Those sweet, sad, hazel eyes were exactly as I remembered, except now they weren’t hidden behind glasses.
Many drunken women wandered up to Elliott’s booth, trying to grab his attention, but he never gave it to them. He just nodded them away and kept his head down, focused on his notebook. Every once in a while, he’d take his pencil from behind his ear and write something down.
“You sittin’ alone?” a drunken man said, stumbling to my booth, sliding in across from me.
“Oh, well, actually—”
“Let me buy you a drink,” he blurted out, reaching out to touch my hand, his covered in oil and grease. His white T-shirt was stained with the same filth, as if he’d lived under the hood of a car for the past ten years.
“No, it’s okay, really. Thank you,” I said, trying my best to keep calm while I pulled my arms closer to my body.
“Co-come on,” he begged pitifully, reaching out even more. “Let’s get a drink and have a good time together.”
My lips parted to speak, but I stopped when another voice spoke up. “Jimmy, move on.” I looked up at the corner booth, where Elliott was still marking up his notebook but speaking to Jimmy.
Jimmy sat back a little and groaned. “Come on, Elliott, don’t be a—”
“Jimmy,” he said, his voice even sterner, still looking down. “Move on.”
Jimmy grumbled but stood and walked away.
“Thank you,” I said to Elliott.
He nodded once, still looking down. “Jimmy means no harm. He’s just landed on hard times.”
“Haven’t we all at some point?” I lightly chuckled.
For a split second, he glanced my way, then he returned his stare back to his notes.
Then, he paused.
He sat up straighter.
Narrowed his hazel eyes.
Then, he closed the notebook.
When his head rose and his body rotated toward me, my heart started aggressively pounding against my ribcage, uncertain of what would happen next.
He stood up first and then I followed his suit, smoothing my hands over my leather jacket.
“Jasmine,” he said as he breathed out, his eyes filled with confusion.
“Elliott.”
“What are you…” he started, but his words trailed off.
A small twitch found his bottom lip, and he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black jeans. My eyes danced across his face, taking in every part of him, trying to note the things that had changed, trying to grasp the parts that remained the same.
Most things had changed.
His beard was trimmed short—I’d never seen him with facial hair, and I instantly loved it. His left arm bore several tattoos, and I tried to take in every single one.
He was so grown up now.
There weren’t many parts of him that were the same, but those eyes…
Those beautiful hazel eyes…
He picked up his whiskey glass and drank the final drop before putting it back down. “What are you…” He paused, shutting his eyes. “What are y-you doing here?” His small stutter made my heart twist.
“Looking for you.” I didn’t know what else to say, what else to feel. My eyes watered over, and the fire in my gut began to burn me from inside as the whole situation became overwhelming. Seeing him sent a wave of emotions through me. “I’m sorry, I know this is weird and stalkerish and not what you might want, and I know this is a lot to take in, but I wanted to see you because”—my hands started shaking, and I couldn’t find the words for what I needed to express—“because…” I twitched a little, growing nervous. “Well, because…because…” My eyes glassed over looking at the skinny boy who seemed so fragile. “Because…” My voice trembled, and Elliott narrowed his eyes my way.
“Jasmine?”
“Yes?”
“Breathe.”
“I-I am.”
“You’re not. Trust me, I know what it’s like not to breathe.”
And there he was—the boy I once knew.
My heart…
It skipped.
It cracked.
It broke.
It healed.
“I didn’t mean to just show up, but—”
“Jazz.” His voice was low, the nickname sending chills down my spine.
“Yes?”
“Let me kiss you?” He said it in the form of a question.
I nodded. “Yes.”
His mouth crashed against mine as he stepped closer, wrapping his arms around my body, pushing me up against the edge of the booth. He kissed me hard, kissed me deep, kissed me as if it were the last wish he held in his heart. His hands slid under my thighs and he lifted me up, placing me on top of the table, allowing me to wrap my legs around his waist—and just like that, I was back in his story. Yet, unlike our younger chapters where our fire flickered, these chapters burned.
His lips…
His touch…
His body…
His world…
Oh, how I longed to return to the world of Elliott, where everything made sense and I never questioned what love meant.
He tasted like whiskey and memories I’d almost forgotten.
I gently moaned into him as he made love to my lips. Our bodies pressed against one another, two people twisting into a fantasy of yesterdays.
He remembered his promise.
He remembered saying he’d kiss me once we met again.
He remembered his words.
But this kiss…
This kiss was even more. It was more than I’d thought I would receive and probably more than he’d known he would give. It was painful, ugly, sad, and somehow still beautiful.
Our kiss was the apology for all we’d missed.
He slowly pulled back, my hands resting against his chest, his hands still wrapped around me. His teeth slowly grazed against my bottom lip as he rested his forehead against mine. Our breaths were uneven, and I wondered if it was his heartbeats or mine that were so wild and free. He licked his lips slowly, and held me so tight.
TJ was wrong.
