by Stahl, Shey
“You want me to get up there with you?” he asked running his hands up my thighs and pulling me to the edge of the hood.
I nodded but he didn’t comply.
“You’re drunk.” His arm gave way and he settled his weight on me, all of it, every hard line. I felt the cool metal against my back and my bare legs, and ass. I wondered where my shorts had disappeared to but that was the last of my worries. Dylan was on top of me, on his hood, just like my fantasy.
Then he pulled away again. Sitting up on his knees, he gave me a smile. “Let me inform you of something,” he said in a low strained voice. “I can’t when you’re drunk. I won’t. You need to remember it.”
Feeling the spins, I flopped one leg over the side of the car staring up at the starry night. Dylan laid beside me, his hands rested on his chest staring at the same sky.
The parking lot was empty now, or maybe I just didn’t notice anyone else but what I saw, or thought I saw, was a clear night and lights sparkling above me, hopeful wishing stars that told me I could have anything I ever wanted.
“Tell me a secret Dylan, something you’ve never told anyone else,” I said keeping my eyes on the stars.
He didn’t say anything, his breathing light, body relaxed.
Sighing, his breath tickled my skin when he whispered in my ear, “I love you.”
9. You don’t know anything – Bailey Gray
“Tell me a secret Dylan, something you’ve never told anyone else.” I said keeping my eyes on the stars.
He didn’t say anything, he breathing light, body relaxed. Sighing, his breath tickled my skin when he whispered in my ear, “I love you.”
Was I dreaming last night or did that happen? My head told me I wasn’t dreaming about last night. My stomach wished I was dreaming and my body confirmed I most definitely was not dreaming.
Dylan groaned and pulled out his standard move of pulling the blanket over his head, his arms thrown over his head.
“My mouth tastes like bad decisions,” I said peering over at Dylan.
Removing the blanket from his face, his eyebrow arched, the corner of his mouth twisted slightly into a half smile. “You look like you made a few bad decisions last night.”
“Nice,” I groaned knowing I had.
I couldn’t however get those words I love you out of my head.
I looked at Dylan again; he’d returned the blanket over his head so I ripped it off. “Do you remember anything last night?”
Jerking the blanket from my hands, he glared, bloodshot eyes drooping shut as he pulled the blanket back over his head. “I remember you throwing up on me and all over my car.”
Okay, so maybe that was good. Part of me, the part that was sobering up, regretted drinking all those drinks last night and the other part was depressed that he didn’t remember.
My headache told me to stop thinking all together.
So I did and fell back asleep.
It was around three in the afternoon when Dylan’s cell phone started ringing. The sounds woke us both up. Dylan rolled, landed on the floor, and then answered it, his voice strained from singing last night.
“Yeah, what time?” Dylan said rolling onto his back. I peeked my head over the side, smiling as I peered down at his star tattoos on his stomach, knowing where they led to, an area I was dying to get to know again. Above the stars, was another tattoo under his belly button that started on his right hipbone, spread across his hips to the left side, and read: Ride Hard – Give it Hard.
I laughed. So far, it was my favorite one that he had.
Dylan knew by my smirk what I was thinking, squinted and covered himself with a pillow, but smiled, as he curled into a ball on the floor holding his phone to his ear. “I’ll be there around eight.”
Without another word, he let the phone fall to the floor.
When he didn’t say anything for a few minutes, I tossed a pillow at him. “Where are we going tonight?”
With a huff, he rolled onto his back pushing the pillows aside. “To meet Eddy and the Brickyard again. It’s thirsty Thursday, apparently.”
“Oh no,” I groaned shaking my head. “Not participating in Thirsty Thursday. Wasted Wednesday was enough for me.”
Dylan laughed, the sound comforting but annoying given my headache. “Just be thankful it’s not Mystery Monday or Tanked Tuesday.” His hand raked through his hair and down the front of his face. “I always hated both.”
