Vintage Volume One

by Suzanne, Lisa

And apparently that night, my subconscious wanted me to feel fear.

  Panic.

  Devastating grief.

  I sat up in bed, panting. These were the moments when I hated living alone.

  Images of the crime scene were burned into my memory.

  It was a dark memory that would never fully leave me. It was the most painful loss of my life, and watching her parents break down when the police informed them of the tragic news was something that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

  Katie and I had been best friends since I was born. She was four years older than me, the daughter of Mikey Reynolds, drummer of Black Shadow and my dad’s best friend. We were raised together, but the difference was that Katie’s mom stuck around. Katie’s mom, Fern, and Mikey were married at the young age of eighteen, and they had Katie when Fern turned nineteen. I had always envied the relationship they shared.

  Fern treated me like a second daughter. She loved me, and I loved having someone to turn to as a mother figure since my own was essentially nonexistent. But it wasn’t the same.

  But when Katie was murdered, Fern couldn’t take the loss. She divorced Mikey, and the last I heard, she’d holed up with some banker in Florida and bought a bunch of cats. She was never the same.

  It had been a brutal crime scene, one that still haunted my dreams.

  In fact, the images of the crime scene were so burned into my mind that I had started experiencing insomnia shortly afterward.

  It was the pictures of the crime scene that burned in my memory. Photo after photo shown during the trial replayed in my head and maybe always would.

  My doctor prescribed sleeping pills and told me to write my feelings in a journal or diary.

  So it was either stay awake all night or wake up from a nightmare.

  The nightmare was the lesser of two evils. The nightmares were sporadic. Lying in bed and staring at the ceiling for eight hours a night did nothing for me except force me to replay the scenes of horror in my mind.

  Katie had met Chad outside the building where her Psychology class was held. Ironic, considering Chad turned out to be an insane lunatic.

  She was a freshman at UCLA majoring in marketing. She had ambitions. I was a freshman in high school. I aimed for graduating from school and getting the hell away from my mother. My goal was realized; hers never was. Chad had taken it from her.

  We talked every single day. I missed her company since we’d spent every night at each other’s houses for as long as I could remember. Katie was the one person in the world who understood what it was like growing up the daughter of a rock star. Our friendship was built upon the strong foundation of that common trait. We understood each other in a way that no one else ever could.

  She started talking about Chad almost from the first day she arrived on campus. I’d met him a few times, and he always seemed a bit off to me. Something shady lurked behind his eyes, but I was naïve enough to ignore my intuition because my best friend had fallen in love. I chalked it up to jealousy. He got to spend time with her while I was forced into the background, a place I’d never held with her.

  They started dating exclusively. She started sleeping with him.

  And then one day, Fern didn’t hear from her. She ignored her mother’s intuition that something was amiss, figuring her daughter was busy living the life of a college freshman.

  Another day passed. It was unlike Katie to miss her daily call to her mother, but it was even more unlike her to miss her daily call to her best friend.

  When Fern called me and voiced her concerns, a strange terror burned in my abdomen. I immediately knew that something was wrong.

  Fern and I went together to her dorm. Her parents had paid for her to have a single room at her request, so there was no roommate to account for her whereabouts.

  No one had seen her in a few days. No one, it seemed, could account for her absence.

  Fern called the police, and Chad was questioned. He had an airtight alibi and a fantastic ability to act.

  He convinced us all that he was as worried as we were.

  Her body was recovered days later. She’d been found west of Topanga State Park. Her neck was badly bruised with finger marks, clear evidence that she’d been strangled to death. I couldn’t listen to the police reports anymore, couldn’t deal with the trial, but I’d been by Fern’s side through it all. I’d tuned out as much of it as I could, focused on the indifference instead of the emotions. It was when I first learned how to block out emotions.

  It took years before Chad was convicted. He maintained his innocence until he cracked under the pressure of a high profile trial. It turns out his goal had been to get into the good graces of the Reynolds family by showing how much he loved Katie even after her death.

  But it had been cold-blooded murder. He had taken away my best friend, Fern and Mikey’s beloved daughter, a selfless and loving woman who would be forever missed.

  I would never get over the loss of my best friend.

  It wasn’t until I had met Damien that I’d even been able to smile again. But then he left me, too.

  And I hadn’t smiled again until earlier that night. Parker had put that smile back on my face, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the divisibility of three.

  Bad things always happen in threes.

  I’d lost Katie.

  I’d lost Damien.

  I couldn’t get close to another person, because I’d only lose him, too.

  He’d be the third.

  seven

  I had a second dream that night.

  This one was different from the first.

  It was that voice.

  That voice was like honey cascading down the side of a cliff like a waterfall and landing in a pool of warmth at the bottom of a ravine. I stood at the bottom of the ravine waiting for him, listening to his voice echoing off of the walls around me. And then he appeared, and he ravaged me in ways I’d never been ravaged before. His hands were everywhere on me, caressing and memorizing every part of my skin.

  I woke groggily at the sound of my alarm. I was extremely turned on.

  It was an hour before I could convince myself to get out of bed. That feeling of Parker touching me in a place that I hadn’t touched in months except when absolutely necessary warmed me, washed over me, comforted me.

