“The broken pieces wash away, tomorrow's promise refuses to die;
I can almost see her, she's standing in sunlight just beyond this... black... sky.”
He closed the song, the piano resonating in the studio in the most perfect way. It was followed by silence, and he looked over at Clarke to see tears traveling down her cheeks.
“Stop, it wasn't that good.” He chuckled self-consciously.
“Dude, that was amazing,” Harrison commented from the booth, and Mike turned towards the window. Nicky was standing beside him, looking like a proud father.
“I turned the tape on before you started. We got it. I think that was the most perfect take you boys have done so far this week.” Nicky was nodding his approval.
“Oh geez.” Mike ducked his head and ran his hand over his hair. He looked up at Clarke and she was smiling that million-dollar smile that she reserved for special occasions.
“It was amazing, Mike,” she said quietly, her eyes still glossy.
He stared at her. How could he not?
“You make me like myself more than I probably should.” Mike bit his bottom lip pensively. She didn't respond, she didn't have to. They had been doing well at communicating non-verbally for two days. Her eyes spoke volumes.
The rest of the day went by way too fast from Mike's perspective. They ran through what they had, cut a few things out, added bits and pieces here and there and polished it up. Nicky had been right, that one take of Mike's song, “Inside the Break,” was perfect. He listened to it over and over again and each time he was amazed at the clarity with which it came though. He knew that every time he heard it, he would remember Clarke's soothing and easy presence in the room with him as he recorded it.
“It's been a long day,” he said, swinging an arm around Clarke's shoulders as they followed Harrison to the Volvo. “I suppose you want to get home and get some rest.”
She looked up at him with her quiet smile. “Not really.”
He let go and spun around, walking backwards in front of her. “Well, in that case, would you like to go on an adventure?”
“I would.” She gave a singular nod of her head and Mike felt something in his chest cavity somersault.
“Dude, can you drop me at home first?” Harrison unlocked the car doors. “I need a nap.”
Mike caught the keys that Harrison tossed his direction and motioned for Clarke to take the front seat. He had a thought cross his mind and tried to hold back the smile that threatened to expose his plans. He managed to keep quiet all the way back to the condo.
“When do you think you'll be back?” Harrison asked as he climbed out of the backseat.
“Tomorrow. Probably. Maybe.” Mike grinned at Harrison's open mouth.
“Tomorrow? Where are we going?” Clarke leaned over and tried to draw his attention, but Mike rested his elbow on the window sill, ignoring her.
“If you need to rent another car, I'll pay for it.”
Harrison chuckled softly and then offered him a fist bump. “Whatever you say, man.”
Mike backed out of the drive and pointed the car north.
“Mike?”
He glanced over to see Clarke with one eyebrow raised and her arms crossed over her chest.
“Yeah?” he asked casually.
“Where are we going?”
“The Maltese Falcon is playing at the Castro Theater, I thought you might dig it.” He gave her a lopsided smile as she narrowed her eyes at him.
“The Castro Theater is in San Francisco, Mike.”
Damn, but she was adorable when she was being snarky.
“That's why I said it would be an adventure.” He glanced sideways at her. “Would you rather I take you home and go by myself?”
She sat back in her seat like that was the dumbest idea she'd ever heard. “Don't be daft, of course I want to go.”
Mike couldn't not laugh at her. “I love that you just used the word 'daft' on me.”
She smiled at him and shook her head. “It's like a seven-hour drive.”
“I know.”
“I'm not comfortable driving all night long.”
“I'm the same.”
She sighed in frustration. “What's the whole plan, Mike?”
“You're gonna have to trust me, Clarke.” He chuckled when out of the corner of his eye he saw her nose scrunch up in aggravation. “And tomorrow I'm hoping you can take me surfing. You can decide where.”
“You're incorrigible, you know that?” she said with impatience in her voice.
“I know. But you like me anyway.” He gave her a wink that caused her to turn and look out the window, but he saw her smile in the reflection. Mike relaxed into his seat, grin firmly affixed.
***
“I've never gotten to see Bogie on the big screen. I'm starting to get really excited.” Clarke tapped her legs with her fingertips.
“Seriously? Well, then this will definitely be a treat.” Mike smiled warmly at her.
Clarke still couldn't believe that they were driving all the way to San Francisco for a movie. Best vacation ever, hands down.
“Since we have all this time in the car,” she began, then paused to clear her throat. Did she want to ask this question?
“How about we get to know each other better? My thoughts exactly.” Mike nodded and Clarke breathed a sigh of relief. “We'll take turns. I'll ask a question and then you ask a question. But nothing is off-limits. You can ask me anything you want.”
“All right,” she agreed easily. “What do you wanna know?”
“I had no idea you loved Humphrey Bogart so much. Does it have anything to do with you being named after Lauren Bacall?”
“Maybe,” Clarke admitted with a laugh. “My dad told me my namesake when I was seven, so I immediately watched all of her movies and in the process fell completely in love with Bogie. But I was a child...”
