Hammers, Strings, and Beautiful Things Page 7

  I wanted a breath from it all.

  I told Miles I was going to go back to the hotel. He gave me that concerned look, reading my face perfectly like he always did. That kid was so intuitive and knew me like the back of his hand; sometimes it annoyed me when I wanted to suppress my feelings. But I gave him a small smile that I was fine, just tired and needed to go to sleep, encouraging him to stay out as long as he wanted.

  Every time the days morphed into night, my mind spun around like a carousel. What was it about the night that made people overthink everything? Their whole lives? The meaning of their existence? Why the hell they did that one weird thing in third grade, and why were they dwelling about it now? It was only the bad memories that seemed nocturnal, insecurities and self-doubt that sprang to life at night, louder than they were during the day. Sometimes, I felt as if I couldn’t hide from my own voice.

  When I got back to my hotel, I searched through my orange prescription bottle filled with Xanax, Ritalin, and the remaining eight ball of cocaine I scored a few days before I broke up with Alanna. Since I knew I wasn’t going to fall asleep, and I was going to continue to ride on that carousel in my mind, I took a Xanax and then passed out.

  A breath from it all.

  * * *

  I spent the next day alone in my hotel room, relying on the cocaine to numb me in every way I needed it to. By the time we made it to our green room, I felt as if I was sunbathing on a cloud. I was so eager to get on stage and run around, jump on a five-foot-tall speaker, wail on my guitar, and soak up all the cheering from the fans.

  After I tuned my Fender with fidgeting hands, Mom texted me a picture of a red-heeled pump on one foot and a black flat on the other, asking me which one was the best option for her date with Greg from Beverly Hills and the world of online dating. I stared at the picture, feeling the chemical energy controlling my body and mind. I had no idea what the hell kind of shoe my mom should wear. So, I used that as an excuse to see Reagan. I was in a pretty talkative mood anyways.

  I marched down the hallway to her green room, letting the confidence from the two preshow shots and lines soak in my blood. Her green room door was always cracked open before shows. Usually, the only time I walked past her door was right after we got off the stage. The number one rule of live shows was that you didn’t disrupt a musician’s preshow ritual. So, I never bothered her.

  But those rules didn’t really exist when I rejuvenated the depleted elation running through me. Plus, considering that she was the woman who built her career on three double platinum albums filled with love songs, I think my interruption was justified. She knew exactly the shoe my mom needed to find love.

  When I poked my head through her room, I found her stretched out on the couch in her concert hair, makeup, and attire. An aromatherapy diffuser scented the room, and whatever the weird smell was, Reagan seemed to enjoy it, eyes closed, and hands folded over her sparkly bodysuit.

  “Knock knock,” I said as I tapped the door.

  “Oh, hey,” she said with a smile, pushing herself up on the couch.

  “What’s the smell in here?”

  “Clary sage. Helps calm your nerves, your stomach, and anxiety. You’re more than welcome to breathe some of it in since it’s our hometown show.”

  Not like I really need to breathe in any more, but if it gives me an excuse to be next to her…

  “Well, if you really insist. Mind if I come in?”

  “Not at all.”

  She moved her legs to give me room to join her on the loveseat. For whatever reason, she looked extra good today. I loved the natural shade of pink lipstick on her lips and the soft smoky shadow brushed on her eyelids.

  “So, uh, my mom is going on her first date, in like, six years,” I explained, scratching the back of my head as Reagan’s beauty and the tension that kept following us around warmed my cheeks. “She doesn’t trust me with fashion, and I don’t trust myself in picking out the right shoe for her, so I’d thought I’d ask your advice on what she should wear on her date. Care to give it?” I wiggled my phone.

  “Uh, always!”

  As I opened my mom’s text message, I noticed the lack of space that separated us. She scooted over until there was only an inch separating our legs. While she studied my mom’s mirror selfie, I studied the tension reverberating between us. Instead of resisting, I let my leg follow the tension. It relaxed into hers ever so slightly, and the humming recentered to my knees. I couldn’t focus on anything else except the friction. I wasn’t the only one who felt it. Reagan completely lost interest in my phone. As I caught her stare, her gaze slipped down to my lips, and then her stare jumped right back up to my eyes.

