TAT Box Set

by Emjay Soren

  He looks at Noah who is smiling and playing along. "You said her favorite song wasn’t appropriate for our shows, so you played one of her other favorites more in our wheelhouse."

  "That's right... that means I still ain’t figured out her favorite song and she won’t tell me ..." he tapped his chin and the girl went nuts.

  Suddenly the song was changing, and I felt the hair on my arms stand up. Oh...I knew this song.

  "See I promised her that I would sing anything for her kisses and she has been keeping those kisses away from me. I have no choice but desperate times call for desperate measures." He looked at me then. "This is proof that I will do anything Carrie."

  And then my jaw dropped when they all started my favorite song by my favorite singer... my guilty tell –no- one- take- it- to- your –grave- alone- time music ... Birthday music.

  Chad Blake was singing ‘Drunk on you’ by my music crush Luke Bryan. My secret was out… I was and will always be a country girl.

  ‘Girl you make my speakers go boom boom

  Dancin’ on the tailgate in the full moon’

  ‘That kind of thing makes a man go Mmm Mmm

  You’re lookin’ so good in what’s left of them blue jeans’

  Drip of honey on the money maker gotta be

  The best buzz I’m ever gonna find.

  Hey I’m a little drunk on you

  And high on summertime.

  They had sped the song up so it played closer to a rockabilly vibe but I was crying my eyes out in glee. I would castrate Noah and then punch Candy in the vagina depending on who gave my secrets out. I was taking my music to the grave. A girl needed her secrets when surrounded by rockstars who despised country. Him singing for me…was true love.

  Once the song ended Chad handed his guitar over to Noah and shouted “Break!” Next his lips were on mine, and though it was a small bar and packed it felt like he sang to me for the world.

  “I love you Carrie, even your horrendous taste in music. I will be made fun of forever for that and I couldn’t be happier if it means you admit your mine?”

  He was on pins and needles and there was just no more waiting. “I have never not been yours Chad. I was yours before you were ever mine, it just took me time to understand that. I love you.”

  “Kiss me.”

  And I did.

  *

  “I love Carrie’s cherries.” Chad moaned the minute we were in his truck heading to an undisclosed location. He had ripped my top up the minute we were alone and started suckling on my ‘cherries’ the minute they were visible. “God I’ve missed you baby.”

  “Me too, but this is just more torture and the fun stuff can come later. For now we need a bed, any bed and hours in it.”

  He groaned but pulled back and started the engine. I was in the passenger seat but he didn’t like it and scooped me around the thigh and tugged me until I was right beside him, my legs split between the gear shift. Next he grabbed his blindfold and that was the drive to the ‘bed’.

  Once we were there he didn’t remove the blindfold but he stayed at my side. “Come to me baby.” He said and I scooted from his truck and down his chest until my feet were planted beside him. Door slammed shut, the beep of the anti theft lock and we were off to wherever he was taking me. “Three steps baby, first one now.”

  I followed and then the two after and we were at a stop. I felt his arms slip around my waist, his chin on my shoulder, breath on my neck he kissed me softly above my pulse point and whispered in my ear, “this is my Emerald city baby.”

  He removed the blindfold and after my eyes adjusted, I smiled. It was the boathouse. He called our ‘love shack’ his Emerald City and I couldn’t agree more. This was home to us.

  When we got inside however there was an even bigger surprise. A queen sized bed with black satin bedding took up the entire place. My Hide-A-Bed was long gone. “I know we can’t live here, but this is and will always be our place. I have made love to you more times in here than anywhere and we made love a lot baby. I love this place and needed to reconnect here.”

  “I love it Chad.” I say and close my eyes to breathe.

  Then he was on me and before I could think he had me on my back on the bed and my shirt was gone. I was still, taking in the feel of him above me, his touch after almost a year of nothing, and waiting for him to see my tribute piece to him.

  I got the tattoo back in December before I went and met him at the Seattle show. I told Noah I wanted a tattoo for Christmas, Noah of course was delighted by all things ink. Chad and I had made a point of not making love until we were committed and so though we enjoyed a lot of phone sex, which is glorified masturbation, he hadn’t seen me naked in a long while.

  Chad was kissing along my neck and his hands stroking down my arms when he paused. He saw it and I felt his body melt into me.

