Smoke and Lyrics

by Holly Hall

  Her shoulders drop. “Okay,” she breathes.

  Chapter 2

  Lindsey

  I’m not crazy. I know how it looks, especially to narrow-minded men who see women as hardly more than a good lay or a pain in the ass, but I’m not crazy. Paranoid, maybe, but that’s where I draw the line. My head may be up in the clouds half the day, but I know what’s real, and reality is usually uglier than anything I can imagine.

  I force myself to face forward, smooth my fidgety hands over my denim shorts. My nerves are shot, but that has little to do with the men in the front seat. After a rocky session photographing an indie punk band this afternoon and a shift at the café, my anxiety is through the roof. Juggling coked-out musicians followed immediately by serving the rowdy patrons who stumble into the record shop will do that to you. I work in a near-constant state of panic that I’m not doing enough. All to fund my dreams.

  But I don’t have expectations, ever, and I know anything worth having won’t come easily. I moved from Denver three months ago to refine my craft and chase my dream of becoming a music photographer. I’ve met a few people here and there, people that “know” people, but it’s an uphill battle in an industry where self-teaching is all the rage, connections matter more than almost anything else, and everyone thinks they have what it takes to take a good photograph. But I told my mom I’d succeed. I made a promise. And I didn’t move across the country, a thousand miles away from her, for nothing.

  And tonight, I can’t even go home to get a decent night’s rest before the madness starts all over again tomorrow. Because he’s found out where my apartment is and, like several other nights this week, he’ll be there waiting. Craig.

  I swallow thickly, avoid the curious glances the guys in the front seat direct at me from the mirrors. This kind of irrational decision-making is what probably got me into this mess in the first place, but it’s Jenson King who offered to take me home. He’s already made such a mess of his life that I doubt he’d risk an abduction or rape scandal. Despite the drastic change in facial hair and the ball cap over his new-ish haircut, I could’ve told you who he was the moment I sat beside him and met those soulful, down-turned eyes. He might think he’s fooling everyone else by covering the ink on his arms, but I’m supposed to know the ins and outs of this industry. It’s part of the job.

  Besides, anyone with half a brain should’ve been able to pick him out of a crowd. There’s nobody who plays with the passion he does. Nobody who caresses each note with his tongue and the strum of his fingers as if every single one is worth his undivided attention. The appearance of Carter as his “ride,” one of the most talented and recognizable drummers of this decade, just confirmed everything.

  What I don’t know for sure is why Jenson, an artist just out of rehab for God knows what, would be drinking whiskey like his life depended on it at a bar in the middle of Music City. Maybe that’s something I can find out . . . and maybe slap him in the face with to wake him the fuck up.

  I’m surprised to look beyond the window and see darkness, the bright lights of the city replaced by softly-lit residential homes with wide lawns. I was expecting a little bungalow or loft near the heart of the city, maybe in trendy East Nashville, but while I was lost in my thoughts, I’ve been whisked to the sleepy outskirts. Carter pulls into the cracked driveway of a home that, while expansive, looks like it could use some TLC. The yard is slightly overgrown, and beer cans litter the pavement surrounding the pair of trash cans near the garage.

  We come to a stop on the side of the house, and Jenson opens my door. Carter goes one way while Jenson goes another. I’m momentarily torn between the two until Jenson throws a half smile over his shoulder and angles his head toward the back. I hug my messenger bag to my hip and follow his long strides around to a basement entry. This isn’t creepy at all. The concrete outside is dotted with cigarette butts and a couple of sun-bleached lawn chairs. A bachelor’s paradise.

  “Come on in. Sorry I didn’t have a chance to clean the place up, I wasn’t really expecting company.”

  “Is that what you say to all the girls you bring home?” I joust, stepping through the sliding glass door. I may be young, but I’m not naïve. I experienced college life, for god’s sake, and if you want to find a scumbag, try any college campus in this country.

  Jenson’s mouth twists, biting back a smile. He’s standing in the middle of the cluttered basement with his hands in his pockets and a take-it-or-leave-it expression on his face.

