“Really?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Why would you bring me here?” she asked.
“What?”
“I mean, you and the band broke up, right? So why bring me here? What if they’re here? What if people recognize you…”
I had to hand it to Willow. She knew how to cut deep. That was a hell of a question.
Before I could answer it, I felt a hand slap my shoulder.
“Fucking Travis.”
I turned my head and there stood Tommy.
“Holy shit,” I said. “Tommy.”
I stood and threw my arms around him like I hadn’t seen him in six months.
“Whoa,” Tommy said. “Since when do you hug people?”
“He’s a changed man,” Willow called out, so casual and cool, even though she had never met Tommy before.”
“Tommy, this is Willow,” I said. “She’s from back where I used to live. She decided to take the trip home with me.”
“Nice to meet you,” Willow said.
“Jesus, look at you, darling,” Tommy said. “If I was twenty years younger…”
“You know, age is just a number,” she said.
Oh, fuck no, Willow… you’re going to flirt with Tommy?
“You know, I own this place,” he said.
“So, let me ask you this,” she said. “Did Travis really play on that stage?”
“Yes, he did,” he said. “Best damn drummer I’ve ever seen.”
“Did you think I was lying to you?” I asked Willow.
“No. Just curious.”
“Hey,” Tommy said. “Grab your drinks. Let’s go for a quick walk.”
I put my hand to the small of Willow’s back and we followed Tommy from the bar to the floor. I had this sense that everyone was looking at me, remembering me as the drummer in After the Run. Nobody stopped me though. Which was good.
Tommy took us to the backstage area.
A very familiar spot for me.
I looked right at the spot where I destroyed Dez for running his mouth about Julie.
“That’s better,” Tommy said. “Quieter here.”
“No band tonight?” I asked.
“No. Had a few tryouts and they were shit. Another group got picked up on tour out of nowhere and bailed on two shows. And, uh, you guys…”
“What?” I asked.
“They haven’t found a new drummer yet,” Tommy said.
“Oh,” I said.
“They played a couple of acoustic shows though,” Tommy said. He rubbed his jaw. “Lots of questions about you though.”
“Yeah? Good. I like that. I’m mysterious.”
“This guy doesn’t get how important he is, does he?” Tommy asked Willow.
Willow slipped her hand into mine. “No, he doesn’t.”
I ripped my hand away from her and side stepped to put a little distance between us.
“Tommy, they fucked up,” I said. “Ronny did something shitty to me. And Dez…”
“Hey, I’m not playing peacekeeper anymore,” Tommy said. “I said what I said before you left. All I know is this… I see you in here, having a drink with a beautiful woman, and I figured I would say hello to you.”
“Okay,” I said. “We’ve done all that.”
“Good,” Tommy said. “Feel free to hang back here. I’ll send someone back if you want more drinks. Or go back out into the madness. It’s up to you.”
I stared down Tommy. In some weird way he was like a father figure to me. The washed up rockstar who stumbled into owning a bar. The guy who sponsored Ronny through his sobriety. The guy who tried to keep the band together and gave us shows whenever we needed and wanted them.
I really missed not seeing him. But I didn’t miss him ragging on my ass so quickly over the thing with Dez.
“Hope I didn’t piss you off too much,” Tommy said. He looked at Willow. “Nice meeting you too. Hope you can survive this one.”
“I hope he can survive me,” she said.
“Tommy, wait,” I said. “Is Ronny still doing good?”
“Yeah. Clean and sober.”
“And Dez?”
“Dez is Dez,” he said. “Cocky, arrogant guitarist who thinks his shit doesn’t stink, and the world revolves around him. Eerily similar to this one drummer I know.”
Tommy smirked and winked.
He walked away, and I stood there, left to rub my jaw, wondering what the hell my next move was.
That’s when Willow touched my hand again. “You okay?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “And to answer your question… to impress you.”
“Wait, what?” Willow asked.
I faced her and interlocked my fingers with hers. I was taking the control in the damn hand holding thing now.
“You asked me why I brought you here. You were right. The band. The stage. The setting. It all makes for a really bad idea to bring you here. But there was a good reason why. I wanted to impress you.”
“What?” Willow asked, laughing.
“You heard me, bunny. I wanted to impress you. Going back to that town just brought up some really bad things for me. But down here, I’m able to hide that shit and be something of a different person. Nobody questions me down here. You know?”
“Looks like Tommy was questioning you.”
“That’s the problem. I trusted someone, and things turned into this.”
“People caring?”
“I don’t want them to care, Willow. Care doesn’t fix anything. I wanted to bring you here to impress you. To show you that I’m okay here. This is where I belong.”
She swallowed hard. “And I don’t belong here…”
“You do,” I said. “That’s what is killing me more than anything. I want you here. I want you to belong here. I want you to be here with me.”
I put my drink down and touched her face.
I saw her lips quivering, and I already knew the words she was going to say.
So, I did the first thing that came to mind.
I kissed her.
Because I already knew that she wasn’t meant to stay here for much longer.