“Oh yeah,” I teased trying to find some sort of resemblance to myself. I smelled horrible and I’m sure I looked even worse. “You got a lot of experience in Mystery Mondays?”
“More than you know…” he said walking to the bathroom. “My friends back home were good at luring me to the dark side of alcoholism and liver failure.”
After a shower and three cups of coffee, I felt among the living again but still looked like hell shit on me.
As we got ready to go, I threw on another band shirt I had collected last night, somehow, and my jean shorts. It was apparent I needed to do laundry at some point, as the ones I was wearing were my last clean pair.
Watching us was entertaining, at how we were so comfortable around one another and here we were, getting dressed around each other and talking like we weren’t both half-naked. Next thing we knew we’d be peeing with the door open.
“Have you always been able to sing like that?” I asked him as he was slipping a black t-shirt over his shoulders and buttoned his khaki shorts.
He shrugged, always shrugging. “I guess.”
“Was that the first time you’ve sang in public?”
“No, I did a handful of times in Seattle too.”
“Oh.” Reaching for my bag on the bed, I tossed a bottle of water in it from the fridge and the pack of gum I had on the nightstand along with my wallet. “Eddy said only him and your mom had heard you sing before.”
Dylan laughed opening the door; his head tipped motioning for me to go outside when he grabbed the card key from the table next to the door. “Eddy’s brain is fucking fried. Don’t believe anything he tells you.”
“So you didn’t cry for eight months straight when you were a baby?”
His eyebrows arched as he checked the door making sure it was locked by slamming his hip into it. “I did cry a lot as a baby. At least that’s what they tell me.” He smiled, throwing his arm over my shoulder; his other held the handle to his guitar. “Apparently I came out crying and didn’t stop until I started to crawl.”
“I bet you were adorable despite the noise.” I gushed sinking into his arm.
In a sweet gesture, his lips brushed my temple. “I’m still pretty adorable.”
Against my objections, we went back to that bar but I swore off any alcohol.
That night the crowd was rowdy and ready for more of Eddy’s band but Dylan was who most of them kept requesting. “Bring up the kid!” they would shout each time they finished a song.
I meant up with Lanny again, she was sweet, and I also met Eddy’s girlfriend Cheryl, who helped me stay away from thirsty Thursdays drink specials. Apparently, I threw up on her too.
“Was there anyone I didn’t throw up on last night?”
“Me, you didn’t throw up on me.” A guy standing next to Lanny said, leaning against the stage, he smiled at me and winked.
Dylan shook his head in amusement throwing his arm around my shoulder. He kissed my temple and then my ear, softly, my eyes closed briefly.
Lanny pushed against the guy, he stumbled right into me.
“That’s ‘because you were on the drums all night,” Lanny said to him. “Those of us next to her weren’t so lucky.”
I was mortified that I’d thrown up on so many people.
Standing around talking between sets, Eddy tried to convince Dylan to go back on stage. He didn’t say yes but he also didn’t say no. I had a feeling he enjoyed the rush; I remember seeing it in his eyes last night. He loved being up there.
With a shy glance, Dylan gave a dismi
ssive shrug to Eddy’s questions.
“So Bailey, you into drummers?” Reece smiled giving his sticks a suggestive rub moving his hips in a rotated motion. “Drummers hit hard and have sick rhythm.”
Reece was cute, really cute. He reminded me of a boy, a very flirty boy with a soft face, dusty blonde hair that outlined his chocolate eyes. He was the type of guy that you knew never took anything serious, aside from music and even then I questioned his attention to it.
Dylan shook his head with a deep chuckle that shook his chest. “Bailey, meet Reece Kinney, the best drummer in the mid-west.”
“Uh,” Reece smacked the back of Dylan’s head with the stick in his hand, “best in the world.”
“Fine.” Dylan rolled his eyes stepping to the side of Eddy toward the stage. His hand brushed my ass as he did so. “Best in the world.” Dylan flicked the back of his head with his index finger. “Hands off.”
