by Julia Kent
“Your note was pathetic!”
That hurt, too, because I spent a long time making sure I said all the right things in that long note.
“You can’t—” sob “—just leave me in the middle—” sob “—of this road trip and not let me get you to the finish line!”
I hadn’t thought of it that way.
“Good point,” I muttered.
“GOOD POINT? That’s all you have to say?”
I shrugged.
“You didn’t run away to spare me,” she said through angry, gritted teeth.
I just gave her a hard look. I didn’t need to say anything because I knew she would continue.
“You left because you needed to spare yourself.”
“Spare myself what?”
“The pain of finally being vulnerable. You finally told someone what happened to you. You talked about it. You— ” She hit my chest, right over my heart, and let out a giant, wailing sob. “You ran away because you don’t know how to talk about it. And you knew that once you crack that closed door open just a wedge, it means you have to open it even more.”
A hawk flew overhead, its cry piercing the silence between us. Cars whooshed by going seventy miles an hour on the freeway just yards away. I stared at those brown, furious eyes, her chest pumping with confrontation, her face sweaty and hair wild.
She threw a handful of dried grass at me. “So don’t you dare make your running away about me. About sparing me. You opened up and then you shut down. And then you took off.”
Holy shit. She was right. I couldn’t admit she was right, but she was.
“I didn’t take off. I said in the note— ”
“That note is nothing but some kind of backpedaling after you slept with me. You could handle me being vulnerable, but God forbid you let someone else inside your inner world!”
“That’s a bunch of bullshit,” I muttered, but without conviction.
“No, it isn’t!”
“Yes, it is.”
“ARGH! You are the most infuriating man I know!”
“Sorry. What time is it?”
“What time is it?”
“Yeah. I’m running late, and—”
Bzzzz.
Her phone rang. It was on the ground between us, on a patch of messy gravel, bits of sand stuck to the glass screen, which was now cracked along the bottom righthand corner.
“FUCK! My phone is broken!” Maggie dived for it and answered.
“Let me guess. Darla?” I asked.
Maggie gave me a look that could cut ice. She put it on speakerphone.
“You find him?”
“I’m here,” I said.
“FROWN! GET YOUR ASS TO THE CONCERT!”
“I’m trying, but Maggie’s tackling me by the side of the road and holding me back.”
“Seriously, Maggie—you two need to get here now!”
“That is not what’s happening!” Maggie protested.
“Yes, it is,” I corrected her.
“I actually went out and got myself a chicken, Maggie,” Darla exclaimed. “I have a fucking chicken in a little cat carrier sitting in the prep room, and if you don’t get Tyler here I’m gonna have to go on stage and do Stupid Chicken Tricks with Mavis.”
“You have a routine for that?” I asked, half impressed.
“Shut up, Frown. I don’t, but I will develop one if you don’t get your ass here now, and the first trick I’ll perform is shoving Mavis up your ass,” Darla snapped.
“Ouch.”
“I said that would be the first trick, Frown. Not the last. Be prepared for a world of hurt if you don’t get here on time.”
Click.
Maggie
“Get in the fucking car,” I ground out, my jaw locked, nostrils flaring so wide they felt like twin garden hoses.
“Only if you promise not to hit me.”
“Is that really going to stop you?”
He shut up and followed, climbing into the front seat.
I looked at the clock. 5:27 p.m.
I looked at my GPS app on the cracked screen of my phone.
1:57 to destination.
“Do you have any idea how close this is going to be?” I said as I sped off, not waiting for him to put on his seat belt.
“Yeah.”
“Is it worth it?”
We both knew I wasn’t asking about the concert.
“Hell, yes,” he replied without hesitation.
“Then hang on.” I pushed the car to eighty-five until traffic thickened. An hour later, we had nothing but sixty minutes of thick silence between us and a forty-mile-per-hour pace as we reached Rancho Cucamonga.
“Are we talking about last night?” I finally asked. An hour of silence had made me a sweaty, twisted mess.
“Why do we need to talk about it?”
I didn’t have an answer to that. Shit. Why was he so closed off? The guy was a piece of emotional granite.
But you can make a fine sculpture out of a piece of granite if you have the right tools and skills.
“Because you’re the first person I’ve willingly made love with since I was gang raped?” I could hear the hysteria climbing out of my throat like a morning glory growing on a vine, searching for sunlight. If the sun came in too fast, it might choke me.
“That’s all you need to say.”
“I have a lot of other words on the topic, Tyler.”
“I’ll bet none of them are as important as how you feel right now. Not what you think. How you feel, Maggie.”
“Don’t get philosophical on me. You’re the one who left me.”
“I didn’t leave you!” he shouted, exploding in the passenger’s seat.
“When I wake up after making love and you’re gone, that’s leaving, Tyler! You left!” I exploded right back.
“I was trying to spare you!”
“Spare me what?”
“More of my fucked up life, Maggie. Jesus. I dragged you into this mess and all you did was give, give, give. A guy can’t take it after a while, okay? You just keep giving and I keep taking and even I have a point where I feel like a piece of shit for not having anything I can give back.”
