Our Song

by Savannah Kade

  “She did design it. Let her back.”

  Craig smiled at her, and enfolded her in a fierce hug. “Kelsey, what the hell are you doing here?”

  By the time he finished the question, the rest of the guys had come out the door, and the security guys had ushered her in behind the curtains rather than let one of their wards out. “I came to hear you in concert!”

  She grinned, but it didn’t last long, before she was enfolded in another hug from behind.

  Chapter 29

  “Kelsey!” TJ whirled her around and grinned. “This is awesome. I can’t believe you came all this way.”

  She glowed. She knew it. Never had she expected the guys would be this excited to see her. She really had figured that she’d be something of a nuisance, but she so desperately wanted to see JD that she hadn’t cared.

  Alex hugged her, and girls in the crowd were starting to glare at her, JD just managed a wave, and a confused grin, before management pulled them all to the table to sign autographs. JD looked up, “Can you wait for us?”

  “Oh yeah.” But after a few minutes it was clear they weren’t going anywhere for a while, and she excused herself to run to the car for her purse. When she got back in she was freezing, and had to fight her way back to the edge of the curtain. One girl recognized her and offered her fifty bucks to introduce her to the guys as an old friend. Kelsey refused, then double refused, when the girl said she just had to meet that JD. Kelsey figured fire might have burned in her eyes for a moment, because the chick finally backed off.

  Kelsey slipped through the curtain, after Alex reminded them that she was with the band, which nearly made her laugh out loud. She loved that she was with the band.

  She pointed to the stacks and asked, “Can I have one?”

  Alex picked up the nearest one and said “Sure.”

  When the clerk glared at him, he glared back, “She took all the photos, including that one on your shirt, and we lived in her garage for months. Give her the damn album with a smile.”

  Kelsey blinked. So did the clerk, who uttered a soft “Okay.” Thanking him, Kelsey promptly tore off the cellophane and security stickers.

  She was still examining the contents when the guys were herded back through the doors and turned to take her with them.

  They walked like they knew the place, even though her itinerary said they were only here for today. They wound their way down a long dull cinderblock hall that went deeper underground and eventually opened into a large room. There were people milling about, mostly with headphones on, and saying things into the microphones while tapping buttons on walkies attached to their waists. Tables draped in white paper were loaded with food and as they went by each of the guys grabbed something and encouraged her to do the same. But she was too keyed up to be hungry.

  Eventually, they hit a series of dressing rooms. They all stopped, turning to her. “So you came all this way to see us?”

  “Yeah.” She smiled. “I hadn’t seen you all on a real stage before.”

  “Are you here for a while?” Alex leaned against the wall, waiting.

  “Just overnight, I have a room.”

  “We can go out.” TJ smiled. “I want food. Serious, sit down food.”

  Kelsey felt the smile get a little more stuck on her face. Somehow, on stage, they really had become a little larger than life. And she knew she was intruding on whatever they usually did, “I don’t want to get in the way.”

  But they didn’t let her finish. “No, this is great.” “You’re not in the way.”

  So she agreed.

  But then TJ turned to Alex. “Listen man, I didn’t want to say anything before the show, but Bridget called the bus and she was in a serious snit. You have to go work that out before you go anywhere. I am not fielding another one of those calls.”

  Kelsey started, it was the first she’d heard of any marital anything other than pure bliss. JD leaned over, “Bridget upset is someone you don’t want to be too close to.”

  Okay. Kelsey just accepted that with a little nod. Alex groaned as he went into his dressing room, muttering something about “It was good to see you.”

  Craig and TJ went back to get more food, and she was left in the hall with JD, who was looking at her like he still wasn’t quite sure she was there. Finally, he shook his head, “Come on.”

  He led her to the fourth door and walked inside. “I stink. I have to shower.”

  As proclamations went, it wasn’t quite what she’d been hoping for. But he closed the door behind her and grabbed her a bottle of water from an ice bucket on the mirrored counter and motioned for her to get comfortable in a chair, before he disappeared into the tiny bathroom carved out of a corner of the room.