She looked out the window as she thought back to that time. “I think as children we love more easily, without the careful consideration of our hearts. So falling in love with a man who scowled often and drank frequently seemed harmless. The parts I paid attention to were his passion, his cleverness. He was earnest and determined. And I loved him.” The last sentence was a step above a whisper because she was mostly talking to herself.
She tapped her fingers against her leg again. The car remained silent for several minutes, but not in an uncomfortable way. She was never uncomfortable around Mike anymore. He allowed her room to breathe in their friendship. She liked it.
“You're brilliant, you know that?” Mike asked, and her head spun towards him, her cheeks heating.
“Hardly,” she protested, but he flashed her a grin that said he didn't believe her.
“Your turn, Miss Bacall.”
“Okay...” Clarke took a deep breath. She knew what she wanted to ask, but wasn't sure what words to use. Now that her moment had arrived, she wasn't sure she could do it.
“Tell me about the blue flower tattoo.”
Mike sucked in air at her question and lifted his chin slightly. His grip tightened on the steering wheel.
“Oh, wow. Went straight for the heavy stuff, huh?” He licked his lips and checked the rear view mirror.
“If you don't want to—”
“No, I do,” Mike said reassuringly. He swallowed a few times and licked his lips again.
“I got the tattoo when Ilsa and I were together. That seems fairly obvious, I suppose. But I was not making very good choices at the time.” He shook his head and grimaced. “No, you know what? I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. I was high all of the time. I was so messed up most days I couldn't see straight. But I knew I loved her. She was the bright spot amidst all that chaos and I hung onto that. What I couldn't see at the time was that she was sick, too. She had a dependency on me and booze that was... unrivaled.” He chuckled humorlessly. “And my using made hers worse. The further down I went, she followed me. Straight to the bottom.”
Clarke thought that h
earing him talk about his former drug use would make her cringe, or retreat from him. But it didn't. She didn't know why, but she needed to hear him talk about it.
“She started to get super paranoid and jealous, so I got the tattoo to prove that she was the only one for me. It worked for a little bit. But I wasn't the one who was running around. She was...” he frowned, searching for the right words, “...incredibly charming. Her beauty could blind the soberest of men. And she used her charm to get what she wanted. Usually gifts and expensive alcohol.
“A lot of people, including most of the band, think that she cheated on me with Sway and that's why I overdosed in Cologne. But there was—” He took a long breath, let it out slowly, then continued, “It had been a very bad week. Our... end had been coming for a while. Sway had gotten sucked into her charm as well and he got used badly in that scenario. And then Ashton James did what she does so well. She came to me and told me she'd seen Sway and Ilsa going back to his hotel room. So I waited in our room to confront her, and saw her going into Sway's room myself. And I thought, 'Screw it. Let's go out with a bang.'”
Clarke watched his hands clench and unclench. The rest of him seemed completely relaxed... but those hands.
“I don't want to make it sound like I'm blaming her for what I did. I'm not. I made all my own choices. But when someone you've promised your forever to is lying in a hospital dying, I think it's customary to at least visit.”
“She never came to see you?” Clarke croaked, her throat dry.
“No. She blabbed to the media—she held a frickin' press conference while I was still unconscious—that she had been trying get me help for awhile and I just refused. Basically, she made up a lot of bullshit to make people feel sorry for her.” He shrugged with one shoulder. “I guess it worked.”
“I'm so sorry, Mike. I had no idea.” She shook her head and tucked her leg underneath her, leaning towards him. “I don't mean for that to sound trite. I really am sorry.”
He looked over at her, and she saw his hands relax as he gave her a soft smile. “I know. That's because you have a good heart.
“I got more work done on the tattoo right before entering rehab. I had the flower curved into a dagger going into my back. I thought it was appropriate at the time.”
Clarke wanted to see it. She wanted to trace the lines of the petals with her fingertips all the way to the place where he felt the most betrayed. She had this overwhelming urge to ask him to pull the car over so she could do it immediately.
“I want to see it,” she blurted out.
He gave her a crooked smile. “You will. Probably tomorrow when you take me surfing.”
“Good.” She settled back into her seat but didn't take her gaze off of him. She'd never met a supermodel before, but she had a suspicion that if her first meeting with one happened to be with Ilsa, she was probably going to do something very unladylike.
***
He could feel her eyes on him, regarding him intently. He liked it. It had been a long time since he'd enjoyed the attention of a beautiful woman. She was interested in him, not in the image he so often had to project for his profession. She wanted to know all the little things that made him human. And he wanted to know the same about her.
“Your turn,” she reminded him of their game.
“Staying on the same subject,” he started. “What's the rumor I keep hearing about you being in love with the greatest athlete of our time?”
She snorted with laughter and he chanced a look at her.
“You mean Serge?” she asked with a snicker.
“Yeah, the guy so famous that he only needs one name and everyone instantly knows who you're talking about.”
She made an unintelligible noise with her lips and shifted in her seat. “Serge is awesome, that's for sure. But I'm not in love with him. Flirt with him shamelessly? Yes. But in love? Not so much.”
