cage and tosses a handful of bar mix at him.

“Damn bird. You ever gonna learn something new? You’ve been talkin’ the same old shit for years.”

“Show me the money.”

I’m assuming Esteban picked that one up during the era of Jerry Maguire, but he breaks it out when someone hassles him about adding to his vocabulary, which I have to admit indicates the bird is probably smarter than most of the people in the bar.

“Fuck off, damn bird.”

“Fuck off. Fuck off,” Esteban parrots back with alarming accuracy. It’s not like that’s a new one, though, but the tourists stare at the bird wide-eyed.

“It swears?”

“I hope you’re not offended. I’m pretty sure that bird is smarter than I am, but he doesn’t seem to understand that his language isn’t always fit for polite company.”

The woman shakes her head and laughs. “That’s one heck of an addition to a bar. The guidebook says it was a gift?”

I nod with a tight-lipped smile. “He sure was, which means we couldn’t exactly give him back when he started to stun us with his expansive vocabulary.”

The man orders another drink, and I take his money with a genuine smile.

An hour later is when things start to get weird. And by weird, I mean busy. With more paying customers.

A group of twenty-something girls strut in, giggling behind their hands, and take a table near the wall opposite the bar.

“That’s the parrot, isn’t it?”

“Jordan wants one of those, but I keep telling him that’s a deal breaker. I’ll move out before he does that.”

“How you doin’?” Esteban says before fluffing his feathers.

I cross the bar to take their orders because Brandy still hasn’t shown up for work, which means I may have to call in a favor and see if Dory can come in tonight. Normally, I only call her if I’m deathly ill and can’t manage the bar, or if for some reason I get called away because something happened with Pop, but lucky for me she’s always happy to help. Back before times got tough, she worked here six nights a week. Now she babysits her grandkids during the day and seems plenty happy about that.

I step out from behind the bar to make my way over to the full table. “What can I get you, ladies?”

A blonde with perfect beach waves and whiter-than-white teeth answers for the group. “We’re having shots! Let’s start with Dirty Girl Scouts. Or would you rather have Redheaded Sluts?” She turns to consult the table.

“Redheaded Sluts. I need a buzz.”

The blonde relays the order to me like I didn’t just hear it myself, and adds, “We were going to pregame, but we wanted to get here early and get a table.”

I open my mouth to ask her why in the world they thought they needed to get here early to get a table, but the front door swings wide and another group of girls, six this time, comes in and makes a beeline for the other large empty table.

Earl, Pearl, and Jim’s heads all turn in unison, confused expressions marking their features.

Me too, guys. Me too.

“Party time. Party time.” Esteban is practically bouncing on his perch at all the action.

What in the world is going on?

But I’m too busy to ask because another group of girls arrives and pushes two tables together. I pull out my phone and call Dory, but she doesn’t answer. The door opens again and I shoot a desperate text to Carter, another friend of mine who has helped me out before, then hustle to make drinks and deliver them before taking more orders. I’ve made more girly shots in the last hour than I have in the last year. We don’t usually even get bachelorette parties, but it’s like Vanderbilt’s sorority row threw up in the Fishbowl tonight.

“Do you have a drink called the Fishbowl? I mean, if this were my bar, I totally would. Just think of how cute the pictures would be. All those straws in an actual fishbowl. Totally Instagrammable. You know?” This is from another college-age girl whose ID I had to check twice just to be sure it wasn’t fake.

“Sorry, I don’t have any fishbowls handy right now, but how about some shots?”

A cheer goes up from the table, and I’m taking orders and making drinks as fast as I can. We’re down to three empty tables when Carter walks in the door.

“Thank you, baby Jesus. Dory hasn’t replied yet, and I’m dying for some help.”

Carter, a skinny twenty-three-year-old who came to make it on Music Row, takes in the packed bar, and his eyes go to the stage platform in the front corner that’s been empty since my mom died.

“They’re not here yet? This place is about to be even more packed.”

“What?” I can barely hear Carter over the voices and the music that I turned up.

Earl, Pearl, and Jim are looking cranky at their normal seats at the bar, while other customers try to squeeze between them to wave money in my direction.

Carter bursts into action, and I’m slinging drinks and delivering them as fast as I can.

Not fifteen minutes later, it all makes sense when the door opens and the bar patrons burst into cheers.

Oh. No. He. Didn’t.

Frisco and two other guys I’ve never seen walk in, followed by four huge guys dressed in solid black. Security?

But they’re carrying guitar cases, and one has a hand truck stacked with square black cases . . .

What the hell?

“Hey, Fishbowl! We’ll get set up and be ready to rock your world in a few!” Frisco yells as I take three more drink orders and nearly run into Carter.

He lays a hand on my arm and takes in my shocked expression.

“You didn’t know?”

“Do I look like I knew?”

“But how?”

I shake my head. I don’t have time to talk to him right now. I’ve got drinks to make, and then Zane Frisco has a hell of a lot of questions to answer.