  “You smell really good,” she said while leaning forward and sniffing the air close to my neck.

  God, the things I would have done for her lips to touch me. If only we could close the inch of space. Could we forget about my mom’s shoe dilemma just so she could continue to smell me? Maybe rest a hand on my thigh? Kiss the spot on my neck where I spritzed my perfume?

  I swallowed hard. “Oh, thank you. New perfume.”

  “You smell immaculate.”

  “Don’t make me cocky.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. Your ego. It’s a thing.” The corner of her mouth tugged upward as her eyes went back to my phone screen at my mom’s mirror selfie. My mom, living her true, twentysomething self by taking an awful selfie with two different shoes on in a sexy black cocktail dress.

  “Damn, your mom is hot,” she said with much surprise.

  “Tone the libido. She’s all about the D.”

  “Sorry. Sage is an aphrodisiac. I can’t help it.” She nudged me in the arm. Yup, that had to explain the tension sucking our legs together like a magnet. Or my wanting her lips on my neck and her hand crawling up my leg. The aphrodisiac. Nothing else.

  “You guys look alike, you know that? You’ve got the same dark brown eyes and perfect dark eyebrows.”

  “Are you saying I’m hot?”

  It took a second for her face to turn bright red. “What?”

  “You said my mom was hot, and then said we look alike, which means you think I’m hot.”

  “I…you…I said you looked good in a bathing suit, didn’t I?”

  “Oh, you did. I’ll never forget you said that either.”

  “Just…shut up. Take a compliment and shut up.”

  My face started to heat up too just seeing how bright her cheeks turned because of me.

  Then she typed back to Mom at lightning speed. Red pumps! Black always needs a pop of color. Plus, the shoes are cute!—Reagan.

  “Really? She’s going on a walking tour,” I said skeptically.

  “Blair, they’re like three-inch heels. She will be fine.”

  “You can go on a walking tour in three-inch heels?”

  Mom replied back. Red heels it is! Thank you, Reagan! Hope you and my daughter have a great show.

  Reagan handed me back my phone with a crinkle by her eyes when my mom sent her a winky face emoji. “See. Your mom loves me.”

  “Mom loves everyone.”

  “I should send some sage her way.”

  “Please do. She hasn’t had sex in, like, eight years, and before that, the last person she slept with got her pregnant, and he’s a piece of shit.”

  Her eyes grew. “I’m not sure what I’m more shocked about. The fact you know your mom’s sex life that well or the fact she hasn’t had sex in that long.”

  “She’s my best girlfriend. We tell each other everything. If anything, she’s more disturbed by my sex life.”

  Her eyebrow rose as she gave me an intrigued smile. “What’s so disturbing about your sex life?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know. The sage has gone to your head.”

  She playfully grabbed hold of my knee, sending a jolt through my black leather pants and underneath my underwear. She started singing “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon until a knock interrupted her.

  My che
st swelled with jealousy when I saw the person knocking, and from the corner of my eyes, I saw Reagan’s grin loosen.

  “Jess?”

  It was none other than Jessie Byrd herself, looking like a true hipster rock star: skintight maroon jeans that ended right above her ankles, a black leather coat, white V-neck T-shirt, and a black Panama hat resting on the top of her dark brown hair tousled in loose curls down to her breasts. Her lips stood out in bright red lipstick as a reminder that those lips once belonged to Reagan.

  If I was amused in Miami about Reagan dating Jessie Byrd, I felt anything but amused sitting in that Nashville green room. It was one thing to imagine it—the sudden information about their relationship opened the door to all these scenarios in my head. But Jessie Byrd in the flesh? At Reagan’s show? I’d just spent a few minutes tweaking out a smile from Reagan that was all for me. Only me. And one sight of her debonair ex-girlfriend washed that smile away and really diluted my high.

  No, I wasn’t a fan of it.

