I give a sharp jerk of my head and count out loud, “One, two, three” as I strum down hard on my strings, sliding into the rhythm with ease, each beat dancing in front of me like a tiny burst of light.
I relax more and more as we play, all my weird feelings go away with the music. In my head, I see the patterns, and I feel them in my body—the vibrations—and I love it. But, try hard as I might, I can’t keep from taking one last look at Rachel as I play. When I do, she’s reading her book, her head bent, and that long, soft hair draped over her face so I can’t see it. I don’t like that. I wish that I could look at Rachel’s face anytime I want.
Rachel
“What the hell are you doing?” Margo snaps at me as I come out of the stall in the women’s restroom at the recording studios.
“What do you mean?” I ask putting my hands under the warm water in the sink.
“With Topher? How many times do I have to explain to you that he doesn’t like to be touched?”
The band is taking a break, waiting for their lunches to be delivered, so it’s the first time since we arrived that Margo’s been able to talk to me, and she leads with that. Normally my sister and I get along. I came to see her because unlike some siblings we actually like each other, but Topher seems to be a hotspot for her.
“We were talking about his mom, I was being comforting or whatever. He could have pulled his hand away if he wanted.”
She huffs impatiently. “You mean you were talking about his mom, right? Because I’ve checked in on him twice a day since she died and he hasn’t had a word to say about her, and Carson told me he hasn’t talked about it at home either.”
I dry my hands and bite my tongue—literally and figuratively.
“Well, he did discuss her with me, and that’s what was going on. Why are you so antagonistic about this? Is there some sort of rule that no one but you and Carson is allowed to talk to Topher or something?”
She gives me a hard look, then leans against the counter and crosses her arms. “Look, I know you mean well, but Topher isn’t one of your animals you can experiment on. He’s different, and it takes a lot of time to get to know him and understand what his differences mean and how to deal with them.”
I feel a slow burning anger simmer inside me, and I swallow down the sensation as best I can.
“He might not be a run-of-the-mill twenty-something guy, but that’s part of what I like about him. He’s sweet, and if people would take the time to look beyond the surface, he’s also intuitive and creative and interesting. You’ve been best friends with him for years, I can’t believe that you have some big problem with me being friends with him too.”
She stiffens, her lips pressing into a sharp line. “Maybe because you’re looking at him like you’re interested in being more than friends.” She steps closer and her eyes are flashing. “Topher isn’t a play thing, or a project, he’s a real guy with some issues, and we’re his family—the band and me. We protect him from groupies and paparazzi, and anyone else who doesn’t understand what he needs.”
Ok, now we’re done. I don’t care how close she is to him it doesn’t give her the right to run roughshod over his life—social or otherwise.
“And who are you to decide what he needs?” I challenge.
“The people who love and understand him,” she bites back.
“And does he have no say in this at all? Does he not get to decide what he needs?”
Then she looks at me with the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen. She shakes her head as she turns to leave the bathroom. “See, that’s exactly why you shouldn’t be messing with him. You don’t get it. Topher isn’t capable of deciding what he needs.” Then she opens the door and walks away.
* * *
I sit through lunch with the band in silence. My sister’s words sting and linger, making my heart ache and my head as well. I can’t dismiss them out of hand, I don’t know Topher, really. I haven’t seen him in all types of situations, I haven’t lived with him for years, learning about how he handles the world. I don’t have anything real on which to base my feelings. But I still can’t shake this connection I feel with him, this thing that grips me every time I look into his beautiful green eyes. I can’t shake the sense that I know him, even though I don’t.
The band goofs around while we all eat the sandwiches that were brought in. They joke and tease, and Margo fits right in, obviously comfortable and accepted by them all. Topher is, of course, the quietest, but he too has his role. He gets teased about how much he eats, and he responds by snatching the sandwich from Garrett’s hand and shoving it in his mouth before Garrett can stop him. His eyes sparkle and he grins around all the food he’s stuffed in his mouth. It’s easy to see that he’s happy with them. He fits. They are his family.
By the time lunch is over I feel crappy. Embarrassed and confused. I’m not sure what’s real, what’s my imagination, what’s kind, what’s intrusive. Margo was right, I’m treading in territory I have no business being in, and all I want to do is get the hell out of there before I embarrass myself any more.
As everyone is cleaning up, I slip out to the hallway and walk to the end where there’s a door outside to a small courtyard. The area is shaded by trees, planted around the perimeter, but still open to the sky, where a hazy Los Angeles day is in full bloom.
I sit on a concrete bench under a mimosa tree, and open my textbook, vowing to focus on what matters instead of what’s rapidly become a distraction since I’ve been in L.A.
Within ten minutes I’m deep into the intricacies of the odd digestive tract of bovines when I hear footsteps approaching. I’m expecting Margo to be checking up on me, but when I lift my head with a smile it’s Topher who’s standing there.
“Hi,” he says, and that sweet, shy smile spreads across his face, making my poor heart pound fast and hard.
“Hi. What are you doing out here?”
He looks away, but answers me. “You weren’t smiling when you left. I wanted to see if you were okay.”
