A Blue Tale (13 page)

“Your phone has been vibrating nonstop for the past hour.” Angela said, snapping me back. 

She sat up, handing me the phone.  My mind filtered through the possibilities of who it might be as Eli popped into my mind.  I looked at my missed calls and felt my stomach drop with disappointment, it was just Duke.  Of course I never actually gave Eli my number—she didn’t ask for it and I didn’t offer—but I freaking should have, I should have demanded it. 

I punched in Duke’s number and he answered before the first ring ended.

“Where the fuck have you been, man?” He shouted over music in the background.

Duke and I had been friends since the first day I straightened myself out and decided to pursue music seriously.  We were both at an open mic night and decided our talents suited each other well.  We could both play the guitar and sing, but he enjoyed the attention of singing, while I’d rather be hidden in the background with my guitar.  So we started playing together that day years ago, and hadn’t stopped yet, even through countless fights that almost ended with one of us murdering the other every time.

“I had to take care of something,” I paused. “It’s a long story.” The details of which I had no intentions of discussing with him right this minute.

“Are you coming to practice at Eli’s? The girls are at it now.”

“Didn’t know anything about it.”

I heard him groan, even over the shit in the background. The music slowly faded as he walked away and no longer needed to scream. “If you’d check your fucking messages, you’d know.  Now you better get your sorry, piece of shit ass over here! Do you hear me? You will NOT fuck this up for us, or it will be the last damn thing you ever do!” He was breathing heavily when he finished screaming at me.

“I can’t.” I said through gritted teeth.

“You will!” He growled. “Or I will find a new guitar player, I’m so fucking over your shit problems, Deac, either grow the fuck up and deal, or find someone else’s life to ruin.”

“You better watch yourself, Duke, and who you threaten…” I let my sentence trail off because I didn’t make threats I wasn’t willing to follow through on and my issues weren’t with Duke – unless he made them be.

“No man, fuck you! Either get your ass over here within the hour, or you’re out.” He paused and drew in a thick, heavy breath. “If you can’t deal with this shit around Eli, then you shouldn’t have fucking started something…I knew you’d pull this motherfucking, goddamn, shit.” The last part he mumbled more to himself than at me.

“Dude, I can’t. I thought I could, but I can’t.”

“You never can, asswipe, so I don’t know why you even bother.”

The line went dead, he had me by the balls, and we both knew it.  The pressure in my chest grew until I could feel it strangling the life out of me.  I had to go face her, I didn’t even know if I was worthy of being at her house, much less in her presence, but I had to grow a pair and deal with it.  Every fiber of my being was pulling me back there, but my sorry ass didn’t deserve any sweetness she was willing to offer me—not a damn bit of it.

Chapter Fifteen

Deacon

My ass was planted firmly on the couch with Angela lounging between my legs when the sight of Eli entering the music studio arm-in-fucking-arm with Shaw Sutton ceased my beating heart.  My body jolted off the back of the couch, and a numb tingle spread rapidly from the center of my chest to the top of my head, then back to the tips of my toes.  She was pressed firmly against his side, his arm slung around her body with his hand cupping her ass.  She was staggering drunk, and would have fallen face first onto the floor if he wasn’t carrying her entire weight.

Was this normal? Did she do this all the time? Even though I wasn’t sure, I highly doubted she did, which meant something was bothering her enough to cause this; maybe me. Her glazed eyes moved around the room, skimming right over me, and landing on Willow.  Eli’s entire being brightened and she pushed away from Shaw.  I saw the broken look on his face and, unfortunately, felt a certain level of kinship with his current emotions.

“Willow, O-M-G!  I missed you.” Eli slurred, wrapping her arms around Willow’s middle. “I fluncking lobe ou oh uch.” She said, making absolutely no sense as tears streamed down her face.

Damn, what was that about? She was a fucking mess in the middle of a room full of musicians she worked with. Willow pushed Eli’s head into her chest shielding her face and whispering in her ear – which is exactly when our eyes met.  It was that invisible pull again, one second her eyes were nothing but hazy tears, and the next they were trained directly into mine – deep into mine.  Then they shifted rapidly, so fast it made my body slam back against the couch. They moved right to Angela, who was still sitting on the floor in front of me leaning her back on the couch in between my legs. One hand wrapped around my calf as she trailed her hand up and down, soothing my tense body.  I knew she did this because she could unconsciously sense the immediate drop in my mood, and the tension that rolled from my body, but Eli wouldn’t know that.  She wouldn’t have a clue that this gorgeous, dark woman between my legs was one of the only family members I had.  But I vowed in the second before her eyes disappeared behind the tears again I’d tell her, and it would be tonight.

