Strum Me

by Daisy Allen

  Her dark, luscious hair, pulled into a loose ponytail, sways as she rocks her head, revealing the damp nape of her neck, glowing from a thin layer of sweat from her performance. Her lips make love to the microphone, and my cock tightens as the inevitable thought goes to her mouth on me. She’s pure sex.

  But it’s more than that.

  She’s exquisite in her sheer confidence, even while playing the clown.

  My girl, turning her greatest detractors to pawns in the palm of her hand.

  “You’re so vain!” she belts into the microphone, raising her finger and pointing it at me, then jabbing it into the direction of my bandmates. The action makes everyone in the bar turn around.

  Suddenly it feels like a hundred eyes are trying to focus on us in the dark, scanning our faces, trying to place us. Then a voice screams out, “OHMYGOD, it’s the ROCK CHAMBER BOYS!”

  A loud squeal completely drowns out Emily’s singing and Marius jumps up, shouting, “Run!”

  Jez and Hailey scramble from the table as Sebastian waits for Cadence to jump off his lap before leading her out of the bar. I yell out to Emily and she drops her microphone and jumps off the stage, getting a head start from the crowd as they appear starstruck. Grabbing her hand as she runs to me, we follow the rest of our group out the door.

  The cool night air is a blessing after the humidity of the bar, and the seven us pant as we cross the street, making our way toward the tour buses.

  Our drivers jump into their seats as they see us making our way toward them, cranking open the doors. There’s a high-pitched scream and I glance back. There’s a group of about ten to fifteen women running up behind us.

  Jez, Marius, Seb and the girls jump onto the closest bus.

  “Go, go!” I yell at them and the door closes behind them

  I pull Emily onto the girls’ bus with me and as soon as I’m safe inside, there’s a creak and a thud as our driver activates the door to close. We fall forward as the bus lurches to life. The driver steps on the gas, making a sharp turn to the right following the bus in front, and Emily falls on top of me, knocking me onto one of the white leather recliners.

  “Ahhh!” Emily squeals, grabbing hold of my arm.

  “Sorry, Mr. Windsor, Miss Butter. We’ll get you out of here,” the driver call out to us through his partition.

  “Do what you gotta do, Frank!” I reassure him.

  I grab Emily tight around the waist and make sure she’s settled on the chair, squeezed in next to me.

  “Hold on, he doesn’t get to do this much, so he’s going to make the most of it,” I explain to Emily.

  “Do what?”

  “Pretend he’s in a car chase.”

  As if on cue, the bus, in all its enormity, swerves to the left, and we can just make out the sound of car horn beeping as we whiz by.

  “Does this happen often?” Emily asks through gritted teeth, her knuckles white as she tries to hold on.

  “What exactly?”

  “Being chased by mobs.”

  “Ha-ha. No. We’re not Justin Bieber if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  She screws up her nose and it’s all I can do not to kiss it. “I dunno, seemed kinda Justin Bieber Fever-y back there.”

  “Ah, yeah, just what teenage girls like. Boring ol’ classical music band.”

  “Pfft. Come on. You’re hardly that and you know it.”

  I just smile at her.

  “You’re...you’re really ...well, you’re really something special.” There’s a serious look in her eye, and it seems like it’s important I take her word for it.

  “Aw shucks, thanks, Butter,” I say, with a little tinge of sarcasm.

  She pinches my arm again. She keeps doing that. “No. I mean, I mean it. You, all of you, you guys really did what you set out to do. You’ve turned it all on its head. This music thing. You took what everyone expects of rock, of pop, hell, even blues and hip-hop, and you took what everyone thought they knew about the violin and the viola and the cello and you just ...made it your own thing. You guys work magic, taking these tired, overplayed songs, and make them into brand-new works of art. A whole new generation of people are going to enjoy Bach and Mozart and AC/DC and James Brown because of you.”

  Of course, she would understand. She always did.

  “Anyway, it’s, well, it’s really quite remarkable. And all done with those ugly-ass mugs of yours,” she concludes, with a dagger straight to the point.

