And a curse.

And I’ll say, the way she talked back to him, I know I fell deeper, and I also know she was dragging the other guys in.

Then she says, “You know, Preacher, it isn’t all about what you want or what I want. Your friends want it to be just the guys.”

Well…

That was it.

[Hoots, shakes head, smiling]

Yeah, that was it.

Telling Preacher it wasn’t all about him?

[Hoots again]

Dave’s all “I think I love you and I’m buying you coffee.”

Lyla says, “I don’t drink coffee.”

I think Dave’s eyes bugged out of his head and that was the first, but not the last time he made it his mission to introduce Lyla to something that probably wasn’t good for her.

[Sobers]

We were all under her spell.

All that hair.

Those eyes.

Her quiet way.

Preach all sat back, relaxed, his arm around her in that big booth.

Yeah.

Bewitched.

She had coffee with us and thus began how it would be.

Lyla, eventually, was with the band a lot, as you know.

She sat at Preacher’s side, or whoever Preacher allowed her to prop up when they needed it.

But mostly, she sat at Preacher’s side because he never let on once he needed someone to prop him up.

I’d know a lot later he’d been listing for a really long time, in search of Lyla, the only woman on the planet who had the strength to stand at his side and prop him up.

She did not interfere with the band.

She never said dick.

She had no opinion…ever.

The band was the band.

She was Lyla.

Sometimes that came as Lyla and Preacher.

Sometimes that came as Lyla the muse of Preacher McCade and the Roadmasters.

Sometimes it came as Lyla being what Lyla was to each of us.

But mostly, it was Lyla, and Lyla didn’t so much as bang a fuckin’ tambourine for the Roadmasters.

Preach might try to drag her in.

Tommy did too.

And I’ll admit, there were times I did too.

She wouldn’t budge.

The band was the band.

And Lyla was Lyla.

And that morning, sippin’ her coffee to be nice to Dave who ordered it for her, it began.

She sat next to Preacher, silent, terminally pretty, totally clueless to the fact that every dude in the diner was checking her out, those dudes unable to do shit because she was tucked to Preacher’s side, and he was brutally handsome.

After a while, she turned to him and whispered in his ear, so they slid out of the booth and we all watched them go to a payphone.

She made a call with Preacher standing at her side like she couldn’t dial without his presence, and while she did, that was when Josh showed.