Leaving Amarillo

by Caisey Quinn

  After we stop for gas at the halfway mark, he takes over the driving despite my protests. We’ve been driving only a few hours when his phone rings again.

  “Son of a bitch,” he mumbles before taking this one. “Hey, Dallas.”

  My stomach tenses. I’ve been texting my brother, but apparently that wasn’t enough.

  “Yeah, man, she’s a trouper. We’ll be at sound check.” His hand tightens on the wheel and I notice that it’s sprinkling outside.

  “You did? Shit. I didn’t hear you knock. She was probably asleep. I ran to a gas station to grab her some Gatorade. They didn’t have any in the vending machines.”

  He’s lying. And doing it alarmingly well. Panic wells inside of me, rising to my throat like bile as I realize what my brother is saying. Dallas came to my room. We didn’t answer because we weren’t there.

  “Yeah, man, I remember,” he says, barely loud enough for me to hear. “Got it. Look, I promise I’ll get her there in time. I’m not at the hotel right now. I have to meet up with a friend first but we’ll be at sound check on time come hell or high water.”

  High water is an honest possibility at this point. The rain that ushered us out of Austin is now welcoming us back.

  He says a few more things to my brother but I can barely hear them over the sound of the clouds pouring a year’s worth of tears upon us. Gavin drops his phone into the console and turns to me.

  “You won’t have time to shower, but from the looks of the oncoming downpour, it won’t matter anyway.”

  “Did he believe you?” I bite my thumbnail and watch the flashing red warnings of the brake lights in front of us. We slow practically to a stop. At this rate he lied about more than Gatorade. We’re not going to make sound check at all if traffic doesn’t move.

  “Guess we’ll find out tonight. I’ll deal with him if not. Don’t worry about it.” He sighs and frowns at the cars in front of us.

  “I bet you twenty bucks you can get us there in time.” My mind flickers to Afton. “We could always just drive right up to the stage.”

  Gavin lets out a low ripple of laughter. “Too bad neither of us has twenty bucks.”

  I laugh because life sure has a sick sense of humor sometimes. We literally have nothing to our name, aside from a change of clothes. And yet . . . in this moment, alone with him, breathing in his sharp, clean scent in a borrowed car under a turbulent sky, I feel richer than I ever have.

  “Gavin?”

  “Yeah?” He cranes his neck in an attempt to see around the traffic.

  My subconscious has been scolding me for the majority of this drive.

  Let him go. Tell him he doesn’t have to stay with you tonight. He has enough to deal with. It’s on the tip of my tongue.

  “Nothing. Never mind.” I shake my head, not ready to talk about this right now.

  “You hungry? I was kidding about not having twenty bucks. I didn’t tell my mom because I learned a long time ago that you don’t give addicts money, ever, but I have some cash left from what I put aside for gas.”

  I shrug, thankful that he can’t read my mind. “I could eat. If we have time.”

  “We’ll make time.” Gavin pulls off and parks in front of Gibson’s bar. We walk up to Luke’s Inside Out food truck and he orders us each a cheeseburger combo.

  He hands me a bag that smells like heaven, and while I should be starving, my stomach is too busy working its way through a gymnastics routine to digest food. I eat slowly as Gavin pulls back into traffic, and notice that the clock on the dash says five fifteen, the same thing it said the last time I looked. Over an hour ago.

  “Um, Gavin?” I say through a mouthful of french fries. “Does that clock work?” I swallow and take a sip of Diet Coke before pulling out my phone.

  “Fuck me,” he mutters under his breath. “No, apparently it doesn’t.”

  According to my phone it’s ten minutes until seven. “It’s six fifty,” I whisper, afraid voicing it too loudly will make it real. “How far are we from Sixth Street?”

  “’Bout fifteen or twenty minutes give or take,” Gavin tells me. “Damn it.” He swerves roughly around two cars and speeds through an intersection, nearly giving me a heart attack.

  “It won’t do us any good if we’re dead before we get there.”