  “Is that…” His words were lost as he rolled from on top of me and flicked on the over head light to get a better look. He was stunned speechless, not common for Chad. “Carrie…” He swallowed and looked at me with all the love and honor and peace I think any person could have.

  It was Dorothy.

  “Am I still your Dorothy?”

  Chad crumbled before me and fell to his knees, sobs wracking his body, his face buried against the lowest part of my tummy. “You have always been my Dorothy.” He cried and I of course cry right along with him because seeing him this way, any man this way, is usually reserved for a wedding day or the birth of a child. In our case it was me being his Dorothy.

  “I love you Chad. This is the forever love. I got Dorothy back in December and I was getting her whether I was still yours or not. She is my promise to you that I will always be your home.”

  “Fuck babe. We are meant to be you know that right?” He asks this and stands to remove his shirt and my mouth go’s dry. It has been months since I have seen him shirtless and let me tell you… my memory sucks bad. Every defined inch of his lean chest is carved to perfection, the ‘V’ at his hips makes me salivate at the sight. What he says next though unravels me completely. “Only something this strong could make me cry like a pussy.”

  I smile but say nothing because it’s his way of admitting his weakness for me. This moment is ours though and I will never tell a soul about his tears.

  “I remembered your promise too baby.” He moves to me and we are naked chest to naked chest and I am so home it’s not funny. “Look at my promise to you. I got it the day you left me.” He shows me his side and there is script there.

  “How blest am I in this discovering thee! To enter in these bonds is to be free; then where my hand is set, my seal shall be. Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee, as souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be to taste whole joys.”

  Holy fuck!

  “Oh my God!” It’s the remaining of my John Donne poem that was my gift to Chad before I even knew he would be the one receiving it.

  “I’m your promise baby and you’re my home.”

  “I love you!” I say through sobs as my lips and hands seek him out.

  He guides me to the bed with his kiss, our feet tangling in the urgency to be connected in every way. “I need to get inside you baby. I was tested this time, I haven’t touched a woman since Seattle and I will only ever touch you again.” His lips are pulling at my nipples making it hard to think. “tell me I can come inside you baby.”

  “I trust you.” I say and it is the only answer he wants or needs.

  There is no foreplay. Six months apart was foreplay enough and I needed him inside me. Before I could let him inside me I needed to see him, all of him. My poem on his side, my fingers wrapped around him. I opened my legs in a selfless invitation and guided every long thick inch of him inside me, bringing him home to me for good.

  “Jesus fuck, I have missed you baby.” He says and lays a hand between my breasts to feel my beating heart. His other hand is on the bed beside my head and he is rocking into me slow and deep making sure he feels al
l of me and I feel all of him. “You’re so tight…” He mumbles to himself and I moan such a needy and greedy sound I blush.

  “Arch your back baby, let me deeper.”

  I do as he asks and feel him slip farther than ever before. “I love you Chad.” I say as I climb that inevitable hill that will lurch my body off and into oblivion. He has me close, hitting the head of his cock on the top of my cervix and tapping my G spot with determination. He knows my body as well as he knows his guitar and works it just as perfectly. “Right there babe.” I pant and he chuckles the cocky sex God he is. He knows what he’s doing without question.

  “Come for me Carrie. Please baby I can’t…” He never finished the sentence because I came with his command and felt him kick off inside me marking me as his once again.

  We cried out together, promising love and forever and I knew that it was right.

  Dorothy and John Donne came together and created a home of promise, love, and security in the heart of our own Emerald City.

  Epilogue

  Some years later…

  Chad

  We just finished the set for our seventh album tour in Seattle and had yet to do our encore. It was Carrie and I’s anniversary today and I had to do a serenade for her. This one was a little different. We were different. 3 kids and a million miles over the years separated us. I lost gramps a while ago but still feels like yesterday that he left.

  Our kids, Noelle, Bowie and Gibson (yep like the guitar) are everything to me, they are my stars, Carrie, she is my moon and this time I sing to them.

  “Kiss me woman.” I lean in and place my lips on hers while Gibson and Bowie laugh at Noelle who thinks we are embarrassing. Clearly, she doesn’t know who the fuck I am because I am the coolest mother fucker in here and she is about to realize that.

  Carrie kisses me and it never gets old. There have been a million between us and each one feels like home. I pull her in tight to me, needing to hold her a few seconds longer. Reading her memoires of us on this tour, (and making my edits for the parts she breezed over) It made me more grateful she was mine forever.