  It was something I’d needed, especially after the nightmare I’d woken up to first.

  I slid my fingers into my panties and felt the moisture from a place that had been aridly dry for a year. I pushed one finger inside my pussy and pulled my fingers out, spreading the wetness up and over my clit. I felt the old, familiar sensation of quaking in my thighs as I stroked my clit softly, adding pressure to push myself into a climax that my body hadn’t felt in far too long.

  As I stood under the hot spray of the shower a little later, I couldn’t help but think that it had been Parker who had pushed me into sexually pleasuring myself that morning. I hadn’t even thought about sex, much less had an interest in it, in a very long time. And if he’d been able to dredge up those feelings, I couldn’t imagine what else he could do. I couldn’t begin to imagine what actually being with him would be like.

  When I walked into Vintage that morning, the store had been transformed. Apparently Virginia and Tim had stayed well past midnight straightening everything. Even the café had a bright sparkle to it. It looked like it should have been called “Modern” instead of “Vintage.”

  “This is for you,” Tim said, handing me Parker’s hat. “He came back looking for you.”

  Tim’s eyes screamed of jealousy. I didn’t know how to handle his emotions on top of my erratic and excessive feelings.

  As much as I didn’t want to feel anything, a tingle ran up my spine when my fingertips held his hat in my hands. “Thanks,” I said, tossing the hat on the counter in a display of indifference that I certainly didn’t feel.

  “There’s a note inside. I didn’t look at it, but he asked me to make sure you got it.”
r />   More unwelcome tingles raced around my body.

  I turned the hat over and pulled out a scrap of paper. I recognized it as the back of the receipt tape from the Vintage register. The writing was a messy scrawl.

  Jimi-

  You said you’d be here. I’m disappointed. Call me. 312-555-3157

  -Parker

  I folded the paper and stuck it in my jeans pocket. I knew I wouldn’t use the number. I couldn’t.

  But that didn’t stop me from wanting to.

  eight

  Seconds bled into minutes. Minutes bled into hours. Hours bled into days.

  It’s funny how six minutes can feel like the longest six minutes of your life, but six weeks can pass in the blink of an eye.

  Day to day, the hours felt long. I felt the suffering, the want, the desire. I wrote in my journal. Often. I tried to recreate the feelings I’d felt that night I’d met him.

  I looked up his tour schedule. I thought mailing his hat to his next location.

  Part of me didn’t want him to come into the store when he got back, but I knew he would regardless of whether or not I had his hat. It was inevitable.

  I stared at the note he left me a million times. I thought about calling. I thought about sending a text. But I knew I never would.

  If something happened between us, it would be because of his persistence. It wouldn’t be because of me.

  I tried to forget about him, but it was useless.

  And then I looked at the calendar and realized six weeks had passed since I had first met Parker.

  I thought I’d forget him as one day faded into two and two faded into three, but I hadn’t.

  I didn’t turn on his music. I erased all signs of him and the Flashing Light signing from the store.

  The only thing I had left of him was his hat and a slip of paper. The hat sat prominently on my family room table, mocking me every time I walked past it. I couldn’t find it in myself to move that hat.

  I often wondered—obsessively, really—what he was doing, whether he was thinking about me. If he was shoving his dick down some girl’s throat.

  It was his first time on the road. I couldn’t expect him to save himself for me. It was stupid to think he would even consider that. He had a life to live, and I had made the choice not to use the number on the slip of paper he’d left for me.

  Maybe if I had, things would be different.

  Maybe I’d feel better about where I stood with him.

  There was nothing between us except one shared moment in the middle of my store, those seconds when our eyes connected and I felt something I’d never experienced before. He had to have felt it, too.

  He had to have.

  No matter what I tried, he wouldn’t get out of my head. So eventually I stopped trying. I stopped ignoring what I felt. Maybe it’s true that absence makes the heart grow fonder, because over the six weeks that had passed, he’d become larger than life in my mind.

  The darkness in his eyes was somehow darker. The light that burned around him was somehow brighter. I’d even dreamed about what he looked like beneath the black shirt and black pants and black shoes. I imagined a hard body littered with tattoos, veins filled with life surging above his skin, comfort in his solid chest, the smoothness of his skin under my fingers.

  It was easy to imagine after I’d Googled him and seen his perfect body without a shirt.

  The one image that stuck out to me most was his chest. Comfort.

  That was different.

  That was something I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

  And in the few warm seconds Parker had held me in his arms, that was exactly what I’d felt. Comfort.

  I didn’t deserve it, and I hadn’t been looking for it, yet there it was.

  Enveloping me like a blanket. Soft, sturdy, heated.

  While part of me assumed he’d just forget about me and I’d eventually forget about him, a deeper part of my conscience knew that he would show up at Vintage as soon as the tour was over.

  So when he walked into my store after his six weeks away, I wasn’t surprised.

  I felt his warmth behind me before I saw him.

  It was mid-afternoon, the quiet lull forcing me into the mundane checklist of my daily tasks. My list started with the bookcases and straightened each book, checking for alphabetical order. Then I moved onto t-shirts, folding them and stacking them into equal piles. Then I moved over to the music, where I first alphabetized records and then moved onto the compact discs.