Reece smiled and stepped toward me when Dylan walked to the stage near the speakers, but then he stopped and faced Reece again. “Don’t even think about it Reece,” Dylan warned. “She’s coming home with me.”
Making his way on stage whistles and shouts broke out in the crowd but Dylan didn’t look up, his guitar in hand. Reece was up there now, as was Eddy, standing behind Dylan as he took a seat on a wooden stool propping the guitar on his knees, never looking up, he placed the guitar in his mouth talking over it. “Thank you everyone,” Dylan said into the microphone, still not looking up, removing his guitar pick from his mouth, he gave a soft smile. “This song is one of mine, hope you like it.”
A slow drum kicked and then Dylan began to play his guitar, eyes down, closed, feeling the beat as his left foot tapped against the stool.
As the opening notes drifted, he leaned into the microphone and started singing. Immediately, I was drawn in, held in place, listening to something Dylan created.
When the song reached a crescendo and he leaned his head back, singing with passion, he let out a moan I felt deep in my chest,
When Dylan sang, he was alive and raw, in the middle of his own storm.
The left side of his body was shadowed, the right side lit up and real, vulnerable to those who found the need to judge him. Under the light, his eyes had never been so blue, his voice, never so bare, his words, never so honest.
Hide you from the fear
You find deep inside
His head bowed to his guitar, a trail of cords broke the silence, his right hand thumbed against the guitar as his voice carried through the bar to the very edges, bleeding hearts, pensive silence spoke for those of that were watching.
You know you can’t comply
To the desires you can’t deny
Do you see it?
Do you hear it?
Can you feel it?
So deep inside of you, do you fear it?
He was pouring out words with need and words that spoke truth, the bare fucking truth for everyone to see, to feel, to judge. His walls were down, demanding, needing answers.
And then, the vulnerability was gone just as easily as it came, the storm moved through, destruction in its wake.
His eyes found mine again but now, here, right now, they told a different story from the one I knew. One that split my chest and bared my own soul for him to see the hope, adoration, happiness, trust, belonging, softness, love, forgiving. I knew his secret, in turn, he felt mine.
Sometimes I feel like we’re pulling a rope but neither one of us are pulling the rope at the same time.
Sometimes I think that loving someone is doing what’s right. Loving like there’s nothing else. Feeling and believing there’s nothing else.
Looking at Dylan now was too hard. It was all there, in every word being spoken. It’s the guilt behind his eyes and the purple below them. It explained the way he won’t give into me and the way he’s not running from anything. It’s in the way he holds his smile at bay when he’s teasing. It’s in his tattoos that he claims hold no meaning. It’s in how he always knows what to say to me even when he doesn’t say anything. It’s in the way he touches me at night when he thinks that I’m sleeping. It’s in the secrets he tells me. It’s in the life he threw away for me. It’s in his uncertain future. It’s in the way his heart is beating for me.
Lanny stood beside me, her arms wrapped around my shoulder, holding me close with the way the crowd swarmed around the stage. “He’s singing for you.” She whispered watching, knowing.
I nodded when Dylan’s voice broke, his head hung in silence.
Do you see it?
Do you hear it?
Can you feel it?
“You into him?” Lanny asked in my ear attempting to keep the conversation private. “He’s into you.”
A smile appeared though I tried for it not to. I never expected this. When I got in that car, it wasn’t a thought out decision. The decision to want something more from my life was but Dylan, what was happening now, that wasn’t planned. To me that was the best part of it though, the unexpected, the dark gray morning when the sun suddenly crept through the cracks in the window, broken and disheveled, revealing sparkling honeyed rays that weren’t there before. Just like that sunset that highlighted hills you never saw the beauty in, I saw beauty in this.
Watching him, comforted me and made me feel whole, but it also made it hard to breathe, ready to fall to my knees, and swear my heart to him.
