by Anne Holster
When I asked her how she liked the show, I made sure to place my hand on her thigh—it was a surefire way to gauge the level of interest. Sure enough, she didn’t move my hand away, and I knew it would be an easy score. She said she loved the show and wanted to know if we were playing anywhere else in the area. I kept my voice casual as I explained that we’d probably be back in the summer, but all the while, my hand was inching further up her thigh. That’s when I heard someone call my name.
I turned around to see Cole and Bryan walking over with another guy I didn’t know. I told the blonde I’d be right back and walked towards them.
“Tanner, I want you to meet someone,” Cole said as he turned to the guy next to him. “This is Dave. He owns this club along with a couple others in the area.”
I shook his hand and nodded. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too, Tanner. You guys put on a great show.”
“Thanks!”
Cole said, “Dave’s interested in having us play a summer concert at one of the local lakes.”
I felt my pulse quicken. “Oh wow, an outdoor concert! That’d be great!”
“I told him I would check the schedule when I get back,” Cole added, “and we could try to work out a date.”
“Sounds great, guys,” Dave said, then he turned to Cole. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Man, that’s great news, Cole!” I said as Dave walked away.
“Yeah, it is,” he agreed.
Bryan looked as excited as I was. “Hopefully we’ll get a few more shows in the area and we can add it to the summer tour.”
We talked for a few more minutes about it, then Cole said, “Okay, I think we’re going to head out. Scott put your equipment in the truck and locked your guitar inside.”
“Where is he?” I asked. “I haven’t seen him since the show ended.”
“He was outside with some blonde. He’s probably still there,” Bryan said.
“Bryan, Marty, and I are heading towards South Jersey,” Cole said. “We got some friends in Belmar and we’re gonna crash there for the night.”
“Okay, cool,” I said. “I’ll catch up with you when I get back.”
“Great show,” he repeated and high-fived me before he headed out.
I went back to the bar where Tina was saving my stool and flashed her a killer grin. “Thanks. Now…where were we?” I said as I moved my stool closer to hers and slid my hand back up her thigh.
Just then, the bartender slid me a bottle of Jack Daniels and two shot glasses. “It’s on the house, compliments of the owner. Awesome show.”
“Thanks, man, I appreciate it.” I said as I reached for the bottle and poured a round of shots. Good thing I wasn’t driving. “Cheers,” I said as I downed the shot and then quickly poured another and downed that one, too.
It didn’t get much better than this. Here I was, playing lead guitar with an awesome band and downing shots with a hot chick – well semi-hot, anyway. Although, I thought as I looked over at her and downed another one, she seemed to be getting hotter by the minute—or at least by the shot. I laughed to myself.
By the time she finished her second shot I had finished my sixth and she was practically in my lap. “Ya know…” she slurred into my ear “…I give great head.”
Jackpot! I thought, but managed to keep my expression neutral. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to see about that.” I stood up and held my hand out to her. “Lead the way.”
I downed one more for the road and threw some bills down for the bartender; then she grabbed my hand and we started walking towards the exit. That’s when I realized how drunk I actually was. I hadn’t eaten anything since the sandwiches at Grace’s house and my head was spinning.
As we got nearer to the exit I heard the bartender yell, “Last call!” I half-heartedly scanned the room for Scott. “Do you know where our friends went?” I asked the blonde—at least I think that’s what I said--but she just giggled and kept walking.
We stumbled outside and found the truck, but Scott wasn’t inside, and the doors were locked. “Hey,” someone yelled, “you looking for the dude whose truck that is?”
“Yeah,” I slurred back as I walked over to a group of about four guys. “You seen him?”
The guys started murmuring and laughing amongst themselves. What the hell did he get himself into?
“Seems like your friend messed with the wrong girl—someone else’s girl—and they got into it. The cops took ‘em away.”
Oh shit! I grabbed my phone from my pocket and took it out – seven missed calls. Just then, from out of nowhere, came Bleached Blonde Number One.
“Tina, I’ve been looking all over for you,” she whined. “We gotta get out of here. Dennis heard about what happened and he’s coming to get us. If he’s see’s you here with him--” she jerked her head toward me—“he’s gonna flip.”
“Oh, shit,” Tina slurred and then turned to me. “Sorry, I gotta go. Come on, Karen, let’s get out of here.”
They took off as I was dialing Scott’s number. He finally picked up on the fifth ring. “It’s about fucking time!” he yelled. “I called you like ten times!”
“Where the fuck are you?” I yelled back at him.
That calmed him down a bit. He basically repeated what the four guys had told me ---the blonde’s boyfriend had caught them and tried to pound Scott’s face to a pulp. The cops came and took them both to the police station, where he was now, and oh, by the way, this was all my fault for telling him not to bring the girls back to the motel room.
Whatever, I thought. All I knew was he’d ruined what had started out as a great night. I realized Scott was still talking.
“They said they’re not gonna book me, but someone – someone sober – has to come down and pick me up.”
I listened quietly, then calmly explained that I didn’t have the keys to his truck and that I had no way to get there and that, needless to say, I was definitely not sober.
