by Sm Donaldson
“Rocker women? You were a rocker?”
“Well, I knew how to strum a guitar back in my day. As good as any damned old boy, that’s for damn sure.”
I laugh. “Thanks for stopping by, Nana. You are a trip.”
“Don’t worry, he’ll come around. Y’all will get a chance to talk about all of this before you leave, and if not, then it’s his problem. You, my dear, are a catch. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”
I nod and start eating my breakfast as she leaves. I see why Scarlet got so attached to her. She’s pretty badass herself.
After finishing my breakfast, I take a look at myself in the bathroom mirror seeing the battered body before me. I never have to worry about Chad again. He’s gone. I take some more pain medicine and lay back down for another nap.
My sister decided to have my band over for breakfast this morning before we leave for our tour. Ivie and I have only texted back and forth since she got out of the hospital a few days ago. I feel like a big piece of shit and well, as a matter of fact, my sister has called me that much. Even my mother, who is all violence isn’t the answer, smacked me in the back of the head the other day.
I finally did get the house back in order. Some company is coming to lay new carpet next week since my mom is putting the house on the market when she moves to Augusta. I know the guys think I’m a huge assclown for staying away from Ivie but I couldn’t face her. I’m not sure how I feel and I don’t know what to say. I know I’ve hurt her more than I ever intended to.
I can’t give her what she needs, she needs a guy who will stick around. Hell, at the first sign of trouble I dipped out.
As I drive down the long gravel road to Ryder’s house, I feel like I’m about to throw up. I drove Ivie’s car since I still don’t have one and I never made it over here to drop hers off.
Getting out of the car, I see my sister walk out the front door. I hug her neck. “Hey, little sister.”
“Hey. Um, will you give me Ivie’s keys? I’m going to go ahead and pull the car into the barn.”
“Why are you parking the car in the barn?”
“Well, that way it’s taken care of and when she comes back, she’s moving in here with me.”
“Why?”
She snatches the keys from my hand. “Are you that fucking dense?”
“I guess I am.”
She puts her finger in my chest. “She has no fucking body, Gable. You made promises to her and you didn’t keep them. She doesn’t want to depend on Stoney or Keeg to store her stuff, so I offered and I told her when she comes home, she’s staying here until she can get on her feet.”
“How did I become the villain in this? She’s the one who was keeping secrets.”
“We all have secrets, Gable, so get over yourself. She lost y’all’s baby in a fight for her life. It had been less than twelve hours since she found out that she was pregnant. Her body was so racked with hormones that she didn’t know how she felt. But I can tell you that Nana and I held her when she cried for two days straight a couple of days after she miscarried. I don’t think this has a damn thing to do with secrets, I think you are a fucking coward.”
With that said, my sister gets in the car and spins gravel all over me. She cried for two days… I remember the nurse saying something about a hormone crash or something like that. I head into the house and I see Ryder. I shake his hand. “Hey, man, thanks for inviting us for breakfast.”
“Hey, that’s all Scar and Nana.”
“Well, thanks anyway.”
I make my way into the kitchen where Keeg, Stoney and Nana are eating.
Nana looks up. “Well, look who crawled out from under the rock he’s been stuck under.”
“I managed to squeeze out.”
“Well good, now pull your head out of your ass and get over here and eat some of this food.”
I sit down and make my plate. We talk about our schedule a little and some of the upcoming events.
Scarlet and Ryder have joined us by now. I still catch the death glares from my sister. I notice Ivie still hasn’t been down here to eat. I finally work up my nerve to ask. “Scar, where is Ivie? Is she still packing or something?”
She shakes her head. “No, she headed out last night. She’s gonna meet you guys in country. She said she had some things to do before she left, and the record company sent her a day ahead so that she could talk with the tech guys and all.”
“How did she get there to fly out? I had her car.”
“Ryder rented her one, even though she fought him on it.”
Great, she is avoiding me. How in the hell is this going to work out? We are in the same fucking band. We are about to be in a fucking country thousands of miles from home.
“What kind of things did she have to take care of? Why did they send her ahead?”
“I don’t know, she said it was private and I didn’t push. As far as the other, you’d know if you’d been by here.”
With that, my sister stood up from the table and dumped her plate in the garbage. She is seriously fucking pissed with me.
How did I screw things up this bad? Oh yeah, I fucked my band mate.
Flying military transport with all of our equipment was extremely weird and totally different from flying commercial. I called Rex a couple of days ago and asked if I could help out in anyway. I also said if our instruments were going over early, I’d be willing to go with them and the tech guys to get our shit together. I knew that was always a big deal when we were on the road, so I wasn’t surprised when he agreed.
I knew I couldn’t handle being on a flight that long with Gable. Plus, I needed to stop by my old high school and get copies of my transcripts. I need to figure out if this is what I want to do for the rest of my life or if I want to go to college like I had originally planned. I’ve been floating around for enough years now. No one wants me, that’s been made clear. Losing that baby was God’s way of telling me that I’m not even supposed to have a child, so I’ll just figure out what my career needs to be and that will be my life.
