“Jeeeeesuusss…” Bo exhaled when I released his lips from mine, “Sorry ‘bout that. I’ve just had to tell Rachel’s and my parents’ story so much this week that I guess it finally caught up to me. Do you want to run and scream?” His sheepish grin sucked the heavy from the room.
“No, we’re in my apartment - I’d have to kick you out first.” I smiled back when he laughed.
Quietly, an idea tiptoed into my brain that was so specific, I looked over my shoulder to see if my parents snuck in and had whispered it into my ear. Noting my confused look, Bo sat up.
“What?” He asked.
“Um . . .” I couldn’t believe the words that were about to come out of my mouth, “could you show me how to play something…on the guitar?” What the hell?
“Ha, are you serious Miss ‘I never took to an instrument but my voice is my instrument’?” he mocked.
“Don’t make fun of me!” I laughed as my face heated.
“I’m just kidding. Let me go get my guitar.”
“No,” I paused, “I . . . have one.”
“November Blue, you own a guitar and this is the first I’m hearing about it? That’s hot. Go get the damn thing!”
Operation “Crying Distraction” complete. God, now I have to play in front of Lord Hotness of the Guitar. I walked to my room and opened the closet door. I had to reach all the way to the back for it; it was a miracle I still had it at all. I carried the worn case to the living room and set it like a live bomb on the coffee table. When I opened it, a gasp of juvenile awe filled my ears.
“This is gorgeous. How long have you had it? Can I pick it up?” Bo reached slowly toward the acoustic guitar.
“Be my guest. My parents had it when they were in high school. They gave it to me when I went to college in the hopes that I’d find someone to teach me to play, or something…”
“Why the hell don’t you ever play?”
“Don’t have to with a voice like this,” I joked, pointing to my throat and smiling.
“Lame point. K, where do you want to start?”
“The beginning?” I shrugged, all ‘damsel-in-distress.’
Bo chuckled as he helped me position the guitar on my body. It felt slightly foreign, but he didn’t. He showed me a couple of cords, laying his hands on mine, often causing me to lose focus. I had retained a fair bit of this basic information from my childhood, but I refused to tell him that; I just wanted him to keep touching me. After about a half hour of musical foreplay, he ran to his car and brought up his guitar. He’d strum something and have me follow. We laughed at my mistakes, or when he’d play something that was ridiculously expert and ask me to repeat it.
A seductive and frightening voice reappeared in the confines of my subconscious. You love him. You love him so much that you’re not even thinking about sex right now. You’re “guitar-playing, run-away-and-join-a band” in love with him.
“OK, we’re done now. My fingers hurt,” I abruptly chuckled, lifting the strap over my head and placing the guitar back in the case. The guitar, and the L-word, could stay right in that case - for now.
“Baby,” he teased as he set his guitar in its case.
“I’ll show you baby, Mr. Cavanaugh,” I said in my most seductive voice possible sliding over his lap in a straddle.
“Ms. Harris,” a laugh choked his voice, “I do believe this would be highly frowned upon.” He smoothed his hands up the sides of my torso, underneath my shirt.
Unhurriedly, I pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it by his guitar.
“I don’t care. I can’t - and won’t - say no to you until I absolutely have to.” My lips grazed his ear as I spoke.
His goosebumps answered before his voice did. “I’m glad you have that willpower, because right now I don’t know if I could ever say no to you.” He drew my shirt up my body, and it joined his on the floor.
My phone rang, interrupting us for the second time in one day, and we both let out sighs of exasperation. I checked my phone and grumbled.
“What?” Bo said.
“My parents.” I rolled my eyes. When I remembered his parents I decided to cut the attitude, hoping he didn’t notice.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Baby Blue! We’re in your neck of the woods and we’re thinking of stopping over - is that OK?” My mom’s voice sang through the phone, the octave raised Bo’s eyebrows.
“What? When?”
“We’ll we’re pulling into town now . . .”
