Playing by Heart

by JB Salsbury

  Jesse taps his fingers on the table impatiently. Rhythmically, as if he’s playing a song. I wonder if it’s a nervous habit. Does this meeting somehow make him uneasy?

  Ben says, “Dave had an idea, and I think you might like it.”

  I look at the guy, chuckling inwardly as I imagine him in a blue Walmart vest with a gold nametag.

  “Jesse needs to get around, but I’m not comfortable with him driving himself just yet,” Dave says. “Ben tells me you don’t own a car. Do you have a valid driver’s license?”

  My cheeks get warm. “Yes, I do.”

  “Great.” Dave slides me a black key fob. “The car outside is yours to use until Jesse is ready to drive.”

  “What?” I look at Ben, whose eyes are alight with excitement.

  Dave continues. “I’d like to hire you to take Jesse to his AA meetings every day and bring him back here.”

  “AA meetings?” So that’s what was making him sick. My stomach rolls over and I swallow back a surge of nerves. He’s a drunk. I suppose it makes sense—sex, booze, rock-n-roll. “I, uh… I have to get Elliot to school by noon, so we catch the eleven o’clock bus and—”

  “Jesse’s meetings are at eleven thirty,” Dave says. “You drop him off at the church, get Elliot to school by twelve, pick Jesse up and bring him back here, and you take the car with you when you leave.”

  I blink once. Twice. He’s not joking.

  “I have to be to work by two.” As if that’s an excuse? Why can’t I think of a better excuse!

  Dave’s eyes narrow. “Do you have a substance abuse issue, Ms. Parks?”

  “Me? No!”

  His gaze narrows farther.

  “I don’t drink. Not even a little.” Not since… I clear my throat. “And I’ve never touched drugs.”

  “You’re missin’ out,” Jesse grumbles, earning a sharp glare from his manager.

  Ben nods. “I vouch for Bethany on that. She doesn’t mess around with drugs or alcohol.”

  Dave nods and grunts.

  “The car is yours to use, Bethany,” Pastor Ben whispers.

  “That’s right,” Dave says. “Until Jesse is ready to drive himself.”

  The celebrity in the room makes a frustrated huff.

  Dave ignores him. “I’ll tell you what. When Jesse goes back to LA, I’ll transfer it over into your name.”

  “You’re kidding,” I whisper. “This has to be a joke.”

  “Jesus, nanny, take the fucking deal already.” Jesse’s frustrated voice rumbles at my back, and I resist the urge to whirl around and give him a lecture about blasphemy.

  “But…” I swallow. “That’s a Lexus.”

  “It’s just a car,” Dave says.

  “Just a car?” A burst of laughter jumps from my lips.

  “It’s a very nice car.” Dave checks his watch as if I’m holding him up. “Do we have a deal?”

  “So, you’re saying it’s his car and I’ll be driving it until he’s given the all-clear, then it’s his car and when he leaves it’s mine?”

  Jesse drops his head back and groans. “For fucks sake, someone draw the genius here an illustration.”

  “Jes,” Ben warns and then his eyes come to me. “This is a great opportunity.”

  It is. If my own pastor says I should do it, then… “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  Dave slaps his hands on the table then stands. “Great. My ride is waiting outside.”

  “Dave,” Jesse says in a demanding tone, boss to subordinate, “think about what we talked about.”

  Dave shakes his head. “I already told you it’s too late for amendments.”

  “Fuck,” Jesse mumbles, earning a glare from Ben.

  “I’ll walk you out.” Ben jumps up.

  “Bethany, thank you for your help,” Dave says before walking out the door while murmuring to Ben.

  As soon as they’re outside, I stare at the key fob. A slow smile spreads across my face.

  “You want to explain why you left me with my nuts in my stomach yesterday?”

  I startle at the hostility in Jesse’s voice. He’s mad at me? Feeling a surge of anger, I whirl around and glare at him. “If that’s your idea of an apology, you suck at them.”

  He leans forward, his colorful tattooed forearms braced on his knees. “You think I owe you an apology? For what? Offering you my dick?”