Leaning into Lanny, I whispered, my eyes on Dylan when he threw his head back again belting out another moan, his eyes squeezed shut. “I’m not sure how much more I could be into him without crawling inside him.”
When the song finished, you could barely see Dylan anymore and it took nearly forty minutes before I was able to see him again. When I did, we sat in a booth with Reece and Eddy. We weren’t there very long, the guys throwing insults and rowdy shoves Dylan’s way when a man walked up to the booth, beer in hand.
“Hey, I’m Sam Young.” Dylan gave him a nod but didn’t shake his hand. Sam took this as his opportunity to approach Dylan.
Sliding across the booth next to Dylan on the other side of me, he grabbed him by the back of his neck. “You ready for the big time kid?”
“No,” Dylan said immediately turning his head to take a drink of the beer in his hand. “I don’t play to make a living, it’s just a hobby.”
Knowing Dylan wasn’t in the mood, Eddy managed to distract this Sam guy and Dylan thankfully turned his attention to me, where I wanted it.
With his left hand resting on my thigh, I pushed it higher in the junction between my thighs knowing with the dark lighting in the alley, no one would know. Suddenly his eyes darted to mine and I was caught in his gaze for a short second, tethered by that crazy electricity between us. It moved through me even as I looked away which was immediately.
There’s something about watching someone sing, pour there heart into something that’s a huge turn on. I now fully understood groupies.
It must have been written all over my face that I wanted him. Dylan flashed a smile at me fully aware of his charm.
Did he feel what I was feeling right then? That gut deep butterfly, that all-consuming thirst for more.
There was a good part of me that thought he might. It was a quieter part that was taken over when he threw a smile my way and every lingering glance my way over the years, and now, since we’d left home a week ago. It was the same part that saw the way his smile dimmed, just a little, when he would see me with Eric in the halls. It was also the same part that noticed his reaction when that red hat guy danced with me.
He felt it. After all, he said it too.
Eddy supplied the beer and other drinks and once again, that bad decision I tasted in my mouth earlier returned and I gave into the delicious strawberry drinks.
That’s when Lanny, my bad decision partner, went over my bucket list I hadn’t thought about. Dylan and I explained to her and Reece how we came up with the summer bucket list and she decided to help me knock one off toni
ght.
Pole dancing.
Lanny wasn’t a good influence for me. Confident wise she was but I got too comfortable around her and found myself doing things like pole dancing.
Dylan was all for it and watched carefully as I did a pole dance with street lamp.
I was so nervous that my palms were sweating and I kept slipping from the metal and my laughing and shaking did nothing either.
Dylan said nothing, slouched to one side as he sat backwards in a chair, beer hanging in front of him, watching, contemplating, hooded lust filled eyes that spoke for him.
Keeping my eyes on him was my only option.
When the song ended, Dylan’s head tipped to the side, bloodshot eyes met mine. He held his hand up and motioned for me to come over to him sitting in a chair in the shadow with one finger.
“That was sexy,” he whispered when I was close enough. “Though I kind of hoped when I wrote it down that you would have been naked while doing it. What happened to the stripping part?”
“I could be,” I teased taking a drink of water, yes water, for once tonight. Then I reached for the hem of my black t-shirt.
Warm hands caught mine and then I was being pulled closer. “No, that’s for me only.” Moving his hands lower, he twisted me around by my hips.
I took advantage of the obscurity and the fact that everyone else was busy at the bar or on stage with Eddy and his band.
I straddled Dylan, my ass securely in his lap over his erection and his hands gripped my hips when I moved against him. “Jesus brown eyes stop. Please stop. I’m so fucking worked up right now watching that,” he moaned trying to hold me in place, his arms and chest shaking. “You’re gonna make me come.”
You couldn’t wipe the smile from my face as I turned around to face him, still straddling him only the other direction this time. “Then take me back to the hotel so I can.”