When I sat in the room at Scar’s for two solid days and cried, I said no more men. I’ll use B.O.B., as long as I give him fresh batteries, he never disappoints. He doesn’t beat the shit out of me. He can’t knock me up and he won’t break my heart.
~*~*~
The guys finally got here to Kuwait a couple of days ago and we’ve been busy practicing. They have us at what they call a Camp, it’s a pretty big base. Besides practice and meetings, I haven’t had to run into Gable much. They have fast food restaurants, coffee shops, movie theatres and recreation places. We are going to be playing shows in Kuwait for a few weeks, then we’ll do a couple in Afghanistan. They don’t allow that many to be done there, but they want us to do a few shows at one of the bigger bases. The rest of our tour will be in places like Germany, Japan and Italy.
I love having coffee shops here. I need my caffeine fix daily, and having decent coffee just makes it better. Walking out of the coffee shop here on base, I run straight into a wall of muscle. It’s a nice looking guy, I can see from his workout clothes that he’s ripped and built like a fucking champ. “Excuse me, ma’am.”
“Oh, excuse me. I need to watch where I’m going.”
“You’re with the band, right?”
“I sure am.”
“Wow, okay. I’m Judd, Ryder’s friend. You must be Ivie.”
I smile. “Yes. Oh my God, I never thought we’d actually run into you over here. Scarlet and Naomi asked me to keep an eye out for you, but I never dreamed I’d actually run into you.”
“Well hey, will you join me for some coffee? Catch me up on everyone at home?”
An hour later, we have laughed and talked about all of the people we both know from home.
He shakes his head. “Well, I’m glad to know Nana has still got her spunk.”
“So at Christmas I had to help Scar keep your mom from finding out about Annabelle. What’s the story there?”
; He chuckles. “Wouldn’t I like to know?”
I smile. “I think you do.”
“She’s confusing. She’s this gorgeous little firecracker. You know, all full of piss and vinegar.” He rolls his head around making his neck crack. “We met one night in a bar, when Ryder was doing anything he could to get Scarlet’s attention. My job was to distract Annabelle and well, she distracted the hell out of me.”
“So you guys hooked up for the night?”
“Well it was supposed to be for the night because I was leaving. But then some shit happened and she needed me, now we are friends. She didn’t want anyone else to know, it’s her story not mine. I know Ryder and Scar think it’s more, but it’s not.”
“So how long have you been on this base?”
“Well, I’m here for a couple of weeks at the time, then I go to Afghanistan a month or so at the time and we run some missions.”
“Oh, well are you going to catch our show tomorrow night?”
“Yeah, I plan on it.”
“Okay great, the guys made friends with Ryder before we left so I’m sure they’d be thrilled to meet you.” I reach in my backpack and grab some laminated passes they gave us and hand it to him. “Here, this will get you back where we are. Do you want one for a friend or anything?”
“No, thanks, this is awesome.”
I look at my watch and realize the time. “Shit, we’ve got practice, I need to go. I’ll catch you tomorrow.”
He stands up, giving me a hug. “Thanks, again. It was great catching up with someone from home.”
“No problem.”
Walking out, I see Gable in line grabbing coffee and he gives me a go to hell look. I roll my eyes and keep walking.
He follows behind me to our practice area. “So who was that?”
“Who?”
“The guy at the coffee shop.”
“None of your business.”
He stops me. “None of my business?”
“Yep, he’s a friend.”
“Yeah, right.”
“No, for real. But I’m glad you stopped me because I think we need to talk for a minute.” He goes to speak but I put my hand up. “You lost the right to question me about who I hang out with. You lost a lot of rights in my life. You are only my band mate. That’s it. This band is all we have together.”
“So we can’t even be friends now?”
I shake my head. “No. Friends don’t abandon someone the way you abandoned me. You never even showed up. Do you think I wanted all of that to happen to me? I was trying to figure out a way to tell you and I was going to tell you when you got home. So, WE could decide what WE wanted to do. I can’t help all hell broke loose before that could happen. I just never thought you’d treat me like you did.”
“What the fuck? You took off and flew over here before any of us.”
“I couldn’t be on a flight that long with you. I’ve been disappointed my entire life, people that were supposed to be there for me weren’t. You made this big fucking speech about how my dad treated me and you did the same thing. You left me when I needed you the most. You are a fucking hypocrite. Now, if it doesn’t pertain to the band, we don’t talk.”
I turn my back to him, walking over to our area to get practice started.
She’s right, I did abandon her. I am just like my dad. Seeing her having coffee with someone else, talking and laughing, almost killed me. I wanted to rip that guy’s fucking head off, well if he didn’t look like damn Arnold Schwarzenegger did in the eighties. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m pretty tough, but that guy could’ve killed me.
I know in my heart though that we can only be in this band together. I need to go back to my one night stands and blow jobs in the broom closet. I was a lot better person to her when I wasn’t that close to her.
Once we finish the longest practice of my life, I can see the pain still in her eyes when she looks at me. Well, I’m not sure if it’s pain or hate. I wouldn’t blame her if she hates me.
