It’s something on my hip that has me groggily opening my eyes and realizing I drifted off. I’m on my side now, curled completely into West. He’s on his side, too, cradling me, our legs intertwined. I tune even further in and realize his one hand is on my hip and my head is resting on the bicep of his other arm.
I open my eyes completely to see his chin and lips just an inch or so away. Is he asleep?
His hand moves then, the one on my hip, stroking down and then back up, stopping just shy of touching my back. My breath catches as his fingers pause to press in, and down really low things start to warm.
West’s fingers move again, stroking down, back up, then stopping to press in, making me ache in a new way I’ve never experienced before. I draw in a breath, but it doesn’t ease a single thing. His hand moves again, down the back side of my thigh, up to my hip, and his fingers press into my butt.
It’s too much, and nervously, I wet my lips. “West?”
His hand stills. He doesn’t move. Neither do I, and neither one of us speaks. Then West shifts first, gently pushing me away, and rolls to a sitting position. He rubs his eyes and looks around and finally with a sigh, glances over his shoulder at me where I still lay on the blanket.
“It’s late,” he says, “and you’ve got to be up early for work.”
I nod, completely confused that he’s the one who pulled away.
He gets to his feet and holds out his hand. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your room.”
I let him pull me up, and together we fold the blanket. But as I come toward him with my ends of the blanket, he slides one arm around my back and holds me to him.
“Hug me,” he whispers. “Please?”
His words liquefy my insides, and I don’t hesitate as I slip both arms around his waist and lay my face on his chest. With the blanket smooshed between us, I listen to his heartbeat as he pulls me in snug, resting his head on top of mine. Gently, he rocks me, humming a song I don’t recognize, but the tune buzzes through me, and I sink further into the embrace.
We stand this way, gently swaying, as he hums the whole song. I haven’t cried in many years. The last time I did I was in excruciating pain. So when the wetness pools in my eyes, I blink my lids, surprised, realizing they’re tears of happiness.
Exactly what tears should be.
Chapter Eighteen
I sleep deeply, soundly, unlike any sleep I’ve had in a very long time. Anne and I have to be at Madison Square Garden an hour earlier than usual, so I miss my morning run with West.
Anne and I work the whole morning alongside Ford, getting things set up, and around noon my cell buzzes.
Hey Green Eyes, I read, and my pulse flutters.
Hi, I answer back.
Miss me?
I smile. No.
Liar.
:-), I respond.
See you at sound check.
Okay, I type and then stare at my phone for a few minutes, but nothing else comes through. The anticipation of seeing him at sound check nearly undoes me, so when Ford comes up to me and says, “I’m sending you and Anne on errands,” I nearly argue. That means I’ll miss seeing West.
I almost text West to tell him, but then decide that’s probably too much.
An hour into our errands, my cell buzzes, and I nearly rip it from my pocket. Where r u? I read, and excitement back flips inside of me.
Errands w/ Anne, I type.
:-(
:-), I respond, inordinately pleased with his frowny face.
See u after the show?
Sure! I type, then delete the !. I don’t want to seem to eager.
Nothing else comes through after that, and I finally slip my phone back into my pocket.
“You two have it bad,” Anne snickers.
“What?” I ask, though of course I totally know what she’s talking about.
She snorts, “Puh-lease,” and then gives me a playful shove. “Kidding. Dude, I’m so happy for you. I love seeing you like this.”
“Like what exactly?” Because I can’t quite put my finger on it, but whatever this feeling is, I want it to continue.
“Happy.”
Happy. Yes, I am happy. But happy is foreign, like I’ve borrowed the feelings of someone normal and stuck them in my body. It’s light and fizzy and feels so good it scares me. “We’re just friends,” I automatically say, using the word I continue stressing.
She snorts again. “Whatever you got to tell yourself.”