He was the same. He was the same gentle boy whose touches healed me. He was the same quiet boy who held me when I needed him the most. He was the same sweet light in a world filled with darkness.
I breathed him in and held him so close, feeling like if I let go, he’d vanish into thin air. “I’m so sorry, Elliott.” I cried into his shirt, pulling him closer to me as our lips touched. “I’m so sorry about Katie.”
He let me go.
He stepped backward, and when our eyes met, his stare was filled with confusion. Then each time he blinked, his eyes became duller…tougher…colder.
Hard.
“What?” he asked quietly.
“I… TJ told me what happened. I’m so sorry, I can’t believe she’s—”
“Shut up,” he barked out of nowhere. Every gentle part of him was now gone. My head started swirling, thinking I’d made it all up, as if our embrace, our kiss was simply a mirage in my tired mind.
“What?” I remained baffled, climbing off the table. “El—”
“No,” he ordered and didn’t say another word. He gathered his notebook, and walked away, disappearing up a staircase. My heart was racing in my chest, and confusion filled my head.
Elliott had welcomed me back into his life.
Then, in a flash, he’d vanished into thin air.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Elliott
Jazz.
My favorite kind of music.
My mind was drunk the second I made it up the staircase to my apartment. I needed to clear my head and return it to the state of numbness I preferred it to stay in. Set up in my living room was a punching bag I used every day. I put on my boxing gloves and slam my hands against the punching bag, over and over again until I felt nothing.
Working out was my method of escapism, and even though I tried my best not to think, Jasmine Greene still slipped into the cracks of my mind between every kick
, every punch, every set I completed.
She looked beautiful, but that wasn’t a surprise. I couldn’t get her eyes out of my head.
No. Stop, I told myself, punching the bag repeatedly.
There was no reason for me to think about her. She was a part of my past, and I didn’t live there anymore.
But that kiss…
Her lips…
Her taste…
Her touch…
“No,” I said aloud, hitting the bag repeatedly. When a knock sounded on my door, I swallowed hard. I took off the gloves and went to open it, half hoping I’d see Jasmine, half hoping I wouldn’t.
“What in the goddamn hell was that?!” Jason barked, charging into my apartment.
A sigh of relief washed through me upon seeing my best friend. I tossed my gloves back on and returned to hitting the punching bag.
“Hey, asshole! Speak up! What was that?” he demanded.
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, I don’t know—maybe I’m talking about the girl you just tongue-fucked down at the bar.”
“I didn’t tongue-fuck her,” I told him, building up a sweat.
“The hell you didn’t. You tongue-fucked her better than I actually screw my fiancée. Kelly would kill to be tongue-fucked like that!” he exclaimed, tossing his hands up in the air. “What just happened?”
“Nothing. It was just a girl I once knew.”
Jason jumped in front of the punching bag and cringed as my fist stopped inches away from his face. “I’m going to need you to stop your Avengers training and give me more details than that.”
“Remember when you were in Nebraska with your mom? And I told you I met a girl?”
“Yes, I fondly remember your hallucinations of the girl who didn’t exist.”
“Yeah, well, that was her.”
His jaw dropped. “Shut up.”
“What?”
“You can’t sit here and lie to me by telling me that was the type of girl you were pulling back in high school. No offense, buddy, but I remember you in high school, and you were just about the ugliest person I’d ever seen, besides myself,” he joked. “There’s no way in hell that girl was your girl.”
I shrugged. “She was.”
“Holy shit. She’s hot.”
I didn’t reply. I placed my hands on Jason’s shoulders, moved him to the side and went back to punching and kicking.
“Maybe she can be your plus-one to the wedding,” he joked, nudging me in the side.
“Nope.”
“Maybe she can be—”
“She’s nothing,” I cut him off. “I don’t even know her anymore.”
“That public tongue-fuck told a different story.”
“Yeah, well, I had an off moment.”
“Are you gonna see her again?”
I slammed my hand into the punching bag. “Nope.”
“Why not? Look, man, I know you got this whole ‘I hate the world and everything that exists’ emo phase going on, but…there was something there. There was—”
“Last time I saw her was right before K-Katie…” My voice trailed off, and I took a breath. “I won’t see her again.”
“Oh.” Jason frowned. “I see.” He shrugged his shoulders and gave me a pat on the back. “Well, at least you guys had one final good bang before calling it quits. What’s that like, anyway, huh? Having sex in public? I feel like I should bleach my bar tables.”
“Jason?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
“Okay.”
But of course, he kept talking, because Jason never knew how to shut up. “But you do need a date to the wedding.”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. You’re the best man. How would it look having the best man not have a date to my wedding?”
“Um, like he doesn’t have a date?”
“Come on, Elliott. I can set you—”
“God, no,” I told him. “No more setups.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Is this because of Susie and her extra toe? Because I’ll be honest, I didn’t know she had an extra toe when I set you up with her.”
I smirked. “Just not interested.”
“Well, fine. You can come to my wedding dateless as long as you come to my bachelor party.”
