Blue Notes

by Lofty, Carrie

  “Yeah,” she says softly. “He did. It’s why we broke up. He left me for an ex-girlfriend slut. He made it clear that things would’ve been different had I loosened up.”

  “And then there’s the rest of the baggage. That it’ll hurt or only the guy will like it or that it’s over in less than thirty seconds. Jude. Damn.” I run my hands over my scrubbed-clean face, but I’m still suffering under the fiercest blush of all time. “He wants to take it slow. A seduction. Like, we know it’ll happen, but not by accident in the backseat of his Mercedes. Not on a dorm bunk with the TV on. Not with a guy who doesn’t know his dick from his elbow.”

  “Keeley Chambers, I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you use a cuss word any stronger than ‘crap’. ”

  I grin. “Fuck off.”

  She laughs and leans over to grab her tumbler of ice water. Her expression is contemplative while she sips. “So . . . you talked about it? You know it’ll happen, but . . . ?”

  “I won’t be in the minor leagues. When it comes to sex, that’s gotta be a good thing. I’d rather train under a pro.”

  Janissa snorts. “Under. On top of. You don’t care.”

  “Quit!” I glance to the door where two passing girls stop short at my shout. “Sorry, nothing to see here,” I say with a shooing motion.

  “Not true,” Janissa says, smiling broadly. “Secretly, the mysterious Keeley Chambers of room 310 is a slut in the making. She’s got a mentor and everything.”

  “Give him my number when class is dismissed,” replies a short Korean-American creative writing major named Opal. “I could do with a guy who doesn’t think a six pack, nachos, four buddies, and a Saints game means he’s gonna get laid.”

  “See?” I playfully smack Janissa on the arm.

  “At least you get beer.” That from Opal’s roommate, whose name I can never remember, only that she has superhipster horn rimmed glasses and a surprisingly cool bouffant thing going on with her hair. “But please tell me he brushes his teeth after the nachos.”

  Opal buffs her nails on her shirt, all mock pride. “Damn straight. What kind of girl do you take me for?” She breaks character and laughs. “Mostly he does. God, I need to break up with him.”

  “Who is he?” Janissa asks. “This needs to be public knowledge to ward us all off.”

  Opal grins. “What, you think he isn’t my forever guy? Besides, he’s just Brandon from the front desk.”

  Janissa flinches. I go completely frozen. I’m glad she’s a little more skilled at people stuff than I am. And I’m really glad my face is already half hidden by my pillow.

  “Wow,” Janissa says plainly. “He’s a Saints fan? I thought he was from Florida. Aren’t there panthers or gators down there to cheer for?”

  Opal shrugs. “I don’t know what the deal is. He’s a foster kid, so maybe he’s been all over.”

  “Are you two heading out tonight?” Janissa is sly. I’ll give her that.

  “Yeah,” Opal says. “He was able to get out of the desk duty he had tonight. So ta-da, beer and nachos.”

  “With me as the third wheel,” adds her roommate.

  Janissa’s laugh sounds forced. “I hate that. Happened to me the other night.” Although I cringe at the memory, Janissa surprises me. “But it was for the best. Have a good night, ladies.”

  As soon as Opal and hipster girl are gone, Janissa shoots up from the bed and shuts the door. She leans her back against it. Neither of us speaks for a long time. My heart’s beating like crazy, and Janissa is a little pale.

  Magic fairies control my life now, apparently, because my phone chimes with two texts, one right after the other.

  “You’re going to be a good roommate and tell me what those say, right?”

  I nod. “The first is from Brandon. Sorry 2 hear. Will find a way to fill my time. Lunch Tues? ”

  “What a shit! You know I’m gonna have to have an intervention with Opal.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” I say with surprising calmness. I’ve felt it before, that calm when faced with a nasty chore and knowing I can handle it. “I’ll have lunch with him and take care of things.”

  “And the other?”

  “From Jude. I don’t want to wait until Monday. I’ll pick you up at ten. He spells out all his words. Who does that?”