  “To be fair, you asked to come. Don’t go judging.”

  I let out a sigh, traipsing between two piles of dirty clothes to drop my bag onto a leather couch that, aside from the monster TV on the stand in front of it, is the only thing distinguishing this part of the room as the “living area.” I figure it’s the safest piece of furniture in this place, but being Jenson King, I imagine nothing’s been left unscathed.

  “You’re right. No more judgment allowed.”

  “Oh, and you don’t have to do that.” He gestures flippantly toward the couch. “If you’re staying, I can take the couch. Half the time I pass out there anyway.”

  Taking in his rumpled, unmade bed, I shake my head quickly. “The couch is fine.” The guy’s been divorced for the better part of a year, no telling what’s on those sheets.

  He shrugs and nods toward the bed. “It’s only polite.”

  “I assure you, giving me the couch is polite enough. I insist.”

  Holding up his palms, he backs away and reaches for a bottle of liquor on the nightstand. He had that in arm’s reach of his bed, and yet he still took the chance of getting caught hammered in public and subsequently slapping each of his well-wishing, hopeful fans in the face. I bite my tongue. It’s not my problem, but I’m not sure anything enrages me more than someone taking an opportunity hardly anyone ever gets and discarding it like trash. Doesn’t he know how many people would kill to be in his position, to just be able to do what they love for a living instead of putting it on the back burner for something that barely pays the bills?

  Jenson pours two fingers and, to my surprise, holds the glass out to me. Shaking my head, I toe off my shoes and perch on the couch, sinking into the cushions. It’s been a long day. “Thanks for this, by the way. I’ll be gone first thing in the morning.”

  He shrugs, tossing his cap onto the bed and running his fingers through his chocolate hair. It stands on end, disheveled and a little sexy. I don’t think he’s even aware of the effect he has on people if the rumors can be believed. He’s known for his modesty, his avoidance of the limelight, his aversion to attention. It’s hard to grasp how a man who’s considered a country music rock star could have that kind of attitude. I thought it was all an act before, but now I see it’s genuine.

  “Sure you don’t want anything else to drink?” he offers, dropping down onto his bed to kick off his shoes.

  “No, thanks. I need sleep, as weird as that sounds.”

  “Sure.” He reclines on his pillows, sucking down a gulp of liquor and running his hand over his face. It’s strange to see him here in his socks, utterly alone in his bed. Out from the glow of the neon, it’s easier to see how despondent he looks. How . . . empty. Merely a puppet going through the motions. It’s not fair, how life renders us helpless against its whims. Illnesses, natural disasters, social injustices. I don’t have much pity for people’s self-made problems, but I have a strange fascination with finding out who holds the strings behind others.

  “You know what? I’ll have one. What fun is drinking alone, right?” Maybe not the most tactful of comments, but half the time I’m not aware of the words I say until they leave my mouth. “Do you have anything other than whiskey?”

  “Nope,” he says, reaching over without even rising and pouring another glass. This time I take it, and with the expansiveness of the one-room basement, and nowhere to sit that wouldn’t be awkward, I round the bed and prop a hip on the edge. “Whiskey it is, then.” Lowering my nose so it’s just ins
ide the rim of the glass, I take a deep inhale, registering the scents of smoky oak. Then I take a sip, and the warmth courses down my throat and spreads to my limbs.

  “Where’d you learn to drink like that?” he asks, watching me.

  “My cousin. He’s an old fashioned snob. Whiskey and bourbon are his thing.”

  Jenson brings his glass to his lips, mulling that over for a moment before taking a sip. “Your cousin and I have that in common. Are you guys close?”

  I smile fondly, thinking of Landon. He reminds me of Jenson in more ways than one. Same broodiness, same penchant for things that aren’t good for them. But Landon’s happy now, and I’ve never seen him look better. “He’s my mentor. My idol. I probably admire him more than anyone I know.”

  He regards me with contemplative eyes. “Why wasn’t he here to take you home?”

  “He lives back in Denver, where I’m from. I don’t know many people out here, yet.” The more I say, the more lost I sound. I hate that. I’m tougher than I look.

