by Virna DePaul
And here I was, about to wipe that smile off Aimee’s face by not showing up. Damn. I really wanted to be able to break all this to her in person, to be able to explain to her that I’d far rather be staying here instead of heading out of town for a day. But with Aimee having flown the coop to who the fuck knew where, and with no way to call her, I was shit out of luck. I had to hope she wouldn’t be hurt when she read the note and knew I’d bailed on us being together today.
I sat at one of the tables and quickly jotted out a few words. It just felt like there was no way for me to create the right letter, that she’d still think it was so much bullshit. I’d just have to prove it to her after I got back from Chicago. The note wasn’t going to make it up to her, and that much I knew.
When I felt that I’d done as good a job as I could explaining the situation without going into too much detail—I’d just said a band I’d worked with before was recording an album and needed me on an urgent basis—I folded the note and stood, intending to slide it under the office door, the way the waitress had suggested.
But when I turned around, I found Deputy Dickhead staring at me. He was a little taller than I was and built like a football player. I had a feeling Brad was the type of guy who off duty would shoot the shit at the local hardware store or even at Evangeline’s and tell them about his glory days and winning the big game. The loser had “peaked in high school” written all over him.
He also had been giving too hard a sell to Aimee a couple nights ago. I didn’t trust him, and that broad smile on his face looked as fake as a two-dollar bill.
“What are you up to there, uh…sorry. Forgot your name.”
“Corbin,” I reminded him, shoving my one hand in my jeans pockets and holding tightly to the note in the other. “Nothin’ much. Just leaving a note for Aimee.”
Brad raised an eyebrow. Part of me wanted to brag, to be the old time Corbin, crowing that I’d bagged Aimee last night, but I just couldn’t be that guy. It would hurt her to dig in that we’d made love, but part of me still hoped that Brad was frustrated with the choices Aimee had made.
“I take it you’re headed out of town, moving along. Travel safe.”
“Nah, I’m not leaving Pontmaison,” I corrected. I didn’t much like how this asswipe was trying to run me out of town. “Just have some business in Chicago that will take me away for an overnighter.”
Brad’s face tightened, and the superior expression he wore changed to petulance. “Tell you what. I can just give that note to her in person.” He held out his hand for the note.
I stiffened and shook my head. The last thing I need is to get into some pissing contest with the local law enforcement. But I didn’t put it past good ’ol Brad to shove me in jail for a bullshit charge to keep me away from Aimee, and that would not only ruin Jason’s chance to finish Thrasherville’s record, but would also make tabloid headlines around the world. Point Break Bassist Arrested for Obstruction. I had no interest in either of those things.
But I sure as shit didn’t trust him.
If I gave that note to him, then he’d crumple it up or throw it in the trash, or something just as vindictive. I’ve met that meathead mentality before, and I can sniff out a lie from those kind of jerks a mile away.
“It’s fine,” I said, stooping quickly and shoving the note under the door. I stood, held out my open hands, and said, “All finished.” I offered the best smile I could, hoping my cocky grin said “Don’t fuck with me.”
Then I headed out of Evangeline’s, knowing I was leaving behind a very pissed off deputy and a soon-to-be very pissed off …what was Aimee to me? My lover, even if after only one night, yes. But the truth was, that didn’t seem like an appropriate moniker. It seemed too casual. Too temporary. And even though I knew that’s exactly what we were supposed to be—temporary lovers until the end of summer—I didn’t want to think of her that way.
What I wanted to think of her—no, what I did think of her as—was mine.
And I didn’t know if that made me crazy ass bonkers, or the smartest man on the fucking planet.
* * *
Aimee
When I got back to Evangeline’s a few minutes after noon Corbin’s car wasn’t in the parking lot, but that didn’t worry me. Miss Cecily had probably shown him the trail from the boarding house and he’d walked over. I figured he’d be waiting inside, ready for a tasty treat—and me. I couldn’t stop the butterflies in my tummy from dancing all around like they were listening to Uncle Daniel’s zydeco.