  “I know, right? If at least we were something to look at, you could understand our success,” I sigh, looking mournful.

  She goes quiet and the bus is driving a little more smoothly now. It’s dark inside the bus, lit just by the LEDs that line the windows. We can see outside and the sky is clear.

  “I’m sorry about what I said,” she suddenly says. “At the press conference.”

  I squeeze her hand to know I’ve heard her. “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not.” She shakes her head to emphasize her the point. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “Of course you did.”

  “No, I didn’t. I mean, sure, on a totally simplistic level, what you guys do can be described as covers, but I never meant that all you do is just rip off other artists’ music.”

  “Ah, that.”

  “I don’t know why I said that.” She looks down at her hands and lifts one to nibble at a jagged nail’s edge.

  “Sure, you do.”

  There’s a brief furrowing of her brow before she asks me, “Why?”

  “Because I’m Brad and you’re Butter, and we’re always going to challenge each other, always going to keep each other on our toes. Always going to make sure the other one’s doing the best they can.”

  She lets the idea sink in for a moment, and a long sigh empties her lungs. “Am I? Doing the best I can?”

  “You tell me, Butter.”

  “I don’t know, Brad. I want to be. I want to be doing the best I can, so badly. I see you up there performing, and it’s like, you couldn’t want to be anywhere in the world. Doing anything else in the world.”

  “So where do you want to be, what do you want to be doing?”

  There’s a barely susceptible shrug of her shoulders, but I feel it.

  “I don’t know. I think I’m doing it, but I just don’t know. Some days it just feels like it’s too hard.”

  “Well, I can tell you this—it’s never going to feel easy. It might feel good, it might feel right. But achieving your dream is never going to feel like it just falls into your lap.”

  Butter nods, and for the first time since we reunited, I think she really hears me. So, I take advantage of it.

  “And another thing. Don’t envy me when you’re seeing me up there on stage. Sometimes there is somewhere else I want to be, something else I want to be doing.”

  Her eyebrows lift from their heavy thinking. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What?”

  “I’m doing it right now.” I reach over and run my finger down the soft curve of her cheek.

  “Brad.” The one word carries a world of meaning. Some of it I don’t like. Some of it is telling me to stop.

  “Butter. You say the word and I’m there. Or here…and wherever you want me to be. You coming back has shown me that.”

  I know I shouldn’t be doing this. That going after someone in a relationship is lower than even what I will stoop to, but I want her to know. I want her to get used to the idea that maybe we came back into each other’s lives for a reason.

  “It’s too late, Brad.” There’s a waver in her voice, and it gives me hope.

  “It’s never too late, Butter.”

  She goes quiet and I wonder if there’s anything I can say that would ever change her mind about dumping whoever the loser is she’s with and giving us another chance. On my own, I can’t think of it. So, I change the subject.

  “Hey, why didn’t you continue with your piano and flute? I mean, I know why you stopped si
nging, but...”

  “Ha-ha, excuse me, you should wonder why I’m not a professional vocalist!”

  “No, really...you were so talented.”

  “No, Brad. I wasn’t. I didn’t suck, but I wasn’t ‘so talented.’”

  “Butter...”

  “No, it’s okay. I mean, I enjoyed it.” She smiles and her fingers do some little movements, as if she’s remembering her years of music practice. “I’m glad I went to a specialized music school, but the whole time, I pretty much felt like an imposter. I mean, who goes to music school and dreads music class and looks forward to history and English Lit?”

  “Ugh,” I involuntarily grunt. Now the memories come back to me. Bad ones.

  “Ha!” She lets out a guffaw. “Exactly. That’s how I felt about music classes by our senior year. No one wants to be the worst in their class.”

  “You weren’t,” I insist. She may not have been the best, but she had her own unique style, something I think is more important than being like the other one hundred virtuosos in your class.

  “I’d give anything to play like Cadence,” she sighs.

