Sidewalk Flower

by Carlene Love Flores

  “So what happens?” Aside from having his pride bruised at her brushoff, she fascinated him. Maybe he’d hear something to help him understand her world better. He hunkered down into the passenger seat and listened as she did her best to explain the very intricate logistics of how she and Jaxon stayed away from each other while working together, often in close quarters while on tour.

  * * * *

  “Trista, I hate to say this because it sounds like this Vangie has hurt you, but there’s got to be something Jaxon sees to make him stay with her. Don’t you think?”

  Okay, so Lucky was gonna have to find out the hard way about Vangie just like her buddy, Ben, had. Poor Benny, abandoned to do the web-mastering all on his own while she was gone. Vangie better not have insulted a single hair on his sweet shaggy head since she’d been gone.

  But to answer Lucky…she remembered how Stefan had summed it up for her one night after a gig Vangie had attended on the last tour. Trista had been hanging out in Stefan’s room, trying to stay out of the picture as much as possible when he said to her that he hated to be so vulgar, but to put it plain and simple, Jaxon was in it for the sex. Well, Stefan had said pussy, finger spelling it over his shiny black guitar, but she hated that word.

  At least Stefan had been honest.

  Ever since that night, she’d learned that no matter how close she felt to Jaxon, or how strong the urge was to make him see the truth in Vangie, it just wasn’t her place.

  Another sound piece of advice Stefan had shared that night at seeing her hammering frustration was, “You’re not the one fucking her so why do you care?”

  Geez, she missed him too. And he was right.

  She didn’t have to go home to Vangie each night so it really wasn’t her problem. The theory was solid, except for the fact that she wasn’t a man who could easily make sense of such a simple analogy without feelings getting in the way. Trista was a woman with a bleeding heart and Jaxon was like her big brother.

  But, he would have to see the light on his own. She hoped he’d make it out soon or this might really have to be her last tour as his assistant. Vangie’s denying him this trip had put them right back in the round. Jaxon was tied to that slobbering, crazed bull and she just didn’t know how much longer she could keep on chasing him around—his personal rodeo clown.

  She looked over at Lucky and realized there was no way she could say Stefan’s words to him.

  “You know, some women just know how to break a man. You should ask Stefan if you get to meet him. He’s got some pretty good theories on that.” She didn’t go any further. Lucky was right, she wasn’t going to put Vangie down. The woman did that well enough on her own.

  “So, where and when does this tour start?” Lucky asked, a little skeptical, in her opinion.

  “April 3rd, New York City. We start out east and then make our way back to the west coast.”

  “Oh.”

  “You thinking about coming to some shows?” She didn’t try to hide the excitement that bounced through the baby curls at the crown of her head. They danced along her hairline as she perked up.

  He coughed. “Oh, I don’t know.”

  “You should. I’d love to show you off to the guys. And I think you might actually enjoy the music,” she said, not understanding the wrinkles creasing his forehead. Was she losing her touch on reading the male species?

  A new song began. Another splash of Jaxon’s baritone voice and guitar mixed with the low electric strum of Stefan’s bass.

  “I don’t know. This stuff is really…erotic. I mean, it makes me want to, you know…”

  “What? Have sex?” she asked him, taking a second to fully glance his way, her shoulder hiked up just enough to look flirty and innocent as it brushed up against the underside of her chin.

  He chuckled. “Yeah. Do they realize that’s what their music inspires in people?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Yes.” His answer had been short. He shied away from her gaze.

  She couldn’t help but taunt him. “You’re wrong.”

  “How so?”

  “Because, they don’t want you to go out and have sex. They want you to come to their show and be moved to something more than whatever it was you did that day or whatever it was you were thinking about when you parked your car. They want you to feel it deeper, more intense. Be more appreciative and aware of what you’re doing and with who.” She bit her lips and smiled as Lucky swallowed and blinked, and then again.

  It crushed her heart that she couldn’t keep him at her place. But as they got closer to Los Angeles and the more she thought about the guys, she had to admit that keeping Lucky good meant limiting their time together. Three days might just be too long.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Lucky, I’m pulling in for gas.”

  He felt the soft poke of a fingertip on his shoulder. He rubbed his eyes and it took a minute to realize where he was in the dark. He’d been asleep since Kingman. An hour of Sin Pointe’s provocative music had sent him to sleep on dreams of a passionate night with Trista.

  They were in the bed of his truck at the drive-in. He didn’t know what had been playing. But her every detail was unforgettable. She wore the sexiest yellow dress he’d ever seen. No straps in the way of her soft shoulders and the hem was her favorite length, mid-thigh. Those thighs of hers, toned and feminine, narrow at the knees and then dancing back out at heart-shaped calves he wanted to kiss. He’d never had as vivid a recollection as this. The way he remembered the light tan of her skin and the turquoise of her eyes. And her hair, it was down and loose because she’d let him pull out two sticks that held it in place. It fanned out above her and to the sides, looking so pretty laying over as his wool horse blankets, those legs wrapped around him at the waist, pulling him to her.