  Janissa pushes away from the door. “Guy’s in the major leagues. So . . . what are you going to wear?”

  Nineteen

  Right at ten, I exit through the door at the end of the southern hallway. The hall leads to a small convenience store where late-night snacks are always available. The freshman ten or fifteen or whatever—I can totally see how it happens. I’ve never lived someplace where boredom meets stress meets easy access to junk food so seamlessly. I have a weakness for exotic ice cream flavors and Red Vines, but years of deprivation have trained me to actually savor the special privileges I have now.

  The lights of a black car in the parking lot flash high, then low, then high again. I wonder if it might accidentally be Morse code. Likely it’s just Jude saying hi with that beast of a luxury car.

  I try to be casual as I walk to the car. Janissa let me borrow her little black dress. I’m taller than her, so the crepe-over-satin fabric drapes to only midthigh. It’s strappy and has boning along the sides. On Janissa, that boning serves as a built-in Wonderbra. The girl is stacked underneath her sweats and comfy T-shirts. On me, the dress isn’t nearly so voluptuous. I feel more like a flapper, which Janissa played up by adding a long string of fake pearls. I dug out an old pair of Mary Janes and black stockings. . . .

  Walking casually, however, is not an option. I’m so damn nervous.

  He opens the lock and I slip inside. “Hey,” he says.

  Before I can reply, he takes my face between his hands and kisses me. Forget whatever time I spent on doing my lipstick. I should’ve known better. His fingers delve into my hair, while his tongue pushes into my mouth. I gasp, then moan. He smells incredible, clean with a hint of some elegant aftershave. That smell mingles with the expensive leather, wrapping around me like hallucinogenic incense. He tastes of mint, until we get to really kissing, when he tastes hot, spicy, delicious. I take hold of his wrists, which are solid and thick. I do it to hold his hands in place, then kiss him as hard as he’s kissing me. All of the tension of the last few hours, and the uncertainty and sleepless nights before that—I take it out on him.

  He pulls my lower lip between his, and nips with gentle teeth. I like the contrast. Soft, hard. Slick, sharp. But I want him to moan too. After sliding tongue against tongue, I suck his into my mouth. He pushes farther into my space, so that he cusses quietly and releases me long enough to undo his seat belt. I’m pressed against the car door, by just his upper body and the force of his kiss. I take his breath into my lungs. I could hold him forever, breathe him forever.

  Before I’m ready to let go, he pulls his mouth away. His forehead presses against mine. A slight, low chuckle doesn’t break the mood. It enhances the supercharged power between us, because Jude is as unsteady as me. I don’t need to do some test, like hold out your hand and let me see how much you’re shaking too. Part of me still wants to think of him as superhuman. That chuckle is just telling enough. He’s having fun. He’s surprised. He likes what I’m doing. Pick one, or all three, or whatever.

  I just like knowing I can affect him too.

  But he’s still in charge.

  “Well, hello,” he says, more formally this time, which makes me laugh. I probably look like I’ve been through a car wash, while he talks like we just bumped into each other. Or more like slammed into each other. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  “I heard a handsome guy in a big car would be waiting for me. So I dressed up.”

  “Let me see.” He leans back in his seat, against the driver’s side door, to take in my appearance.

/>   “No, wait.” I grab a package of tissues and a comb from my purse, then flip down the vanity mirror on the visor. It lights up. I do what I can to fix my lipstick and neaten my hair. After a minute, I close up shop and return to facing him. “There.”

  Jude’s eyes are magnets. I already know that. Still, facing him and bearing his appreciative scrutiny takes work. He’s limelight personified. I’m reminded then that I’ve never seen him during the daytime. Janissa was right. He lives in another world. Suits and ties every day. Working lunches. Meetings where he stands at the head of some big boardroom table and owns the room. He’s young, but he’s arrogant. I bet he gets away with it daily. Men twice his age would shake their heads, wondering how this young prodigy winds up outshining them each time.