  “Hey, stranger,” Jessie Byrd said in her sexy Australian accent.

  I’d only listened to Jessie Byrd sing her indie folk-rock songs on Spotify. I had every song off her two albums downloaded to my phone. But I never heard her speak or went out of my way to watch videos of interviews so I had no idea she wooed girls with her accent.

  Talk about a disadvantage for me.

  “What…what are you doing here?” Reagan said, still completely baffled by the appearance. From the sound of it, she wasn’t a fan of the surprise leaning confidently against the side of the entryway.

  “Seeing a concert. Is that all right?”

  “You should have given me a heads-up or something.”

  “I wanted to surprise you. I couldn’t miss out on this. You sold out your hometown show. It’s a pretty big deal. You got a wicked crowd out there.”

  It seemed like the sage easily affected Jessie Byrd by how both of them looked longingly at each other. She either still had feelings for Jessie Byrd or was ODing on clary sage. I could almost see them practically undressing each other with their eyes from the apparent desire they still had. And here I was feeling excited that this beautiful, charming woman was giving me attention by grabbing my knee, nudging me in the arm, and telling me how great I smelled, only for her to completely melt at the sight of a girl who made her feel “fucking electric.”

  All that magnetic force I felt when I sat next to her really wasn’t anything compared to whatever she had with Jessie Byrd. Their stares flushed me right out of there like the piece of shit I felt like.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” I said and got off the couch to breathe in something less sagey.

  Reagan’s soft hand clasped on to mine as I stood, and just that one touch from her froze me in my spot and sent some kind of shocking force into my stomach.

  “Wait, Blair, no, you don’t have to go,” she said, begging with her eyes for me to stay.

  That feeling that she caused moved from my stomach straight to my heart. The hypnotic stare she gave Jessie Byrd for that split second had completely worn off, but it was still sketched in my mind for me to analyze for the rest of the night. As wonderful as it was to hold on to her hand for just that moment, I knew I had to let it go and get myself and my mind ready for our show. That needed my focus. Not something unrealistic as me kissing Reagan. I’d save the scenarios I played in my head right before bed, hoping they could turn into a wonderful dream.

  “Blair Bennett, right?” Jessie Byrd smiled at me.

  I swallowed the starstruck lump in my throat and retrieved my hand from Reagan. “Hey. Yeah. I really love your music.”

  “Right back at you. I was listening to you guys on the ride over here. Studying for the concert.”

  My cheeks warmed and I really hope they didn’t turn a traitorous red. I couldn’t let myself cave at the sight of her too. “Oh, thanks. I’ve had your music on my playlists for years. You’re phenomenal.”

  “Oh, please. I only play guitar. You play every instrument in the book and loop. You’ve got heaps of talent, mate.”

  You’re caving…that accent…that face…the talent…

  I offered her a friendly smile. “We could probably go back and forth with compliments all night, but I gotta get going and get ready for this crowd. It was nice meeting you.”

  “You too. Good luck.”

  I needed to delete all those Jessie Byrd songs from my Spotify. ASAP.

  Miles was in the bathroom when I got back to our green room. Already feeling my mind start to cave, and still uneasy from my depressive moment the night before, I fished out a Ritalin from my bag. I really wanted to savor the remaining coke, so I decided to switch it up for something very close. The doctors prescribed it when I was in high school. I couldn’t keep my mind occupied for too long. They said I had a lot of energy, and it would help me focus, which it did, but it also gave me some extra cash selling it to my classmates, and then occasionally, it was a nice high and break from reality.

  I could feel the littlest things life handed me poke at my anxiety, so I thought to nip it in the bud and pop two Ritalin before we took the stage.

  I usually watched some of Reagan’s show from the side stage, but I had no interest in doing that in Nashville, knowing that Jessie Byrd was on the opposite end of the stage doing the same thing, fixating her ravenous eyes on her. So, after our set, I headed back to the bus where I forced Miles to drink with me. But when he stepped onto the bus, he said, “I made some friends with some hotties. Wanna smoke with them?”