  He rubbed his eyes again then yawned and stretched his arms as high as they could go under the Jeep’s canopy.

  “I’ll get it.” He needed to stretch his legs and his thoughts.

  “Okay, thanks. I’ve really got to use the bathroom so I’ll go in and pay.” She sat with her knees bent inward a second before hopping out to make her way to the store.

  “Wait… here.” He dug into the right back pocket of his jeans and sent her inside with cash.

  Soon the fuel started to slug through its hose and into the tank while he stared out across a sandy-colored lot. Typical fast food restaurants vied for patrons with their dueling marquees but the town was dead tonight, wherever they were.

  Through the slots of window not covered with cigarette and phone card advertisements, Lucky saw Trista exit the restroom and make her way around several aisles, grabbing things as she went. All he had was a back view of her wild, knotted hair and slender neck that bled into the royal blue and purple collar of her dress. It was all he needed to see. She was exquisite, the most beautiful woman he’d ever met, even through the cluttered windows of the convenience store.

  He’d decided he couldn’t hold her work situation against her. It wasn’t fair to knock her for being honest that she would be busy with the band while he was in California. Most likely his feelings for her were stronger than her regards for him—but she was worth the biding of his time.

  And worth trying to figure out.

  She was serious for good reasons, but equally playful for equally justifiable ones. She read people well but let herself be used by those closest to her. She was open to just about anything that rang of fun it seemed. She’d rather leave the past where it belonged but he had no idea how she felt about the future. She’d make an amazing lover.

  The saddest thing he’d learned about her? That if he’d persisted, she would have slept with him, no matter what her body was going through at the moment.

  She was good and she didn’t know it. Or she knew but didn’t care. He wondered how much longer they had on the road. Was it enough time to tell her he was in love with her?

  “Hey there, I got you a Coke, Tic-Tacs and this.”


  Trista handed him the two familiar staples and then one in a cellophane wrapper with the picture of a duck. He accepted them graciously, curious about the surprise.

  “What is this?”

  “Okay, that is a Gansito and it’s delicious. You know you’re in California when these guys start showing up on the shelves. Taste it, it’s soooo good.”

  They were already in California.

  “Come on, open it. Like this.” She took hers and peeled apart the wrapper at the seams. “Don’t tear the little goose, it’s bad luck.”

  Trista plucked out the Twinkie-shaped snack cake and put it up to her mouth to bite down. Her smile was so wide he could see her teeth sinking down through the layers of chocolate, strawberry and yellow cake. “Oh my God, this is…soooo good,” she cooed.

  Lord what he’d give to be that snack cake.

  “What’s wrong? Are you allergic to chocolate? You hate strawberry don’t you?” she asked, licking her tongue over a piece of filling stuck to her front tooth.

  “No, I like all those things.”

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  His unopened Gansito lay on the seat near his legs. Trista reached for it but he caught her arm just as she was leaning into him and held her there. “I’m in love with you, Trista.”

  “Oh.” She sat for a minute in the driver’s seat. Then proceeded to exit her side of the Jeep and make her way over to his. She opened his door. “Can you please drive?”

  This was not the reaction he had expected. Although, he hadn’t thought it out in the two seconds it took for him to decide to tell her up front how he felt. Not after learning they were already so close to their destination.

  After switching seats, Trista remained quiet and still, reminding him more of a robot than a flesh and blood woman. She hadn’t registered his declaration, that much was obvious. He couldn’t even be sure she was thinking because she just sat there, stuck in time. He turned over the ignition, scooted the seat back, and crept the Jeep forward toward the freeway.

  “We’re in Barstow. You had asked earlier…where we were,” she said blankly.

  “No, actually I hadn’t. But thank you for telling me because I was wondering.” He’d look over at her but feared what he might see.

  “You didn’t ask me that?” she asked, still looking vacantly around the Jeep’s interior.

  “No, Trista. I hadn’t asked.” He let out a breath and drove on.

  This is not good. He loved her and she was so scared of the notion that they were now having a conversation about a conversation they’d never had. The next exit sign indicated a rest stop in five miles. He planned to pull into it.

  Just as he put on the blinker, her knees tensed and pulled together. If he’d managed to throw her into shock, there was little time to waste. He drove right up to the curb, parked, turned off the engine and undid his seat belt. Then he unsnapped hers and turned in the seat to face her.

  “I love you.” He reached a hand up to her cheek to feel the strong bone beneath it. “I realize you weren’t expecting to hear that from me. But it’s the truth, more true than anything I’ve felt in a very long time. You’re not the only one who is afraid of that.”

  “You barely know me.”

  “But I do. I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours thinking about all the things I know about you and the things I want to discover. I know the way your breathing sounds when you fall asleep and how you smell when you get out of the shower.”

  “That’s not love, Lucky. You’re just very observant.”

  “Trista, I’m not joking around. Call it what you want.”

  The dull, waxy aura melted away before his eyes as she became life-like again. “Lucky, you don’t have to say that. I told you, I’m not one of those girls who teases a guy because I can. I will make the time to be with you.”