He was silent for a minute and then said, “Can you call Grace?”
“Are you kidding me?” I said. “No fucking way am I calling Grace! Christ, that’s the last thing I want to do.”
“Well, can you think of anything else?” he said.
I didn’t say a word. He was right. I had no other choice. But man, I was no way in the mood for the ‘Grace charade’. Talk about a buzz-kill.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll call her. Where did you say you are?”
He told me to hold on a minute, and I heard him asking someone—presumably a cop - for directions. Then he said, “T, do me a favor, will you? Can you ask her to bring some of those leftover sandwiches? I’m starving.”
“Fuck you, idiot,” I said as I hung up.
I angrily shoved the phone into my pocket, then looked around at the now-empty parking lot. How did such an awesome night turn into this shit storm? I slowly walked around to the back of the truck and fell against it, trying to stop the world from spinning. Stalling wasn’t going to do me any good-- I had to get myself into boyfriend mode. The mere thought made me start laughing; then again, it might have been the Jack Daniels.
I slowly reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone, staring at it for a minute. I’m gonna regret this, I thought as I scrolled through my contact list to find Grace’s number. I hesitated for another moment, then pressed send and waited for it to start ringing.
Chapter 15
Grace
I woke to the sound of my phone ringing. Who would be calling me at this hour? Disoriented, I grabbed for the phone but accidentally knocked it off the nightstand and onto the floor. When I reached down for it I saw his name flashing on the small screen – Tanner?!
I quickly fumbled with it in the dark and answered quietly, “Hello?”
“Heeeeey Babe,” Tanner said, so loudly that I pulled th
e phone from my ear, “Watcha doin?” Was he drunk?
“Oh, just watching TV,” I lied. For some reason I didn’t want him to know that I’d been sleeping.
“I need a favor, babe.”
“Sure,” I said, now fully awake. “What do you need?”
He proceeded to tell me a rather confusing story about Scott that involved the cops, adding that Scott was being held at the Suffern police station. “Anyway, the bottom line is that I’m stranded in an abandoned parking lot. Do you think you can give me a lift?”
“Sure! Of course!” I said, mentally chiding myself for sounding so excited. “Just tell me exactly where you are.” He only had to give me the name of the bar and I knew exactly where he was. I told him I’d leave right away.
“You’re the best, babe!” he said, then I heard a click. He was definitely drunk.
I sprang out of bed, pulling my hair back into a ponytail and grabbing a sweatshirt from my closet. There was no way I was waking my parents up, so I crept down the hall to Ryder’s room, quietly opened the door, and went over to her bed.
“Ryder,” I whispered, gently shaking her awake.
She woke up, startled. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?” she said as she sat up.
“Nothing’s wrong. Listen to me,” I whispered as I looked her straight in the eye. “Tanner had some car trouble, that’s all, and he needs me to go pick him up. I don’t want to wake Mom because she’ll insist Dad go with me because it’s so late.”
“Can I go? Will Scott be there too?” she asked, now wide awake.
“No, I need you here in case I’m not back before Mom gets up.”
She looked like she was about to argue, but she just asked, “Where should I say you went?”
“Just tell her the truth and make like it’s no big deal, but I’ll probably be back before she gets up.”
“Oh, Grace, this is so exciting! Please can I go?” she begged.
“No,” I said again, sternly, as I started to get up. “I gotta go. Just tell Mom what I said if I’m not here before she wakes up.”
“Okay, but I want details when you get back, and tell Scott I said hi.”
I rolled my eyes at her, then walked out of the room and into the hallway. Somehow I managed to get down the stairs without making any noise; then I pulled on my sneakers, grabbed my purse and the keys, and slipped out the front door. As I got into the car and turned the key in the ignition, I was sure my parents would coming running out after me, but they didn’t. I pulled out of the driveway and didn’t put the lights on until I was halfway down the block.
The bar Tanner was talking about wasn’t far, just a few miles down the road, but it seemed to take forever. I was so excited to see him again, and more than a little curious as to how he had ended up there, alone and from the sound of things, completely bombed. What happened to the job he was supposed to be doing? Scott’s truck was the only one in the lot so it was no problem finding Tanner. He was leaning against the driver’s side door. He looked cold. He was only wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
As I pulled up next to him, he hurried over to the passenger side, pulled open the door and slid in. “Hey, babe,” he said, smiling, then leaned his head back on the headrest.
Yep, I thought and smiled, he is definitely drunk.
“You must be freezing,” I said as I pulled out of the lot.
“Na, not really.”
“I know where the Suffern Police Station is, and it’s not far,” I said, then added, “What happened with Scott?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” he said. “All I know is that he got into a fight with some guy and the cops came and took them both away.”
“Oh, okay. We’ll have to get the whole story when we pick him up.” I was quiet for a moment, then asked, “How did the job go? Did you work on a lot of cars?”
He turned to me with a rather confused expression on his face. “What do you mean, ‘work on a lot of cars’? I wasn’t working on any cars.”
