“No,” she sobbed. “Please stay here. Keep everyone away from my door. I don’t want to see anyone tonight.”
The security guard broadened his shoulders, ready to do his job. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you.” She wiped her nose and fumbled with her card key. Her shaking hands couldn’t hold it steady to get a reading, and the little light kept beeping yellow. She heard Mason call her name again, closer this time. “Fuck!”
The security guard took the card from her hand and swiped it across the screen, unlocking the door. She flew into the room and latched the deadbolt. She flung herself onto the bed and buried her face into the pillow to muffle her cries. Why didn’t he love her back? He hadn’t been in a serious relationship – ever. She had thought it was because they were meant to be together. It had always been so clear. If he wasn’t so adamant about not having feelings for her, it wouldn’t have hurt so much. She stilled, a sob halfway out of her throat, when she heard Mason’s voice in the hallway. He was arguing with the guard who had stayed outside her room.
“She doesn’t want any visitors, sir. Miss Garcia gave me strict instructions not to let anyone near her door.”
“I don’t give a fuck. Step aside.”
“Sorry, I can’t do that.”
“Tessa!” Mason called from the hallway. “Open the door. This is crazy. Let’s talk. Please.”
She refused to answer and hugged the pillow to her chest.
”What’s going on?” Now it was Lucas’ voice outside the door.
“Tessa won’t let me in,” Mason explained.
“Why not? Did something happen? Is she all right?”
Tessa buried her face into the pillow to quiet a sob, hoping her brother didn’t hear her.
Mason paused before he answered Lucas. “She won’t let me in, and she told this guy not to let anyone knock on her door.”
”That doesn’t sound like my sister.” Lucas banged on the door. “Tessa. What’s wrong? Let us in.”
No. No. No. The security guard wasn’t getting rid of them, and she couldn’t face either one of them, especially her brother. She needed to make him leave and scurried to find her phone so she could text Lucas.
TESSA: It’s not a big deal. I’m exhausted. Just want to sleep. Goodnight.
She heard Lucas’ phone ding on the other side of the door. There was a pause while he read the text message, and then he told Mason, “She said it’s no big deal. She’s tired and going to bed.”
“That’s bull,” Mason stated. “She’s upset.”
“Why is she upset? What happened?”
Mason paused before he answered, causing Tessa to suck in a breath. “Nothing. It’s just . . .”
“You know her, Mase. If she says it’s not a big deal, it’s not a big deal. If she’s pissed off, she’d tell you. She doesn’t hold anything back.”
Except she held her tongue for 22 years.
Mason huffed out a breath. “This is ridiculous. Tessa!” He wrapped on the door and waited. It wasn’t his usual rat-a-tat-tat that served as his calling card, but an impatient series of hard knocks. “Tessa, come on.” Defeat worked its way into his voice. “Fine. I’ll leave you alone. If you change your mind, call me.”
She had no intention of calling Mason because she wasn’t changing her mind. A sob threatened to burst from her lungs, so she buried her face in the pillow and squeezed her eyes shut. She never wanted to talk to Mason about pursuing a relationship ever again. She was done.
It took all of three seconds before Tessa remembered that her world had been shattered. She groaned and pulled the covers over her head, while a deep ache filled her from her throat to her gut as the memories of last night came flooding back. She wanted to forget it ever happened, but the humiliation and rejection kicked her in the teeth. For the first time in her life, she had no idea what the future held. She needed to erase the last entry on her life plan and figure out how to move forward with no direction. And without Mason as anything more than a friend. A new wave of anxiety washed over her because she had no idea how they were supposed to go back to being friends.
“Oh, God,” she groaned. After berating herself for five minutes, she slowly peeled down the comforter and looked at the clock on the nightstand. The tour bus wouldn’t be leaving for a few hours, and she planned on avoiding everyone – Mason, Lucas and Sindy – between now and then, but she had no idea how she was supposed to act as if nothing was wrong on the 10-hour ride back to New York. Maybe she could feign sickness and hide in her bunk. But how could she evade Sindy? Her best friend would know something was wrong right away.
