Playing the Pauses (Sex, Love, and Rock & Roll Book 2)

by Michelle Hazen

  He stops mid-aisle when he spots me, every feature drawing tight.

  Oh shit, she didn’t tell him I was coming.

  The processional music builds towards the finish of the song. Maya pokes her head around the doorway, jiggling her flower girl basket anxiously. Danny doesn’t move.

  Why wouldn’t Jera have warned him? Though it’s been four months. I had hoped that would have been long enough to dull the ache for him, even if it hasn’t done a thing for me.

  Jax smacks him in the back, knocking him forward a step and then continuing to shove until Danny snaps into a fast walk, plowing down the aisle so the two of them pass me—one with no expression at all and one with an apologetic wince—just as the wedding march starts to play. Maya bounds down the aisle after them, winging rose petals in every direction.

  Jacob’s mouth turns down, his gaze jumping between Danny and me and I am the biggest ass in the world because Jacob turns back around a second too late, missing his bride’s grand entrance. His eyes widen when he sees her, and I whirl and fix my eyes on Jera’s bouquet of oleander flowers. I can’t stand to see the contrast between the awe and love in Jacob’s face when he looks at Jera and the pure shock and ugly emotion in Danny’s when he looks at me.

  The ceremony is hell.

  Danny stands five and a half feet in front of me, and the air between us is so alive I feel like everyone must be watching. I keep my eyes down, staring at Jera’s vine-edged train and not at fitted black slacks over powerful legs that have flexed between my own on so many nights I shouldn’t be thinking about.

  When Danny folds his hands in front of him, his sleeve pulls back enough to reveal a new tattoo on the back of his wrist. Against my better judgment, I watch until he shifts and I can make out the inked lines of a small, seated Buddha. With a jolt, I realize I know exactly why he got it. It’s a reminder of that moment in the airport prayer room with Jera. The first moment in his life when someone knew and accepted all of him.

  And it wasn’t me.

  Jera begins to speak her vows, but I can’t look away from Danny’s wrist, a realization settling like wet concrete into all the pores of my skin. It’s not his last tattoo. He’ll get more and I won’t be there to see the needle break the skin; I won’t know the meaning of the ink injected beneath.

  Suddenly the idea of all those missed days is the heaviest thing I can imagine.

  The recessional is the worst. I stand, clapping along with everyone else while he strides past me, closer than an arm’s reach away.

  People are already filing out toward the reception space across the hall when it finally sinks in that I made it through the ceremony. I blink and put one foot out in front of me, testing my balance before I begin to move. The doorway is clogged by people waiting to congratulate Jacob and Jera before they enter the reception, but it’s not enough to distract me from the sight of Danny. He shrugs out of his tuxedo jacket and throws it onto one of the benches in the hall, yanking at his bow tie as if he’d rather rip the fabric than bother untying the knot.

  I duck through to the reception hall and stop just inside the door. I should be doing a last-minute check of the room, except I can’t even remember the schedule I so painstakingly put together for Jera.

  Time to get it together, Kate. Today isn’t about you.

  Clearing my throat, I snag a bottle of water, pulling a tissue out of my purse. I edge past the line and slide in behind the bride, tucking the water and the tissue into her palm just as she pulls back from a tearful hug with an older woman wearing a bright teal brocade jacket. Jera tosses me a grateful look and dabs at her melting eyeliner, turning to whisper, “You totally just saw my nose drip onto Aunt Esther’s jacket, didn’t you?” I choke on my laugh as she quickly blows her nose. “Ugh, you don’t think she noticed, did she?”

  “Nope, you’re in the clear.” I wink.

  Jacob reaches back to gain Jera’s attention and I have to look away from the affection in his smile as he looks at her. I swap Jera the used tissue for a fresh one, toss hers in the trash and scoot away with downturned eyes and polite smiles for everyone. After the receiving line, the wedding party is scheduled for pictures so there will be a gap before the party really starts. Maybe I should get a drink or bum a cigarette from someone outside.