I stared at him in stunned silence.
Before I could say anything, he continued:
“I can’t even drive the fucking car. I can’t take care of my little brother so he doesn’t become a junkie. I can’t get a regular gig as a musician. I can’t make anything in my fucked up life work right. I’m in a car with you racing to the finish line of some marathon that turned into a sprint, and I have lost the reason. Why are we doing this? When I woke up this morning and saw you next to me, in my arms, you were so fucking beautiful. So pure.”
“Pure?” I snorted, overcome with a numb emotion that made my body feel like cotton and electricity. “I’m anything but pure.”
“No, you’re everything pure, Maggie. Everything. You’re goodness in the flesh and I don’t deserve you. You don’t deserve to be dragged out here on this mission from hell that only happened because I come from a life where everything that’s wrong with the universe comes crashing down, right on my head. Trouble follows me.”
“I followed you.”
“Yes, you did. And you shouldn’t have.”
“You’d have done the same thing in my shoes, Tyler. The exact same fucking thing, and you know it.”
Traffic opened up and I pushed it to fifty-five miles per hour. Forty-eight minutes to arrival.
He ran a hand through his hair and looked at me with eyes so crystal clear, so open and aware that my heart stopped in my chest.
“Yeah. I would have. I would follow you anywhere, Maggie, which is why I needed you to go home.”
“That makes no sense!”
“Love doesn’t have to make sense.”
I gasped, then held my breath. Love. He’d said it.
Love.
“Rerouting. Click Accept to change routes and save eight minutes,” the GPS announced. Tyler gra
bbed my phone and tapped the screen.
“Thirty-nine minutes,” he said. “That puts us there at 7:21 p.m.”
“Talk about tight,” I said, trying to make my heart beat enough to stop the dizzy feeling inside me. I ran hot and cold, my ears ringing. Who was I? Who had I become? And what was this between us?
I sped up, changing lanes, and spent the next five quiet minutes going out of my mind.
Tyler stared ahead, as if he hadn’t just plunked an emotional hurricane inside my gut.
“You said love,” I whispered.
His jaw locked. He said nothing, just stared at the GPS.
Three minutes went by. Nothing.
“You can’t leave that hanging,” I hissed.
Apparently, he thought he could, because he...said nothing. For ten agonizing minutes.
“Tyler!”
“What?”
“Say something!”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to say whatever you want to say!”
“I don’t want to say anything.”
“What? No. You can’t just drop a bomb like that and then go quiet.”
“Yes, I can.”
“No, you—Jesus fucking Christ, Tyler, I don’t know whether to hit you or kiss you.”
“I’m pretty sure if anyone can find a way to do both at the same time, Maggie, it’s you.”
A sign for the concert hall caught my eye.
And it was a good thing, because if he didn’t get out of this car soon, I really was going to kill him.
While kissing him.
Chapter Fourteen
Tyler
I grabbed Maggie’s phone and called Darla. “We’re close,” I said.
“How close?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Then get in here!” She gave me directions for how to get past the crowds and told me where Maggie could park. A chicken squawked in the background. I didn’t ask.
I had enough words in my head and in the car with Maggie nattering on about everything but the one word I’d said:
Love.
I didn’t mean to say it. I really didn’t. But sometimes the words come when you least expect it and it was true. Whatever this was, it had love in it. What that meant was still a mystery. I wanted to say whatever Maggie needed me to say. I really did. But I wasn’t going to say the wrong words just because she needed to hear some words.
I wasn’t going to lie.
That didn’t mean I knew what the truth was, though.
“Seven nineteen. Fuck!” Maggie shouted. “And one point three miles to go.”
I reached for the door handle. “I can run for it.”
“Carrying a guitar? No way. We’re two exits away.” She pulled into the right lane with an aching slowness, then got into the breakdown lane and floored it.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting you there!”
“A cop’ll get you.”
“If a cop gets me, I’ll have you close enough you can make a run for it to the concert.”
“Make a run for it? That’s the fastest way to get shot in the back.”
“No. Arguing with me is.”
“That’s the fastest way to get kicked in the balls.”
“Are you going to argue or let me get you there?”
I shut up.
“Point nine miles,” the GPS announced as the car moved forward at seven miles per hour. I made my decision. The clock read 7:21 p.m. I opened the door.
“What are you doing?”
“I can run there in under ten minutes at this point. Meet me backstage.” I leaned over and gave her a fast kiss. “I mean it. If you followed me this far, follow me all the way.”
I took off at a dead run, and this time I was certain that she would be right behind me.
My sore legs stopped hurting. They felt like ribbons of light, flowing between cars and on the sidewalk, dodging the pedestrians and wending my way through the thickening crowds. Only stop lights made me halt, and after what felt like an eternity I was there.
Darla’s anxious face popped up behind the security guard working one of the back doors.
“TYLER!” she screamed. “You little shit, you made it. You actually made it!” The guy flinched but moved, and in seconds I was inside.
Inside.
I did it.
We did it.
I was there, with thirty-one minutes to spare before showtime. A loud sound, like rushing water, filled my head.
