Love Struck

by Laurelin McGee

  The part he hated most was how he was still fighting down the erection that had threatened him from the moment his eyes opened and he recalled the sight and feel and scent of her body on his. Though they hadn’t had a drop to drink, he had been dizzy as he inhaled that soft floral scent from the hollow of her neck. Even if they’d gone no further, he’d felt drunk on her kisses. He glanced down. Well, everyone would notice that.

  On the way to the lobby, Eli forced himself to think of nothing but baseball until he’d gotten himself under control. Then he planned for the moment to come. The real problem was going to be what Lacy thought of him, not what he was thinking about. Last night he may have been the kind of man he didn’t want to be, but this morning was his chance to prove to her that he wasn’t a horrible person. This was his chance to be the man he thought of himself as, the kind who owned up to his mistakes, the kind who apologized and promised to never let his mistake happen again.

  He’d started to feel better about the whole thing. Or at least as though he might be able to get through the day. Except then he got to the lobby where breakfast was laid out, found the table where the guys were sitting, and realized that Lacy wasn’t with them.

  Eli rubbed at his scruff, suddenly worried about what her absence meant. Was she too embarrassed to face him?

  He should ask about her. Unless that seemed weird. Lacy always ate with them, so curiosity about her whereabouts should be normal.

  “What’s your deal, a-hole?” It was a standard greeting from Jax, and pretty reasonable since Eli had been standing in one place looking like an idiot since he’d arrived.

  He lied, of course. “I’m trying to decide if I want pancakes or waffles.” Then he felt bad about lying. Probably because he felt bad in general. He tapped Sammy on the shoulder. “Hey, where’s Lacy?”

  “Dawson? I don’t know. Do I look like her mother?” Sammy eyed him.

  He pressed her further. “You usually wake us up. Didn’t you go to her room?”

  Sammy laughed around a mouthful of eggs. “I don’t wake up Dawson.” Well, that was certainly news. “Lou says women are smart enough to not need to be reminded to eat breakfast. Though he does seem to nag at her about dinners, so I’m not sure his reasoning there.”

  Somehow it didn’t surprise Eli that Lou didn’t wake Lacy for breakfast. Eli had often believed the routine for the boys was only to make sure they didn’t stay up all night partying. It made sense, considering Jax was in the band. At the moment it was unfortunate, though, since that left Eli in a state of concern. Maybe he should go to Lacy’s room and check on her himself. But if she were avoiding him, then that really would be awkward.

  He searched for a reason to send Sammy. “But don’t you need her for load in at the next venue?”

  “That’s not until eleven.” Sammy wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “If she doesn’t make it to the bus on time, I’ll go after her then. Stop your worrying, nerd. You got a thing for her or something?” He could feel himself blushing as he tried to make appropriately horrified faces.

  Eleven. That was two whole hours away. He should probably go and talk to Lacy before that. Make his apology. Promise to behave in the future.

  However, thinking of talking to her alone in her hotel room didn’t seem wise at the moment. Not when memories of the night before were still strongly singed in his mind and in his pants. And come to think of it, he didn’t even know what room number was hers. Sure, he could ask, but that would be really obvious. So he decided to just play it the way he had been and let whatever happened happen.

  Yeah, because that was working out for him well so far.

  * * *

  The sun streamed through the hotel window, hitting Lacy smack in the face and waking her earlier than she’d wanted. Dammit. She’d forgotten to close the blackout curtains. A glance at the alarm clock said that it wasn’t even nine. As a musician who worked and thrived at night, she hadn’t seen before nine in eons. God, it sucked.

  She stretched her arms over her head and her toes toward the bottom of the bed. Man, was she stiff. Her thigh muscles were singing and stinging like she’d been in a rodeo. What was up with that?

  Then it hit her. Memories flashed before her like a pornographic slideshow. Eli. Eli naked. Her naked. Their naked parts together.

  Then another thought—Folx.