  “Sorry.” Gavin rakes his fingers through his hair, then slams his hand against the steering wheel. “Fuck it. I’m going to have to call a buddy of mine and see if he can help Dallas set up my kit. We’re going to be late.”

  “Eat, Gavin. Finish your food. I’m done. I’ll text him.” I take his phone and type out a quick message to my brother that I hope sounds Gavin-ish. The response comes instantly. “He’s already got it handled. He said just come to the stage and hurry.”

  I drain my drink and toss the empty cup in my bag, which I set aside, and then pull out my purse. Thankfully I folded my dress instead of wadding it up.

  My jeans are halfway down my legs when Gavin nearly chokes on his burger. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Changing. We don’t have time to go to the hotel and I can’t very well perform in this.”

  “Right. Okay.” He nods and stares straight ahead, his flexing forearms and flinching jawline the only indicators that my impromptu wardrobe change is making him uncomfortable.

  I try to be discreet, pulling the dress up under his shirt before I take it off. I let my hair down, knowing it’s going to get soaked anyway so a ponytail crease is the least of my concerns.

  Once I’m done, he finally turns and asks me to text his friend Janie and tells her the car will be parked as close as he can get it to the stage where we’re performing. I do, and then I’m putting my jeans in my bag when I see the access key card to my hotel room that I still haven’t worked up the courage to give him.

  Later. I’ll give it to him later.

  Chapter 19

  “NO MORE SUSHI FOR YOU, LITTLE SISTER,” DALLAS TELLS ME after Gavin and I sprint from the car to the stage in the rain.

  “Trust me, I have no interest in . . . sushi.”

  I try hard not to smile at the smirk on Gavin’s face. I’m pretty sure he’ll be referring to Afton as “Sushi” from here on out.

  “Well I’m glad you’re feeling better. Looks like they’re going to delay sound checks for opening acts another half hour due to the weather.”

  If I let a laugh out right now, it will cross quickly over into hysteria. We nearly got killed rushing to get here. We broke every traffic law known to man. I ran my ass off in stiletto-heeled boots in the pouring rain, narrowly avoiding busting it on slick cement. And we still have a half hour until we can plug in our equipment. I nod and glance at Gavin, who’s shaking the water out of his drenched hair like a wet mutt. His mouth threatens to smile at me and I shake my head.

  The three of us step under the blue awning of a nearby bar and huddle together like everyone else is doing.

  “Where’s Mandy?” I ask my brother, just to make conversation.

  “She’s staying at her hotel tonight getting the paperwork together for us. Said she’d catch up with us later.”

  I take advantage of the privacy, still disturbed about what I overheard in the ladies’ room and what Afton told me. “And we’re sure about this? About signing with her?”

  “What’s up, Dix? Something you want to tell me?”

  I shrug. “Afton just mentioned that we might want to explore our options a little more.”

  Dallas pulls a mockingly introspective face at me. “Ah. We’re consulting Afton for business advice now? This the same Afton who refuses to work with managers and labels?”

  “Funny. You didn’t seemed concerned about that when you were all ‘she’d love to go’ and ‘Dix, this will be such a great opportunity for you to meet other people in the business.’”

  My brother smirks at my mocking him and I feel like I’m fourteen again.

  “Rain’s letting up,” Gavin announces suddenly. “We can probably
go ahead and start setting up now.”

  In other words, to your separate corners, kids.

  Tamping down my annoyance, I step out into the rain and let it wash the exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours from my body. There’s something cleansing and renewing about just getting bone-drenched soaked by rain. I stretch my arms out and tilt my face skyward.

  While the guys start carrying our equipment from inside the bar it’s been temporarily stored in, I open my mouth and let the drops fall on my tongue. Breathing the damp air in deep, I find things that have been so completely muddled becoming blindingly clear.

  The rules I thought I could place on myself, on Gavin, on everything, they’re just me kidding myself. Gavin’s right, I can’t escape unscathed. Not from him, or this band, or this life. And I can’t force him to feel something for me that he doesn’t even believe himself to be capable of.