Lucas would be the easiest, and the hardest, to fool. He knew her best, and if they were sitting down engaging in a one-on-one conversation there would be no way he wouldn’t see the trouble in her eyes. But if she kept him at a distance, he’d never notice.
She flipped the covers off and dangled her legs over the side of the bed. She told herself she’d get through this, but that was her head talking not her heart. A hot shower didn’t take away any of the trepidation or the heaviness that weighed down her spirit. As she stuffed the last of her things into her overnight bag, her phone signaled an incoming message. She hadn’t looked at it since last night and picked it up. There were two screens filled with messages, which she randomly read.
MASON: Are you all right?
MASON: Please talk to me. We can work it out.
MASON: We’re friends. There’s nothing we can’t get through.
LUCAS: Hey. Never heard back from you. Just wanted to make sure you’re OK.
MASON: Don’t shut me out.
LUCAS: Call me if you need me.
MASON: I’m sorry. I feel terrible. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.
Tears stung Tessa’s eyes, blurring the words, and she didn’t want to read any more from Mason. The last message, the one that made her pick up her phone a few seconds ago, appeared on the screen. It was from Sindy. Thankfully, at least someone didn’t ask her if she was OK.
SINDY: Lucas said you were upset about something last night. Don’t sweat it. Guys can be jerks. Coffee?
She smiled at her best friend’s statement. It was true, even a guy as cool as Mason Wilder was capable of being a jerk. If only for not seeing how perfect she was for him. She contemplated meeting Sindy for breakfast but shook her head. Surely, she’d blurt out what had gone down last night, and she couldn’t take the chance that Sindy wouldn’t pass along the info to Lucas. Eventually she’d tell Sindy, but not yet. The whole situation was too raw, and she felt too exposed.
TESSA: I’m over it. Raincheck on the coffee. Meet you on the bus.
She wasn’t over anything and thought about the years she wasted pining after Mason. Was she going to give up so easily? Defeat had never been in her vocabulary. Why did it invade her mind now? She didn’t want to think about it. Right now, she was mortified and heartbroken and wanted to hide from everyone. She slipped out of the hotel without notice and onto the tour bus. Luckily, no fans lingered because she wasn’t in the mood to put on a happy face. No one was on the bus yet, so she retreated to her bunk and closed the curtain. She never hid from anything before and felt like a coward, but the idea of seeing Mason made her chest hurt.
“Fuck it.” She pulled the curtain open and stomped out of her bunk. She made coffee in the Keurig and sat in the booth tapping her spoon nervously on the table. Rehashing the night with Mason jarred something in her head, and she realized she was thumping out a beat. She could turn the internal battle into a song. It would also give her a reason to sit alone in her bunk, and she returned to the solitude of the small space.
With her bass across her lap, she bobbed her head to the new tune. She had a pad and pen, her coffee, and her bass. This is how she’d get through the ride home. A few minutes later, voices filled the bus as Sindy, Lucas and Mason boarded. Tessa gulped and her pulse quickened, but she didn’t react. Instead, she remained focused on her songwriting, immersed in her own lit
tle bubble.
“Tessa?” Sindy called. “What are you working on?”
Shit. She should have plugged in her headphones. “Something new. I’ll plug in my ears, so I don’t bother you guys. I’m gonna work on a new song on the ride home.” She hoped her voice sounded strong, because her spirit was ready to collapse.
Lucas was suddenly in front of her, squatting with his elbows on his knees and smiling. “Already? That’s my little sister. Never wasting a moment when she could be doing something to further the band. Let’s hear what you got so far.”
“No. Hopefully by the time we get home I’ll have the basic outline. That’s why I want to take advantage of this quiet time. You know it’ll be a whirlwind as soon as we get home. Unpacking. Seeing Mom, Dad and Papi. I want to write while it’s still fresh in my head.” She sounded so unaffected. So normal. But she couldn’t look him in the eyes.
Lucas smiled proudly. “Always working your fingers to the bone.”
