The lounge time was blessedly short, as neither of us wanted to waste time small talking with strangers. We managed to excuse ourselves and duck out with Joe a half hour before midnight to ride back to the RV park. We spent a blissful hour in the hot tub before the rest of the group arrived, then we snuck away to our bus. In what was now our room, I completely lost control while he kissed my neck, and I tried discreetly to untie his drawstring. He stopped my hands and crossed the room away from me.
“Lexie,” he rasped. “This is hard enough, but damn, you’re making it f-ing impossible. I’m not going to make it. I may lose my mind really soon.”
“I’m sorry, I know … I have never been so forward in my life. You bring it out of me. Are you okay?”
He grimaced. “The best kind of pain, baby. I’m going to get us a drink.” He was under control when he returned to the room with an ice water to share, and we managed to PG cuddle the rest of the night.
The pool party continued on Sunday and Monday, which played out like a honeymoon vacation with a bunch of crazy friends. Jackson and I floated on a raft together for hours, played chicken with other duos and napped on the lounge chairs on and off. All of the meals were set up on the pool deck, and the band jammed a few times. They worked on a new song, but none of the lyrics were used yet, just laying the melody down. The green notebook made an appearance during these sessions, always catching my eye.
Jackson was officially free of his boot on Sunday, and we continued to work on his gait. I added corrective hip and back exercises, since he was now on even feet and had been used to being off kilter in the boot. We took short walks on the nature trail to practice, but his ankle swelled if we went too far. Positive feedback came back from Dr. Blevins and Dr. Gray when I sent in his therapy reports weekly, and we never heard any further backlash from my participation on stage. A voice whispered in the back of my mind that we should be cautious about anyone outside of our close circle knowing of our relationship.
The arrival of Wednesday afternoon meant time for the two-hour drive to Birmingham. Charlie lazed on the bus, watching SportsCenter with Jack, while I regretfully put away our pool towels, swimsuits, and rafts into the closet and prepared for the drive. Charlie rose to leave when Helen boarded her driver’s seat.
“I’m really happy for both of you,” he said wistfully, looking back and forth at us. “You’re my oldest favorite guy and my newest favorite gal, and I think it’s about damn time you got your shit together. Take it from an old man who’s seen a lot in his life, you two have what it takes to last forever.” He tipped his hat, wheezed in a deep breath, and exited the steps.
Jackson pulled me on his lap where he sat on the couch. “Wow, profound talk from Uncle Charlie. I think my family has welcomed you with open arms and would probably pick you over me at this point.”
My laugh was easy as I brushed his hair back and then gave him a serious look. “I wish I could have met your mom. I hope she would approve also.”
His eyes moistened, fading the blue color. I thought next time I should censor my thoughts until he said, “Oh, baby, I’m a 110 percent sure she’s doing a happy dance up above right now.”
A smile spread across my face as I felt accepted and proud that he could talk about her easily now.
“On that note,” he added and turned me to face him, “I want to ride with the guys.”
Disappointment wrinkled my forehead before I could stop it.
He held up a finger for me to wait. “There are two reasons: I want to work on that new song during the drive, but mostly, I want you to have time to read this.” He pulled the green notebook from the side table and placed it on my lap.
Chapter 34
My lips parted into a circle as I stared at the spiral bound pad of paper.
“I don’t want an argument, okay? It’s not only because you won the bet. I want you to know how much I trust you. I never let anyone see unfinished work, and only a small fraction ever sees completion.”
I shook my head to protest, but he put a finger to my lips before I could speak. “No, look, everything from the last three months in here is directly due to you or your influence on me. You deserve to see it, and I need you to see it. Please.”
Tears enveloped my eyes, and I looked away, fingering the tattered edge of the pages. He turned my chin back to look directly at his eyes. “Read it and tell me what you think in Birmingham, okay?”
I took a deep, shaky breath and acquiesced. Of course, I’d take the chance to become closer to this man. “Thank you for trusting me with this, Jackson.”
He kissed me once and stopped to chuckle at the door. “Don’t thank me yet, you may not like everything in there.” He winked and vanished as the coach rumbled to life.
I held the notebook with shaking hands and took it back to my bunk. I pulled the curtain and turned my overhead light on. Even though I was alone, a cocoon felt right for something so intimate.
First, I texted Ashley. I’d finally been able to talk to her for an hour the day before, and caught her up on my crazy life. I wrote: Brace yourself, I have the green notebook in my possession and a long drive to read it alone. Freaking out!
My fingers felt clumsy as I opened the well-worn cover and saw where a few of the oldest pages were long gone, ripped from the spiral binding. I remembered vaguely Andy’s comment long ago, about how Jackson had barely written anything while on tour, and then after meeting me, he’d written up a storm. At the time, I attributed the change to the accident, like a wake-up call. The first intact page showed January 2016 written in the margin, before the Knoxville concert, so I would get to see writing from before and after our meeting.