  I cringe from his crass words and curse the heat creeping into my cheeks. “Well, yeah! You assume because you’re you that any woman would want to sleep with you?”

  He tilts his head while I absorb my own words.

  “You’re wrong.” I grab the key fob and stand, desperate to find Elliot and get the hell away from this guy. “I have zero desire to have sex with you, Jesse Lee.” I hold up my hand and make a zero with my fingers. “Zilch.”

  He grins, a slow lift of the corner of his mouth that I could see women falling all over him for. Not me though. “Most women appreciate a man who offers himself up to be used for sex.”

  “I’m not most women. And you should know that a huge majority of women only have sex with men they’re in love with.”

  He rolls his eyes, still grinning.

  “You’re infuriating.” I shove the car key into my pocket.

  “You’re a child,” he says through a deep chuckle as Ben comes back inside.

  “Pastor Ben, would it be all right if I took Elliot to the park?”

  He looks a little surprised before his gaze slides from me to his brother, where they narrow. “Everything okay?”

  Jesse shrugs as if our conversation about sex was nothing more than a tiny annoyance, a fly buzzing by his face, easily swatted at and forgotten. “Just dandy, Pastor Ben.” The superstar assjerk stands and exits the room as though the world is watching, rather than just me and his brother.

  As soon as he’s out of sight, Ben looks at me. “I’m really sorry. He’s…” He blows out a long breath. “Difficult to deal with at times. Well, most of the time.”

  I grin and shrug and rinse dishes to keep my hands busy. “Not at all. He’s fine. I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? Because if you change your mind or…”

  I turn to look at him. “What?”

  He steps into the kitchen. “My brother is a slave to his baser instincts, and I wouldn’t put it past him to try to… to attempt to… uh…” He rubs the back of his neck.

  “Seduce me?”

  His expression turns sour and apologetic. “I’m sorry, but yes. His moral compass points in a different direction than the people you’re probably used to being around.”

  I wipe my hands on a towel. “If you think that’s true, you haven’t spent enough time with my roommate, Ashleigh.” Oh, how she would love that. “Thankfully, my moral compass is solid, so you have nothing to worry about.”

  I would never have sex with Jesse Lee. I imagine doing so leaves most girls feeling like a used Kleenex. No, thank you.

  “I know you won’t. Which is why you were the perfect option for his chauffer. Which reminds me, Dave didn’t mention it, but he’s doubling what I pay you on top of leaving you the car.”

  “Double?” I’m shocked, elated—holy crap, I’ll be making over twenty dollars an hour, plus my Pies and Pancakes money, and a car… I’ll be able to start a savings account! Not bad for a twenty-four-year-old.

  I frown. I am not a child.

  Jesse

  “I don’t know, doc, maybe it’s nothing. Or maybe it’s everything.” I’m lying on my brother’s bed, fully dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, my ankles crossed and my hands clasped over my stomach. “His dead, lifeless body swirled ‘round and ‘round until he finally disappeared in the deep, dark afterlife in the sewer. I don’t think I ever recovered.”

  When I don’t hear Dr. Ulrich’s immediate response, I turn to see him glaring at me from over his tiny doctor glasses. This is day five of my daily therapy, an hour a day where I talk about my childhood in order to pinpoint why I drink… drank.
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  Newsflash—because I love the taste. Because I love how creative I feel when I’m smashed. Because getting hammered helps me sleep, tune out the world of chaos that is swirling around me. There doesn’t need to be a deep dark reason why people do the things they do. Maybe they do it because they like it.

  Type that in your fucking medical journals.

  With a long, exasperated sigh, he removes his glasses and rubs his eyes. “If you plan on getting better, you’ll need to start taking our sessions more seriously.”

  “I am taking them seriously.” No, I’m not. This entire ninety-day stint is a big fucking waste of time. I’m just doing what I’m told so I can get back to living my life.

  “Your dead beta fish when you were seven is not what I would consider a life-changing event.”