By nine o’clock that night all the bands have come and gone, and I stand beside Ford at the soundboard listening to the crowd go wild for the headline. I look out across the sea of bodies filling Madison Square Garden, and their excited roar vibrates through me. In my craziest dreams, I never thought this would be me.
“Bus Stop! Bus Stop! Bus Stop!”
“Cue smoke and lasers,” I hear in the headset Ford gave me to wear.
Colored smoke shoots up from hidden shafts, lasers beam down from the ceiling, spotlights crisscross the crowd. Excited screams fill the air as the fans jump to their feet, craning their necks, trying to catch a glimpse.
“Cue sound.”
Ford slowly slides the channel bars into place. “Sound cued,” he responds into his headset.
Hidden behind the smoke, the guys begin to play the opening number, then West steps through first, and the crowd goes from wild to insane. People jump up and down screaming and flailing their arms. A girl in the first row faints. Some eager fans push toward the stage. Hand-made signs pop up all over proclaiming undying love for their favorite band member.
Ford puts his hand over the mike attached to his head piece and says, “Good, raw music. No fancy moves. Just the four of them jamming out. It’s the way it should be.” He cocks his head. “Hear that?”
I listen. “The reverberation?”
He points at me. “Good job, and the mid is off, too.” He reaches over to the EQ rack, makes some adjustments, and nods.
I watch his every move, hoping he’ll let me do some of that soon. He makes a few more tweaks, then takes a step back to survey the stage. Large flat screens sit perched on either side showing close ups of the guys. They each have their own unique style: leather, jeans, T-shirts, boots, sneakers. Only Toby, the drummer, wears his hair long, and in my opinion he needs a major cut. West’s image flashes onto the screens, and my belly does a slow roll.
His eyes are closed as his head sways from side to side, and he strums the chords. Dark strands curl in spiky messiness all over his head. The top four buttons of his white shirt lay open to show a little bit of chest hair, and a silver necklace hangs around his neck with an emblem on the end.
“What the hell is going on?” Ford suddenly hisses.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“West’s mike is out.”
What?
West stands a few feet away from his mike playing his guitar. To the audience nothing appears wrong. He’s jamming out instead of singing.
“There’s a mike box stage left,” Ford calmly speaks into his headset. “Have a roadie grab cordless number two and make the switch.”
Someone signals West from off stage. He grabs the bad mike and shoves it in his back pocket, and while continuing to play, he strolls toward the awaiting roadie. A girl throws a bra and West snatches it out of midair, gives it a little twirl and tosses it back, all while making the swap and seamlessly continuing with the lyrics.
Ford looks over at me. “I thought you tested all those?”
“I did,” I defend myself, taken off guard by his tone.
“Well, a perfectly good mike doesn’t just go bad.”
I look back toward the stage, going through things in my mind. I had checked all the mikes, hadn’t I?
He sets the EQ for the next song and turns to me. “If I give you a job and you’re not sure how to do it, then you need to ask questions.”
“I did know how to do it.” The last thing I want to do is disappoint Ford.
“You can’t overlook anything in this job, Eve. It’ll get you fired.”
Fired? I stop breathing for a second.
He shakes his head. “I want you to go through everything after the show and figure out what happened.”
Immediately, I nod. “Yes, sir.” I can’t get fired. I don’t have any place to go.
After the show, we break things down, the semis are loaded and en route to the next city, everyone heads off to party, and I sit on the floor backstage studying the mike that had gone bad.
“You sure you don’t want me to wait on you?” Anne asks.
I wave her on. “Just go. I’ll meet you back at the hotel.” There’s no way I’m telling her Ford threatened to fire me.
“I’m probably going to hit that party on Tenth.”
I wave her on, just wanting to be left alone so I can figure out what went wrong with this mike. Plus, I know Anne likes to party, and I want her to have fun. I’m not her responsibility.
She finally walks off, and I go back to the mike. I run my fingers over the metal head, testing for looseness. I jiggle the transceiver and find it good, too. I get a screwdriver from a toolbox, quickly disassemble the mike, and find one single frayed wire. What the heck? How did this happen?
