by CL Rowell
As if singed by the flames of hell, he put space between us, supporting me with nothing but his arms. “We have to stop.”
“No, we don’t.” I puckered up, using my leg to tug him close again. “I’m not a virgin, and I’m on the shot. We’re safe. Besides, if you’re worried about my nose—“ I lied without blinking, “It barely hurts now.”
“But I am a virgin.”
My eyes grew wide. “Really?”
“Yeah.” He scuffed the carpet with the toe of his shoe.
I peeked at him, trying to look all sexy and come hither with my black eyes and bandaged honker, “I can show you what to do, if you want.”
He smiled, just a tiny quirk of the lips. “I know what to do…I’ve just never done it.”
“Why not?”
“I—want to wait until I’m married.”
“Oh.” My eyes rounded. That was unexpected. “Okay. That’s fair.”
“You don’t mind?”
I thought about it and shook my head. “Do you mind that I’m not?”
“Not what? A virgin?” I nodded, and he shook me a little. “Hell, no. Who am I to judge you? Besides…” He ducked his head, “I think it’s kind of hot. You know how you like to do it, and can show me.”
I started laughing. In between spurts of giggles, I shook my head and corrected him, “It’s more like, I can show you what I don’t like—but we can discover what we both like, together.” As I realized what I’d just said, my amusement left me, and I sobered fast.
He frowned, worry filling his eyes. “What? What’s wrong? Is it your nose?”
“My nose is fine,” I murmured, “But I owe you an apology.”
“For what?”
“For assuming I’ll be the one you marry.” I winced, my face red. “Boy, don’t I feel like an ass.”
“Don’t.” He lifted my chin until our eyes met. “I was assuming the same thing. If…” His eyes softened, hopeful, “If you’d like, you can come along and see where it goes? I mean, you said you no longer have a place to go back to, since your mom kicked you out, right?”
“That’s true, I don’t.” I let out a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding.
“I felt something as soon as we came face to face in the lobby,” he admitted. “You might think I’m crazy, but it was an overwhelming sense that you’re the one I’ve been waiting for.”
“Really?” Every hair on my body stood up. “I felt something similar the first time I saw your face on the cover of the CD I bought. I told everyone—that’s my future husband. My brother said I was crazy, and everyone else I told insisted I was exhibiting signs of psycho stalker behavior.”
“My grandma said it’s my male intuition, and I should trust it.”
I sputtered, “Guys don’t have intuition!”
“That’s what I thought, too, but she said it was a gift from the gods for being more in touch with my feminine side.” He raised one slim shoulder in a shrug, “Who am I to argue with a practicing witch?” He met my surprised gaze. “Would you, in my shoes?”
“Probably not,” I agreed. “She might turn you into a frog for being disrespectful, and then I’d never have met you.”
“Nah, Nana’s a sweetheart.”
“My friends might have been right, though.” I banged my head against the door. “I must be nuts. I just realized I’ve been arguing that you don’t have something that’s voting in my favor. Don’t listen to me.” I pulled him closer. “What do I know? Male intuition could totally be a thing.”
“It really could.” He threaded his finger between mine, “But your friends are the crazy ones,” he defended me, kissing the back of my hand. “Not you. You seem perfectly sane to me.”
5
*
"What do you mean, she's going with us?" Jessie groused the next morning, "Where is she going to sleep?"
"In my bed."
"And where will you sleep?"
"In my bed."
"Are we talking about the same bed?"
"Yes."
“Are you planning to use her as a blanket—because I can’t see that she’ll fit anywhere else?”
“We’ll manage.”
“Uh, guys…” As we stepped outside the hotel lobby, I lost my smile, indescribably relieved that they had kept the services of the security guard, and horrified at the sight that met my eyes. A virtual sea of reporters was waiting in the parking lot to accost us. Every newspaper, tabloid, and television station in the area must have sent somebody, and the result was absolute bedlam.
