Strings (21 page)

“
Then you heard me trying
to fend her off,” he says.

“
Don’t even try that shit,
Shades.” Kate’s cheeks redden.

“
You weren’t exactly firm
about it,” I say. “Sounded pretty noncommittal to me. But that’s
how you roll, right? Get it where you can. No strings
attached.”

Shades clasps my upper arms and gazes
intently at me. “Hate to break it to you, pussycat, but your
friend’s a fucking liar. About everything. She lied about stealing
Rax’s song, and now she’s trying to peg me as the bad guy when she
was the one who came after me. Don’t you see what she’s doing?
She’s a pathological liar who’d love to see this tour ruined.”

I break free of his hold and shove him.
“Then what are you doing back here with her? Why didn’t you text
me?” Goddamn tears decide to build a fortress at the corners of my
eyes.

“
I got up for a piss. She
heard me and cornered me.”

“
Yeah, you looked
really
cornered with her
straddling you.” Tear number one drops.

“
When she started ranting
about Rax and that song, I played along to see where she’d take
it.”

“
That’s a sorry-ass
excuse. The truth is a lot less incriminating.”

“
What’s the matter,
Letty?” Kate flashes a hateful smile. “You jealous?”

“
Of you? No. If anything,
I’m disappointed in myself for trusting this asshole.”

Kate straightens, and her smile slides off.
“Trusting him with what?” She gets up in my face. “Are you fucking
him?”

I set my jaw and wipe away another
droplet.

Wild light rages behind
her eyes. “
You
were the one he was fucking in the bathroom at the strip
club. You little cunt. Sleeping with the enemy!”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Uh,
hello? Pot, calling Kettle. I demand you return my sooty Goth
wardrobe this instant. You so much as admitted you tried to fuck
him too.” My voice shrills.

Something inside Kate
snaps almost audibly, and the bitch unhinges. She screams a psycho
battle cry in my face. Goes total fucking banshee on me. “Shades
is
mine
. You’d
better keep your goddamn hands off my man. I’ll rip your fucking
throat out while you sleep!”

The claws extend, and she comes at me. I’m
in shock for a moment and can’t move. Shades jumps between us, and
within seconds, everyone on the bus is awake and surrounding the
fray.

I’ve fucking had it with her shit. Before, I
was devastated, gutted. Now I’m pissed.

“
I don’t care how good of
a guitar player you are, Kate. You’re a straight-up cunt.” I’m
totally gonna regret this, but my Piss-o-Meter is full throttle. I
pull my fist back and do something I’ve secretly wanted to do for a
while. I punch the bitch right in the face. It hurts like a
motherfucker, but feels so goddamn good.

Kate trips backward, her knees catch the
couch, and she falls onto the leather cushions.

I shake out my hand, flex my fingers, and
stomp over to her. “You want some more o’ me, bitch? I can go for
days.” My chest heaves.

Jillian squeezes in front of me, hands
outstretched to separate us. Jinx pulls a fist to her mouth and
cowers behind Toombs.

“
Quiet down out there,”
Rax calls weakly from his bunk. Hungover motherfucker deserves
whatever shit his stomach is dishing him.

Kate’s eyes harden to furious black stones,
all pupils and no irises. She cradles her jaw. “You just signed
this band’s death warrant, Letty. I’m done.” I’d have laughed at
her jumbled words had the message not been so devastating.

She stumbles to her feet. No one helps her.
Jillian steps aside as Kate stalks down the aisle, smacking Rax’s
curtain along the way to her bunk. “Fuck you too, Rax. I hope you
fucking die of alcohol poisoning. Or your dick rots off. Or
both.”

His curtain snaps open. “If it does, I’ll
blame your gangrenous cunt.” He laughs, and then groans. “Fuck, I’m
gonna puke.”

I close my lids and try to calm the rage
beating against my veins. I need air.

I grab my coat and exit the bus.

“
Letty—” Jillian calls
behind me.

“
I got nothing else to
say.” And off I go into the night.