  I hate smoking, always have, but maybe the acrid taste in my mouth will be a good reminder that I’ve already made my decision about Danny. Unless I’m willing to live someone else’s life, loving him will only hurt both of us more.

  So it makes perfect sense that the sight of him has left my legs tottering like two hollow plastic straws, my chest feeling just as flimsy. I have to get out of here.

  Moving away from the main foyer, I find a hallway, though I have no idea where all the doors lead. My heels click hollowly on the hard floor, and I take the first door with a handle instead of a locked knob.

  It’s a stairwell, all chilly cement and poorly lit, but at least it’s empty. I gulp down a breath, gripping the metal railing for stability. My second breath squeaks a little; before I can steady it, the door opens behind me and I whirl defensively.

  Danny’s shirt is a white I’ve never seen him wear, his lashes as dark as the tie that dangles loosely from his neck. “You can tell me to go,” he says.

  I struggle for a casual smile, to ask him how he’s been, but I just don’t have it left in me.

  When I don’t answer, he steps inside and lets the door fall shut. “I didn’t know you’d be here. You were supposed to be on tour with The Synthetics, and they’re playing Prague tonight.”

  The only thing I can do is blink. All this time I felt invisible, he knew exactly where I was.

  Despite all that fighting about my job, once I left Danny I couldn’t work up the energy to scramble an egg, much less juggle dozens of employees and a few hundred screw-ups a day. I knew the only way to re-find my normal was to get back out on the road, so I forced myself to try. My phone wasn’t exactly ringing off the hook with more offers, though—either because openings were scarce or because of the media blitz about me and Danny after the show we gave the audience on closing night.

  It took me about a million calls, but I’ve kept myself employed for all but five of the days since the last time I saw him. Keeping busy helps, but the music is never quite loud enough, the bass never complex enough, and the applause of the audience has never again sounded the way it did on my birthday.

  “I’m sorry.” Maybe it’s just the concrete, but my apology seems to echo over and over, and I speak again just to get it to stop. “Jera insisted I come, and I had no idea she didn’t tell you or—”

  “Don’t.” He takes a step, his jaw tight with indecision.

  I have no idea what he means, but he’s so close and I just want to touch him. To feel his heart beating under my hand and know he’s okay. Jera would tell me if he got in an accident or something terrible, but it’s not the same as knowing if he’s eaten at some point between now and last Thursday. It’s not the same as watching his fingers when he’s on the phone with his mom or sister. That’s the way I can tell if I need to make him some tea, or shove his sketchpad into his hands, or fuck him until he forgets everything that makes him unhappy.

  He takes another step and I don’t back away, even though the toes of my stilettos are nearly touching his smudged dress shoes.

  “You can tell me to go,” he whispers.

  I think I reach for him first. I know it’s wrong, that I’ll hurt him if I do this, but I just don’t have the strength to hold back anymore. In theory, I still have my whole life, everything I’ve achieved and built up around me. But inside, I’ve got nothing left to lose.

  His pulse is already thundering when I touch his neck, and tendons flex with his inhale. His lips crash down on mine, his shoulders batter me into the cement wall, and every degree of his insane body heat explodes out at me through his fine-grained tuxedo.

  I crack a fingernail on his belt as I fumble for his buckle. He locks hi
s arms around me, kissing me in great heaving gulps and I want to slow him down, to laugh and stroke him and tell him that we have all the time in the world but we don’t.

  Reality and my better judgment will catch up any minute now, and I can’t afford for that to happen. I cup his straining erection through his pants and work his zipper with my other hand even though both want to be holding him, hugging him to me as his heartbeat slams against mine.

  Danny gasps out a vicious groan, but once his hands start moving, his belt and zipper and my dress are out of the way in seconds. He boosts me up as I wrap my legs around him, his thumb dragging a whimper out of me as he flicks my panties aside. It’s so fast, I’m not quite ready and his cock feels huge, pain and mind-bending desire all mixed into one.

  His hips snap forward, driving himself deeper inside me. Pinned between his chest and the wall, I can finally wrap my arms around his shoulders and he’s with me. There’s no anger, no words, no distance between us.