  Jenson nods, his eyes skating to me. They get glassier as the night wears on. “So you’re new here, and you hardly know anyone. But why do you have nowhere to go, Lindsey?”

  I catch a swallow of liquor in my throat, just narrowly avoiding letting it go down the wrong pipe. I did say that, didn’t I? “That’s just part of life, isn’t it? Half of it is finding out where we belong and where we don’t. Sometimes we fail at both.”

  “Mmm. Poetic.”

  “You would know.” My gaze ambles over the acoustic guitar resting on its stand beside the bed. I lean forward and run a finger across the strings, eliciting a wayward note. I don’t want to talk about me and my issues. “Have you written anything lately?”

  He scoffs. It’s sounds strange coming from that mouth. “You sound like the record people.”

  “I was hoping I’d get something out of my first personal encounter with a rock star. Like a sneak peak of a song. Something exclusive I can gossip vaguely to my coworkers about,” I jibe at him.

  He’s slower to blink, his eyes growing heavy, and the hand supporting his tumbler of whiskey rests languidly on his chest. Is this what he does every night? Wallow in his whiskey and his failures, let them take him to bed? “You know who I am.”

  It’s more confirmation than question. “Of course I know who you are.” But his fingers slacken and his eyelids don’t open, and the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest tells me he’s done for the night. I take the glass from his limp fingers and set it safely on the bedside table. By myself in the silence, I start humming my favorite of his songs, “Puzzle Heart,” about a woman and her mystery. And when I drain the remnants of my drink with a wince, he murmurs something. It’s low and strangled.

  “Rayyy. Ravens.”

  I go rigid. That was his wife’s name, wasn’t it? I’m less aware of the pop culture side of things, but I’m almost sure of that fact. I’m frozen in place, a little embarrassed for him, but one glance over my shoulder tells me he’s just as asleep as he was a moment ago. His tortured voice accompanied by the slight furrow of his brow make me irrevocably sad.

  Rising slowly, I discard my glass on his bedside table and roam over to a dresser in the corner. I’m eighty percent certain he won’t mind me borrowing a shirt. If I’m bunking on the couch in a room with a sleep-talking drunk, I might as well get comfortable.

  There’s a ragged gray blanket on the arm of the couch, and I fan it out and snuggle up beneath it. It’s not the worst setup. I sink into the worn cushions and curl up, hoping for a few hours of rest. If luck is on my side, I’ll leave before sun-up and never see Jenson King again.

  Chapter 3

  Jenson

  I blink away sleep and slog my way to the bathroom, stripping and getting into the shower before the water’s hot. The frigidness helps sober me up, and the shock of it is the least I deserve. But cold showers are a double-edged sword. Because while I’m braced against the wall, withstanding the chill, I can’t ignore what’s swirling in the back of my mind, normally suppressed by a curtain of liquor. My regrets, my failures.

  My career is all I’ve got left. It’s the thing I’m best at. If I can’t even find it in myself to save that, what else am I good for? My father left, Raven left, and now my music—my life—is about to do the same. What do I have without it? Nothing.

  I’ve been granted countless chances, tried the rehab programs—both faith and psychology-based—and still, alcohol is the only thing that softens the sharp edges of reality and blurs the harshness of this cutthroat industry. It’s the constant in my life, the bridge linking the past and present. The only bridge I’ve yet to burn. Sometimes I mix the whiskey with women, sometimes I replace it entirely. But people leave and whiskey doesn’t, women are cold and bourbon is warm, and sometimes a man just needs something warm to hold onto.

  One session with the shrink at Smoky Heights Rehabilitation and they’d already slapped me with the label “abandonment issues.” Apparently I was not only using alcohol as a crutch to elevate me above my insecurities, but also to fill the chasm my absentee father left in my life.

  Raised mostly by a single mom—and partly by the other waitresses at the diner she worked at, where I spent most of my after-school hours—I learned to value what little we had. When my music began to take off, after years of writing my ass off and playing for incoherent crowds at armpit bars, things began to spin out of control. I had this new life, all these great opportunities, and all I could think about was how it would all get ripped away the second I fucked up.