"Jessie, over here. If I could have a moment—“
"Jessie, hi. Ralph, from Fox—“
“Jessie—“
We were working our way toward my car, all the way across the shared parking lot when, glancing into a passing car, I saw a familiar profile. It was her! We’d spent the night under the same roof, and I hadn’t had a clue!
“Callie! Wait!” Waving my arms over my head, I ran toward her car.
“Callie?” I groaned as Jessie stuck to my heels, and the reporters followed suit, but I refused to give up.
“Callie—wait!” She heard me. I know she did. I held my breath as our eyes met and recognition dawned. I watched as her gaze flickered past, to Jessie and the reporters, and my heart sank as I saw fear overtake her expression. She flew right past us, never even tapping the brakes, the rear of her car fishtailing as she gained the freedom of the street.
Damn it. I stomped the concrete hard enough to send pain shooting through my foot and up my leg. I wanted to scream—to howl my disappointment to the sky above. If looks could kill, I’d probably have gone to jail, but instead, I settled for plowing a path through the sea of men and women whose only offense was pursuit of a story.
“Did she see us?”
Jessie. I avoided his eyes, keeping mine on the fast receding tail lights as they disappeared from view. Unlocking both doors on my little Volkswagen, I fought to keep my face expressionless. “I don’t think so. I guess she didn’t hear me.”
“Liar.”
I barely heard the word at the lower edges of my hearing over the sounds of grumbling reporters, passing traffic and Leo bitching about missing breakfast. I glanced up, as we piled into my Bug—getting ready to bring it around and strap it onto the tow dolly they had delivered earlier. Phillip’s knowing eyes met my wide ones. “What?”
“You heard me. She saw you—us—him.” He flicked a glance at Jessie.
“Then why didn’t she stop?” I raised an inquiring brow, struggling to keep my face blank.
“I don’t know. The reporters? Camera shy? Fear?”
Shrugging innocently, I ducked into the drivers seat and waited for him to do the same on the other side. To confuse their media fan club, I pulled out onto the street and circled the block. At Jessie’s suggestion, we made a pass through the McDonald’s drive-thru, too, and—just as I’d hoped—most of the reporters had cleared out by the time we returned. We were last night’s news, and they’d moved on to more current stories. All that was left were the bottom feeders, tabloid journalists so desperate for a paycheck they’d probably tail us to the state line, hoping to score a few crumbs.
After making quick work of strapping my car onto the dolly, we disappeared into the dim insides of the old converted Greyhound bus they toured in. Looking around while Leo divvied up the food, I was impressed with what they’d done to it. They’d left the toilet in the very back, and twin beds had been built into the walls on each side of it. Leo’s was stacked above Phillip’s, on one side, and Jessie’s was stacked above a storage compartment that contained a small apartment-sized washer and dryer on one side and a closet on the other. Further up, they’d installed a small kitchen, complete with a single sink, a propane fridge, and a microwave, on one side, and a long, overstuffed couch on the other. A beat up, patched recliner had been wedged into the space between the kitchen and the door, and a forty inch flat screen TV mounted behind the drivers seat completed the setup.<
br />
“A washer and dryer, but no table?” I asked, curious.
“Priorities,” Leo mumbled through a mouthful of hashbrowns.
“Priorities?” I repeated, confused.
“Mmhmm,” He nodded, and I looked to Jessie and Phillip for illumination.
“Think about it.”
I glared at Phillip. “I am thinking about it. Don’t you see the tendrils of smoke curling up from between the strands of my hair?”
He exchanged glances with Jessie. “She doesn’t get it.”
“Well…” Jessie took a drink from his soda cup, “You gotta realize she’s never been in our shoes, either. Up until her road trip to see us, she still lived with mommy and daddy.”
“True.” Phillip rubbed his chin. “Still—you’d think it’d be perfectly obvious…”
“You’d think—but she is a girl…”
“A girl who’s fixing to start kicking shins and stomping toes with her cowboy boots if someone doesn’t explain.”