Elmer Lamell had made sure the electricity and water were still on at the old diner, so I’d been able to wash up and put on a little makeup after scrubbing the countertops and washing the front windows until they sparkled. I was ready for my date with Corbin.
Somewhere along the way, I’d realized that as much as I’d protested that I wasn’t dating Corbin, I was. What else would you call an arrangement to spend the summer together? This dessert tasting was a date, as sure as anything.
I ran up the steps lightly and pulled open the door to Evangeline’s, casting my gaze around the room. At their regular tables sat the folks who always came for Thursday’s red beans and rice. Remy stood behind the bar, polishing glasses ahead of service, and Toni, one of our substitute waitresses, was coming through the swinging doors, steaming platters of shrimp n’ grits in both hands. I frowned. Beth must have gone home sick if Toni was here. Elaine was right. Beth was great, but with her illnesses messing up the schedule, I needed to find another back-up waitress.
But no Corbin.
I wasn’t worried until I couldn’t find him in the kitchen. I even checked the office, which was unlocked—I’d have to remind Beth and Toni that they had to lock it back up if they used the office to change in. I even checked out back, wondering if maybe he’d taken a stroll along the banks of the bayou.
Corbin was nowhere, though.
I checked my phone then realized that although Corbin had asked for my number the first night we’d met, I actually had never given it to him. Even if I had, there were no bars and therefore no signal to receive calls or texts. I asked around, but Remy said he’d just arrived and hadn’t seen Corbin. I gave Corbin’s description to the regulars, but none of them had seen him, either. Even Brad, who’d been hanging out at the bar chatting with Remy, just gave me a shrug. Toni suggested I call Beth and ask her if Corbin had stopped by. I used the landline to call Beth’s house, but got no answer. Miss Cecily couldn’t afford the phone, so there was no landline at the boardinghouse for me to call.
Fear nudged me. He could have gotten lost, or fallen into the bayou, or crashed his car somewhere—
Best not let your imagination run away with you, Aimee, I reminded myself. There could be plenty of explanations. First, I had to get myself home and see if his car was still there. If it wasn’t, I could assume he’d either gotten lost or was injured. I could always call the sheriff and ask for help at that point.
I headed home and arrived to find Corbin’s car wasn’t out front. I fought back the worry and the bad feeling in my gut and checked inside the house, first the living room and then the kitchen. Neither Miss Cecily nor Corbin were in sight. With Miss Cecily, I wasn’t worried. Some days, she’d spent late into the night collecting her special ingredients and didn’t return until the moon was up. But Corbin?
Reality dawned on me slowly.
The worry and concern I’d felt earlier thinking something bad had happened to him faded away, replaced by fear. Bile ate at the back of my throat. “No,” I whispered. I rushed to where Miss Cecily kept her spare keys, then hurried up the stairs to Corbin’s room. The key seemed to stick in the door, but I realized that was because my own hands were shaking. When I finally got the lock to turn, the door fell open.
What I saw made me want to vomit.
The entire room was empty. His clothes and his duffle bag were gone. I ran down the hall to the bathroom, where I remembered he’d hung his shaving kit on the peg marked with his room numbe
r. Even that was missing.
Everything was gone.
Everything, including Corbin.
Slumping down onto the wooden bathroom floor, I brought my hand to my chest and even though I tried, I couldn’t stop the tears from falling. I’d only just met him. We’d only been together one night, but that night with Corbin had meant something to me. It had meant more than the entire summer I’d spent last year with that graduate student, Bill.
This was what it must have felt like all those years ago when my deadbeat father disappeared on Mom. This must be how she felt time and time again when a man would come into her life, allow her to feel for him, and then take off into the night. As I sat and sobbed, tears streaming down my cheeks, I realized that although my mother had made terrible choices when it came to parenting me, she’d done so out of a need for love. I couldn’t quite forgive my mother, but finally I understood, if but a little. She’d been abandoned time and time again, and without realizing it, had abandoned me the same way.