Then he looks down at me again. “I really like it when you smile.”
I take a gulp of air, my heart now racing, and my fingertips tingling with the urge to touch him, dig into all that beautiful sun-kissed hair and press my lips to his. He must see something in my expression that tells him the direction of my thoughts, because he sits down next to me and picks up my hand, twining our fingers together like we had in the studio a few hours earlier.
“When we go on tour,” he says quietly looking down at our hands, “there are a lot of girls who want to do things with us. Sometimes I let them…because I like blowjobs.” He looks up at me, an embarrassed smile on his lips, his cheeks pink, and I can’t help but throw my head back and laugh.
“Most guys do from what I understand,” I tell him, grinning.
He nods and gives a little shrug.
“Ever since I first saw you I keep thinking about doing stuff like that with you, but I think that might be one of those things I’m not supposed to tell anyone. Except you said you don’t care about those rules and that I could say whatever I wanted to you.”
My heart stops then. For a split second it just. Quits. Beating. And when it jolts back to life, it’s a different organ, full of something foreign, achy and tender.
And now I’m the one who’s not sure what to say.
“I really like you too, Topher.” I start off with that, because it’s the truth, and I would never lie to someone as pure and good as him. “But I’m not sure that we should think all that.”
His brow furrows, and he shakes his head slightly.
“Why?” he asks, his jaw set stubbornly.
“We don’t know each other very well, and Margo pointed out that I may not understand you as well as I should…”
“Margo’s not in charge of my life,” he answers. “She doesn’t get to decide who my friends are.”
“Also, I live in Colorado. What if we grew to really like each other and then I have to go home in a few week
s? That could be hard.”
He shakes his head. “No, it wouldn’t. Blaze lives half the time in Portland with Tully. It’s actually a lot more than half the time he just says ‘half the time’ so that it won’t sound like he’s left the band here in L.A.” He pauses. “It’s another one of those things I’m not supposed to talk about with people who aren’t in the band, but I have a lot of money.” He sighs and looks up at the sky for a moment. “I like to look at all the different stocks I can buy and see the patterns of how they climb and fall. I have more money than Carson and all the other guys because of the stocks I buy. I can live anywhere, fly anywhere. I can buy a house in Colorado and live there with you if we want.”
He gives one sharp nod then, as if it’s decided and looks down at our hands again.
“You make me smile, Rachel. I’ve never met someone who made me smile.”
And he makes me smile, and he makes me feel so warm and safe, but he also makes butterflies erupt in my chest. It’s a very hard combination to ignore.
“You make me smile too,” I tell him, my voice soft.
He moves his hand up my arm, watching the progress, as if he’s mesmerized by the sight of his skin on mine. When he gets to my hair hanging over my shoulder, he spears his hand into the locks, sifting them through his fingers, watching it all, a look of complete focus on his face.
“Topher?” I ask softly.
His eyes shift to mine, but his hand continues to explore my hair.
“What are we going to do?”
“I think I’m going to make you smile more,” he whispers before his lips touch mine.
Topher
I’ve had girls kiss me, but I’ve never been the one to kiss them first, and honestly, I’ve never liked kissing all that much. But I know right away that I’m going to like kissing Rachel. Her mouth tastes sweet, like the Coke she drank at lunch, and her teeth are small and smooth. Our breaths have a rhythm to them and in a few moments our lips and tongues do too. The pattern looks like magenta and turquoise in my mind, and it sounds like AAA, long B, AAA.
The long second beat is my favorite, and each time we hit it Rachel melts against me a little more. My skin is tingling, but not in the bad way it usually does when people touch me. The closer Rachel gets to me the more I want to sink into her. I want all of my parts touching her, not just my hard on.
Rachel’s hands are firm against my chest, and I can’t help myself when I press my palm into her chest as well. My heart is beating a different rhythm than our mouths now, it’s fast, and every third beat is hard. Sort of aaBaaB. But when my hand closes over her breast, everything inside of me comes rushing together in one huge ball of beats and energy and colors. It’s too much, I’m afraid.
She must sense something’s wrong because she pulls away, her eyes looking at mine. “Topher?” she asks.
I’m still breathing so hard, and the weird thing is that as soon as we’ve stopped kissing I want it back. Even though it was too much all at once.
“Hey,” she whispers. “It’s okay. I felt it too. We can just sit here for a while.”
I nod and take my hand off of her breast, even though I don’t want to. She wraps our fingers back together and we sit side by side on the bench.
“It’s a lot of touching,” I tell her trying to explain.
“It is.”
“But I like it.”
“I do too, but I’m not sure we should let anyone else know that we kissed.”
She’s not smiling when she says it and I don’t like that.
“Why?” I ask, thinking that I’m ready to kiss her some more now that I had a breather.
“I’m not sure Margo and the guys would like it. I think maybe they worry that I’ll do something you don’t like.”
“But you wouldn’t. I know you wouldn’t.”
She sighs. It’s a lot like the sigh my mother used with me sometimes.
“I can try not to ever do something you don’t like, Topher, but I can’t promise. No one can make that kind of promise to another person. No matter how much they care about them.”