My cell buzzes, and with an irritable sigh, I pick it up. I swipe my finger over the screen and find a Google Alert for Gideon.
“Hey, Green Eyes.”
I jump a little and look up to see West standing over me. “What are you doing here?” I ask, hearing the irritableness in my tone and telling myself everything is going to be okay. I just need to look at this Google Alert.
“We were supposed to hang out.” West puts his hand over his heart. “How quickly you forget.”
Between the bad mike, Ford’s “fired” threat, and now this alert I need to read, I’m not in the mood right now. “How did you know I was still here?”
West doesn’t answer at first, probably picking up on my grouchy mood. “I saw Anne as she was leaving. She said you were back here.”
Gideon used to do that—track me, ask people where I was, watch for me, follow me, and of course the nightly bed checks. I toss the screwdriver back into the toolbox. “I’m a big girl, West. I can take care of myself. You don’t need to come looking for me.”
My words come out meaner than I intend, and looking at West’s confused expression confirms that. He has nothing to do with this. Why am I taking it out on him? I sigh, trying to make it right. “West…”
Lifting his hands, he takes a defensive step back. “I know you’re a big girl. I don’t know why you’re pissed that I was worried about you. In case you haven’t heard, that’s what friends do for each other.”
West shoves his hands in his back pockets. “But, hey, you want me to back off? No problem.”
He turns and disappears into the darkness, and with every step he takes away, sorrow burrows through me. I didn’t mean what I said. I owe him a huge apology. Grabbing my phone, I start to text him to come back, but read the Google Alert instead:
Gideon Kopeling makes a surprise visit to New York.
Madison Square Garden already sold out.
Chapter Nineteen
Feverishly, I scroll the Alert, my eyes bouncing over every word. Tomorrow. Gideon’s here at Madison Square tomorrow! Which means…his people are probably here right now doing preliminary stuff.
Fear propels me to my feet, and I take off in a full sprint down the back corridor. I don’t look around, I don’t pause, I just run. At the exit door, I push through and keep right on racing up the dark street, frantically looking for a cab. I spot one a block up and wave my arms as I make a demon dash toward it. In one smooth motion, I open the back door and dive in.
“Drive,” I hiss, giving him the address to my hotel.
He pulls away, and I stay flattened to the seat as my thoughts jump all over the place. Were Gideon’s people there earlier? I know he wasn’t. He doesn’t normally arrive to a venue until about an hour before he’s set to go onstage. It’s not unusual for him to make surprise visits, but this visit, this visit feels a little too timely.
At the hotel I make the driver drop me off at the back entrance. I duck out of the cab and sneak inside. The minute I get into our hotel room, I grab Anne’s iPad and bring up Gideon’s site. My heart beats wildly as I go to the EVENT tab and see that New York was just added, and though I tell myself not to let my imagination run wild with this, I can’t make it stop. What if he knows I’m here? What if this is all some game for him? What if he knows that Bluma helped me and that she’s in communication with me? What if that guy I thought was watching me back in Canada really was? What if I really did see someone in Central Park?
What if…? What if…?
Anxiety rolls through my stomach, and I run to the bathroom and dry heave into the sink. I stay up all night, the what if’s maddeningly circling my brain, and before six, I’m the first person out of the hotel and on the Mack Daddy bus. I keep low in my seat, my gaze glued to the outside, just waiting for something to happen.
But…nothing does.
Several hours later, we cross over into Pennsylvania, and I inhale what feels like the first breath I’ve taken since last night. I look across at Anne, lounged back with her buds in and a slight snore in the air.
Do you have any evidence? This is what Bluma asked me months ago when we first started planning all of this. Evidence? Other than the scars on my back, no, I don’t have evidence. Even if I did, I wouldn’t come forward. No one would believe me, and I would just end up right back with Gideon with things much worse than before. I don’t even want to let my brain go to how bad it will be if I’m forced to go back.