  Just heat and ragged breath; the way he curls upward at the end of every thrust so he hits what he knows is my weak spot. I bite my lip as I come because Danny never lets himself go until he’s dragged more than one orgasm out of me and I don’t want him to know.

  I don’t want to be any closer to done.

  But he’s rampantly hard, every inch of him stretching me where I’ve been hollow so long and I can’t stand it. The second time I cry out and bite his neck when I peak, and that small pain is enough to send him over the edge. He flattens one hand on my back, and his thrusts hammer his own knuckles into the wall, cushioning the impact on my spine.

  Danny finishes without a sound.

  He stays locked around me long after he normally relaxes. His head is buried so tightly into my neck that it hurts a little, and I don’t want to let him go.

  Finally, he pulls out and lowers my feet to the floor. There was a whisper of sensation as he did it, and I can’t tell if he left a kiss on my neck before loosening his grip, or if that was only something I wished for. He smoothes my dress back into place, untwisting the straps and setting me to rights before he straightens his own clothes.

  When there’s nothing left to do, Danny cradles my face in his hands, tipping his forehead against mine.

  “Christ, I missed you,” he exhales.

  The words reach deep into me and fist in my insides. What have I done? The raw honesty of the last few minutes are going to make all of this hurt so much more.

  I put my hands on his shoulders and have to concentrate hard to push him away instead of melting into him for one more embrace I can’t afford.

  “I’m so sorry—” I start, but as soon as he sees my expression, the gentleness in his eyes pulls tight at the edges in lines of strain.

  “You’re not staying.”

  Watching the hope leave his face nearly flattens me. “God, Danny, don’t you think I want to? But it’s not that simple. It’s always going to be like this, don’t you get that? One of us leaving and both of us hurting.” I’m begging now, but I’m not sure he’ll ever understand how hard I’m fighting to save him.

  He takes a step back and he looks tall and harsh in the overhead light, dressed in stark white and unrelenting black that makes him look like a god of war or death or maybe grief. “If you’re going, go.”

  “Danny...” I glance toward the hall that leads to the reception that’s just beginning.

  “You really want to be in the same room with me all night, pretending we’re nothing to each other?” he says. “Fine. But I can’t fucking do it, and I won’t upset Jera by walking out on her today.” Energy rolls off him until the walls should be cracking under the strain. When I don’t move, he curses viciously and turns, slamming out with a bang.

  The door hits the jamb and bounces before it settles closed behind him.

  When I finally exhale, it’s so loud that I can’t help but hate this cold room, its unyielding walls. I hate everything about this single moment of my life, and I can’t even leave it because I refuse to hurt him any more by forcing him to face me at the reception.

  When five bottomless minutes have gone by, I open the door. My body is like a foreign machine I can’t quite remember how to pilot as I make my way toward the exit. When I reach the main corridor between the chapel and the reception hall, I pause, not understanding at first why Jera is singing.

  They must have put off the pictures when they couldn’t find Danny, and now Jera’s performing the song she wrote as a surprise for Jacob.

  I don’t dare go in to tell her goodbye—I know it’ll cause a scene. Instead I press my back against the wall just outside the doorway to the party.

  I should be inside with Jera and Jacob, Jax and Hank. I should be distracting Danny’s brother Brian because a crowd of this many people will leave him wanting to hide under the furniture. After all these months of second-guessing, I don’t know who to blame for why I’m stuck in the hall instead. Me? Danny? God?

  I still can’t even tell if we’re having a fight about what to do or who we are.

  Alone in the hallway, I squeeze my eyes shut, listening to my friend sing to the man she loves.

  I walked away that day in the airport because I was so sure it couldn’t work, and I was just saving us the pain of the inevitable end. But what could possibly hurt more than this?

  Chapter 26: Playing the Pauses

  Concrete freezes my legs and the glitter in my dress itches so much that I bet I’m going to have a really attractive rash to deal with tomorrow. If God sends a miracle and I end up having makeup sex with Danny tonight, I’ll probably have to stop to put Calamine lotion on my ass.