We’re parked in a vacant lot in an
unfamiliar city. I shouldn’t wander the streets this late at night,
but I don’t know what else to do. My life lies in ruins at my
feet.

Everything’s gone. Everything.

Halfway to the sidewalk, I look up to the
black sky. No moon tonight. No stars. I check my watch. Four a.m.
December 21. It’s the winter solstice. Shortest day and longest
night of the whole year. The death of autumn. The day my career
died.

And the death of the only love I’ve ever
known.

“
Letty.” Shades’s voice
behind me is soft.

I shiver and turn around, keeping my focus
on the ground. I want to scream at him, beat my fists against his
chest, maybe twist his balls into a balloon animal. But what good
would any of that do?

“
I don’t want to talk to
you. Or anyone else,” I say.

“
Then let me do the
talking.” He steps forward and stops a few feet away from me. I
can’t look at him.

“
Kate followed me when I
left the club. On the way back to the bus, she started telling me
things. She was half-lit, rambling off a bunch of paranoid,
delusional shit. I tried to tune out her rant, but when she slipped
up and said something about Rax’s song, it got my attention. I
thought it was odd she called it ‘his’ song and not hers after she
made such a stink about it.

“
So, I played along to see
if she’d give up anything else. She came on to me behind the bus.
Felt me up, tried to kiss me. I blew her off, but she kept at it.
That must’ve been when you walked up.”

I’m still skeptical. For a lot of reasons.
“You didn’t text when you got in.”

“
My phone went MIA. I
planned to come to your bunk and tell you what happened once
everyone settled, but Kate had her curtain open and was watching me
like a fuckin’ stalker. So, I stayed awake in bed and waited for
her to fall asleep. When I thought she was out, I started for your
bunk, and here she comes. I said I had to take a piss. She followed
me.

“
Next thing I know, she
pushes me on the couch and jumps in my lap. I told her I wasn’t
interested. That didn’t work. Then I played the ‘if we get caught’
card. That’s when you showed up.”

I want so much to believe Shades. In the
darkness before dawn, pale light surrounds him. Not a halo or
streetlights shining. Something else. Something vibrant. Something
hopeful.

Truth hides in his voice under layers of
desperation and regret.

Headlights swing in an arc, illuminating the
lot. A taxi swerves toward the bus and parks beside it.

Curses and stomping feet signal Kate’s
descent down the steps. I pull out my phone and find Shades’s
number in my contacts. With my thumb hovering over the call button
behind my back, I walk over to the cab. The driver pops the trunk
and loads Kate’s bags.

She comes up to me and points a finger in my
face. “You’ll regret this, Letty Dillinger.”

Smiling, I hit the button on the phone and
listen. Sure enough, something vibrates in the vicinity of Kate’s
coat pocket.

“
Who’s calling you at this
hour?” I say.

“
None of your fucking
business.”

Shades appears at my side. I gesture to him.
“Shades says he can’t find his phone. It went missing shortly after
he left the club. Do you know anything about that?”

“
What do you care about
his phone?” Kate kicks her hip to the side.

I shrug. The vibration
stops. I dial his number again, this time so she can see me. When
something in her coat does a little dance, I flash the screen at
her. “Funny how every time I dial
his
number,
you
vibrate. You got a rogue dildo
in your pocket?”

Before she can answer, I shove my hand in
and pull out Shades’s cell. “Where’d you get this?”

Her face takes on a rabid tinge. “He stuck
it in there to make it look like I stole it. He’s a goddamn
liar.”

Could she be telling the truth? Could Shades
have duped me?

I turn and meet his eyes. They’re
transparent windows into his soul. No fear. No deceit waiting to
ambush me. Nothing to hide. Just pure, open honesty.

You can trust him,
The Rock assures me.

After a second’s debate, I take a deep
breath and a leap of faith, knowing it could land me in a steaming
vat of shit stew.

“
No, Kate.
You’re
the goddamn liar.
All these years, I’ve taken up for you. Defended your bullshit
because I thought I couldn’t live without you. Well, I was half
right. The band may be dead, but Letty Dillinger lives to rock
another day. That’s more than I can say for you. When people find
out what a pathological nutjob you are, no one will ever work with
you again. And believe me, I’ll blab the truth to anyone who
asks.”