  I actually lied about being seven. I also lied about it being my fish. It was Ben’s and he was seven. He cried when he had to flush his best friend Fins. He’s always been a wuss. “That’s awfully judgmental, doc. Just because you don’t see it as life-changing doesn’t mean it wasn’t for me.”

  “If you want to continue to waste my time, then that’s fine with me. I get paid either way.” He slips his glasses back on and jots something on his yellow pad.

  “Right, so then there was the time I was given meatloaf and my mom didn’t tell me until after I ate that it was turkey meatloaf. Well, I don’t eat birds. She knew that! She made me believe it was beef when she knew she was feeding me avian flesh.”

  “I’m sorry, time’s up.” He grips his leather pad and stands. “You’ll have to save the rest of that story for tomorrow.”

  He can’t seem to get out of here fast enough, which makes me smile. I check the clock. He left ten minutes early. If I can keep shaving away at the time frames, by next week, we should be only meeting for thirty to forty-five minutes a day. Progress.

  I allow my eyes to close before I have to go out and hunt down my driver. When it’s time to go, I find her in the living room, coloring with that little brat with the booger nose.

  I was already annoyed when we got in the car. I had no idea how much more frustrating the ride would get.

  First off, Bethany doesn’t know how to drive. I’ve seen eighty-five-year-old grandmas drive more aggressively. Second, she puts on music for the kid on the way there, so I have to listen to pre-pubescent voices sing songs about washing their hands and doing math and shit. And third, she ignores me. Completely. So I’m stuck staring out the front window while a tiny brown-headed midget in the backseat talks my ear off about nothing.

  Questions at rapid fire. “Why can’t we breathe under water?” and “Where do cows grow?” Bethany does her best to answer. Most have been utter bullshit, but eventually she shuts up the little person.

  We pull into the lot of Ben’s church. The structure is nothing fancy, just a typical church that could easily moonlight as a small school, if you took away the huge cross out front.

  She puts the car in a spot and hits Unlock. “You want me to walk you in?”

  I glare at her. “Did I miss the part about sobriety disabling my arms and legs?”

  I don’t give her a chance to answer. I head into the lobby and look left then right and follow the scent of donuts and cheap coffee. Anger swirls, irritating the beast inside me. Why the fuck do I have to do this? I can stay sober on my own for the time it takes to write an album.

  The AA room is filled with cheap, mismatched furniture arranged in a circle on shitty mustard-yellow carpet. Eight other guys are all shoving donuts down their throats and sipping from tiny Styrofoam cups.

  One of the guys spots me and smiles. “Mr. Lee, you made it.”

  I pull my baseball hat a little lower over my eyes. He weaves through the Kumbaya furniture ring then shoves his hand forward. I shake his hand that’s sticky with donut glaze. Slob.

  “I’m Paul. Come on in, grab a coffee. We’ve got donuts—”

  “I’m good.” I wipe my hand on my jeans and cross to one of the three chairs in the circle. I don’t want to get stuck on a loveseat with one of these drunks—ex-drunks.

  Paul announces it’s time to get started and the seats fill quickly. A few gazes dart toward me and widen, but when I glare at them, they snap their eyes away.

  “I’m sure you’ve all noticed we have a new member,” Paul says proudly. “Would you like to introduce yourself?”

  I shrug. “I’m Jesse and I really don’t want to be here, so if we could cut the formalities and just get this shitshow over with, that’d be great.”

  A few dudes blink. Others scowl. Fuck if I care.

  Paul frowns. “Okay. Let’s go around the circle and introduce ourselves to Jesse.”

  One by one, the sad fucks say their names and their drink, and most often drug, of choice. They speak about the stuff as if it’s a family member that’s died. I guess I can relate. I’d give anything for a bottle. How these guys can sit here and listen to each other whine without at least having a buzz is impressive.

  I nod off twice during the meeting. I may have even slept for a bit because the last thirty minutes felt like only a few seconds.