Sindy approached and stood behind Lucas. They made eye contact for a few seconds, but that was all the time Sindy needed to realize something was wrong and that the songwriting was an outlet. Tessa thought her brother would be the one to see through her façade. It turned out it was her best friend who she couldn’t fool. Tessa dropped her eyes and fiddled with a key on the head of her Quantum Modulus, grateful that Sindy didn’t press the issue or ask any questions.
Mason’s absence in their conversation about music seemed to go unnoticed by Lucas and Sindy, but it couldn’t be clearer to Tessa that he was purposely avoiding her. He obviously felt as awkward as she did.
Lucas must have read her thoughts, because he turned his head toward the front of the bus then looked back at her. “Everything OK between you and Mason now?”
Tessa tried to keep her expression blank as she nodded. Afraid her voice would crack or waver, she didn’t dare speak a reply which resulted in a conspicuous moment of silence.
“Um,” Sindy tugged on Lucas’ arm, but her eyes remained locked on Tessa. “Let’s let her finish the song. I’m excited to hear it when it’s done.”
Alone in her bunk, with her head down, Tessa blocked out the voices coming from the front of the bus. She ignored Mason’s contagious laugh, and focused on putting together a song. Writing music had always been easy, but she’d never written when her head was in a bad place, and the song came together with a rough and gritty undertone that was unlike anything she’d ever created. It was very different and very good.
Tired of hiding and eager to share the song, she emerged from her bunk ready to meet Mason head on. Chin held high, she gripped her bass in one hand, clutched her notebook in the other, and marched proudly through the bus.
As soon as Mason saw her, he stopped talking. His eyes widened with apprehension for a moment, then sparkled with relief.
Tessa never slowed her gait but inhaled sharply through her nose. “I want you to hear what I wrote.” She addressed everyone, but stayed focused on Mason in the captain’s chair, dropping her eyes when she needed to pass him to sit on the couch across from Sindy and Lucas. She thumped out the baseline and then sang the first verse. When she got to the chorus, Mason started slapping out a beat on the arm of the captain’s chair. They were in sync, as always. They shared some sort of mental telepathy when it came to music, as if they were in each other’s head. They had a connection. They worked well together. They could work really well together as a couple. She looked at him, and a surge of energy filled her as his eyes gleamed at her. The wide smile and dimpled cheeks were back, in full force, and it reassured her that everything would be fine between them. But how could it be fine if he wasn’t by her side the way she had always dreamed?
Heartache gnawed at her, but she needed to put it aside and channeled it into the song. The result was a dark beat with grim lyrics. She sang with a gravelly voice filled with bitterness. When she was done, Lucas and Sindy stared at her, stupefied.
“Tessa.” Sindy slowly blinked with disbelief. “That was fantastic.”
“Yeah.” Lucas agreed. “Where did that come from?”
Tessa shrugged and focused on her bass, purposely avoiding Mason’s gaze which she felt on her like a bullseye. “I don’t know.”
While Lucas ran to get his Les Paul to add a melody to the beat, Tessa stared at the floor. At her fingers. At the couch. At the wall. She tried everything to keep her eyes from landing on Mason, but there was no avoiding it, and she finally looked at him. She swallowed. He knew exactly where the inspiration for the song came from – her broken heart. The heart that he broke when he pushed her away. The heart that still yearned and longed for him.
“That was amazing, Tessa,” Mason said after a long pause. “You’re amazing. I’ve been telling you that your entire life. And it’s true.”
She nodded at him in thanks. She wanted to say, Yes, Mason, that’s exactly what I was hoping you’d say, but she didn’t, because she knew he wasn’t saying the words in the context in which she wanted to hear them.
Lucas returned with his Les Paul lifting the shadow of gloom that cocooned Tessa, and she ran through the song again. The rest of the ride went quickly, and the writing session lifted her spirits. By the time the bus hit New York City, she had a genuine smile on her face.
Busy uptown traffic and narrow streets made it difficult for the tour bus to stop for more than a few minutes, so Mason needed to exit quickly. The doorman in front of his luxury apartment building was already waiting when the driver hopped out and handed off Mason’s suitcase and duffle bags.