Just as Corbin had abandoned me, leaving me behind without a care.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Corbin
“That was a blast man,” Jason said, shaking out his lanky dirty blond hair.
I sat back in the booth and sipped my coffee, needing the caffeine. It was only midnight, but I was wiped. I rubbed my gritty eyes. Jason had offered to put me up at his place for a few hours’ sleep before my flight took off in the morning. It had been a long, hard day and night, but he and I had hit up the dive near the recording studio to get a cup of coffee in celebration.
We’d been successful in the recording, getting the tapes over to the producers by the midnight deadline. Thrasherville had held up as we worked on those songs. One of the songs was a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am song, and we got it out of the way in under two hours. The second song, though, needed work.
A shit-load of work, actually.
I’d pulled out a red pencil and some blank sheet paper and reworked some of the lyrics and quite a bit of the melody. Jason and his band members had even opened up to my suggestions of throwing in a little zydeco sound in the song, and had even called a couple of friends to join us, a guy who played fiddle and a guy with an accordion. I’d felt alive doing the work, that same buzzing sensation in my gut I’d had playing with Bayou Beaux.
It felt good to be connected to the music again, good to be writing. I missed Aimee, though, and I wanted to kick myself for all the times I’d razzed Liam and Tucker about being in looooove. What would they say in return, knowing that I was head over heels for a woman I’d just met a few days ago?
To be honest, I didn’t care. I’d let them skewer me all they wanted, so long as it meant I got to spend the summer with Aimee.
Aimee woulda gotten a kick out of me adding in some zydeco sound to a heavy metal recording. I even shared Daniel’s information with Jason, told him to hook up with the guy if he ever needed a fiddle player.
“How’s Tucker? Liam? Wes? They all good?”
We’d gotten to work so fast Jason and I hadn’t had time to play catch-up, so I filled him in on the gang, smirking when Jason rolled his eyes when I talked about how serious those dudes were over those women. He’d understand when it happened to him.
“You happy with Point Break?” he asked. When I raised my eyebrows, he added, “You used to be a sinner, not a saint, and you loved the wild life something intense. Not as intense as me, but you know…” He let his words trail off. Jason didn’t talk about it much, and I never made a big deal about it, but he’d had a bad episode where he’d almost O.D.’ed on heroin. He’d been sober for about three years, and I was damned proud of him.
I forced myself to think about my life with the band. My life without Aimee, that I was supposed to return to once summer ended. I loved the guys in the band as if they were my brothers but… “Course I’m happy,” I finally said.
“Huh.”
“What’s that ‘huh’ supposed to mean?”
He shrugged. “You seemed a little less enthused than I’d figured you’d be, is all. If I thought that I could lure you away from the fame and fortune of Point Break, then I would. Although I’m wondering if maybe I should try.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, tossing a sugar packet at him. “You could never afford me.”
“I know. You come with all those lawyers, agents, and hangers-on that the rest of us mere mortals can only dream of,” he drawled, sipping on his drink. His tone wasn’t bitter—Jason wasn’t that type of guy—but I could tell that he missed me. We’d come up together in all the grunge bands and the totally off the road shacks around Cook County. When we first started playing together, I’d barely been eighteen, but the gigs had been good for keeping my mind off Kara and the way she’d messed with my head, so I’d played like I had the devil on my tail. And because I played so much, I got good—fucking amazingly good.
Eventually, when Tucker and Liam had been looking for a good bassist, they’d heard through the grapevine about my reputation. I’d moved on from playing with Jason to the ultimate high life in the blink of an eye.
Still, I did miss the days when life was a little less crazy. There was just something different now after having been on the world tour, something I’d never touched before in me. It was becoming just too many hotel rooms, too many bus rides, and I was feeling empty. At least that was the only explanation I had left. But something was changing inside and maybe everything that glittered wasn’t golden after all.