“Dude, like I said downstairs, I’m not coming to your bachelor party.” I’d already told him that a million times, but he kept asking each day hoping I’d give in. After high school, Jason had gone off to college to join a fraternity and had some of the best years of his life. He met his fiancée, Kelly, at one of their frat parties sophomore year, and they’d been together ever since. Jason was infatuated with her. It didn’t take long for him to propose after they graduated, and ever since then, all he talked about was the wedding. He was an extreme groomzilla.
It wasn’t shocking to me, though. That was how Jason was about everything. When he did something—he did it big. When he fell in love, he fell hard. When he planned a wedding, he planned it huge—which was exactly why I didn’t want to go to his bachelor party. It was going to be extreme.
“You know your friends c-can’t stand me anyway,” I told him. “I’m not a party guy.”
“Yes, but I am a party guy, and I’ll party enough for us both. I just want you sitting right there beside me, being your lame-ass self daydreaming about macros and protein shakes.”
I wished I could agree to his request, but I couldn’t. I knew his friends would want to go hang out on Frenchmen Street, and I hadn’t been back there since the incident with Katie.
I was almost certain I’d never go back there.
“I’ll be at your wedding,” I promised him. “Standing right by your side.”
Jason groaned. “Okay, but if you could not look so hot and tempting, that would be great. It’s my time to shine, beer belly and all, okay? I better get back to work.”
As he walked away, he said one last time, “That Jasmine girl’s beautiful, though, Elliott—like, out of this world.”
I didn’t reply, but I knew he was right.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jasmine
The next afternoon, I headed back to TJ’s corner. He was already there playing, and I sat down on the curb, taking it all in. When I closed my eyes, I could feel the hairs on my skin standing up. I felt his music in every inch of my being, and when he stopped playing, I just wanted him to continue.
“It was that bad, huh?” TJ asked, sitting beside me.
“Do I look that defeated?” I joked.
“Just a little. I’m sorry it didn’t go the way you wanted it to go.”
“It’s okay,” I told him. “Nothing lost but a try.”
“Did he give you anything at all? Any kind of…greeting? ‘How are you?’ ‘Where have you been?’ Anything?”
“He kissed me,” I told him. TJ’s eyes widened, surprised by my confession. “He kissed me, and I kissed him back, and we were great, and it was real, and it reminded me of why this city changed me in the best ways. And then, he stopped.”
“What? He just…stopped?” His brows lowered. “Out of nowhere?”
“Completely out of nowhere. We were good—great, really—and then I told him I was so sorry about what had happened to Katie, and—”
“Ah,” TJ cut in. “You brought up Katie, the kiss of death—or well, ironically, the death of the kiss. Any time Katie is brought up in a conversation, he shuts down.”
“How do I get him to open up again?”
He shook his head. “You don’t. Once you dip your toe into the pool of Katie apologies, you’re pretty much done for. Do you know the last time I saw him?”
“No.”
He frowned. “Me neither. Same with his mom. He answers when she calls, but she cannot recall the last time they saw one another, and he’s never the one to pick up the phone and ring her. It’s strange, really, how when Katie died, part of Elliott did, too.”
“He was there last nigh
t,” I swore. “I saw him. I saw him behind those hazel eyes.”
“It comes in sparks,” he told me. “And seeing you probably ignited the flame he’s spent so many years trying to extinguish, but the moment he felt anything, he had to put it out again.”
“That’s so strange.”
“And sad. My favorite memories include him. I taught music for all my life and teaching Elliott was the highlight. He just understood things I never said. Plus, my wife and I always wanted children but couldn’t have any of our own. Caring for those two kids was so fulfilling for us, and it broke my heart to lose them both.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s just odd, getting older. The older you get, the lonelier and longer the days seem. That’s why I like coming here to play. It gives me a bit of meaning.”
“What do you do when you’re not here playing?”
He smiled and stood back up. “I sit at home, waiting to play.”
That broke my heart, the idea of him just sitting and waiting for nightfall to come.
“Don’t frown, young lady. It’s really okay,” he said, trying to comfort me. “Life happens. Sometimes you just have to go with the waves.”
I believed that, too, but sometimes the currents just seemed too high.
I listened to him play for the rest of the evening, and when he finished, I stood up and thanked him for his music.
“Thank you for taking it in,” he told me, placing his saxophone into a case. “It’s nice to have someone to talk to during my breaks.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Tomorrow turned into every tomorrow. I watched autumn brush through the city, painting the trees with burnt leaves. Ever since meeting TJ, I’d been sitting on that corner with him, listening to him play. I’d started working at Eve’s, and I made sure to take my break around his music time. TJ was the highlight of my return to New Orleans. If it weren’t for meeting him, I wasn’t sure I would’ve been okay.
Plus, when he played, I swore I heard Elliott’s heartbeats in his notes.
“How am I so far?” TJ asked, taking a break from playing his saxophone and sitting on the curb beside me.
Behind the Bars Page 16