  I was in the middle of t-shirts when he walked in.

  Instinctively I knew he was there, because somehow we shared this unreal connection that I’d never shared with another human being. Ever.

  “You never called.”

  His voice was loud and clear in the quiet of the store. He stood behind me, but I knew exactly who he was. His voice was burned into my memory. I was pretty sure it would be for the rest of my life. There was no escaping the warmth that wrapped around me when I heard it.

  Tim was in my line of vision, and I saw his face whip up when he heard Parker’s voice, too. He knew exactly who it was talking to me, and from the sour look on his face, he didn’t like it.

  But I couldn’t find it in myself to care what Tim thought. He represented the indifference that had clouded over me for far too long. Parker was emotion. Bright, light, white emotion. It was too strong to ignore.

  “How was your tour?” I asked, refusing to meet his eyes as I continued folding shirts.

  I knew if I met his eyes, I’d be lost again. He’d take me into his soul, and a part of me would be lost forever to him.

  “Would’ve been better if I knew you were here waiting for me.”

  “Who says I wasn’t?”

  “You. By refusing to call me. Look at me.”

  The potency in his voice forced my eyes toward him.

  My memory hadn’t done him justice.

  He took my breath away.

  He looked even better than I had remembered. Handsome and sexy rolled into one package that was making my mouth dry.

  Nerves carried through my veins, spreading into my chest. It was uncomfortable and unfamiliar. I didn’t know how to act around him, and that had never been a problem for me before.

  He wore almost the same thing as the last time I’d seen him, except for the hat.

  Because I had his hat.

  His eyes were heated. He looked angry. “Why didn’t you call?”

  “Because I can’t get mixed up with you.”

  “Why not?”

  I shrugged. I had about a million reasons, but I couldn’t seem to remember any of them when he looked at me that way.

  “You don’t know?” he asked. His voice was soft, a sharp contrast to the hard look in his dark eyes.

  “Because you’re a musician,” I said flippantly, as if that explained it all. I took the easy road, the simplest answer. I didn’t know how to admit to him that I already had feelings for him when I didn’t know anything about him. It was too strange, too strong of a pull to be real.

  And I didn’t know how to tell him that I was terrified for his safety. He couldn’t get mixed up with me any more than I could get mixed up with him.

  “I’ll change jobs.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not worth that.”

  “Your sense of self-worth is disappointing, Jimi. I expected more out of someone so beautiful.”

  “You can’t say things like that to me.” I turned away from him, focusing on the ordinary to rid myself of the quaking going on inside of me.

  “Why not?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He sighed. “Jimi—”

  “Why are you here?” I asked abruptly, interrupting whatever he was going to say.

  He looked momentarily surprised, the desire and heat in his eyes temporarily slipping. I liked that I caught him off guard. He was so used to people giving him whatever he wanted that I was proving to be a cha
llenge.

  He seemed to like that about me.

  My guard was up, but it was slipping. I wasn’t going to be able to resist him much longer. I didn’t want to. I wanted to fold myself into him. I wanted his warmth surrounding every part of me. I wanted his eyes to look lovingly into mine. I wanted to share the pain of my past and wallow in his. I wanted to writhe naked on top of him. I wanted his hard cock pushing into me, pushing me past my limits, pushing me into a soul-shattering orgasm that I’d never recover from.

  That was what was going to happen if I gave into what I was feeling.

  But the stubbornness in me knew I couldn’t.

  I had to protect both of us.

  The life of a successful musician wasn’t easy. It was six weeks or three months or more on tour. That meant time away from loved ones. I was all too familiar with that concept. I just didn’t want that life for myself. I wanted a normal relationship with someone who worked a normal job someday down the road when I felt ready to let someone into my life again.

  Parker’s band had real talent. I knew their big break was just minutes away. It was in my blood to be able to recognize those things.

  I’d grown up around that life, and it was too hard to say goodbye all the time.

  But more than that, I couldn’t allow him to get to know me—the real me—because it would only hurt him in the end. Everyone I got close to ended up hurt, so if I was strong, if I kept my guard up and kept pushing him away, he’d be safe.

  “I’m here because something started that night of the signing, Jimi. I’m here because I couldn’t get your goddamn beautiful face out of my head for the past six weeks.”

  His hand found my chin and he forced me to look up at him again. “I’m here because I turned away every slut that paid any attention my way in the hopes that you’d give me a chance when I got back. I denied every single one of them because I wanted to be strong for you. I don’t understand what the fuck is happening to me, because that’s not who I am.”

  He paused, his eyes latching onto mine. I saw the bitter anger he held behind them, and I knew it wasn’t because of me. He was going through a change, dealing with something, and he wasn’t sure how to handle it. “You want the truth? I’ll tell you the ugly truth. I wanted to fuck every single one of them until they were begging me to stop. I wanted to shove my cock down all of their throats until they made me come. I wanted to fuck and forget. Fuck and forget. That has been my lifestyle, my mantra, for as long as I can remember. And then I met you. And now I’m all sorts of fucked in the head because of it.”