  Aw, crap.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d missed a date with Folx. And that she missed it because she’d been with Eli. Intimately …

  She felt like a sack of the brown stuff.

  Funny, though. Her phone hadn’t buzzed with any incoming messages the night before. Maybe something was wrong with her cell. She scrambled out of bed to use the bathroom. On the way back, she grabbed her laptop and climbed back under the covers. She logged in to SoWriAn. There it was—a single message in her queue left less than half an hour before.

  Hey, I feel like a total asshole. I fell asleep and missed you last night. Hope you slept well. xx

  He’d sent kisses. That was new. And sweet.

  Lacy threw herself back on her bed with a sigh. The whole message sent a burst of warmth through her body. Followed by a shower of ice-cold regret. She felt so much for him—so much—and she’d cheated on him.

  Okay, technically, she hadn’t cheated on him. They’d both agreed to put anything they had together on hold. But how could she do that, really? Just pause her emotions like a button on Spotify. It wasn’t that easy.

  Or was it? Because, if she was honest—and hell, this was all in her head so what was the harm in a little truth—she’d had a pretty excellent evening with Eli. Not just the sex, but the sharing. The connecting. Finally unloading about Lance.

  And, yes, the sex.

  All of it was incredible. So if it really wasn’t cheating—and it really wasn’t—then maybe she could embrace it for what it was. Something good and beautiful and very much needed. Like hearing an unexpectedly brilliant song in the middle of a lousy playlist.

  Oh, my God!

  Lacy bolted upright. There had been words! A phrase. Lyrics swarming in her head. She searched her memory to see if she could recall them, which was a bit tricky in between all the particularly pleasant thoughts of Eli kissing her, touching her, moving inside her. Eli certainly was a good lover. The kind of lover she wouldn’t mind a repeat tryst with if she was—

  Her train of thought derailed. Because, there they were. The words.

  Pieces of me.

  You’re just pieces of me.

  She shot out of bed to grab her guitar and her notepad. The second her hands struck the first chord, the melody came, clinging to the lyrics in her head as if they’d been born together. A whole refrain came out within minutes.

  There’s pieces of me

  Where you live

  Like you never went away

  And there’s pieces of me

  That can’t focus off your face

  And there’s times I believe, I’ll move on,

  That I’ll be whole and healed someday

  But I’m busted and broken

  And there’s just pieces of me

  She played it over and over, the weight of the song on her tongue comforting and electric and new. Like a comet streaking through her with its light and its fire, the darkness on her writing had been lifted.

  She nearly wept from the exhilarating release.

  Then she reached the verse, got one line in, and the block was back. There was nothing. No more words. Nada. Zilch. A big fat absence of lyric.

  Lacy spun Lucky and shook its neck as if she were throttling the instrument. “Gahhhh!”

  Immediately she felt sorry. It wasn’t Lucky’s fault she was a worthless songwriter. What had she expected anyway? Nearly a year of nothing, no matter how hard she’d tried, and now she thought she’d be able to write a whole piece like she’d never been blocked? Maybe it was unreasonable.

  Or …

  Maybe she just needed to figure out w
hat it was that had struck the inspiration in the first place. There were a number of factors at work, of course, the most obvious that she’d been with Eli. They’d been talking music. They’d been jamming. But she’d jammed at the studio and onstage. She’d talked music with lots of people. And she’d had just as many deep conversations with Folx and hadn’t been able to open up.

  Which meant it had to be the sex.

  Oh, my God.

  She sat up as the realization dawned on her. I need orgasms to write songs!

  Could that actually be the issue? All this time it wasn’t Lance’s death that had left her dry, but a lack of sex?

  No way. That was just absurd.

  Come to think of it, though, she’d only written sparse poetry before she lost her virginity at fifteen. Yes, she’d been an early bloomer. Songwriting had come soon after that. She’d been sexually active with one boyfriend or another from then on. Of course she’d written more when she was in love—that was pretty standard—but she’d never connected that her inspiration might be the sex.