“It’s a good ride,” I said, not wanting to sound like I was ungrateful for all that Point Break had given me. “But there are days when just being out in a more intimate venue feels amazing.”
“I hear you, man,” Jason said, grinning. “Sorry for the moping. I just meant that, I guess, I wasn’t expecting you to join me for the sober fun.” He indicated the coffee cups sitting in front of us. I could have ordered something alcoholic, but had felt a need to support Jason in his sobriety. And oddly enough, since the world tour had ended, I hadn’t been drinking nearly as much as I had been.
“First,” I said emphatically, “you’re one of my best friends and I resent that you’re talking about yourself like you’re some kind of burden. So you’re choosing not to get trashed? So what? I respect the hell out of you, man, for getting your life together.”
“Thanks. It’s so hard on the road. That’s what I hate most about it. It would be so easy to slip or get into terrible habits, to fall back on what’s easy. I never want to do that.”
“And I don’t think you will,” I added, sipping my own drink. The coffee was strong enough to take rust off a Buick. Just the way I liked it. Miss Cecily had served it the same way. L.A. was always some frothy crap that was basically nine-dollar warm milk. “No, it’s my pleasure. I’d stick around, but I have to get back to Louisiana.” An image of Aimee, her dark curls bouncing on her olive colored shoulders as she sat naked in my bed, giving me an adorably cute wink, set my cock straining against my jeans.
“Louisiana, huh? I mean, I get that you’re winding down from the world tour, but the swamps in the middle of nowhere is where you want to be?”
“I know it sounds weird. Me, the guy who thought the city of Milan was too boring. This town…Pontmaison?”
“Yeah, never heard of it.”
“Not surprised. It’s basically three thousand people, a roadhouse with a house band that plays music that makes angels dance, and roads that barely are. I’m talking not paved and bumps all over. It’s a real trip.”
“Well, yee-haw,” Jason echoed, putting on a shitty Southern accent. “That how you got that necklace you’re wearing? Looks a little down-home to me.”
I fingered the stone hanging on the leather thong around my neck. The rock warmed under my touch, and I could swear for an instant I could smell my Granny Tilda’s nut kringle baking in the background. “Friend of mine gave it to me.”
“Quite the fashion statement,” he said sarcastically.
“It�
�s not meant to be.”
“So why not take it off?”
Shrugging, I said, “It means something to the old lady who gave it to me. And to the girl who adores her.” I paused as a big dopey grin crossed my face. “She’s quite the girl, too.”
Jason chuckled long and hard. “There’s always a girl, buddy. They’re everywhere you look. This one can’t be any more special than the last.”
The attitude sucked and I wanted to punch him for a minute. I had this anger boiling over in my damn gut that anyone—even a good friend—would say that about Aimee, but I got my inner Hulk under control. Jason hadn’t meant to be rude. He was just saying what most rockers thought. I mean, come on, before Tucker had come back to the States so happy with his Nikki, I never would have thought he’d be capable of settling down. The fact he has? I want to say it gave me hope. That my intense feelings for Aimee, despite our short acquaintance, gave me hope, as well. But as much as I like Aimee, miss her, think of her as mine, think she’s special, that doesn’t mean I can have her forever. Hell, not even past summer.
Because Cindy was right. She didn’t want to be with a musician, and I was one on steroids. She’d never accept my rocker lifestyle and I couldn’t expect her to.
I was on vacation, living in a fantasy bubble in Pontmaison. It was great, and I was going to enjoy it while I could, but it wasn’t reality. And for all my restlessness and thinking that maybe I was searching for that someone special, just like Liam and Tucker had in Abby and Nikki, part of me still believed that it just wasn’t meant to be for me. That after all the crap Kara had pulled, I’d be a fool to think otherwise ever again.
To trust another woman again.
Still, it hit me suddenly, knowing just how special Aimee was, that when I moved on at the end of summer, so would she. We hadn’t talked about past lovers, but I knew she had to have had plenty. There would probably be plenty after me.