“Mom, come on! It’s like 10:30 on a Tuesday night!” Each time they rolled into town, it was a fresh reminder that they really marched to the beat of their own bongo.
“Oh, give it a rest November Blue. We’ll be there in fifteen.” Suddenly, my mother calling me “November Blue” seemed odd, as if it belonged to Bo alone.
I pressed “end” and let out an overstated whimper into Bo’s shoulder. My hormones would never forgive me for this.
“What?” Bo asked as he gripped my waist.
“My parents are going to be here in a fifteen minutes. Now, they would be thrilled to meet you, and wouldn’t think anything weird about never hearing about you, and yadda, yadda but…” I waved my hands erratically to indicate the insanity I was feeling. For such peaceful people, they could certainly ignite something frantic in me.
“No big deal,” he chuckled, “I’m not really ‘meet-the-parents’ ready right now,” He said as he shagged his hair back and forth.
I petulantly stepped to the floor as he stood up. I tossed his shirt carelessly in his direction, admiring the view. He hugged me bare-chested before he put it on; when he pulled away I noticed a fairly large greenish bruise to the left of his navel.
“Jesus, what happened?” I asked, realizing that, by the color, it had been there for a few days. I’d been too involved in other parts of his body to notice.
“This? Nothing.” He brushed my hand away. “I was helping my friend in his barn last week and I bumped into his tool bench - serious idiot.” He shrugged into his shirt.
“Well, you better not damage anything else, I love this body.” There. I said love in a completely innocent manner and the floor didn’t swallow me whole.
Bo smirked, “And I love this body.” He pulled me closer and ran his thumb under my eye. I let my head fall into his hand for a second.
“Damn straight you do. I don’t go running for my own mental clarity - gotta keep it tight for the bedroom,” I joked, flexing my muscles.
Bo let out a full-bellied laugh and kissed me goodnight.
“See you tomorrow at the office, Mr. Cavanaugh,” I toned out derisively.
“It’ll be good, I promise. Goodnight.”
I left my hand on the door after he closed it, praying for a split second that it really would be all right.
At precisely 10:46pm, I heard the unmistakable sound of my parents 1980’s station wagon in front of my apartment. Their laughter carried them up the stairs before they knocked. The fact that I trained them to knock seared me with pride. Growing up, Ashby and Raven didn’t even have a door to whatever bedroom they lived in at the time. I braced myself and opened the door.
“Rae! Ash!” I cheered as they walked in. Calling them mom and dad was out of the question growing up. They said it forced an uncomfortable hierarchy in the household. You mean like parent and child? Imagine that.
“Bluebell!” My dad squeezed me around the waist tightly, his arm snuffing out any memory of Bo’s hands.
“Ember, baby, how are you?” My mom wrapped her arms around me and my dad before they both stopped dead and dropped their arms.
I turned to see what happened, and saw them staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the coffee table. I didn’t have time to put the guitar away, and now I was going to have to explain. I walked the long way around the coffee table and stood facing them on the other side. Talk about a five-ton elephant.
“November, what’s this about?” A hint of a smile graced my mother’s face.
“I met this guy. He’s a musician.” My parents shot each other a look in the hopes I wouldn’t see. I did.
“No,” I continued, “I mean, Monica and I sang with him at Finnegan’s last week when he played a set. He’s from New Hampshire. He . . .”
My voice was gone. As I tried to put everything into words for my parents, the two people who had more love between them than anyone I had ever met, a heavy sob escaped my body. I crumpled to the couch with my elbows on my knees, crying into my hands.
“Sweetie!” My mom rushed to my side and wrapped her arm around my shoulder. My dad sat next to her and cocked his head in concern. He’s the only dad I know that’s not afraid of tears. Thank you, hippies.