Shaw moved to Eli, blocking her from my view with his overgrown body. I’d known Shaw from his dealings with other bands over the years, and I’d wanted to kick his sorry ass since the moment his name stabbed into my ears; at least now, I had a legitimate reason.  He directed Eli to the chair directly across the room from me, plopping down and pulling her on his lap.  Her eyes never moved back to the couch, or me.  I would have known the second they did because my eyes never left her face.

The Elle’s took Eli’s interruption as an excuse to finally take a break.  All four girls scattered to opposite ends of the studio telling me they were just as dysfunctional as my band mates were – fucking fabulous, that made eight raging lunatics to worry about instead of the usual four.

Duke hadn’t so much as looked my direction since Angela and I entered. I saw him nod a hello to Angela a few minutes after we arrived and saw his features soften as realization of her presence, hopefully, hit him.  Duke had helped me the last time Angela got strung out.  He stayed with us while I got her detoxed and as close to sanity as she could have been at that time.  That was right after Tony started his stint upstate.

I stared, shards of ice pumping through my veins, as Eli snuggled into Shaw and laid her head on his shoulder.

“Fuckin’ shit.” I muttered to myself.  The only thing stopping me from hauling ass over there and pounding Shaw into the fucking ground was Eli didn’t belong to me.  She didn’t fucking belong to me.  I wanted her to, though. I wanted to lay claim to her so bad, I ached.  But I hadn’t, so I kept my ass planted on the expensive couch that was the softest thing I’d ever felt—second only to Eli’s touch.

One of The Elle’s was chattering to Angela and putting a serious damper on my sulking as she cracked jokes and they laughed loudly.  If I didn’t know better I would have thought this chick was putting her best moves over on my girl Ang – but what the fuck did I know, she probably was, and even knowing nothing about this chick, I knew it would be a huge fucking leap from whomever Angela just finished messing with.

A shadow moved to stand in front of me and I looked up, into Duke’s hard eyes.

“Wanna play while they’re taking a break?” He clipped at me.

I looked down at my battered left hand.  The knuckles were crusted over with huge scabs and there was still dried blood clinging to the thick creases surrounding them. Duke must have followed my eyes because I heard him groan loudly.  Yeah, it was pretty fucking obvious he was tired of my shit.  But you know what, I was getting pretty fed up with his, too.

I jumped to my feet, “Damn straight.” I said, walking past him and to the guitar Willow had just removed from her body. She watched me approaching her coveted instrument, but I stopped and pointed at it. She nodded her head, giving me her okay to touch what I knew she felt was an extension of her own flesh and blood. I hadn’t brought my own because there’s no way I should have been playing with how badly my hand throbbed, but I wasn’t going to let Duke fuck with me.

“Forget it.” I heard Duke call from behind me. “You can’t play with your hand like that.” He sounded so defeated, and I hated I’d caused him to sound like such a pussy.

“No, I’m fucking playing, so get your ass to the mic.” I snapped at him.

Johnny and Blaine moved to their places and we all stared at Duke, waiting for him decide.  He shook his head, laughed, and grabbed the microphone.

A slow drumbeat thrummed through my body, calming me immediately; music always had that effect.  No matter what, I could count on the melody to soothe me and set my shit straight.  My fingers glided over the strings causing a full-bodied sound to stream through the amp.  Even though this wasn’t my guitar, and it didn’t feel perfect under my fingers, it was the music flowing through it that mattered.

Duke’s voice rang through the room and everyone froze to watch us.  I could feel Eli’s eyes burning a hole right through me.  I tried hard not to look at her, so fucking hard, but my fight was pointless.  When our eyes locked I saw more tears in her eyes, but also a smile on her face—my music soothed her, too. 