Making my way back to my room, I bump into a chic. She’s fucking hot and smiles at me with sex appeal dripping from her. I give her my signature cocky grin. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
She smiles, “It’s okay.”
“So, are you in the military?”
“No, I’m a contractor. I work for MWR, and you are Gable Johnson with the band.”
I nod. “Well, you’ve done your research on me and I feel at a loss because I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Celanie. Like Melanie but with a C.”
“So Celanie, what do you do with MWR?”
“Well, I work over at the rec center. I help run the gym, organize social nights, and stuff like that.”
“So you wanna go grab a bite to eat or some coffee? You can tell me more about you.”
She grins. “Oh, you wanna know more about me?”
“Sure do.”
She nods. “Okay, then. Let’s go.”
~*~*~
I wake up this morning thinking about how last night has to be one of the most fucking embarrassing nights of my entire life.
Celanie and I grabbed some food and coffee. She was fucking hot. My thoughts on the matter were the old saying, “The best way to get over one woman is to get on top of another one.”
I turn on all of my sweet guy charms. It works, and a couple of hours later, we’re in her room. She’s all over me, standing up as she peels off her clothes. Damn, she has some nice fucking tits. She rakes her hands down my chest to my belt buckle, sliding my pants and boxers down, but as soon as she goes to put her mouth on me, I can’t do it. I back away but she pulls me back to her and puts my dick in her mouth. Too many flashes of Ivie saying my name flash before me. I pull away again. “Stop. Sorry, I can’t do this. I just can’t.”
She shakes her head and sits back on her feet. She smirks. “Damn, that’s a shame.”
I pull up my pants and button them. “Sorry, look, it really has nothing to do with you. I’ve got a bunch of shit going on in my head.”
“Girl at home?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, I’m gonna be here for a few more weeks if you change your mind.”
I smile, she just wants a good time. “Come by the show tomorrow, I’ll introduce you to Keeg and Stoney.”
She pulls a long T-Shirt over her head. “Sounds like a plan.”
I walked out of her room feeling like a big fucking piece of shit. What is it with me here lately? I can’t be a normal person so I’m just going to fuck up everyone else’s life along with it.
We have a few hours until the show. I grab my guitar and start fiddling with it again. Rex said we needed some original stuff when we come back stateside.
I start strumming the song I’ve already started writing.
You unlock the door and climb inside-
You don’t need seat belts for this ride-
You take my heart and hold it in your hands-
Taking for granted where you stand-
I’ve never been one to let go of control-
But with you I seem to do that more-
I always seem to screw things up with you-
For some reason I always do-
You’re the one I must confess-
You tilt my heart off its axis-
How do I repay you? I break yours in two-
I owe you more-
Someone beating on my door draws me out of my writing.
I open the door to a pissed off Keeg. “You are killing her, man. Now I didn’t get in this all before when Stoney was ready to fucking kill you, but I may be ready now. Why in the fuck are you doing this to her? Hasn’t she been through enough?”
“What do you mean?”
“She saw you last night.”
Those words echo through my brain.
“That wasn’t what it looked like. Plus, she was out with some guy yesterday. Afterward she told me to stay the fuck away from her and out of her business. Tha
t if it didn’t pertain to the band, she had nothing to say to me.”
“She was having coffee in a public place, not walking out of a guy’s room adjusting her clothes. Dude, you know how many times that girl has had her fucking heart ripped out. She is putting those walls back up. She’s separating herself again and we may not get her back this time. If you weren’t going to take care of her, you should have just left her the fuck alone. She kept a secret from you for less than twelve hours, grow the fuck up, man.”
“I’m backing away from her, giving her what she asked for. She wasn’t even sure she was going to keep my baby, so how can I be sure she’d have told me about it?”
“Because it’s fucking Ivie. You know, the girl who always has our back. The one who ran that fucking crazy chick out of Stoney’s that decided to set up shop there. The one who made that bitch, Kara, admit that she wasn’t really pregnant with my baby. She’s always looked out for us and yes, we looked out for her, too. But man, you just became another statistic in her book. You are another person who made her feel like she’s not worth anything. Congratulations. When we get home, we may be looking for a new bass player.”
“She won’t quit, she loves music too much.”
“No, she loves you too much. She can’t handle it, but I’ll give her credit, she has lady balls enough to try. But I also saw college info and her transcripts. She’s making other plans for her life. A life without us.”
He walks out of my room slamming the door.
Fuck, I was just told off by Keeg. Not to mention the song I just wrote was completely for Ivie. I’ve got to get my shit together.
Squalling my eyeballs out like a kid was not how I intended to spend the night before and hours before my first USO show.
I know I said all of that shit to him yesterday, but I guess the finality of our situation hit me last night when I saw him walking out of that blonde Barbie bitch’s room.
All of those things he said to me about my body being perfect the way it was and me being all the sex appeal he ever needed were all lies. He dumps me and goes for the first breast implants and butt lift he sees.