  So, yeah, his eyes. They’re all over me. Blue fire sets me alight. The purr of the car’s expensive engine creates white noise between us, but it’s not enough to cover how fast I’m breathing.

  “I don’t like driving anywhere when I don’t know where we’re going.”

  The words kinda shoot out of me. I can still taste him on my tongue. I lick my lips and taste him there too.

  He narrows his eyes. It’s not a threatening gesture—only more assessing. I realize that I interrupted his chance to say that I look nice, and now it’ll be awkward to get that back. He’ll be wondering why I’m so defensive and tense all of a sudden, when really, on the inside, I want to melt into a puddle of candle wax.

  Liar. I want more. This awkwardness needs to take a hike before that can happen.

  “You’re staring at me.”

  “In that dress? Damn, sugar. Of course I am.”

  “You messed up my hair. There’s no saving it.”

  “Do you want me to apologize?”

  I try to keep a straight face, but it’s impossible. “No. I’ll go with tousled. Again. Happens a lot around you.”

  “Again, do you want me to apologize?”

  “Just tell me where we’re going?”

  He guns the engine, but doesn’t pull out of the parking lot. “I have a confession.”

  My gut drops. “Oh?”

  That was an attempt at casual, but it winds up more of a mouse squeak.

  “I didn’t know where to take you,” he says, sounding frustrated with himself. The frustrations tightens up his slow, sloping vowels and turns his drawl choppy, almost unrecognizable. But I like his drawl. “My options were all over the place. Too showy. Too touristy. I couldn’t get the right balance. So—and don’t kill her—I texted Janissa for ideas.”

  “Oh no. I’m gonna hurt that girl.”

  He grins and moves his hand from the gearshift to my knee. It’s like I can feel the engine’s power transferred through his warm skin and confident grip. “She said something about a sociology paper?”

  My brain stutters before I grasp the information. “Tattoos, piercings, sociological subcultures. It’s due Tuesday.”

  “Now I’m sure I have the right place picked out.” He gives my knee another squeeze, slides his hand just under the hem of my dress, then returns to the gearshift. “I’m glad I asked her, and you shouldn’t use homicide to solve your problems.”

  I’m glad he’s not touching me, because I freeze. All that ice water in my gut becomes a glacier. “That’s a big word, ‘homicide,’ ” I whisper.

  I don’t think he hears me, because he’s already looking over his shoulder, concentrating on getting out of a parking lot made for much smaller, more affordable cars. He’d meant his words as a joke and couldn’t have anticipated my reaction. How many times do people say similar stuff in the course of a day?

  I’m gonna kill him for that.

  I could kill that moron.

  “Hey,” comes a voice—a kind, sensual voice from out of the dark. “Keeley?”

  “Yeah?” There’s a scream in me that I’ve never let loose. Instead . . . all those poor pianos.

  “Are you going to tell me about driving and not knowing where?”

  I’m dizzy. Too fizzy headed to pull it together. First the guilt of ditching Brandon, only to find out he’s a snake I feel obligated to deal with later. Then telling Janissa about Jude and his mind-shattering kiss. Now, because of an offhanded remark, I’m remembering things from the past I’ll never be able to get rid of. I could take a scalpel to my brain, cut out everything that’s Rosie, and those memories would still be there.

  “It’s nothing,” I say, trying for lightness. “I didn’t stay in one place for long, not until high school.”

  He doesn’t look at me. I get the feeling his strict concentration on the road is his way of giving me some privacy. I’m really grateful for that. He’s proving himself more of a gentleman than a playboy—aside from surprise kisses, but I’m really not going to complain about those.

  And idiot me, that’s when I realize he’s not dressed up. For the first time, I see Jude Villars in “normal” clothes. He’s wearing a T-shirt with a flannel, jeans, and something like Doc Martens. I’m . . . impressed. I shouldn’t be, because every guy on campus could wear the same gear, but maybe that’s the appeal. He’s in the majors, out living a grown-up life, but he’s still in his twenties.

  He’s not out of my league. I won’t let him be.