I think about that for a minute, and she sits quietly while I do. But she’s still holding my hand, and that’s a good thing.
“But you do promise that you won’t ever try to do something I don’t like.”
“Yes,” she answers right away.
“Then that’s okay, and we can tell the other guys and your sister that.”
She shakes her head again. “I’m still worried they won’t be happy. And maybe they’re right. I’m not sure more kissing is the best idea.”
I feel that bad sensation in my chest that happens sometimes when I get angry. But then I remember what she’s just promised.
“You just promised that you wouldn’t do anything on purpose that I didn’t like. If you won’t kiss me anymore I won’t like that. And if we can’t tell the band that we like kissing, I won’t like that either.” I shrug, because it’s irrefutable logic.
She bursts out laughing, and I can’t help but grin at her, because I know I’ve just gotten my way.
She sobers and leans forward, rubbing her little nose against mine. “They might not be very happy,” she says, her voice sending my heart into that strange rhythm again.
“Not as unhappy as I’ll be if I can’t kiss you again.”
Then we do kiss again, and she wraps her arms around my neck, and all the colors and beats fall into place, and my mind paints the most beautiful rhythm I’ve ever seen. I don’t care what the band says, I’m going to kiss Rachel as much as I can. And hopefully she’ll give me a blowjob too.
Rachel
It’s Margo’s voice that has me tearing my lips away from Topher’s. And probably in the nick of time because I’m about to orgasm just from the kissing. He’s the hottest man I’ve ever known, and my body is screaming, “yes,” even as my mind is shouting, “maybe”.
“Toph?” Margo says from the door to the building. “You out here?”
“Yeah,” Topher answers as I pull back and try to scoot away from him on the bench. But he keeps ahold of my hand and tugs me back.
“Topher!” I hiss.
“You promised,” he answers, and the look on his face is what can only be described as pure satisfaction. I can tell already that I’ve created a monster.
Margo comes around a tall potted plant and sees us sitting on the bench. Her eyes narrow immediately and she folds her arms across her chest, her long hair the same color as mine but with blue streaks nearly touching her elbows where they’re folded under her breasts.
“What are you two doing out here?” she asks.
“Just talking,” I answer quickly, hoping to beat Topher to the punch.
Her gaze shifts to Topher. “Well, we’re ready to start back up. You need to come inside.”
“Okay,” he answers, standing and pulling me with him. He doesn’t let go of my hand, and I can tell from the pressure he’s exerting on my fingers that he’s not going to. I sigh and lean down to pick up my textbook, but before I can grab it his hand is there lifting it for me. He tucks it under his free arm and leads me inside, Margo following behind us with a scowl.
* * *
The next few hours are filled with the band recording and me trying to keep my mind on my textbook. The band does well. Me, not so much.
When they finally call a wrap for the day the guys all come out laughing and talking about how tired they are. Shannon meets Dez at the door wrapping her arms around his neck as he buries his face in her hair for a moment. Blaze elbows Dez. “None of that now.”
“You’re just jealous because Tully won’t get here until Wednesday,” Dez says, grinning.
“Fuck. Don’t remind me,” Blaze groans.
Garrett is quiet, as he packs up a pair of headphones and drinks some sort of shake he has in his backpack.
While Shannon talks to Dez as he packs his guitar and Blaze leans over the sound equipment talking to Margo about something, Topher walks to me, an
d stands with his hands in the front pockets of his jeans.
“Can you come eat dinner with me?” he asks. I can’t help but smile. He’s so refreshingly direct, I’m not sure what to do with it all.
“Um…” I look over at Margo.
“Carson,” Topher says to his brother who’s reading something on his phone nearby.
“Yep,” Carson answers distractedly.
“I’m going to take Rachel to dinner. Can you get a ride with Blaze or Garrett?”
Carson stiffens and his head whips to look at the two of us. He examines us for a moment, concern written in his somber features.
“Can you?” Topher presses.
“Uh, yeah, okay…”
I know without a doubt that this isn’t the last thing Carson is going to say about it, but for now he relents.
“You cool with that?” he asks me.
“Sure she is,” Topher answers before I can. “Will you tell Margo where we went?”
Carson’s gaze is fixed on mine, and I give him a tight smile and shrug my shoulders.
“Listen, dude,” Carson begins.
“Where are the keys?” Topher asks, interrupting him.
Carson sighs and digs the keys out of his front pocket before handing them over.
“See you later.” Topher takes my hand and picks up my book bag as he tugs me toward the door.
He doesn’t say a word as he continues to tow me out of the building and to a white BMW SUV parked in a gated parking lot on one side of the studio.
When we reach the car, he unlocks the doors and opens the passenger side for me. I have to admit that I’m surprised by what a gentleman he is. But before I can get in he stops me with a hand cupping my elbow.
He leans in and kisses me softly.
“I still like kissing you,” he says.
“Same,” I answer, unable to stop grinning at him.
Once we’re in the car, Topher starts it and pulls out of the parking lot onto Sunset Boulevard.
Dreaming of Rhapsody Page 4