  The stadium lights dropped to darkness and the crowd went insane chanting our name. I took my seat at the stool, my guitar in hand and strummed a few chords making them all the more crazy and I soaked it in, look stage left to see Noelle smiling and I want to cry because she knows I'm cool as fuck and that makes me proud. Gibson is smiling ear to ear, her front teeth missing as she screams for us. Bowie is horns up and proud.

  I raised em right.

  Carrie blows me a kiss and the emotion is everything in me.

  “Want one more song?” I ask and the audience lights up with cellphones as they keep chanting.

  “It’s my anniversary today. So, if you keep your eyes on the screen behind me, you’ll see how happy Carrie has made me over the years.”

  Carrie has a hand over her mouth as I start strumming the chords to cover that says everything that I need her to understand. Noah on the piano behind me.

  ‘Highway run

  Into the midnight sun

  Wheels go round and round

  In my mind’

  The crowd goes crazy for the Journey song and I see tears in my wife’s eyes and for once I am glad, I put them there.

  The pictures play behind us when I call her to the stage to stand with me as I sing.

  Pictures from before we were together. Pictures of all of us with Candy and Carrie at their graduation. The minute that Noelle was placed in her arms. Our wedding and the last photo of us with Candy at our wedding. Pictures of us on the road when she and the kids came. Bowie’s birth. Noah and Bright’s wedding. Gibson’s birth. Cal and Jen’s. Shame and Cassa hold first Ella, then Mateo. Cal and Jen with Axe, then with Axe and Rylie. Noah and Bright with Raleigh and the two girls they adopted, Veridy and Chase. Our life in pictures over more than twenty years.

  ‘I'm forever yours, faithfully.’ I sing to her as the final picture goes up of all of us, all our kids and wives together before we took the stage tonight.

  I sing the rest of the song, as I repeat that I am forever hers as night blooming jasmine falls from the cannons above us on the stage before the lights went out and I kissed my girl.

  “I love you Chad Blake.” She says and wipes her tears.”

  I quirk my finger at her. “Come here.” She comes to my arms immediately as our kids rush out on the stage to hug us. “I love you too Carrie girl.”

  The End

  Playlist’s

  ‘Trust Me’

  All or nothing- Theory of a Deadman… The minute he asks for ‘All In’

  Better than me- Hinder… The confession

  I stay away- Alice in Chains… Carrie on her dad

  Over Now- Alice In Chains… Carrie six months later in school while writing.

  Nutshell- Alice In Chains… Carrie after Dad confessed it all

  Black gives way to Blue- Carrie on Cassa’s situation (lightly covered and more for next book)

  Chemical Addiction- Alice In Chains… Noah

  Down in a hole- Alice in Chains… Carrie after she leaves hospital

  Rain when I die- Alice in Chains… Noah in his dark place

  Brother- Alice in Chains… Carrie to Noah a tattoo…?

  Love Hate Love- Alice in Chains… Noah and Candy

  Stay- Shakespeare’s Sister… Noah for Carrie in hospital

  Name- GooGoo Dolls… Carrie can sing and play shocking Chad

  Drunk on you – Luke Bryan… “I will vagina kick Candy for telling my secrets” scene

  Colorblind- Counting Crows… Love scenes that are gentle side

  She talks to angels- The black crows… Noah and Chad thoughts for Carrie

  Crazy Bitch- Buck Cherry… Noah POV in all things women and NOT Candy.

  I’ll give you anything- Dramarama and Buckcherry versions… Chad POV on Carrie

  Sorry- Buckcherry- You will know when you get to the scene ;)

  Up all night- Hinder… Carrie’s last Tat concert opening scene song before Trisha appears

  Burn it to the ground- Nickleback… Carrie’s first concert for TAT

  Animals-Nickleback… the powers out let’s jam

  Next Contestant- Nickleback… Carrie and her POV of fangirls and tatterflies

  Saving Me- Nickleback… first time seranade

  Rockstar- Nickleback… hahah the entire book

  By The Way – Theory of a Deadman… The scene for the show in Seattle (closer to the end of book)

  Blurry- Puddle of Mudd… for when they are apart

  I’ll follow you down- Shinedown…epilogue

  I can’t not love you- Every Avenue… The song for when they are apart

  Only place I call home- Every Avenue…. Emerald City song for the book