  It was a lot for me. It’s a lot for anyone. Drinking helped quiet all the bullshit and then it was only me and my music, the way the notes and the alcohol interwove and filled me up, subdued the demons and doubts that chased me. I’d doubted Raven’s strength, that she could handle all the worries that crushed me day by day. And it ruined us. I ruined us. And even though I should’ve learned from my mistakes, should know better than to drink my weight in whiskey at bars where I could be identified at any moment, the torrid affair between alcohol and me continues.

  Disgusted with myself, I soap up, wash my hair, and get out. I avoid the mirror because I’m disgusted with my reflection even on my best days. Inked into my skin is a depiction of most of my failures, the people I’ve let down, the things I’ve lost belief in. Tattoos dominate most of the right side of my body, ranging from the giant oak tree on my chest, with roots that extend to my waistline, to the black rose on the inside of my forearm. That one represents Raven, lonely and dark, and I feel both of those things when I look at it. I don’t have to see all of them to be reminded of my shortcomings.

  Pulling a pair of shorts from my dresser, I drop my towel to pull them on, but a small gasp from the direction of the stairs makes me straighten in alarm. I look slowly over my shoulder, like dragging out my discovery of who it is will somehow change the fact that I’m butt-ass naked and vulnerable. And there she is. The girl from the bar. My memory of her is hazy, but I’d recognize those long legs and that wild hair anywhere. The sight of her in my T-shirt, however, nudges me off balance.

  Her hands are wrapped around a coffee mug, and she’s standing with one foot on the top landing and one a step below, as if she’s literally frozen in horror. But she hasn’t looked away, and her expression is one I definitely wouldn’t classify as horrified. I take that as a compliment.

  I’m no stranger to being naked in front of people, least of all women. So I drag my shorts and T-shirt on, not once taking my eyes off hers. It’s hard to see if she’s blushing, but by her abashed expression, I’d guess she is.

  “What are you doing here?” I finally ask, tossing the towel in the direction of the bathroom.

  “I spent the night.” She narrows her eyes. “You don’t remember?”

  “Hardly. No offense.” I glance in the direction of my bed, taking in the rumpled sheets, the bottle of liquor and pair of glasses on the nightstand. No condom wrapper in sight. “Did we. . .?”

&
nbsp; Her eyebrows nearly disappear into her hairline. “No! You passed out right after we got here. Mumbled something about . . . something, I don’t know. It wasn’t much of a conversation.”

  Heat spreads up my neck. Goddammit. I didn’t bring her up, did I? The worst thing I could do when I’m drowning my sorrows in Maker’s is dredge up what sorrows I’m trying to drown in the first place. Fuck me.

  “Probably something to do with a new song,” I lie smoothly. She’s still rooted to the spot, standing on the steps like she’s afraid to approach me. No, not afraid. Something else. I kind of want a reaction out of her, so I begin up the steps, and she backs into the banister as I approach, letting me pass. I stop right beside her, take her in like I couldn’t last night. Her almond-shaped eyes, steely in the dimness of the basement. That straight nose. A thin face that tapers down to a pointed chin.

  “You’re blushing,” I comment, before pushing through the door at the top of the stairs. I don’t know why it makes me pleased to see.

  “Wha— No, I’m not.”

  Her bare feet whisper across the tiles close behind me as I make my way to the kitchen. I’m greeted by the sudden aroma of coffee beans, and I almost growl in pleasure seeing a nearly full pot. I assume it’s not spiked with Bailey’s, but it’s better than nothing. “You made coffee?”

  “No, the house elves did. Yes, I made coffee,” she deadpans. Her humor has a bite to it. Interesting.

  Pouring a cup with one hand, I grab the powdered creamer from the cabinet above the brewer, sprinkling some in with practiced efficiency. She makes a gagging noise.

  “What?” I sneer, stirring my mug and dropping the spoon on the granite. She hoists herself up on the counter top, feet bumping the cabinets. Like she belongs here.