  “We’re going to a club called Slink out on Frenchmen Street. It’s a little . . . underground.” He turns to me for the first time since I had my near freakout. He smiles. “By the end of the night, you’ll have all the information you need for your sociology paper. Promise.”

  “And you keep your promises.”

  “That I do, sugar.”

  Eyes back on the road, he takes my hand. Our fingers are laced together in no time. Unlike those terrifying nights when I’d wake up alone in the backseat, driving to hell for all I knew—those nights when they more often than not forgot my blanket or favorite bear or anything comforting—Jude has given me his hand to hold in the dark.

  Twenty

  “You might as well take me to the touristy places,” I say. “Not that I’m complaining about a place called Slink. That’s too curious to pass up.”

  “Why act like a tourist?”

  We hold hands, walking away from a multistory parking garage. The night is clear, hot, and full of smells I’ve never found in another city. Each city has a different smell, you know. Depends on the people, the food, the local countryside that creeps in with a stiff breeze, and even the local favorite beer. New Orleans has the perfumed drama I always dreamed about, with hints of old, old histories and the nearby press of the swamps. Stronger winds bring the taste of salt from the Gulf. But there in the lower Marigny, we’re closer to Mississippi mud than the sea.

  It’s exactly as Jude described. Underground. The neighborhood has twenty-four-hour liquor stores and ancient brownstones, all side by side. Doorways harbor secrets I don’t want to investigate. Alleys dare the unwary. That he holds my hand now is probably more his idea than mine.

  Adelaide called him controlling. Maybe he is. In this part of town, however, I don’t mind. There haven’t been a lot of times in my life where an overabundance of protection was the norm. Even with Clair and John, they provide security. Stability. They don’t pry, and they don’t press. I get the feeling Jude would do both if it was important to him. Considering our intimate venture, what’s important to him is probably important to me by default.

  I’ve been in worse places, when I was a kid and didn’t know any better. Now it’s obvious I shouldn’t have been in crack dens and run-down bars owned by loan sharks. I’m not too intimidated in accompanying Jude to such a strange part of New Orleans. But what would be wrong with the French Quarter or a stroll down Bourbon Street? I came to Tulane because those were places from my imagination that I’d wanted to make real.

  Maybe someday. Maybe someday . . . when I’d see Jude’s eyes in the daylight.
/>   Until then, we’re still night creatures, moving in shadows from club to club. Is he daring me to keep up?

  “I’ve only been on campus for a few weeks,” I reply, with my heels clicking. I take three steps for every two of his. “I haven’t seen much of the city. I transferred from the satellite campus outside Baton Rouge. So acting like a tourist is kinda unavoidable.”

  “Why transfer?”

  “My fellowship. And because my parents urged me to come here. They said I’d never get what I needed by staying someplace so small.”

  “They were right,” he says with a nod. The lights of a dozen clubs in a row cast his features in a rainbow animation. He looks like he was standing in front of a movie projector playing a Pixar film. “You’ll have to tell me about them.”

  We reach the end of a line of clubs to what looks like a basement service entrance. He stops there, then circles my waist with his hands. I’m once again the sole focus of his attention.

  “Maybe, but do we have to tonight? This is a place called Slink, of all things.” I smile up at him. “Besides, from what you’ve laid out, we’re going to spend at least a little more time together.”

  I want to kiss him again, as a channel for all my intensity and pent-up anticipation. After a slow exhale he leans nearer, so near that I feel his breath and hear his whisper above the chatter of a hundred street voices. “That’s right. We’ll do some amazing things tonight, Keeley. But we’re not even close to the end of this . . . this . . .”

  I laugh and kiss his cheek. “Maybe there’s hope for me yet.”

  “Hm?”

  “If you’d had a ready word for what this is, then I’d know you do it all the time.”

  “What do you mean?” He raised his head, staring me down with a deeply furrowed brow. “You think I seek out virgins and set myself up as the center of their world for a few weeks? Then what, scrape them off once they know how to get laid?”

  I stiffen. “What am I supposed to think?”

  “That you’re a special case.”