  She burst into laughter. There was no other possible response. She’d always considered her lyrics her superpower. Now she found it might be triggered by O’s. It was rather hilarious.

  It was also problematic. She had a whole album scheduled to record in a couple months time and only half a song written. And except for the one encounter the night before, she wasn’t getting any. If her theory about the sex and the inspiration was correct, then she was screwed.

  Screwed by being not screwed.

  She let out another ha at that. Well, what else was she supposed to do?

  Actually, what she had to do was test her theory out. She needed to have sex again and see if more lyrics came. Her true love interest only knew her online. Maybe she could suggest an earlier meetup with Folx. Except she was on tour and he was on tour, and even when they did meet it didn’t mean there’d be sex. At least, not right away.

  That left Eli.

  She’d have to have sex with Eli again. The event had gone well enough. There was no reason to think he wouldn’t be interested in a second round. Yes, that was what she needed to do—hunt him down and attack.

  Lacy showered quickly then threw on some cut-off shorts and a tank top intending to head straight to Eli’s room. While she searched for her key card, though, there was a knock on her door. Maybe it was Eli coming for her. Wouldn’t that make things easy?

  She put on her sexiest smile and opened the door wide.

  Sammy stood there with a rather intimidating scowl on her face. “It’s eleven oh three. We were supposed to leave for the venue three minutes ago. You’re late.”

  Already eleven? Man, she’d forgotten how time got away from her when she was in the creative zone. “Gosh, I’m sorry, Sammy. I lost track of the hour. Let me just grab my things.”

  This was fine, too, Lacy decided as she flung her bag and her guitar over her shoulder. She’d get her sound check over with and then she’d have all afternoon to bang Eli and bang out some words.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lacy skipped to keep up with Sammy as she followed her down to the bus. With each step, she grew a little less excited and a little more nervous about seeing Eli again.

  What she was, really, was a girl on a morning-after high. A girl who wanted to repeat the night before, but for convoluted reasons. It was perfectly natural to feel a little anxious.

  She kept her eyes down as she climbed onto the bus and deposited her guitar in its storage rack. Not only because of her anxiety but because Sammy was currently embarrassing her with an announcement to the others.

  “I got her. Obviously. Miss Thang seems to have ‘lost track of the hour.’” Sammy turned back to her victim. “Don’t let it happen again.”

  Lacy couldn’t stop herself from spitting out a “Yes, ma’am.” Which earned her a scowl. It was undeserved, in Lacy’s opinion. Her ma’am-ing was only fifty percent sarcastic.

  “Next time, the bus leaves you.”

  This time, Lacy bit back any response fighting for release. It seemed best to let Sammy have the last word.

  Sammy headed back toward her usual seat, and Lacy finally braved a glance up at the others. Immediately her eyes found Eli’s. Her body thrummed like a tuning fork to his perfect note, her skin beading in goose bumps, her nipples pebbling under her tank. His expression was serious, so he was difficult to read. At least he wasn’t avoiding her. She was instantly more confident in the likelihood of their repeat sexing. Excited about it even, the nervousness and anxiety ebbing.

  She smiled at him and went on to take the empty seat in the next aisle. Before she sat, though, she shot a smile to the rest of the bus, an apology for her tardiness. It was then she noticed that Jax, sitting in his typical backseat location, wasn’t in his typical prone posture. And he wasn’t—as he typically was—alone. There was a girl next to him. Not just any girl—Kat.

  Kat? Really?

  Lacy huffed to herself as she slunk into her spot. One of the plusses about taking the tour had been the prospect of not seeing the endlessly optimistic, always-got-it-together Kat. And yet, she kept seeing Kat. And wasn’t she supposed to be covering Lacy’s shifts at the studio? She must have hopped a train that morning. It was sure convenient how she’d somehow managed now to weasel her way onto three stops of the circuit under the auspices of “gaining roadie experience,” as if Kat was about to embark on a tour. She didn’t even have a band. But banging the drummer did seem to give her a few perks.