  I push off Danny’s front steps and walk another lap down the sidewalk to the road, rubbing my arms through both my flimsy formal shrug and the leather jacket I currently despise. November in Portland is an awful, damp kind of cold that is not ideal for leather jackets. Or for waiting five hours on a concrete stoop.

  Five fucking hours. How awesome was that wedding reception if they’re still partying it up over there? My heels click as I rap off another staccato lap of the sidewalk. There were going to be three different kinds of bacon canapés. I would know, because Jera and I worked on menu options for a month. Plus, I really wanted to try their signature cocktail, which was some incredible grapefruit and lime concoction rimmed in raw sugar and sour salts. Ugh, except the last thing I want to think about is liquid right now. I have to pee so badly I’m practically waddling down this sidewalk.

  I sniffle and head to my rental car for another tissue for my cold-numbed nose. Danny has never relied on plans or words. He’s all about reality, about letting the moment speak for itself. So here I am, because if I want him to take a chance on me and my crazy lifestyle, I’ve got to take a chance on him first.

  Four and a half hours ago, it seemed like a really reasonable plan. Symbolic. Movie-reunionish. But now I’m getting to the point where I need his bathroom as much as his forgiveness.

  Real nice, Kate. Super romantic.

  I pause with my car door open. It would still count if I were waiting for him in front of his house with my heater on, right? I glare into the rental car. What is it about sitting in a running car that feels so stalkerish?

  I close the door.

  Turning up the sidewalk, my heels click through another round to the apartment and back to the curb. My shoes are starting to stutter to the same rhythm as chattering teeth. Or maybe that’s my actual teeth. What if he doesn’t come home? Does he ever crash at Jax’s? Jera would know, but I can’t text her. She’s either at her amazing, super-fun reception, or already off having acrobatic sex with her adoring husband while Danny picks up groupies and I get frostbite.

  I take a breath, made significantly less calming by my shivering, and try to get my attitude turned around. I tend to think too much when I’m upset—an oh-so-lovely tendency I inherited from my mother that is not helping anything tonight. On TV, when the girl goes after the guy she loves, she never ends up irritated at h
im for leaving her waiting for half the night outside his loft.

  Being grouchy is so not going to help convince Danny that I’m finally ready to make this work.

  I stuff my hands deeper in my pockets, squeezing a stray beer bottle cap until it starts to bend, the rippled edges biting into my skin.

  After all the shit I’ve put him through, will he still want me enough to commit to a long-distance relationship? I’ve never doubted that he cared about me: I just thought we needed to find a way to date around all our real-life bullshit. But he’s never actually said the words. He tried to give me his ring, but he said that was because I liked it, not a “wear my class ring and let’s go steady” thing.

  He kissed me in front of our whole crew. That felt more like an I-love-you than anything I’ve ever heard with my ears, but Jera talked about it like he was staking his claim on me and she’s known him longer than I have.

  “You are not calling Jera for advice on her wedding night.” The words come out on billowing clouds of white, every breath visible in the frozen air.

  Headlights flash in the street. I’m not going to turn around like a dog whose ears perk up when their master gets home. I have whipped around for the last fifty-seven fucking cars and I am not going to look. If it’s him, he’ll pull in.

  Shit, it better not be him. I’m still all whiny and irritable. My stomach gives a loud grumble and even that small vibration jars my over-full bladder. The knot of keys in my jacket pocket nudges my knuckles. I don’t know how much longer I can hold out. At the very least I could drive to a gas station to use their facilities. But I want to be here when he gets home.

  The headlights go on by.

  “See? I didn’t freaking turn around. Ha!”

  And that will be such a triumph to cling to when the neighbors call the police about the stalker pacing in front of the rock star’s apartment, talking to herself.

  More headlights climb up his road.

  “It’s probably the damn cops.” I sit down on Danny’s stoop, hugging my arms around my shivering ribs. The lights pass by, but there’s a second car behind the first and it turns in.