Madness lighting her face, Kate grins. “Have
fun touring without a guitarist.”

I nod. “I’d rather stay home than tour with
a fraud like you. Good riddance, Kate.”

I give Shades his phone and head for the bus
steps. He grabs my hand. His arms encircle me. Todd Armstrong
kisses me for two and a half eternities. The anger and pain bleed
away, leaving behind squishy softness.

Two strings are strummed. One perfect
harmony dances in my heart.

I shouldn’t have doubted him.

Mumbling under her breath, Kate climbs
gingerly into the waiting car and slams the door.

Shades is still kissing me as the taxi
drives away.

When our lips part, I’m half-full and
half-hollow. Half-warm, half-cold. Half-uncertain, and
half-resigned.

Cherry Buzz Float is officially DOA.

I don’t want to leave Shades or the tour,
but my fate is sealed.

I lay my head against his strong chest and
listen to his steady heart beating. “I’m gonna miss the hell out of
you, Shades.”

Reality’s Ruthless
Revelations

After the dust settles from the catastrophic
blowup, I spend what’s left of the night in Shades’s arms. I’ve
been dying to wake up beside him since we met, and it takes the
band breaking up to give me permission. Irony. Gotta fucking love
it. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I feel a little lighter in
some ways, but as heavy as a wrecking ball in others.

At least I got this time with him, if only
one night.

He breathes softly against the back of my
neck and kisses me there. The arms around my middle tighten. My
guts flutter. I guess he couldn’t sleep, either.

It’s a curious feeling, this teetering
between all-encompassing warmth and dreadful, empty cold. My heart
and reality at war.

I stretch and mentally trace the lines where
our bodies intersect, memorizing how we fit together so I can
remember him when I’m gone. My fingers smooth the back of his rough
hand.

“
I’m sorry,” he says. I
know those two little words have a much bigger meaning than the
generic apology on the surface. He’s sorry I thought he was
screwing Kate. He’s sorry about the demise of Cherry Buzz Float.
He’s sorry I have to give up my dream.

“
Me too.” I settle into
him a little while longer.

When sunlight peeks through the windows and
pierces my heavy lids with its rude wake-up call, I concede it’s
time to get up and figure out how the hell I’m gonna get home. No
point dilly-dallying.

I reach for the curtain, but Shades stops
me. I turn my head into his. Our lips almost touch.

“
I don’t want you to go,”
he says.

I smile. It’s better than crying.

I roll out of bed and start cleaning up my
bunk.

“
Oh fuck, what have you
done to me, Lola?” Rax sings into the toilet. The prick leaves the
bathroom door open so we get the full effect of his stomach
rebellion echoed off porcelain. Nice. Maybe leaving isn’t as bad as
I thought.

“
You deserve that.” Toombs
grabs a metal support bar across the top of the bus and hangs from
it. When he sees me, he says, “You skipping town or staying for the
show tonight?”

“
You’re an insensitive
cocksucker, you know that, Toombs?”

A grin splits his face into two jagged
halves, neither comical. “I do my best.” He saunters to the front
and hops off the bus.

Jillian wanders to the coffee pot, her
usually perfect hair all wonky and disheveled. She pours a cup and
shakes some sugar into it. “I gotta call the venue and tell them to
find another opening act for tonight.” She doesn’t look at me.

“
Yeah.”

“
I hate how things went
down, Letty, but maybe it’s for the best.” She stirs some cream
into her cup and turns to me as she sips.

I cross my arms and lean against the
partition. “I’m curious. How did you get Kate to agree to this tour
in the first place? She was damn sure not getting on the bus until
after you talked to her, and then she played the shamed puppy.”

“
The truth?” She sets down
her coffee.

“
Yeah. I’d appreciate that
for once.”

“
I have proof that Rax
really did write that goddamn song everyone’s all up in arms
about.”