Thank God there was no time for lingering goodbyes. “Later, man,” was all Mason said before clapping his hand into Lucas’. “Great first tour,” he said to Sindy as he squeezed her upper arm.
Tessa swallowed as she waited for her turn. Goodbyes weren’t usually a big deal, and the last few hours on the bus had been almost normal, but her stomach knotted when he faced her.
“Catch ya tomorrow, Tess. Great song,” he said with a wave, and then he was gone.
She should have known he would have handled it calmly. Typical Mason. Nothing fazed him. Never any drama. No grudges. No baggage. The corners of her mouth turned upward. These were some of the reasons she loved him so much.
The bus navigated across town, through the Midtown Tunnel and onto the L.I.E., and in just over an hour they were in Lido Beach. They came to Tessa’s apartment complex first, and she was grateful to be home. The tour had been everything she dreamed about, but the last 24 hours left her mentally exhausted and she wanted to fall into the comfort of her own home.
“Do you need help getting your things up to your apartment?” Lucas asked.
“I got it.” She had bought something in every city they visited and ended up coming home with two extra bags, but she just wanted to be alone. “See you guys tomorrow. I’m gonna crash for the rest of the day.”
The driver brought her things into the building and the doorman found her a rolling cart which she wheeled onto the elevator and into her apartment by herself. She’d only been living there for about a year and most of that time had been spent on the road, so she still wasn’t used to living alone. At times she hated it, but today she reveled in the solitude.
She opened the sliders, stepped onto the balcony and breathed in the ocean air. She missed the beach, running on the sand and sitting on the boardwalk. The water glistened in the distance and filled her with tranquility. She never tired of the view, which wasn’t much different from the view from her parents’ mansion where she had grown up. After relaxing in a chaise lounge chair for about 20 minutes, she went back inside and flipped open her suitcase to look through the souvenirs she brought back from around the country. They weren’t really souvenirs. She had been to every single city they had stopped in before while she and Lucas and Mason were kids and had toured with Immortal Angel, but she bought things that she liked, and they reminded her of the tour.
She picked up two rolls of stunning fabric when she was in New O
rleans. It was really for her mom, but Tessa wanted to make something for herself from it. Ideas sprang into her head, which she sketched onto the nearest pad. When she was done, she realized it was her lyric notebook that she held in her hand. It was the one that contained the song she had written on the bus. Heartache really must open one’s thought process, because her mind was filled with creativity today.
Excited about the design, she pulled her phone from her handbag and called her mom. “I’m home!”
“Sweetie! Come over!”
“I am. I just wanted to make sure you were there. I picked up some gorgeous fabric for you in New Orleans and sketched out a design. I thought we could construct it right now. Do you have time?”
Her mother’s whimsical laugh came through the earpiece. “You just got back from being on the road for seven months and the first thing you want to do is design and construct a garment? You’re definitely my daughter. Come on over, baby.”
“Great. See you in a few minutes.”
Tessa loaded the fabric and her sketch into a tote bag. She found the vintage Pantera T-shirt she picked up for her dad in Dallas, and an apron for Papi in New Orleans that said “Cooking Makes Me Cray Cray” next to a picture of a crawfish. It didn’t take long to reach her parents’ mansion, a place she still regarded as home, which was only one town over. She started to put the key into the lock, then paused. Her parents lived alone now, she reminded herself. They often boasted about being empty nesters, and she knew the affection level of her parents. The last thing she wanted to do was walk in on something she didn’t want to see. She turned the knob and creaked the door open only a few inches, squeezing her eyes shut. “Mom! I’m home!” she called into the marble entry foyer.
The door was pulled out of her hand as it swung open and her mother stood there with open arms, hair as bright pink as ever. Tessa found herself smothered in a hug while happy laughter filled her ears.
Her mom smelled of expensive perfume, a scent that reminded Tessa of some of the trips she’d taken with her mom to Fashion Week in Milan and Paris.
MASON WILDER: Radical Rock Stars Next Generation Duet Book 2 Page 4