The first song was titled “Three Date Rule.” I laughed aloud as I quickly skimmed the lyrics to find the full sentence used in the song was “Let’s forget the three date rule.” Truly, an ode to one night stands again, perfectly in line with all the other fluff on his last album.
The next page was untitled and dated February. As I read through the words, it carried on the bachelor theme. The chorus bragged, “I’m not the man you take home to meet your dad, he would know right away that I’m so bad. Not gonna make an honest woman outta you, but I’ll be your fun guy for a time or two.” I snorted, my teeth grinding reflexively.
There was a blank page next and then the date April 2, which I immediately recognized as a date during his hospitalization. My stomach fluttered with anticipation. The title was “Maybe There’s More,” and I read each line with concentration. It astounded me to see what was going on in his head when we met, and I gave him such a hard time those first few days. The chorus was my favorite part:
I was happy to believe that
no one out there was meant for me,
but- how can I keep being so wild?
No cares, just acting like a child,
when now I’ve come to see
that a girl like you exists to me.
Now, maybe there’s more, more than I knew I could do.
Hey, maybe there’s more, more life to lead if I had you.
Yeah, maybe there’s more.
I reread it a few times, memorizing the words and feeling my eyes grow misty as I pictured him in the hospital bed with his guitar after Andy smuggled it in. The next page was written the first week of April, when we were still in Knoxville, but he was back on the bus. The name of it was “Strong Woman.” There was a note in the margin that read: “Lexie Travis, Caroline Morgan, Grandma Ellis.” We appeared to be the women he was thinking about when he wrote amazing lines through the song.
She’s got a good head on her shoulders, two feet on the ground.
She’ll love you ’til it hurts her, but won’t let you boss her ’round.
She’s everything good and kind in the world,
She’s shy at times but with a streak that’s bold.
She’s above the world’s petty things, got too many amazing dreams
and she’ll make them all come true …
; She’s a strong woman. She’s a strong woman,
Tender and then tough, always she’s enough.
She’s a strong woman. She’s a strong woman …
Marches to her own damn drum—watch out world, here she comes.
I left my bunk to get tissues halfway through reading the song and then dissected all of the lines. It humbled me to be considered in the same class as the dear women in his family. I’d known him less than a week at the time. Part of me also felt guilty. I had failed to be strong at some points after he’d written this. I remembered suddenly, very clear, what he said to me after I broke up with him over my boss’s email. He thought I was stronger than that. A few more tears escaped; I felt terrible for disappointing him.
Next were a few pages with scribbles that didn’t look like anything coherent, but maybe a lot of ideas and words, short phrases he was toying with on different lines of the page. Then, another song written later in April called “Let Me Take Care of You.” I smiled, remembering when he told me that I needed someone to take care of me for once. It was after I told him about my parents’ divorce and becoming the family mediator. The song rang true with the story of a girl similar to me. A boy pleas with her to let someone else be in control and spoil her for a turn. My heart swelled, feeling full in my chest, to think he had cared enough to write these things.
I sucked in a breath at the next song title: “My Last First Kiss.” He began to write it April 19, the day before my birthday, when we actually did kiss. Wow, he’d been thinking about that kiss long enough to bother writing it down. The chorus made me grin.
You know I’ve kissed a lot of others, trying to find something like this,
but now that I’ve found you, I want you to be my last first kiss.
Your lips distract me all day long, their power is amazing.
If I could just touch them, I think I might go crazy.
Soft and gentle, sweet and slow—or maybe wild and just let go.
Baby, I don’t care, as long as you’re my last first kiss.
I got up for a drink at that point, my head dizzy with disbelief. I doubted his true motives for so long, and here his heart lay, poured out on pages. Just feet from me all this time. I skipped the pages of random words and thoughts until I got to the next song. Clearly, he wrote it after our ugly post-birthday debacle. My stupid decision to break things off had deeply wounded him. The title was very fitting- “Sabotage.”
I cringed at the lyrics describing a doomed couple. The girl was a doubter who gave up to easily, and the boy was reckless in his anger, both of them alternately sabotaging their love. It was hard to read, but it rang true. I had to smile past the depressing subject matter and appreciate that he could put these feelings into words so easily. I pictured people listening to the song on the radio, nodding their heads, because they had a similar situation at some point in their life.
“This Love” was the next song in the book, and I already knew each word by heart. The following page was not a complete song, but there were several sentences written with scratch outs and arrows, as if he were playing around with it and never got it to flow. The theme was about a letter, and the only complete lyric was “Not a single word of it will be true, but I’ll write it anyway for you. A letter full of smiles and lies, so that you can move on with life.” Confirmation that the letter he gave me after Evansville had indeed been false. I made myself believe he moved on for so long because of that stupid thing!
My phone rang then, jolting me from my deep thoughts. I snatched it up to see Ashley calling.
“Hey girl, spill it all. What did he write? Is your whole love/hate/love story going to be on the top ten charts next year?” She was gushing a mile a minute.
I laughed, glad for the break in the emotional roller coaster. “No details, dear friend. I love you, but he has entrusted me with what would be equivalent to our middle school diaries.”