  “She does play beautifully,” I agree.

  “Anyway, I just got sick of being in the shadow of real musicians. I want to shine, too, Brad. Is that so wrong?”

  Those crystal-blue orbs she has as eyes grow large and she locks them on me. I swallow as I feel something crawl up my throat in response. I can’t escape the desire in her eyes to be special. I just wish she knew just how special she is.

  “Um, we wear shirts with our names in glitter on them. I don’t think you need to be embarrassed about wanting to shine around me.” I flutter my eyelashes at her and wave a hand in front of my face.

  “DIVA!” she yells and crumbles into a fit of giggles.

  My heart leaps at the sound of her happiness. “You know it!”

  She shoves me in the shoulder as she rolls her eyes, and not for the first time I forget that we’re not just lying side by side in my bed after school, making joke after joke.

  I wait for the laughter to die down before I nudge her back. “You know what though?”

  She raises a nervous eyebrow in response.

  “You write as beautifully as Cadence plays,” I tell her, the most honest thing I’ve said in a long time.

  “Brad…”

  “It’s true. Since we found out you were going to be reporting on us, I’ve been reading some of your editorials and blogs and articles. I mean I’m glad you went to music school, because it obviously gives you an insight into musicians, but you’re right, words are where your talent is. It’s where you shine.”

  Her whole chest lifts in a deep, deep breath.

  “Thank you, Brad.”

  “No problem. Now use those words to make me look like a rock God with an eight-pack and fingers that create aural orgasms, please.”

  “Brad can’t even create sex orgasms with those stumpy things!” a loud voice interrupts our intimate talk and we swivel around on the chair to see Marius and the rest pile onto the bus.

  We hadn’t even noticed that the buses had stopped and parked. Butter jumps up from the recliner, straightening her clothes.

  “Excuse me, my fingers are nimble sex organs,” I say, wiggling my fingers at the intruders.

  “They’re about the length of your actual sex organ maybe,” Marius counters, doing a wiggle of his hips.

  “Hey! I’ve had no complaints!”

  “What about pointing and laughing?” Jez asks to the amusement of the others.

  “Leave the guy alone.” Butter comes to my defense.

  “Thank you, Butter!” I point to her, as if to implore the others to listen to her.

  But she wasn’t finished. “He hasn’t been the same since his penile-widening operation,” she adds, her eyes darting to me, without an ounce of guilt.

  “TRAITOR! Off the bus with you…you…betrayer!” I yell, jumping to my feet.

  Jez comes, his hand holding his splitting side, struggling for breath. Handing her the bottle of tequila, he pats Emily on the back.

  “You’re all right. You might just be a bit all right after all.”

  I see Cadence hug her fiancé’s arm and he leans over and kisses the top of her head.

  “Now. There’s just one last test,” Jez continues.

  He looks around the bus and we all start chanting at once.

  “CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!”

  The last thing I remember is Butter’s smile as she tips the bottle into her mouth.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Emily

  There seems to be some sort of major construction going on. And it seems to be going on inside my head.

  I try to open one eye, but the construction team seems to have done some work overnight as well, and welded it shut. I try the other one, and I can barely pry it open. It’s enough to let a stream of light in to burn my retina however, and I slam it shut again.

  Fine, I’ll just get through the day with my eyes closed then, I think to myself. And even that seems excessively loud.

  I grab the edge of the bed to pull myself onto my side.

  “Aarrghhhhh,” I groan.

  Okay.

  That was apparently overly ambitious as well.

  There’s a soft sound of movement in the next room, and then a moan that mirrors mine.

  Good.

  I’m going to need empathy to get through this day.

  First things first.

  I need to write myself a note.

  Tequila. Bad.

  Okay, one thing accomplished for the day.

  I drag myself into the small shower to try to drown out some of the banging in my head. I feel only marginally better when I get out, but that’s enough to start my search for coffee.

  “Ohhhhwhatkillmenowwhoisit?” The response from Hailey’s bedroom is barely above a whisper when I knock on her door.