We played song after song, and Eli’s eyes never left mine.  They moved from my face, to my fingers, then back to my face on a steady loop.  I wanted to rush to her, pull her to me, and claim her mouth right here in front of a room full of people.  But she was here with Shaw, fucking sitting
on
Shaw.  I knew my eyes must have moved to him because she turned her head slightly to peek at him.  When she turned back, her smile had faded.  Shaw was stunned when she leapt from his lap and rushed out the door.  I followed her with my eyes until the door slammed behind her and she was gone.  Shaw moved after her, but Willow put her hand up to his chest to stop him.  They exchanged words then walked out the door together.  Only this time he didn’t get to fucking save her, I did.

I looked to Duke and he nodded, and even though I wasn’t asking his permission, I appreciated it.  I set Willow’s guitar down, and for the third time, the studio door flew open and slammed shut.  I immediately heard Willow talking.

“No, I think you just need to give her some time.  This isn’t easy for her, not to mention she’s drunk.”

“Will, I don’t know what to do.  She’s been great these past few days.  Sometimes it was like it used to be, then she’ll shut down and everything changes.  She’s slipping away, and I don’t know how to stop it.” Shaw replied.

“You had to know things would be different.  After what happened, Shaw, you better be glad she’s even speaking to you because I’m not convinced she should be.” Willow snapped at him.

“I know you don’t, I can feel the hate coming from you.  But I love her, more than I love anything, and no one will stop me from getting her back.  I’ll keep trying until the day I die.”

“Just do what her best friend is telling you, and go get your ass in your car, and go home.  I’ll check on her, tuck her tight in bed, and you can talk to her tomorrow.  She needs some time alone. I promise, she’ll be fine.”

Shit, that fucking Willow; I wanted to kiss her mouth and slap her ass all at the same time.

I heard footsteps growing near and saw Willow’s smiling face.  She poked her finger into my chest and giggled.

“You fucking owe me, Deacon Chastain, and when the time comes I don’t want you to forget it.”

I nodded and headed toward the house.

“Second floor, door with a diamond tiara on it.” She shouted after me.

I entered the house and memories of that night flooded me.  The fact so much had changed in just a few days didn’t seem real. How much I’d changed was fucking astonishing.  I didn’t try to wrap my brain around it because none of it made any amount of sense.  This girl—I didn’t understand.  How did she have this effect on me?  Every time I was around her I was drawn to her; to her sweetness, but also to how real she was.  I could feel her emotions the instant she experienced them.  Happy, sad, anger, turned on; I couldn’t know her well enough to know the emotions in her, but I damn sure did.  So much time had passed since the moment I met her in the hallway outside her dad’s dressing room, but I felt like we’d known each other every second that had ticked by.

I walked through the kitchen, where we’d shared a grilled cheese sandwich, through the living room where she’d slept on my lap while I memorized every inch of her face, and then headed up the stairs to a part of her life I’d never seen, but couldn’t wait to live.

Chapter Sixteen

Deacon

There were so many damn doors, even with Willow’s directions it took me ten minutes to find the right one.  There was no one in this world that needed this many fucking rooms, no matter how filthy rich.  Someone like me definitely didn’t belong in a place like this.  I finally made it to the end of a very long, winding hallway and found a light blue door with a huge crown made of diamonds on it, and I’d bet my life the diamonds in the damn thing were real.

I slowly turned the doorknob and pushed the door open just enough so I could see inside.  The light was on, and I immediately saw Eli lying on a mound of pillows and blankets across the room.  I walked through the door, softly closing it behind me, locking it.  The room looked like I’d jumped feet first into a Disney movie.  Bright walls with crowns, hearts, and carriages painted on them.  A huge playhouse that looked like a real castle ran along one wall taking up half the room.  Everywhere I looked there was more princess stuff—I’d never seen anything like it. 

Either she didn’t hear me, or she didn’t care someone had followed her.  I saw her shoulders moving up and down just one second before the sound of her sobs ripped through my ears.  I was at her side before I knew what I was doing.  I laid my hand on her shoulder - she still didn’t look at me.  I rubbed my hand in a small circle in the center of her back and her crying slowed.  Praying she didn’t kick my ass out of the room, I laid next to her with the front of my body pressed firmly against the back of hers.  I draped my arm over her waist and found her hand, drawing it into mine, and placing it against her chest, pressing her further into me.