  She heard the water start, and promptly stood up to survey the room. There were a few magazines lying around, but the room was fairly obviously for generic use. A bowl of candy and granola bars and fruit sat quietly to one side of the long counter. Aside from the cowboy hat and leather bag with clothes falling out of it, nothing in the room spoke of JD.

  Just then, the water turned off, and Kelsey resisted the urge to startle, like she was snooping or something. A minute later the bathroom door opened, and out walked JD, white towel tucked low around his hips, and his hands rubbing another one across his head. His broad chest and lean legs were on display for her whether that’s what he intended or not. Kelsey took a second to adjust her gaze from full-on stare. From under the towel, he looked up at her. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  She almost gulped. This was more of what she had hoped for, but it didn’t really tell her anything. “Yeah, me either. It was a bit of a whim.”

  “Where are the kids?”

  “With Bethany, at home.” She looked at her watch, “Probably still up watching TV.”

  He laughed then motioned her to get out of the room. “I’ve got to change.”

  She gave one brief thought to telling him she’d prefer to stay, but figured it wasn’t quite the time. So she headed out into the hall, and decided to entertain herself with the foldouts from the album, when Craig and TJ came back by. “Hey, Kelsey.”

  She looked up at Craig, still in his stage clothes and still wearing a look that said he’d worked hard up there. “Hey.”

  “Listen, we’ve got to shower, and there were these two girls before the show. We’re going to meet them out at the bar across the street, then we’ll call and catch up to you and JD.”

  “Sure.” She went back to reading as she tried not to lean against the rough cinderblock. They walked through another door just as the one behind her popped open. JD emerged, clean, combed and smelling wonderful. He wore jeans that molded to him and his leather bomber jacket over a black t-shirt. Her eyes took it all in, but she tried not to let it show.

  “I’ll just be one more second.” He smiled.

  Of course, while she was working up what to say, he was heading in and out doors. He opened the door across the hallway. She hadn’t been looking, at least she thought she hadn’t, but some girl greeted him at the door wearing nothing but black lace underwear and a matching bra. JD said something to the girl and closed the door behind them.

  Alone in the hallway, Kelsey’s heart sank.

  There it was—what she’d flown so far to find—the answer. Just not the one she’d wanted. She considered just walking back up the long ramp and heading home, but right then the door clicked open, and JD spoke again to the girl who was draping her arms around him even as he peeled them away, “Just sit tight a little while, you might get lucky.”

  He pulled the door shut and turned to face her, but Kelsey protested, her hands coming up between them as though she could ward off the squeezing in her heart just by holding him at a distance. “Don’t let me keep you from something.”

  He laughed, “You’re not. Trust me, she’ll keep.”

  “Okay.” She sighed the word, not able to fight it even as he took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. She should really r
eclaim those fingers, she thought. There was a definite war here, between the warmth of her hand in his and the coldness generated by seeing a half-naked woman waiting for him.

  “Let’s go get Craig and TJ.”

  “They said they would call and catch up to us.”

  He nodded, his fingers squeezing hers a little tighter. “Okay, then. I’m going to grab my things and throw them on the bus. We can call a cab.”

  “I have a rental car.” She said it even as he went back into the first dressing room and grabbed the cowboy hat, settling it low on his head, and slinging the bag over his shoulder. He never let go of her hand. If only there hadn’t been that girl in her underwear, there wouldn’t have been anything to temper her giddiness.

  “Is it okay if I just bring my bag and you drive?”

  She nodded. Kelsey would have considered making a bold play for him at the car or invited him to her hotel. Not that either was an option now, because she had promised herself that him being interested in her didn’t matter at all if he wasn’t interested exclusively in her.

  They approached a set of double doors, and Kelsey could feel the temperature drop several degrees.

  “Where’s your jacket?”

  She startled out of her thoughts. “Huh? Oh, in the car.”