  He cut her off with silence and throbbing eyes. She has absolutely no idea of what I feel. Lost at her inability to relate to the feeling, he somberly turned back to face front, refastened his seat belt, and headed back for the highway. He may as well have just declared the end.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “It’s been an hour and you haven’t said a word to me.” Trista stared out her window, up at Orion’s belt that shone timelessly against the midnight blue sky.

  “I’d appreciate it if you put your seatbelt on. You’re being reckless. There’s no point to prove, Trista. I’d rather have you safe,” he said.

  Concern wasn’t what she’d expected to hear fly out of his mouth. Statements like the one she’d just made had always worked to goad Jaxon into letting out his true frustrations. But Lucky had already proved to her he had more self-control than that.

  “I told you I was nuts, Lucky.” It was her way of apologizing.

  His breathing remained as steady now as his hands on the wheel. Not a flinch or involuntary muscle spasm accompanied his words. “No, you asked me not to think you’re crazy, that you knew you probably looked like it. And I told you that I didn’t think you were.”

  “Oh, so just because you have perfect recall of what I said, you think that qualifies as love?” It was easier to prod him into an argument than accept what he was feeling.

  “I didn’t say that, Trista.”

  “You don’t know enough, Lucky. Okay, please trust me. I really don’t want to hurt you.” There, she’d been honest. She stole a look in his direction but didn’t make it past his knees that nearly butted up against the steering compartment.

  “Would you feel better if I took it back?” For the first time she heard something other than niceness in his voice.

  The offer caused her to nearly choke on a gulp of air. No, she didn’t want him to take it back. Had her crazy rubbed off on him?

  She took a second to iron it out in her mind. His love would be good and oddly enough, she could even see herself loving him back—in a perfect world where she didn’t belong to a traveling band, tied to the leader like some sick, masochistic puppy, traipsing across the country in the wake of jet fuel and turbulence.

  One where he wasn’t related to the center of her damned dysfunctional universe.

  Lucky was his own man, one with a country home and probably a horse or two. Enough youth on his side to meet up with and wed a blushing southern bride and have a few tow-headed babies. She could keep going, putting more and more distance between their two paths.

  “Don’t love me. Just be my friend.” She wanted to cry.

  “That’s not how it works. I think you know that much.”

  “Fine, I might love you. Are you happy now?” She lashed out, trying to hurt him with her words, to keep him safely headed in the right direction, away from her.

  His elbows locked and she felt the Jeep lurch in their speed. “Shit Trista, what’s wrong with you?” he asked.

  “I don’t have a fucking clue.”

  Lucky exited at the next rest stop and parked. She was sure he’d have changed his mind by now about her sanity. Unsure of how to approach him with this thought in mind, she sat there in silence, pulling in long breaths of the nighttime Mojave desert. The dry air smelled like nothing at all until Lucky walked over to her side of the Jeep and waited by the door. Through the open window came his wholesome, manly goodness. His cleanliness was something she craved.

  “I’m sorry.” She forced herself to look at him through the open window frame. She wiped at her tears and felt more disappointed in herself than she ever had before.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean to scare you. You don’t have to say anything back to me, and if you don’t feel the same, it’s okay, too. I just wanted you to know. That’s all.” He was tender now, not angry like she’d thought he would be.

  She opened her door and stood up to face him.

  “If I tell you that I love you, Lucky, what will you expect from me?” she asked, desperate to lay her hand over his but afraid to tarnish him.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  She sniffed and saw him hesitate to
raise his hand in her direction. “What if love doesn’t change anything? Even if you stayed longer than three days, I’d still have to leave in two weeks and wouldn’t see you again for who knows how long.”

  “Loving someone doesn’t mean quitting who you are or becoming someone else.”

  “Well, that’s too bad. Because I was hoping that someday love would take me away from all this.” The truth had never poured out so freely in all her life.

  “Trista, I’m so confused right now. And there’s so much I still wanted to talk to you about. I wish…”

  “You wish you’d never said you love me, right?”

  “No, I wish you’d just accept it and let everything else fall where it will.”

  But she knew why that was a bad idea. It leaves too much up to chance, she thought as she tugged a finger through some tangled curls.

  In her world, a place he would have to learn to maneuver if he was intent on being with her and not changing her, people rarely operated on anything other than what was good for them. Lucky wouldn’t be very popular if he tried to wedge her out of her commitment to the band. How would that conversation go?

  Jaxon, I’m leaving. I quit my job and I’m moving to Tennessee with Lucky. I know we’re in the middle of a tour but you’re on your own now. It’s best if we don’t have any contact for a while. I know it’s not fair but it has to be this way. I can’t keep living for you, for the guys. I owe you my life, for taking me in and giving me all these wonderful chances to do so many amazing things. But I’m done. Don’t I deserve that?

  Lucky grasped both her hands in his and brought them back as far as they would go, clasping them behind his waist. The action lifted her out of her seat.

  “You ever notice how there aren’t any sidewalks back home? You know, to go for walks. There’s just grass and then the curb.” He held her at the bend of her elbows.