“Hey,” West whispers from behind, and I turn to see him sitting with Simon in the quad of seats behind me. Immediately, I think of last night and how irritable I was with him. I need to apologize.
“Hi,” I say, turning to peer at him through the crack in the seat.
A couple of seconds tick by as we look at each other, and it occurs to me that if I don’t start communicating, if I don’t start taking some chances, I’m doomed to a life of loneliness. He moves first, stepping into the aisle and sliding into the seat beside me. Apologizing to West should not be a big deal. It’s part of being friends.
I turn to look at him, wishing I could just open up my mouth and tell him everything. But I’m scared. I’m scared of the past, the present, the future—and the glob of fear is so big it clogs my throat, blocking the truth. And I’m tired, so very tired of running. The truth is it’s becoming increasingly difficult to hide my past from my present.
West lets out a soft sigh that has me focusing in on his dark eyes. Something about his probing stare strengthens me, and I know it’s only been since last night, but I’ve missed him.
“I’m sorry,” I say, miserable to my core at how I treated him.
Gently, he nods. “It’s forgiven.”
Somewhere deep inside of me something unravels, and I press my forehead into his shoulder as I close my eyes. “Thank you for being so great.”
He nuzzles his face against my hair. “You’re very welcome.”
Long moments pass as we quietly sit, and I concentrate on not crying. When I feel ready, I lift my head to see him sweetly looking back at me. He reaches around me to slide the window shade down, shutting the sky out of our little area, and making it feel more quiet and personal.
“Can I hold your hand?” he asks, and my gaze drops to his long tan fingers and his paler palm. He wiggles his fingers. “Friend to friend, Eve. No pressure.”
Slowly I reach my hand out and slide it along his, palm-to-palm, and I watch in a sort of curious amazement as he curls his calloused guitar fingers up. I’ve never held hands with anyone other than Gideon and Bluma.
West gives me another sweet smile. “Not so bad, huh?”
My lips twitch. “No, not so bad.”
Lightly he squeezes my hand. “Did you talk to Ford yet about the mi
ke?”
“Not yet. It was a frayed wire. I plan on taking apart every one of them and inspecting them to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
His brows lift. “That sounds like a lot of work.”
“Yes, but I’m glad to do it.” Anything to not hear another “fired” comment come out of Ford. Plus, I really don’t mind. I like the work.
Reaching inside the neck of his T-shirt, West pulls out the necklace I saw him wearing last night and fiddles with the trinket on the end. I stare at the strong lines of his neck, the dark stubble on his face, and my throat goes a little dry.
“What is that?” I nod to the necklace. “I saw it during the concert and wondered.”
West looks down at it and gives a quick chuckle. “My sister, Vianca, and I spent a lot of time with Gramma when we were growing up. She’s this total hippie, in-love-with-the-world type of person. It seemed like every day was a new adventure. The world was this great big place to discover.”
I smile, imagining. What a wonderful way to grow up.
“She took us mining in North Carolina one weekend. We found this lump of gray and white rock with a gold line.” West rubs the trinket between his fingers. “Gramma had it broken into three pieces and necklaces made.”
I nod to the gold. “Can I see?”
West leans in and our heads come together as I study the small lump encased in silver wiring. I glance up at him, and our noses bump, making us both smile. “You’ve mentioned your grandmother a few times now. She must be very special.”
He smiles. “She’s the best.”
“Is she your mom’s mom or your dad’s?”
His mood drops a little, and I wish I could take the question back.
“My mom’s,” he whispers.
Anne yawns then and sits up, but I keep looking at West. Obviously, there’s something there, and if it wasn’t for Anne waking up, West may have felt comfortable enough to share.
“How far we got left?” Anne asks as she gives her neck a good stretch, and her eyes zero in on our joined hands.
Immediately, I let go and reach inside my messenger back, pretending to be looking for something.
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