“It’s simple.” Leo paused for a ground-shaking belch that had the other two whooping and hollering and high five-ing before continuing, “We can send Phillip into any fast food restaurant—or store—in any city, and since he’s so quiet and laid back, no one will maul him. However,” he took a big bite and continued to talk as he chewed, “The one and only time we stepped foot in a freaking laundromat, we barely made it back to the bus with our skin intact.”
“Seriously?” I beseeched Phillip. “He’s joking, right?”
“Nope. He’s as serious as a heart attack.”
“Those girls took my shirt, my pants, my socks, my shoes—they tried to take my hair, too” Jessie winced, rubbing his head at the memory.
“At least you got to keep your underwear.”
“What underwear?” he asked. “Why do you think we stopped to do laundry?”
I dropped to the recliner and stared. “What about your laundry? Did you get it done?”
“Nope.” Phillip shook his head. “They took it all. The cops found a sock in the shrubbery.”
“A sock? One sock? What did you do? You couldn’t run around naked.” I seethed, outraged for them.
“One of the cops was close to our sizes. He had his wife raid his closet for clothes that were too big or too small for him,” Jessie jumped back in. “The bigger clothes worked for me and Leo, and the smaller ones fit Phillip pretty good—and, in exchange for an autographed CD and a group photo, another’s girlfriend picked up an assortment of underwear and socks for us.”
“And we had more shoes on the bus…” Leo laughed, “But Jessie was wearing his lucky tennis shoes that day, and he never did get them back.”
“Luckily, we were close to home, and in-between shows.” Phillip passed me my food and drink. “We lost a bit of closet space, up here—and a section of storage underneath, where we stash our equipment for the shows—“
I paused in the middle of taking a bite. “Underneath? Why underneath, too?”
“Water?” He winked at me. “Clean water for washing, and grey water, too. It has to go somewhere.”
Blushing, I changed the subject. “Where’s your next show?”
Leo smirked. “We play a sold-out show in Birmingham next weekend, and another one in Houston, the weekend after—then we go north to Ft. Worth.”
“And after that?”
“Eat, before your food gets cold. I gotta get Baby fired up and pointed east.”
6
*
The days fell into a rhythm. Wanting to feel useful, I took over chores like cooking, cleaning, and laundry, and they were happy to let me. To show their appreciation, they pooled some cash together and stopped to let me add to my puny wardrobe. I even got a sliver of closet space and a drawer of my own. I was lost in my own little world, getting to know Phillip better, day by day, and spooning on his narrow bunk every night. I never wanted it to end.
Before the show in Birmingham, we were in a small RV park, relaxing before heading into the city. I was in back, doing some laundry and making beds with clean sheets.
“Baby…” Phillip’s voice sounded odd, strained, and it caught my attention.
“Yeah?”
“Your, uh, your phone was ringing, so I unplugged it, intending to bring it back to you.”
“That’s so sweet! Who was calling?”
“Well, umm, I-I guess my thumb hit the button to answer—it-it’s your dad. He wants to talk to you.”
Up close, I could see how pale he was. I frowned, worried. “Did he say something to upset you?”
“No, he’s just worried—understandably.”
“I—“ I glanced at the phone, where I could hear my dad’s voice saying something. Unable to understand what he was saying, I brought the phone to my ear. “Could you hold on? We’re talking.”
“No, I will not hold on, young lady. We’ve been worried sick! Where are you? Why haven’t you called home?”
“I could ask the same of you—if you’ve been so concerned, why haven’t you called to check on me?” I put my fingers over the speaker as he spit and sputtered, and whispered to Phillip, “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine. Your dad wasn’t exactly happy to hear a strange man answering his daughter’s phone, though.”
“Was he mean to you? He better not—“
“Julie Louise Ryan, have you heard a single word I’ve said?” Daddy shouted in my ear.
“No, I haven’t.” I yelled back, “Were you being rude to Phillip?”