27
It’s An Ear Thing
WILLOW
I woke up and reached across the bed and touched Travis’s bare shoulder. Without opening my eyes, I ran my hand down his muscular arm and groaned with a satisfying sigh. It was another night in bed with him that brought another morning. My mind teased me by keeping track of all the mornings, days, and nights. My heart raced each time I thought about it, wondering how long I could keep this up before addressing the reality of… everything.
There were two mornings when I woke up and Travis was gone. In his place was a handwritten note letting me know he had gone for a morning surf. I shuffled around the apartment, sipping coffee, reading a book, truly relaxing, only to wait for him to walk through the door with his hair still wet from the ocean and the smell of sun and salt on his skin. All it took was one little smirk from me and the reminder that I hadn’t showered yet and we were both in the shower together.
I was pretty sure my echoing moans were forever stuck inside the walls of the apartment.
This morning, Travis was right next to me, sitting up a little, wide awake.
“Morning,” I said in a sleepy voice.
“Morning to you,” he said back to me.
“This is nice.”
“This is crazy nice,” Travis said. He reached across his body and moved a few strands of hair out of my face. “How’d you sleep?”
“Good. I’m surprised how well I sleep here. It’s such a different environment for me.”
“I don’t mind the noise,” he said. “It’s a subtle background reminder that other people are out there.”
“Here I thought you were a loner.”
“I am,” Travis said. “But it’s good to know you’re not alone. If that makes sense.”
“No. It doesn’t.” I smiled.
I crept
closer and kissed his arm. Right on the black and blue colored tattoo of a crow surrounded by a design of squares and other lines and writing. His ink was a work of art. The tattoos he had gotten back home were nothing compared to the stuff he had now. For some reason, I really didn’t think about it until then. All the changes between us. The years that just rolled by like nothing. For me, I felt like my body grew curves and his body grew muscle. He got tattoos and a scruffy chin while I got stretch marks and bags under my eyes. Yet he somehow made me feel beautiful about it all.
I gently hugged his arm for a second and took another deep breath.
“Hey,” he said. “I have something for you.”
“Yeah?”
Travis moved to his side and when he returned to me, he was holding his black notebook.
“I had a hard time sleeping last night,” he said.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“You were sleeping so peacefully, bunny. Didn’t want to disturb you. I liked watching you sleep. So, I wrote something down for you. Check it out.” Travis put the notebook next to me. He threw the covers off his body. He wore nothing but a black pair of pants. I made a mental note that besides being naked, that was my favorite look on him. “I’ll be on the balcony having a morning smoke.”
He left the room and I put my hand onto the notebook.
Funny how this notebook got me into some trouble last time, and now Travis was willingly giving it to me.
I opened it to the page that was marked with a pen.
You jump with a distance where inches are in miles. There’s not a wave that can touch you the way that I can. We can look at the same night sky. We can pretend we’re next to each other. You can tell yourself the cool breeze is my hand slipping into yours. I can tell myself that one star twinkling is the same look in your eyes. We can sit somewhere, anywhere, let time pull us along like a sled in the snow. But my heart feels like tires in the sand. Moving, trying, sinking. That single piece of sand can’t do a thing, but a million, billion… face it, you’re the entire fucking beach. You’re the sand castle I worked hours on to build, only to watch the tide punch it over like some kind of bully. You’re the work it takes to find the perfect seashell, dancing softly at the end of a wave. I drop to my knees and throw my hand into the water to get you. To save you. To lift you up and watch the diamond like reflection of the water fall away. The sun burning my back. But we know that a perfect seashell is usually just one half of something that once was.
You’re the wave that already took me down. Holding me under, leaving me to breathe in the water. I don’t fight it anymore. I can’t fight it anymore. Around you, the world makes sense. The pieces of time perfectly fit together like a new puzzle. When you’re not around, those pieces are wet, they mush together, never fitting tight, never making sense.
There are a thousand eyes forever watching me. My next move. The move before that one. Everything. The sound comes together to take them all away. It’s what makes sense to do. You can’t fight what you won’t feel, but you can forget. When you forget, you only lie to yourself, but we all know that some lies are worth telling. Even if it’s to yourself.
The horizon cracks open like the first egg for a morning breakfast. The colors peeling into the sky. I see you sitting on an old stool. It’s uneven. You pick on me for that. But I love you sitting there. I love the way you rock back and forth while sipping coffee. I crack a second egg, a third, a fourth, we share flirty glances. You bite your lip. I forget about breakfast because our hearts deserve sustenance first. I kiss your lips. I taste the morning, the coffee - the insane amount of sugar you insist on making it with. The morning swells around us and I know the day is going to be fucking wasted. But if I’m going to take time and ball it up and throw it against the wall. And laugh at it. And tempt it to come get me and slap me on the back of my head with a lick of something sad. Then I want that with you. Time can’t win when I’m with you.
But I know that last line is lie.