  “Gavin?” I call out to his back as he walks toward the stage with my brother.

  He stop and turns, watching me walk toward him. As soon as I reach him, I hand him something I knew I’d have to give him eventually. But the words accompanying it aren’t at all what I’d originally planned.

  “Here,” I begin, placing the plastic key card in his hand. “I changed my mind about . . . about everything.”

  He looks down at my room key then back at me. Confusion turns his eyes the color of the ocean sky clouding over before a storm.

  “I can’t be just one more person making demands on you. You have enough to deal with. Dallas, your mom, your friends, whoever the hell else it was blowing your phone up all day.” I shake my head, knowing tonight I’ll lie in bed alone regretting every word I’m saying. “Forget what I said about one night, about expectations, about everything.”

  His brows pull inward and he looks as me intently as if I’m one of those magic images where if you stare hard enough the jumbled mess of shapes will become one clear picture. “I’m not sure I’m following you, Bluebird. You hit your head really hard last night.”

  I’d smile if my mouth would cooperate. I nod at the key still sitting patiently in his open palm. “If you want to come tonight, to my room, then do. But not for me. Not because I asked you to. Come because you want to.” I take in the deepest breath that I can. “And if you don’t want to, because of Dallas or the band or you’re tired or just not interested, then don’t. No hard feelings and nothing between us will change. I thought I needed something more from you . . . but I don’t.”

  “You don’t?” he says slowly, as if still processing the words I’ve piled up between us like bricks.

  I shake my head. “As crazy as the past twenty-four hours have been, I think adding more insanity to it might be the worst thing I could do. You had a condition, one that I said I could uphold. I lied. Expecting you to . . . um, you know, whatever, with me, and then pretending it didn’t matter or didn’t change anything, would be the definition of denial. So this is your out.”

  My brother says something to us and Gavin nods his understanding over at him before returning his full attention to me. “My condition had nothing to do with not expecting it to matter.” He leans down and taps one finger under my chin. “Everything we do together matters, Bluebird. Everything.”

  He’s right. And I think that’s why I’m willing to forgo our one night. I wanted to be closer to him and after today, after everything I saw, mostly the parts he didn’t want me to see, I know that I am probably closer to him than anyone has ever been. I walk in a daze behind him toward the stage.

  “And Dixie?”

  My attention snaps into focus. “Yeah?”

  “I never said I wanted an out.” His eyes don’t leave mine as he slips my room key into his back pocket.

  Lightning stops everything as soon as sound check is over. People are milling around like disoriented cattle as coordinators try to herd them into bars.

  “Stage nine, you’re going into Bourbon Girl. Let’s go,” a man in a black T-shirt and matching ball cap turned backward hollers at us.

  We follow his directions into Bourbon Girl, a bar we’ve played in before. Seeing the familiar lit-up American flag onstage comforts me and also makes me want to burst into “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

  Dallas and Gavin set up our damp equipment while wiping it all down with towels the bar has generously provided. My hair hangs wet and heavy down my back as I retrieve Oz from his nice dry case. I missed him.

  Some musicians look at their equipment as a way to earn money. And I guess mine does that for me, but there are so many memories connected to this fiddle, some that aren’t even mine, that I could almost swear he comes to life and speaks to me when we play. Sure, he’s dented and scratched and has a few nicks here and there, but those things are part of what makes him so special. After a few paying gigs, Dallas encouraged me to buy a new one, but I couldn’t even fathom the idea. It felt like cheating or selling out. New strings are about all I can handle. I’ll play Oz until he crumbles in my hands.

  Dallas is texting on his phone off to the side of the stage when I look up and realize that the bar is full.

  “Um, D?” I call out. “Think maybe we should play some music or something?”

  Dallas looks up from his phone and grins at the crowd. “Or something. You ready, Garrison?”

  “Let’s do this,” Gavin answers, lowering himself onto his stool. He taps out the count and I play my opener. A montage of this past week plays behind my eyes. The waitress at Mangieri’s, Gavin blowing into my room like a tornado, the kiss outside of the storage space, him licking ice cream from my stomach, straddling him in his friend’s car, his mom slapping him, the look in his eye when he slipped my extra room key into his pocket.