For several minutes the tears fell. Each one I shed held reasons why I loved Bo, reasons why it was irresponsible, reasons why I didn’t care. My parents maintained their protective stance, and when I finally stopped I told them everything. The singing, the, meeting him at work, about his sister, his parents and about his foundation - it was all on the table. I told them that we had sex and it was the best thing that’d ever happened to me, physically and emotionally. When I explained that if our organizations collaborated we’d have to stop seeing each other - for a while at the very least, and forever at the most, I spilled more tears onto my mom’s shoulder.
“You are so perfectly amazing, November,” were the first words my mother spoke, “you need to decide what’s important right now.” Her words sat me up.
“Isn’t it all important? Didn’t you spend my entire life teaching me to follow my heart, and the wind, and whatever else?” Her practicality irritated me for the first time in my life.
“November,” my dad offered, “it is all important. But it all can’t be first-place. For instance, remember when you begged us to stay in one place long enough for you to go to one high school? While Raven and I valued our freedom as a family over everything else, the look in your eyes raised your desire for a home base to the number one spot on our list of things that were important.”
My dad reached across my mom’s lap and gave my knee a squeeze.
“What are you saying? That I need to give up this core-shaking love to focus on what could be one of the most important career moves I’ll ever have?” I was thoroughly confused.
“You need to really take time to think it all through. These are tears of confusion, love, sorrow and betrayal. Self-betrayal. You’re feeling like no matter what you choose - if you have to choose - you’ll be betraying the other half of yourself. Your free spirit and your practical spirit have worked together beautifully your whole life, and this is the first time they’re at odds with each other. It’s a bitch.” Mom nailed it.
They stayed for another hour, told me they were headed back on the road, but would be back through next weekend. I told them that I wanted them to meet Bo, but I wanted them to meet him only if we were meant to be together; I knew they’d love him instantly and I didn’t want to give anyone false hope. I assured them that there would at least be a decision between the organizations by then.
My mom interrupted me, “Don’t let your job decide this, Ember. You need to decide this. Work through it and commit with reckless abandon. Even if the decision happens before your organizations decide what their positions will be, commit.”
Being with Bo for the week was no longer the issue; the mist hovering over my mom’s eyes told me she knew this was about the “after.” She knew me well enough to know I was planning to decide after our organizations did. She knew, too, that it wouldn’t be my decision, and I could blame someone else for the rest of my life for whatever happened. She was good.
I kissed them good-bye and told them to call me when they got back into town. I scuffed to my bedroom and collapsed onto my bed, begging my pillow to absorb my tears. Maybe I’ll cry out a solution, I thought as I fell asleep with my clothes on.
Chapter Nine
Emptiness rose with the sun on Thursday. Not the emptiness that comes from heartbreak, but an emptiness that left me with a clear head; free of confusion. Evidently, my subconscious had worked it all out overnight, and today’s meeting between me, Monica, Bo, and David Bryson would be one hundred percent professional. I would focus on the collaboration only, try to set my swelling feelings aside, and see how that felt.
I texted Bo before I headed to work.
Me: Looking forward to meeting David today. Is noon still good?
Bo: Good morning, noon is perfect- see you then.
Me: Don’t think I’m being weird today.
Bo: ?
Me: I don’t want to screw things up for either one of us. I’m going to play it safe around you. Wait- David doesn’t know anything does he?
It occurred to me he could very well have shared things with David as I had with Monica.
Bo: Guys don’t “do that.” No worries, you’ll make it up to me later.
Me: :)
A smiley-face was all I could manage. What if I couldn’t make it up to him later?
The absence of Monica’s car erased thoughts of Bo. She was usually at work before me. Once I settled in to my desk I heard the main door shut.
“Mon?” I wasn’t used to being in the building alone.
“Yea, coming,” she said rather weakly. When she entered my office and took off her sunglasses, I saw the puffy-eyed evidence of a night, and likely morning, spent crying.
I’d seen this look before; when she came back from break in college. Grant broke up with her then. They’d been together since high school, and he broke up with her just as Adrian and I started sleeping together regularly.