“Rude to Phillip? Was I rude to Phillip? If he’s the one who answered the phone, I very well might have been, but look at this from my point of view—my daughter ran off to attend a concert in a city several hours away, without telling anyone, and upsetting her mother in the process. She doesn’t come home, doesn’t call, and when I call to check on her, a strange man answers her phone. What did you expect? I was worried!”
“I did tell someone.”
“You told someone? Who? Who did you tell?”
“Reggie.”
“Your brother, Reggie?”
“Do I know another Reggie? Yes, I told my brother, Reggie, I was going to the concert.”
“Okay, well, I did not know this. Next thing you’ll be telling me is that someone knows why you didn’t come home.”
“Mom knows—she’s the one that told me I wouldn’t have a place to live if I didn’t turn the car around and come home.”
“And you thought she was serious?”
“She was serious, Daddy.”
“So, now what—you’re living in your car?”
“No, now I’m traveling around with the man of my dreams, on his tour bus.”
“The illustrious Phillip, I presume?”
“Yes. You owe him an apology, Daddy.”
“For what? All I said was I don’t know who you are but I’d better hear my daughter’s voice in my ear in the next five seconds or I’m going to the police and filing a complaint.”
“You couldn’t just ask to speak to me?”
“Julie, when I call my child’s phone, I expect my child to answer—and if I haven’t heard from said child in a few days, I expect to be greeted with an apology and an explanation from that child.”
“He’s going to be your future son-in-law, Daddy.”
“It hasn’t been that long, Julie. Not even a week. That isn’t enough time for such a huge decision.”
I smiled at Phillip and murmured, “I knew I was going to marry him before I even met him, Daddy. Don’t you remember? I pointed him out on the back of my Jessie Robertson CD.”
“That long haired rock star fellow?” I could hear the disapproval in his voice.
“No, Daddy,” I sighed. “The one with long hair is Jessie. Phillip has short, curly black hair and glasses.”
“Short scrawny fellow?”
“Daddy! He’s taller than me, and I’m not short.”
“For a girl, yeah.” He sighed. “Does he mak
e you happy, sweetheart?”
“Yes, Daddy, he makes me very happy.”
“Has he proposed?”
“Not yet. Don’t rush us.”
“Don’t rush us, she says. So I’m just supposed to be happy that my little girl is living in sin?”
“We aren’t having sex. He wants to wait until we’re married.”
“He wants to—tell that young man I said welcome to the family! I like him, already.”
I smiled, winking at Phillip. “I’ll tell him.”
“Stay safe, baby girl. Don’t stay away too long, mmkay?”
“Okay, Daddy. Bye.” I hung up the phone, leaned in, and kissed the worried frown from Phillip’s face. “Daddy says he likes you already, and welcome to the family.”
“That’s a nice change from I’m going to have the police track that phone and arrest you if you’ve harmed my daughter.” He kissed me back.
The Birmingham show came and went, a resounding success that had the guys on cloud nine. As we headed toward Houston, cruising through the evergreen beauty of southern Louisiana, I couldn’t help but wonder where Callie was and how she was doing. I checked my Facebook page regularly, hoping for a friend request, hesitant to ask Jessie if he knew her last name, lest it bring him down.
In Lafayette, Phillip took me to a fancy seafood restaurant. I felt bad for Leo and Jessie, because they were stuck on the bus, eating pizza, but he told me silly jokes until my sides were aching and I couldn’t be sad.
“Stop!” I giggled, swatting his arm. “I have every right to feel bad that the guys are missing out. I mean, look at this place. The chandeliers, the fancy tablecloths—the napkins folded into swans! The waiters’ jackets have tails!” I lifted my spoon to dig into my dessert, a chocolate sundae in a tall, delicate fluted glass, and— “Wow, they garnish the sundaes with diamond rings? How much did you pay…?” Then it dawned on me. “Phillip?”
I looked across the table, but his chair was empty. My eyes darted around the room. Where—?