  I pour everything I’m feeling into Oz—the confusion, the lust, the pain, the need, and the excitement that is beyond anything I have ever felt before. I’m alive. I’m so alive in this moment that I’m almost outside of myself looking in.

  It’s times like this, times when I’m on, giving it my all as my bow dances across the strings like it has a mind of its own, that I feel like I can fly. Leave this stage, this crowd, this world even, and ascend to a higher plane.

  The deafening kick of Gavin’s drums beats steadily along with my pounding heart while Dallas’s guitar strums a rhythmic river flooding my veins and carrying me across the stage. The sound lifts and holds me while I play my heart out. The music flows around us and into me, lighting every single cell my body is composed of on fire from my toes to my head until I am blazing with the heat of it.

  The section of the audience that my eyes can reach is cast in a neon blue glow with hues of red streaking on the periphery. The colors are as vibrant as I feel and would be distracting if I weren’t playing, but I am focused. I am one with my instrument and its rich sound is so much a part of me it’s as if it’s coming from inside my soul instead of from the fiddle on my shoulder.

  We take the audience on a fever-dream roller coaster of emotions with our sound. Dallas likes to begin and end on fast-paced songs and weave the slower ones through the middle. “Whiskey Redemption” comes just after a string of reworked R&B hits that had everyone singing along. We play “Ring of Fire” and then my favorite Adele hit. All three of us chime in on the vocals for our version of “Love Runs Out,” playing it like a game of round-robin.

  My favorite song is up next and I feel electric and on fire while we play it. It’s a mash-up of a song called “Whataya Want from Me” and another called “Beneath Your Beautiful.” It’s our most downloaded cover online. Took me forever to get Dallas to agree to it and even longer for the three of us to get the timing right. But the hard work was worth it. I can see it on the faces in the crowd.

  We play Dallas’s favorite drinking song, one he wrote himself, and then our set ends with our updated version of “When You Leave Amarillo.” The applause is so loud it vibrates through to my core and the sensation is electrifying. It’s a serious struggle to catch my breath. We bow and thank the large
st, most enthusiastic crowd we’ve ever played for and escape backstage. I’m not even sure if my feet are touching the ground as we step off the stage.

  My brother is immediately swept into a darkened corner by some suit chatting him up, a potential manager probably. But Gavin is right behind me. He’s so close I can practically taste his adrenaline high as acutely as my own.

  “That was amazing,” I breathe, turning to face him. “I think it might’ve been better than sex.”

  He stops tapping his drumsticks on his knee and pins me with his stare. His hazel gaze darkens as he backs me into the hallway and out of my brother’s line of sight. “That was amazing because you were amazing.”

  The dim lights backstage are reflected in his pupils, making him look almost possessed, otherworldly. Somewhere the next act is being introduced and my brother is shaking hands and making a deal that will change the course of the rest of our lives. But here, where I am right now, Gavin Garrison is making love to me with his eyes. And I don’t want him to stop. Ever.

  Lowering his head enough that his lips are almost touching mine, he says the words that send my already racing heart into overdrive and halt my ability to form coherent thoughts. “But if you think that was anywhere near better than sex, those pretty boys you’ve been screwing around with have been doing it all wrong.”

  Chapter 20

  “LET’S GO,” DALLAS CALLS OUT, PULLING GAVIN BACK WITH HIS words. “Mandy is having a drink with some of her associates over in the Warehouse District. I told her we’d meet her after the show.”

  The band playing after us, one I haven’t heard of before and that plays harder stuff than we do, has already begun playing loud enough to make my entire body throb along with the bass.

  “Who were you talking to just now?” Gavin asks my brother as we follow him out of the heavily crowded bar.

  “Dave Lenard. He’s kind of like Mandy’s boss. He’s the CEO of Red Light. He said he enjoyed the show, wanted to make sure we were on board.”