  I don’t say goodbye, just hightail it out of there. I wonder how I’m supposed to call the blue-ball-giving nanny to let her know I’m finished, but that question is answered when I step outside and see the Lexus. Thank God.

  When I pull open the door, she screams and jumps, her phone flying into the passenger seat.

  I snag it and sit. “Calm the fuck down. It’s just me.”

  “You scared me!”

  “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t aware I should knock.” I look at her phone. “She’s hot. Who is she?” I hand her back the phone, and she fumbles to close out the Instagram page she was stalking.

  “No one.”

  “Her tits in that tiny bikini say otherwise. She’s definitely someone.”

  Nanny’s jaw clenches and she puts the car into drive. “She’s… a friend. Well, she’s not my friend. She’s a friend of a friend.”

  “Oh yeah? Invite her over.” I pull off the baseball hat and run a hand through my hair. “I could use a little physical therapy.”

  She whips her head around and I wink, which makes fire flicker behind her eyes. “Trust me when I say Suzette is not your type.”

  “Suzette.” I roll the name around on my tongue, not loving the way it feels. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love the feel of her on my tongue.

  “Yep. Suzette.” She spits the woman’s name with venom.

  Interesting. “Not a fan?”

  Her chin tucks in as if I’ve offended her. “Of course I’m a fan. Well… I mean, I don’t know her well enough to—”

  “So that must be why you were stalking her social media page, checking out her bikini pics, yeah? You were”—I hold up my fingers for air quotes—“‘getting to know her.’”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because she’s hot. Because I need to get laid. Because every single thing I used to do to make myself feel good I can’t fucking do anymore, that’s why.”

  “What about music?”

  I open my mouth to say something shitty, but the words freeze in my throat.

  Back in the day, there was no better feeling in the world than writing new songs. I’d get down the melody, jot some lyrics, and that alone would give me butterflies. Once a song was finished, it felt as if I’d created life. Making a tangible, animated something from nothing made me feel like a god. When did creating music stop giving me that feeling?

  7

  Bethany

  “Where is he?”

  My eyes pop wide and I shoot up in bed. “What?”

  I blink into the dim light of my bedroom as Ashleigh rips open my closet.

  “Wyatt!” She disappears into my closet, pushes around my clothes, then stomps out. “Where is that fucksack?”

  “Why would Wyatt be here?” I rub my eyes and check the time. Barely five in the morning.

  She drops to her kne
es and checks under the bed. “He thinks he can hide from me?”

  “Ash—”

  “He thinks he can just swoop back into your life and use you for sex whenever he wants!” She rips open the drapes as though a man who’s almost six feet tall could hide himself behind a curtain.

  “Ashleigh, stop!”

  She whirls around, still wearing her corset top and leather pants from her shift last night. She’s a bartender at a club and her shifts tend to stretch into after hours, either for work or personal reasons.

  “Wyatt isn’t here.” According to his IG post, he was at a comedy club last night with Suzette. My shoulders sag. “No one is here. Just me.”

  “Then who’s fucking car is in our spot?” She points an accusing finger out the window.

  Oh darnit. How to explain the car to Ashleigh without breaking the NDA? Hm.

  “I’m going to management! Some asshole parked in our spot.” She moves to storm out of the room.

  “Wait! Ash, just…” I rub my face, trying to wake up. I ended up working until midnight last night and figured Ashleigh would be out all night, so rather than parking in guest parking and walking across the complex, I snagged our assigned spot. “The car’s mine.”

  Her black-lined eyes pop open wide.

  “I mean, I’m borrowing it… I guess.” I can’t lie, but telling the truth is also a no-no.

  “From who?”

  “From… Ben.”

  “Ben.”

  “Pastor Langley.”

  I wouldn’t think it possible, but her eyes grow even bigger. “Oh my God,” she whispers.

  “No, don’t. It’s not what you think.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

  “You know me better than that! Come on!”

  “The text followed by a phone call, the early morning.” Her eyes dart around the room as she ticks off each of her fingers. “You calling him Ben, the feeling that you’re hiding something.”

  “You could not be more wrong.”