“What’s that sound?” I asked.
One corner of Darla’s mouth went up in a smile. “That’s the crowd. Where’s your bass?”
I held up Lena’s guitar. “You’re looking at it.”
“Fuck. I forgot,” she muttered, turning away and grabbing a techie. They spent a couple of minutes huddled together, murmuring. A few more fast words between them and then she turned back to me. “They’ll get one for you.”
“Where are Trevor, Liam and Sam?” I asked. My body flushed cold and suddenly I needed a beer and a bathroom. Not in that order.
“Where’s Maggie?”
“Parking,” I barked. “Where the fuck are the guys?”
Darla’s eyebrows went up, her eyes looked down, and she scrunched her face in a weird expression. “About that...”
“What about that?”
“They’re not here.”
“WHAT?”
She grabbed my upper arm and pulled me gently against the wall, bending her head toward mine. “They’re on their way. ETA is fifty minutes or so.”
I looked at a wall clock. Seven thirty-five.
“Darla, that’s—”
“Got a couple songs you can play on your own to stall?”
I stared at her. “I know you didn’t just say that,” I finally growled.
“Yes, I did.”
“Because you would have to be one crazy fucker to expect a bass player to carry a song on stage in front of nearly twenty thousand people.” Twenty thousand. I was going to throw up.
“Tyler, if you know anything about me, you must know I am a crazy fucker and I have no problem with being called crazy. Cuckoo. Nutso. Insane in the membrane.”
“Oh, God. You’re serious.”
“I don’t joke about performances. Or my sanity.”
“You are nuts!” I screamed. Blood pounded through me like someone on a roof hammering shingles. “I can’t carry an audience like this with an electric bass! I might as well get on stage and just beat off!”
“You think the crowd would go for that? ‘Cause if you can stretch it out for fifteen minutes we might get through to—”
“I AM NOT GOING TO JACK OFF ON STAGE JUST TO BUY YOU TIME!”
“I’d pay to see that,” said a very familiar voice from behind me.
Maggie.
Darla’s phone buzzed. She read the text. “Forty-nine minutes until they get here as long as traffic isn’t too bad.” She pressed her finger against one ear, listened to something in her earbud, then looked at me.
“Fifteen minutes to showtime. Get out there and grab the bass they have.”
Maggie looked at me. “You ready?”
“The rest of the band isn’t fucking here!”
Her face fell and she turned to Darla. “What?”
Darla threw her hands in the air. “Nothing I can do! I flew out a day ahead of time and the guys were on the plane yesterday. Some mechanical problem, then they got bumped, and I am not going to vomit up the story right now when there are twenty thousand people out there starting to chant for whatever they’re chanting for. We’re nobody. Random Acts of Crazy is barely known out here, but they want More Than Nothing like you wouldn’t fucking believe. We’re just filler for the crowd.”
“We’re not even that!” I shouted. “Because there’s no ‘we’. There’s just me.”
“Then get your ass out there and think about something you can do to stall. I can buy you until 8:10 p.m., and even that will piss
off the folks here. More than that and it’s a no go.”
“I can’t play the bass line to the band’s songs!” I called out as Darla walked down the hall, her fingers pressed to her ear. “I’ll get booed off stage! They’ll crucify me! I never signed up for this shit!” My body began to shake and I suddenly needed to pee.
Bad.
Pissing my own pants wasn’t going to improve my day, so I shoved my way down the hall until I found a men’s room and slid in, taking care of business. My hands were shaking so badly I turned my cock into a lawn sprinkler. It was all I could do to keep my jeans from getting sprayed with little drops.
A quick wash of hands and a careful drying so my fingers could play properly and I was back in the manic rush that always comes before a concert. Ten times worse here, though. So many people.
So many fucking people.
“We did it!” Maggie shouted from behind me. I turned to find her grinning and bouncing on the balls of her feet. She jiggled nicely. Any other time I’d have admired the view, but my stomach was knotted like an Eagle Scout project and I could feel sweat soaking my t-shirt.
And my gut felt like the gummy bears had invaded it again.
“Tyler?” she said, grabbing my elbows. “You’re white as a sheet.”
“Eight minutes!” someone called out as Maggie led me to the stage, her face wrinkled with concern.
“Where’s Liam? How long?” I called out to a bushy head of blonde hair ahead of me.
Darla turned around and grimaced.
“Fuck.”
“Thirty-eight minutes, they say.”
Not gonna puke. Not gonna puke. Not gonna puke.
“You look like you’re about to toss your cookies,” Darla said under her breath.
Someone’s hands were all over me, attaching microphones. A bass was shoved in my hands. My fingers immediately took to the strings. It felt like a giant, cool hand on a fevered brow. This I knew. The chords, the notes, the songs were all embedded in my hands’ muscles.
This I could do.
I peeked around the curtains and walls to see the crowd.
Oh, fuck.
That I could not do.
“How long before we see Trevor, Liam and Sam?” Maggie asked in a high, scared voice.
Darla and I turned to her.
“They’re not going to make it in time,” Darla said grimly.
“WHAT?”