  “Here.” He didn’t say anything else, didn’t ask if she wanted it, just shrugged out of the bomber and wrapped it around her. It engulfed her, both in size and warmth. The deep smell of him made it feel like she was wearing her boyfriend’s letter jacket.

  Kelsey scanned the parking lot trying to get oriented. The lot was crowded with far more cars than when she had arrived, and she wasn’t sure which way she was facing. After a minute she found a direction, and they slugged off through the dark mush.

  Once they were safely inside the car, she cranked the engine to let it warm and started to slip out of his jacket. He turned, “What are you doing?”

  “I’ve got my jacket in here.”

  He laughed, “Yeah, and it’s practically a block of ice.” He motioned to his jacket. “Keep it, the car will warm up.”

  “Thanks.” She slid it back up around her shoulders and asked where they were going. Just then his cell phone rang. She waited while he answered it, and started to feel the tension ease out of her when the heater finally started producing something warm.

  JD pocketed the phone. “That was Craig. They aren’t going to make it. Apparently there are a couple of willing females involved.” His eyebrows went up.

  Kelsey put the car in gear, figuring they’d at least get out of the parking lot. “So what do you want to eat?”

  “I don’t even know what’s open, but I like TJ’s original idea of a good sit-down meal. We’ve been eating crap this whole trip. We should have cooked more at Christmas.”

  She pulled into traffic, and they drove for twenty minutes, with JD looking at her phone GPS for clues. Four streets later they saw a diner and decided they were tired of looking. Still in his jacket, Kelsey followed him in, his fingers somehow once again laced through hers. They slid into a vinyl booth and ordered burgers and milkshakes from a woman who seemed happy as a clam to live in the cold Minnesota winter and wait tables late at night.

  Kelsey looked up to see JD eye her sideways. “I still can’t believe you came.”

  “Clearly I had to, you guys haven’t been in my garage for a while, and you’ve been working up some new stuff.” She thanked the waitress for her milkshake, and had a brief moment wondering why she’d ordered something so cold when the weather was like this. She felt like a teenager in a soda shop. “I really like that new love song you guys did. You wrote it, didn’t you?”

  “You can tell?”

  She shrugged, “It just sounded a lot more like your hand than Craig’s. It was definitely something a little different, and it had great . . .” She motioned her hand around, not sure what the words were to describe the way the lyrics had wound round on themselves. “And TJ sold it for all it was worth. Your brother has enough charm for ten men.”

  “We can’t all be perfect.”

  Kelsey was a bit shocked he’d taken it that way. “Are you serious? All that charm is wonderful on stage, but face to face you never know if he’s giving you a real answer.”

  “I don’t know that he is. That’s a good way of putting it.”

  Their burgers arrived and Kelsey bit in, her stomach rumbling and urging her to go for another bite.

  JD swallowed the huge bite he’d eaten. “I wish we could go sightseeing while we were here. But we’re always too busy to see any of the places we travel through.”

  “We can do some sightseeing from the car if you want.”

  He smiled a sad smile. “I’d love to but I have to be on the bus in another hour and a half. We pull out at eleven thirty sharp.”

  “Well, we’ll get a little in, and then I’ll drop you off, and head back to my hotel.” She dipped one hefty steak fry into a mound of ketchup she’d poured and enjoyed the smell before she ate it. The waitress came by as Kelsey had her mouth full, but JD ordered them both waters. Something else loosened in her chest just then. She’d been thirsty and about to order it herself.

  They ate for a few more minutes, then the waters arrived, and JD swallowed his like he’d been dry for a year. “Have you checked into your room yet?”

  She shook her head.

  “You should stay with us on the bus tonight.”

  Before she could respond, he started up again. “I’m wide awake, and it’s a total bummer that we have to leave from here so soon. We can drop your rental car off and catch a cab from the airport. You can trade your ticket for a flight out of Chicago.” Suddenly he stopped talking and just sat there, waiting for a reaction from her.