  “Hails, where’s the nearest coffee shop?” I whisper back.

  “Why are you yelling at me?” The whisper is still a whisper, but lined with a distinct tone of grump.

  “It’s so you can hear me over the jackhammer in your head, Hails,” I explain.

  “Ugh, how’d you know about that? And why can’t I turn it off? Anyway, I think there’s one about two blocks to the right. Black, two sugars.”

  “Got it.”

  I go back down the hallway and am surprised to see Cadence’s door open and her bed made. How can that be? I still have a vague memory of her still up as Brad dragged me to my bedroom and dropped me onto my bed before he must’ve crawled back to his own bus.

  I crack open the bus door and the cold air whooshes inside. The chilly wind is actually refreshing on my aching head and I step out into the frosty morning.

  Despite my pounding head and the feeling like my eyes are the size of baseballs and covered in sawdust, I feel good. Last night had quickly descended into a night of drunken ridiculousness, but it had broken the ice. Maybe it had been the karaoke, maybe it had been the mini mob chasing us, maybe it was the tequila. Whatever it was, I feel like the guys trust me now, and will stop treating me like an outsider. Anyway, it feels good.

  Hailey was right. The coffee shop is about three hundred feet from the bus, which is good because I’m not sure how far I could’ve walked without sustenance.

  I scan the menu and it gives me a thought. I order a few coffees for everyone, and offer to pay a bit extra if they can help me bring them back for to the bus. In a special bag, I get them to pack two croissants and a tub of Greek yogurt to share. I wonder if he remembers that this was always our hangover routine. Of course, back then, we were young and hangovers was just a word for “had a big night last night.”

  I wander back to the buses with two caramel lattes and the breakfast in hand. I can’t help but feel a little excited to be seeing him, seeing if he remembers. Just as I reach out for the guys’ bus door, it swings open.

  “Oh!” I duck out of the way to avoid it hitting me
in the face.

  “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!” a female voice says. Felicia, the radio host from yesterday steps off the bus, her face lit up by the early-morning sun. “Did I get you?”

  “Er, no, I’m fine. What… um, what are you doing here?” I ask her, coughing trying to control my voice.

  “Oh, um, you know,” she gives me a wink and gestures with her head toward the bus.

  “No. I don’t know,” I say, a little surprised at my own harshness. “Or I hope I don’t,” I mumble under my breath.

  She checks her phone and then gives me a little wave. “Anyway, gotta run, late for work. See you at the CD signing later today.”

  “Oh, you’re going to be there?”

  “Yeah, Brad asked me if I wanted to come along since the station is covering it anyway.”

  And it’s like someone has stabbed me in the heart.

  “Oh, okay.” I cover my eyes, as if to shield them from the sun, but it’s not.

  I watch her get in her car and drive off. The sharp pain has spread a little further down my body now. Grabbing hard onto the rail, I drag my body into the bus. Cadence and Sebastian are awake and giggling on the couch together.

  I sink into a recliner with an “Oooof.”

  “Aw, what’s up, Journalist? Rough night?”

  “Night was fine, morning’s been a bit of a bitch,” I tell them, spinning my chair away from them, not wanting to see their loved-up scene.

  “Now, now, tell Cadence what’s going on,” Cadence says, her voice soft and friendly.

  “You guys trying to alcohol-poison me for one,” I grumble, staring out the window.

  They laugh and the sound makes me envy them so much, I want to scream.

  “Where’s, uh…Where’s everyone else?”

  “The other guys are still sleeping so we just thought we’d have some quiet time together,” Sebastian answers, reaching over to the neighboring chair for a cushion.

  “I’ll take the hint…” I get up and make for the door.

  “No, no, we’re good...now. We got our ‘quiet time’ together already,” Cadence says, giving me a show of her dirty air quotes.

  “Ew.” I cover my ears with my hands and screw up my face.

  “No, it was quite good actually,” Sebastian preens. “But not as good as what happened in the room next door.”