“Monica, what happened?” I leapt to my feet and flew around my desk to give her a hug. She resumed sobbing in to my shoulder.
“Josh…” she inhaled with that uncomfortable cry-stutter and continued, “thinks he wants to take a break!”
That was all she could manage before she silenced a wail into my shoulder.
“Jesus, Monica! What the hell? When did this happen? What did he say? I was just there last night…” I ceased my barrage and sat us down in adjoining chairs.
Monica grabbed a tissue off of my desk, sat back, and took a long, slow, breath.
“After you left last night,” her eyes welled with tears as she struggled to continue, “we were cleaning up and he still seemed weird, like when you were there. I followed him to the living room and he plunked in to the chair and just sort of sat there with his head in his hands.” She closed her eyes tight, as if she was trying to wake herself from a dream.
“What’d he say, Mon?” I didn’t want her to replay all the gory details as she sat broken in my office.
“Ember he couldn’t even look me in my eyes! He said that he loves me ‘so much’ but he felt like there was some connection missing. He said that watching you talk about Bo and how you are when you’re with Bo . . . ”
“Me and Bo? He hasn’t spent much time with me and Bo, Mon.”
“I know, Em, and that’s what I told him.”
“And what’d he say?”
“He said that when he talked to Bo last weekend it shook him up.” Apprehension stole her tears.
“He talked to Bo? About us? When?”
“After the second night that he played at Finnegan’s, when they went inside to settle up. Josh asked him to be careful because you’d been hurt before.”
“Again, five years ago. I’m not a wounded love-vet, just someone who’s been focused on other things.” Jesus, if Josh spoke about my heartbreak, maybe it was more visible than I thought.
“Anyway, he said that Bo looked at him with complete seriousness and said that when he first sang with you, and looked in to your eyes, it was like he was able to feel everything you’ve ever felt. He said his soul thumped inside of him and it felt like he’d known you and loved you for a thousand lifetimes.” She blinked, sending two tears to stain her c
heek.
My mind went completely blank. The reservoir I thought I’d depleted in to my pillow was brimming with fresh tears. A thousand lifetimes? Feeling everything I’ve ever felt by looking in my eyes? I stared at Monica wide-eyed.
“I know, right?” She sensed my lack of words. “A thousand mother-fucking lifetimes this guy has loved you, and you find his ass strumming a guitar in a bar we’ve been going to for four years!” She cried and laughed at the same time. A beautiful mess.
“I . . .what the hell did Josh say to you after that?”
“He said that if that kind of love existed for everyone,” her voice broke the dam of sorrow once more, “he wasn’t sure it was with me.”
“Holy shit. What did you say?” I scanned the room for an escape.
“I told him to go. I was pissed, I was crying, I had no coherent response. He kissed me on top of the fucking head, said he loved me, and left. So, I’m left to understand that he loves me, just maybe not a thousand lifetimes worth,” her tone of sorrow shifted to one of anger.
“What a coward.”
“Exactly!” She seemed revived by her anger.
“Um…OK…So I’m going to call David Bryson and see if we can reschedule our meeting until tomorrow. We can close up, go eat ice cream and drink wine for the rest of the day - my place.” I refused to say Bo’s name for a moment.
“No, we’ve got to get this meeting out of the way so we don’t have to think about DROP again until Carrie sends us off to New Hampshire to meet with the whole damn group.” She drew her shoulders back and took a deep breath, like she was about to shoot a free throw.
“OK, Champ, whatever you say. Now, go to the bathroom and freshen up - you look like hell,” I said, forcing a smile as I pointed to the door.
Monica hugged me tightly.
“You’re the absolute best, Em. I think I’ve even loved you for a thousand lifetimes.” She left my office and shut the door.
I reached for my phone to text Bo. I wasn’t going to tell him about what Josh said to Monica. I didn’t want to betray Josh; I wanted to smack him, but not betray him.
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