  It was all she could do to finish chewing her bite of burger. She needed a sip of water. As she opened her mouth, he spoke. “That’s okay, it was just a thought. It’d be fun to have you on the bus.”

  “It would be fun.”

  So he just watched her, waiting for her to make a decision. But there was no real decision to make. She hadn’t come all this way to toss and turn in some cold hotel bed. She’d save the price of the room—that was a bonus. “Sure, why not?”

  His grin lit up his whole face and made the world change color to something brighter, something deeper. Kelsey hid behind her burger so he wouldn’t see what she was thinking. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had been so happy to have her. Sucking in a breath, she forced herself to take a bite and act calm. But it was too difficult to do when you just realized that you were in love with the man across the vinyl booth from you. Never mind that it probably wasn’t returned. She had come for an adventure and she was going to get one, it seemed.

  She finished what she could of her burger in silence, and the waitress asked if they wanted dessert. Kelsey did, if for no other purpose than to have something to do, something to occupy her mind and keep her from being so obvious. But JD insisted they had to go if they were going to get the car to the airport and get back to the bus in time. Kelsey excused herself to the ladies’ room.

  She checked her face in the mirror and tried to see if she looked different. She was thirty-two years old and she’d never really been in love before. She hadn’t let herself. Andy had been the love of her life. She’d adored and hated her baby brother equally. Now, as she looked for changes, she wondered again if maybe he hadn’t set them both free.

  She gave her face a bit of a wash, as though the water might rinse away the color that threatened her cheeks. Then she wound her way back out to the table, where somehow JD had already paid the check and procured a big white paper bag.

  He stood and reached for her hand with his free one, the other holding up the bag. “I got us four slices of apple pie, and she insisted that we try it with cheddar cheese.”

  Kelsey’s tongue turned at the thought of cheddar cheese on the apple pie, but she was far more interested in the fact that JD had taken her hand every op
portunity he’d had tonight. She’d eat cheese on her pie with a smile on her face for more of this.

  JD pulled his jacket around her shoulders, again walking in the freezing air in only his shirtsleeves. But he didn’t seem to mind, even going around the car and opening her door for her.

  He popped open the GPS while she waited for the heater to kick in, then navigated their way back to the airport. They dropped the car in the rental return lot and pulled their bags out of the back seat. JD took hers from her, slinging it over his own shoulder. Kelsey wasn’t overly surprised; his mother was a pain in the ass but she’d raised two men who knew how to treat a lady. He didn’t even let her hail the cab, although she was only holding her purse and the white bag of pie slices.

  Tucking her into the backseat of the cab, he told the driver where they were headed, adding that he needed to stop at a convenience store. Kelsey eyed him, but he dragged her into the 7-11 with him, where he bought three cold cans of coke and a half gallon of vanilla ice cream. The cab sat outside, racking up the fare while they waited in line. JD paid for all of it, then paid the driver, too when he pulled up right beside the bus.

  He popped out of the back, letting the cold air in as he stood.

  Kelsey could see out the driver’s window that TJ had come down the bus steps, his arms wrapped around him against the night. “I see you made it back. We were starting to get worried about you. How was Kelsey?”

  Chapter 30

  “You can ask her yourself.” She saw JD grin at his brother, then reach a hand inside the cab and help her slide across the backseat. He pulled her out of the car and closed the door.

  “Kelsey!” TJ smiled at her, then at his brother, his expression changing, but Kelsey couldn’t decipher what it meant. He gave her a hug then led her up the bus steps. “Welcome to our humble abode.”

  She laughed.

  When JD climbed the steps behind her, the driver pulled the doors closed and stepped on the gas. The motion didn’t bother any of the guys, still TJ had to grab her arm to steady her. Craig and Alex came out and greeted her as well, but fairly quickly the others all disappeared into their rooms. Kelsey suspected that their speed may have been due to females waiting behind closed accordion doors. Wasn’t that why they hadn’t made it earlier?