  He had me at hotties.

  We dug through the llama cookie jar for pre-rolled joints we stocked up on in Denver and met a guy and girl around our age wearing VIP lanyards and yellow shirts that said “Staff.” Both of them were pretty attractive, especially the girl, whose eyes skimmed me from head to toe.

  I loved it when cute girls gave me that look. I knew how I was going to get over Jessie Byrd’s sudden appearance.

  Naturally, with enough weed, clary sage, and plenty of time to spare, the next thing I knew, I tossed my Reagan Moore World Tour lanyard right outside the back lounge door, the universal signal that Miles, Corbin, and I used as a sign of hookups happening in the back room. We started making out on the couch, and since it had been at least three months since I had a girl’s mouth on me, tingles broke out all over every spot Weed Girl touched with her hands. I was currently going through my longest dry spell since the first time I’d ever had sex—Dana Bohlen—so it didn’t take much to prime me. It was even better because this girl was more dominant than I thought she would be. A girl who knew what she was doing and what she wanted in the bedroom was so sexy to me, so I welcomed any dominant girl in my bed…or tour bus, in this instance.

  She clasped her legs around my waist to flip me over on top of her for better access to take off my shirt. Once she tossed it aside, she sucked on my neck, pulling soft moans from me as I relaxed on top of her body. She flung me on my back again, and I loved how physical she was, throwing me around so easily as if my body was a toy. She kissed down the middle of my body and then dragged her tongue across my skin above the waist of my leather pants. She flipped open the button of my pants like a pro, and it was quite the workout getting those skintight pants off me. But Weed Girl was determined to free my legs. Once they’d escaped, her lips attached to the side of my knee, and she slid her tongue up to my inner thigh. I slapped a pillow over my face, biting into the fabric as I muffled the noises I wanted to let out without Tony hearing us because, God, I had a lot of pent-up energy that needed to be released.

  “Get rid of that pillow,” she said, gliding her hand on top of my underwear to assess if I was ready or not, and when she made the determination, she slipped my underwear off and then slid her fingers inside me.

  I let out a sharp gasp at the sudden insertion, and her fingers undulated faster. The more I clenched the pillow, the harder and faster she moved. She was so assertive and rough with exuberant confidence that it al
l pushed me closer to the edge. I rocked my body against her as her thumb pressed against me. But with my eyes closed, the scenarios I thought of before I went to sleep played in my head. It wasn’t Weed Girl fingering me, helping me christen the back room of the bus. It was Reagan. Reagan’s fingers danced inside me; her tongue traced delicate circles on my inner thigh; it was her face I sandwiched in between my legs to hold her in place. It was her name I wanted to bellow as I climbed over the edge. Reagan was the one who made me combust after three months of celibacy as my fingers white-knuckled the pillowcase as I came.

  But as I let my heart slow back down to a resting rate, I opened my eyes and saw some stranger between my legs, tasting my center as the aftershocks of my orgasm rang through me. None of that was the girl I kept thinking about.

  To be honest, I wanted Becky gone. Was that even her name? Who really knew? Call me an awful person, I really didn’t care. As necessary as the orgasm was, it didn’t kick Jessie Byrd back to Australia where she belonged. It didn’t get Reagan out of my head.

  I pulled my underwear back up my legs, flipped her over, and just as I was about to kiss her stomach, the girl tugged on my bra strap for me to come up to her mouth. She held the back of my neck to control me, so I followed her demands only for her mouth to feed me a sample of her tongue so I could taste myself on her.

  I wasn’t a fan of it. No sir, I was not. I never was.

  “I want your mouth,” she whispered into my ear before nibbling on it gently with her teeth. I tried not to seem too freaked out that my own taste was in me. If I couldn’t rub sunscreen on people without getting grossed out, then no, I didn’t want any part of what just sprung into my mouth. Now I wanted nothing more than for Becky to leave. I really had a good reason now.

  But then, the bus started moving, rocking back and forth as someone stomped down the hallway, approaching my door. Thank God for that lanyard—