Because this is when the heart overtakes the mind. When the heart stands small and strong, waving its arms at the monster known as time. And time just steps on it like nothing. The way we walk across the beach with our hands locked tight. Claiming each other from another’s heart and eyes and desires that will never match the hidden words that bounce between us like a pinball.
The heart makes us. The heart breaks us. The heart ruins everything we know.
Sleepless hours give me one last thing to say….
That’s where the beautiful words ended.
I shut the notebook and jumped out of the bed. I wore nothing but a tank top and underwear. I looked like a wild mess as I raced toward the balcony door.
I paused for a second and saw a few things.
First, Travis was holding a mug of coffee.
Second, there was another mug of coffee on the table. For me.
Finally, his pack of smokes was on the table. And there wasn’t a cigarette in his hand or mouth.
I opened the door and took a deep breath of the air, almost wanting to smell the tang of his smoke.
But there was none.
I stepped out to the balcony. “One last thing to say?”
Travis nodded without turning around. “Yeah.”
“What is it? You didn’t write it.”
Travis turned and put his coffee down.
“I love you, Willow.”
There wasn’t even a second of hesitation from me.
“I love you,” I said to Travis.
I stared at him, figuring I had to be dreaming.
I hurried forward and jumped at him, wanting him to catch me. He did. We bumped into the railing and it shifted like it always did. It was still unnerving, that sensation of falling. It made me think of the bumps in the road that Travis drove over as fast as he could, so I would get that lose your stomach feeling.
I let out a yell as Travis put his arms tight around me.
“Is this real?” I whispered.
“Real as it gets for me, Willow,” he said. “I can’t hold it back anymore. No matter where this all goes, I just need you to know that.”
I put my hands to his face. “Travis, I’ve loved you for years. You have no idea what you meant to me before. You were my first love. My first heartache…”
“Heartache?” he asked.
“That next morning when you weren’t home,” I said. “I knew I’d screwed up. But I was so nervous to be near you. And then I heard you were sort of going out with someone else. Then I saw you with…”
Travis gently kissed me. “We just took a twisted path to this moment, bunny.”
I kissed him as hard as I could. I wanted the power over him for a few seconds. Even though I secretly started to think I had more power over him than I had thought.
“Watching you on the road with me,” Travis said as he put me back on my feet. “I couldn’t stop it from happening. Shit, even before that. Meeting Max. Your mother. Your sister. Seeing all of that. It just all built up and I…”
I reached for my coffee mug. I knew my cheeks were flushed and I didn’t care.
“I didn’t even have my morning smoke today, Willow,” Travis said. “I brought them out and dropped them there.” He nodded to the pack of cigarettes on the table. “It just doesn’t interest me right now. All I could do was wait for you to come out here with me.”
“Does that mean you quit?”
“No,” he said with a grin. “Just means right now I’m focused on something much better.”
I cupped the mug and sipped the coffee. It was made perfectly. Everything he said and wrote to me was true. Forget the words he spoke and the way he kissed me. He made me coffee the way I liked it. That was love. Right?
“I couldn’t let you slip away without knowing I love you,” Travis said. “I don’t know where we go from this moment, but I want to live here forever.”
“Me too,” I said. “I swear, Travis. I want to be in this moment with you forever.”
/> He closed in on me and stroked my cheek. “We know that can’t happen.”
I nodded. I shut my eyes. “I know.”
“I have to go and meet the guys,” he said.
“The guys?”
“The band,” he said.
“Oh?”
“I called Ronny late last night. I told him I was back in town and wanted to meet up. I have to settle that. I’m not going to run away from that shit. There’s a lot that needs to be said and figured out.”
“What really happened, Travis?”
“I told Ronny about Julie and he told the band. And Tommy. I felt like Ronny stabbed me in the back. And Dez gets mouthy when he’s drinking, so he said something, and I tried to break his jaw.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s heavy.”
“I tried to hide down here, Willow. I tried to keep all that shit away. I felt exposed to them. I felt vulnerable to pain because they knew my darkest secret.”
“It’s okay to be that way though.”
“I’m starting to understand that,” he said and stroked my cheek again. “Believe me, bunny, I am.”
“You’re doing this because of me, aren’t you?”
“Everything I’m doing right now is because of you,” he said. He kissed me. “Enjoy your coffee. I put a menu on the counter. Call and order food. They’ll know the address and I’ll take care of it.”
“Travis,” I said. “I really love you. You’re the reason why I… I never really had anything serious. And you kept saying stuff about Sam.”
Travis laughed. “Sam’s a dork.”
“But he’s a good person.”
“The only true friend I ever had,” Travis said.
“I care about him a lot. But nothing ever came close to the way I feel about you.”
Travis took my hand and kissed each one of my fingers. “I know. Nothing has ever felt so real in my life. Let’s just stay here for right now before we talk about the obvious shit waiting.”
“Deal,” I whispered.
I swallowed hard, smiling, feeling the stinging pain in my heart knowing that this place wasn’t my home. But staring at Travis made me feel like home.
What You Don't Know (True Hearts Book 6) Page 25