She sucked in a breath. “Oh … I see what you mean. Though, I’m sure the songs are magnificent. Are you happy you got to see it so far?”
“Yeah, I’m extremely happy; to see how his mind works and how he processes through some of these things we’ve been through. He’s much more aware and honest than I am with myself. It’s a good lesson to learn, actually. I hope he puts a few more of them into finished songs for his record, but I’m not sure how much he’s willing to go public with.”
“This is the wildest f-ing thing ever! I mean, I had to drag your ass to the concert, we witness a historical stage malfunction, and you wind up his therapist. You fight with him a lot, get to go on his tour—despite your best efforts to avoid it—and now you two are freaking in love, and he’s writing songs about you that are going to be on the radio!”
I giggled like a little girl, but I didn’t even care. It was f-ing unbelievable. “How do I know, Ash, if it is love? I mean, he wants us to go slow until we’re sure, but I have a terrible track record. Obviously, I don’t know anything about love from the jerks I’ve chosen in the past. But, I feel completely different with him.”
“Well, there’s your clue. You know what it doesn’t feel like, so if this is the opposite, then I’d say you’re right on track. Have to go, but call soon. Love you. Mean it!”
I sighed and turned the page, to the next song, “Change Me.” It was a ballad about a man who desperately wanted to change and thought a woman had the power to help him. “Your touch could move the path I’m on, your love could turn me around. I think you came right from Heaven to help me get my feet on the ground.” He’d written this one after the attack from Travis, about the time we were in Cincinnati.
There were random notes and musical annotations on the next page, a foreign language to me, so I moved on. He’d been writing the next song while we were at his apartment in Nashville, titled “I’ll Be Your Therapy.” He was taking another tongue-in-cheek view of leaning on each other and crying on a shoulder. He wrote:
I’ll be there to help you beat your anger out,
You can hold me when I just need to pout.
If I ever need to share my deepest thoughts over a meal,
you can tell me that it’s okay to really feel.
We may shed some tears, but baby, we’ll laugh, too.
I’ll be your therapy.
I laughed aloud at his attempt to lighten our heart-to-heart talks about Travis and about his mom. Writing the song must have been good therapy in itself.
The final song looked like he began it a week ago, while we were working on our bet and nearing the end. “Just Take it Slow” was the title, and I could feel a gentle, slow melody as I read the words.
There’s nothing in the world I’ve wanted more,
than to be able to say that you’re mine,
But I don’t want you to ever think that I’m not true, and just giving you a line.
I hope those green eyes see the love I’m trying to show to you.
Let’s not rush into doing what lovers do.
Let’s take it slow, just take it slow.
I want you to really know, that what we have is divine.
Let’s take it slow, just take it slow…
Since we have forever, baby, we have all the time.
I rested my head on my hands, while I read it over again. The song was reverse psychology at its finest. It made me want to jump his bones immediately.
Helen interrupted my thoughts this time, her voice over the intercom blaring that we were fifteen minutes from our destination. I hugged the book to my chest, even more enamored with Jackson. He had such talent, such heart, expressed emotion so well, and … seemed to like me a lot. Maybe love me. Quickly, I ran to the bathroom to freshen up so I could find him right away when we parked at the arena.
I burst out of the door when I felt Helen stop, and I literally ran to the gray bus parked just twenty feet away. I had to remind myself to stop and knock, since I would technically be barging into the home of six people. When I heard someone yell, “Come in,” I burst in and s
canned the room for Jackson.
He was on the sectional, guitar in lap, and looked like a deer in headlights when he saw me. I could see him trying to assess if my abrupt entrance was a good or bad thing, so I kept my face as neutral as possible and strode over to him with my hands on my hips.
Chapter 35
He quickly put the guitar to the side and began to stand up when I pushed him back down, sat straight on his lap, and planted a firm kiss on his lips. I could have cared less about the other people in the small space with us, or that they began to hoot and holler. We were in our own world, and we didn’t stop our public display of affection for several minutes until we had to pull away for air.
“Um, does this mean you liked what you read?” He chuckled, enveloping me into a bear hug. I snuggled into his chest and breathed in his fresh, masculine scent.
“I loved it, Jackson Ellis. Every single word, even though a few were hard to read. I loved them all, because I got to see into your heart, and it was beautiful. I hope you never figure out I’m not as wonderful as the girl in those songs.”
He tilted my chin up. “But you are. That’s what I need you to realize. You are that person, and you’ve changed my life. I want you to give yourself credit for once.”
I nodded to convey I would work on it. My self-esteem had never been as great as my self-doubt. The guys had politely made themselves scarce, and I laughed when I realized they were all gone. “Let’s check out Birmingham!”
His dimpled flexed when he declared, “I’m taking you on a real date tonight. I have no idea what there is to do here, but we’ll find something. I want to make it special.”
“It will be, as long as you’re with me. I don’t care where we end up.” I knew I sounded completely cheesy, but we both smiled and kissed again.
Muse: ( Groupie Volume 2 of 2) Page 21