I felt my face getting red. “Oh, well, you said you were coming up here for work so I just assumed that since you work on cars at the gas station by school that that’s what you were coming up here to do.”
He seemed to think this was very funny and started to laugh. “You thought I came all the way up here to work on some cars? That’s crazy! No, a friend of mine has a band and I help him out sometimes with the sound system and stuff. Actually, I’ve been helping him out quite a bit lately and they were playing at the club where you picked me up. That’s why I came up here.” He made a snorting sound then started laughing again. “Cars…that’s so funny. You must’ve thought that I’m like some superman mechanic or something. That I travel from city to city fixing cars that no one else can fix.”
He was still laughing as I pulled the car into the police station parking lot and found a spot in the back. After I got over feeling like a huge dork, I started laughing, too. It did sound crazy now that I thought about it, but he had never mentioned a friend with a band.
He started to get out of the car, but I grabbed his arm. “Um, maybe I should go in myself. You seem like you’ve had a lot to drink. Just wait here.” Before he could say anything, I got out of the car and said, “I’ll be right back.”
For some reason, I was really nervous as I walked into the station. I didn’t know why; I hadn’t done anything wrong, and I hadn’t been drinking. I walked up to the desk and told the officer who I was there to pick up.
He shot me an annoyed look, then hoisted himself out of his seat and headed toward the back of the station. There were a few seedy-looking people sitting around, and I tried not to make eye contact with anyone while I waited. A few minutes later the cop returned, followed by a disheveled-looking Scott.
“Take him straight home,” the officer said sternly, “and I better not catch him driving.”
“Yes, officer, I’ll take him straight home. Thank you,” I said in the most polite manner I could muster up. We both turned and left the police station.
When we got outside, Scott said, “Grace, thank God you came. This has been like the longest night of my life.”
Tanner was passed out, his head lolling to the side. I opened the back door for Scott, then slid behind the wheel. I asked him what had happened.
“Um, let’s just say that I messed with the wrong girl and leave it at that,” he said.
“Okay…”
“You got anything to eat in here?” he asked.
“No…um…wait. I popped open the glove box and found a granola bar—Mom always kept one in case she didn’t have time to eat lunch. I handed the bar to Scott, then he gave me directions to the motel where they were staying. I pulled into the parking spot right in front of their room.
Scott leaned up front and said, “You wanna come in for a minute?”
Immediately, red flags went up all around me. It was safety 101— never go into a motel room with two drunken guys. Of course, they weren’t just any guys.
After a second’s hesitation, I said, “Yeah, sure, I’ll come in for a minute.”
I went around to the passenger side door and opened it. Scott came over and pulled Tanner out. He could hardly stand.
“Man, what were you drinking?” Scott said as Tanner mumbled something incoherent.
When we got him into the room, I quickly pulled down the covers before Scott dropped him into the middle of one of the beds. The room was so hot; it must have been close to ninety degrees. I looked around for the thermostat and turned it way down. Then I took off my sweatshirt.
It was then that I realized that I was still wearing my blue plaid flannel pajama pants.
“I gotta take a shower,” Scott said and began rifling through his bag. He grabbed a change of clothes and walked into the bathroom, leaving me alone with Tanner.
Not that he knew I was there; he was complet
ely passed out. I looked at him lying there with his hair splayed out over the pillow, and I could have melted. He was just so handsome and so sweet. I went over, unlaced his boots, and pulled them off.
The sound of the shower, followed by Scott’s humming, brought me out of my daze. It really was time to leave. Then Tanner sighed softly in his sleep, and it was like he was calling me toward him—or at least that’s what I wanted to think. I slowly walked back to the bed and sat down gently next to him, suddenly dying to run my fingers through that gorgeous hair. He was passed out cold; he’d never know.
I leaned down, hand outstretched, and that’s when I saw the faint scar by his right eye. I traced it slowly, wondering how he had gotten it, then ran my hand through his silky mane. I closed my eyes for a split second, and when I opened them, he was staring up at me with furrowed brows.
I froze, suddenly aware of what this must look like. His brows un-furrowed and his eyes widened slightly as a drunken smile slowly spread across his face. His eyelids drooped again, but not before he ran his hand up my arm to my shoulder and pulled me down onto the bed next to him.
I tried to get up, but he grabbed my hips and pulled me back so that I was flush against his body. I lay there perfectly still for a moment. Then he suddenly pulled away and yanked his t-shirt off and pulled me into him again. My back felt so good pressed up against the bare skin of his muscular chest.
He inhaled deeply and mumbled quietly into my hair, “Mmm…you smell good…” Then he slipped his hands under my thin tank top and rested them on my stomach, his head tucked at the crook of my neck.
I waited a few minutes until I was sure that he was asleep, and then I lightly ran my hand across his forearm and up around his muscular bicep. I kept repeating the motion, thinking to myself that if I lived to be a hundred this would go down as the best night of my life.
Just then I heard the shower turn off, followed by the sound of Scott opening the bathroom door. It didn’t even seem to register with him that I was lying in the opposite bed with a shirtless Tanner. He just turned out the light and climbed into bed.