“So if he walked into Soaring Bird next week and asked you to run away with him, you'd say no?” Mike asked, half-teasing.
“Ha!” she huffed a single laugh. “That would never happen. Serge is... Well, he doesn't really do the long-term girlfriend thing. Plus, he's quite a bit older than me. The only thing we really have in common is our love for surfing... And Shane. But that's pretty much it.”
“I don't think you understand how the 'what if' game is played,” Mike said dryly. “It doesn't matter if you think he would or wouldn't do that. My question was, how would you respond if he did?”
“I'm not really the type to run away with a guy,” she replied, shaking her head.
“Really?” Mike asked. “You want to rethink your answer? Because I'm pretty sure that's exactly what you're doing right now.”
Clarke's shy smile was on Mike's list of top ten favorite things of all time, and he grinned with satisfaction as he caught the reflection of it in the side view mirror when she turned away.
Chapter 7
Here and Now
Mike and Clarke talked the entire drive to San Francisco. Then they talked through the entire movie. Clarke cried because she said that Humphrey Bogart was even more handsome on the big screen. Mike had teased her mercilessly about it afterward.
Mike pulled the Volvo up to the valet at The Four Seasons and Clarke looked at him quizzically.
“We are not staying here tonight.” She narrowed her eyes at his grin as he got out and handed the keys over. Coming around to her side of the car, he took her hand and pulled her to the door.
“I made reservations when you were in the bathroom at the theater.”
They approached the counter and Clarke did a double-take when Mike stated the reservation name was under Sam Spade, Bogart's character in the movie they had just seen. He gave her a crooked smile and handed over his credit card. The clerk only handed over one key, but Clarke didn't question anything until they were alone on the elevator.
“Seriously, what is going on?” She watched the numbers on the elevator go all the way to the top and Mike still hadn't said a word. She reached out and swatted at him and he chuckled in response.
“I told you, it's an adventure. I have no plan. I'm making it up as I go.” The ding alerted them to their arrival and Clarke hesitantly followed him down the hall to their room door.
He slid the key card into the lock and pushed the door open with one hand, waiting for her to pass through first. She couldn't see much of the room from her post in the hallway, but what she could see was over-the-top swankiness.
It probably had something to do with the film they had just seen, but Clarke responded to his gesture with a little more drama than she would normally use.
“I'm not sleeping with you. I don't care that you drove me all the way to San Francisco to see sexy Humphrey Bogart, or that you've clearly paid way too much money for this hotel suite. It's not happening. I'm not Julia Roberts in a 90's movie, and I'm not an obsessed groupie, and frankly, I'm a little insulted that you would assume I would be willing to do that.” She had her arms crossed over her chest and was glaring daggers at Mike who stood in the doorway, holding the door open as he tried to hold back his laughter.
“Would you relax? Take a breath, Clarke. I'm not assuming anything like that. Now get your butt in here.”
She let out a huff and then brushed past him and entered the suite. She tried really hard not to let the elegance take her breath away. She tried equally hard not to get all starry-eyed with the view out of the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“You crack me up.” Mike was still laughing. “Sexy Humphrey Bogart. Yep, you caught me. Bogie is my secret panty-dropping weapon.”
Clarke turned to glare at him again, but he was walking into another part of the suite.
“You can have the bedroom,” he called, poking his head back out around the corner. “All to yourself. I'll take the couch.”
“Maybe we should flip a coin for it, that doesn't seem quite fair.” She paused in the entry of the bedroom and stared longingly at the massive king-sized bed.
“What else was I supposed to assume? You've clearly never been a girl before,” Clarke said dryly.
Mike lost it at that point. He bent over and put his hands on his knees, his body shaking with laughter. He looked up at her and she allowed herself a small smile.
“For Pete's sake, girl. You may be the funniest damn woman alive. Damn, you make me laugh.” He straightened back up and rubbed the moisture out of his eyes.
“You need to meet more people. I'm not that funny,” she replied skeptically.
“Okay, whatever you say. I'm gonna call down to the desk and get things sent up like toothbrushes and important things like that. We'll have to wear the same clothes tomorrow. I hope you're okay with that.” He eyed her apparel up and down and she shrugged.
Mike looked the part of the rock star as always. Starting with his dark-wash denim, heavy boots, leather belt with decorative studs, tight-fitting threadbare gray tee that left little to the imagination, and his close-cut, dark brown hair. Throw in a days worth of growth that shadowed his square jaw, and Clarke was kind of surprised they hadn't been mobbed by crazy fan girls.
“I won't be embarrassed if you're not.”
“I don't think I'd ever be embarrassed to be seen with you. Even when we were checking in downstairs, did you see how that guy looked at me like I was some kind of miscreant but you fit in everywhere you go?”
“Points for using miscreant in a sentence. But, no, I was too busy trying to access my self-defense training in case you tried to take advantage of me.”
Mike let out another hearty chuckle as he picked up the phone to call the front desk. Clarke paged through the room service menu and then flipped the TV on for a second, then back off again. She walked over to the tall windows and gazed out onto the city.
Deepest Blues Page 9