  Did one of those perks have to be infringing on Lacy’s personal space?

  Whatever. It was fine. Kat got her this tour, she had no room to exclude her.

  The bus lurched into motion and Lacy centered herself, practicing meditation from her yoga days. This is a beautiful day. I’m in a beautiful space. I’m on tour making beautiful music. I had xxx’s from Folx. Eli’s still making eye contact.

  And I wrote a song! An actual song. Not a jingle. A song.

  Part of a song, but still, a major thing to be happy about.

  Also on her list, I got laid. But she felt a little weird about celebrating that when she and Eli hadn’t made it through the awkward stage yet, which was a very real part of the getting laid. So it counted, but she pretended it didn’t. Fortunately she was well practiced at self-delusion.

  After coming to terms with her just-got-laid status, Lacy found she couldn’t think of a good reason to let anything bring her down today. She concentrated on letting potential negative energy go, and by the time they pulled into the venue parking lot, her chakras were charged and her atman was at peace.

  She felt so good as she stepped off the bus that she couldn’t keep from giggling out loud. The tang of the Baltimore harbor wafted over her with all the promise it held of adventure and good food. The sun poured down like glory. And she’d written (part of) a song for the first time in a year.

  She threw her arms out and spun in place like she was in her own personal Sound of Music. It was going to be A Best Day Ever; she could just feel it.

  Oh, no. That was Wes’s nose that she felt. With her elbow.

  “Calm down, there, Lacypants. The hills may be alive, but Wes won’t be if you keep that up,” Jax muttered as he shoved past her fumbling apologies, followed by James and Eli and the other band member whose name Lacy couldn’t seem to remember. And Kat.

  Sammy, obviously over her earlier irritation, smiled. “I’ll get your shit, kid. If we get right in there, we should be able to knock out your sound check before the boys are even loaded in.”

  Getting her sound check done early? Definitely the beginnings of A Best Day Ever.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, Lacy’s sound check was in the bag, and the boys were onstage for theirs. Her afternoon was free and clear, and since the only thing she had on her agenda was jumping Eli, she decided to stick around and listen to the band.

  She found a seat in the middle of the venue and, because of her earlier banishmen
t of bad energy, wasn’t even irritated when Kat took a seat next to her. Even though there was a whole auditorium of other places where she could have sat.

  “They’re so good,” Kat said while the band was still tuning. “This has to be the greatest gig in the world. Listening to them every night. Hanging out with those beautiful men every day.” She sighed.

  “I actually haven’t really listened to them until today,” Lacy admitted, glowing because she was the one with the greatest gig in the world and not Kat. “And usually we don’t do much hanging during the day.” That was about to change, if Lacy had anything to do with it. Though it wouldn’t be those beautiful men she’d be hanging with, but that beautiful Eli. And “hanging” wasn’t exactly what she had planned, though it did rhyme with it.

  “You haven’t? Some of us were planning to see some of the town after this. Join us!”

  “Uh.” It depended on whether “some of us” included Eli. Lacy really was dying to see Baltimore. It was high on her to-do list, right under “write beautiful lyrics” and “get it on with beautiful guy.” She said, “That might be something I could do.” She was proud of that answer. Not a yes, not a no. She could decide for sure when she found out what Eli’s plans were.

  After a few minutes of individual mike and instrument testing, the band launched into a song. Just like it had been at the show she’d seen previously, their synchronicity was amazing. Lacy decided they must have worked together for a long time now. How else were they reading each other’s minds like that? A look between Jax and Eli somehow translated to the drummer, Wes, and they extended a jam before returning to the main riff. Jax swayed like a hypnotized snake, and she could imagine how it would draw all eyes to him when the place was filled. How he’d woo the women before he even opened his mouth.

  “He’s like sex on legs,” Kat purred. “I want to lick him from head to toe.”