Even Tony shouted his opinions from the steering wheel and agreed it was about me and referenced all the lines that made him think that. Meanwhile, during the whole hour of debate and analysis over this stupid song, I relieved myself with beer after beer until Corbin cut me off and told me to sleep because I’d had too much. So, I slipped into my bunk, deleted the remaining three Jessie Byrd songs I still had on my Spotify—the ones I really couldn’t let go from my purge after the Nashville show—and then passed out.
* * *
Since the internet—and now Jessie Byrd—wouldn’t shut up, I thought back on that conversation we had after the Grammys, the one where Reagan said her exes never did any romantic gestures. Since I felt bad for throwing up in her toilet and all the crap she had to go through over the last few days, I thought that both of us could use a nice night, so while she met up with Finn to write her public statement, I had our whole hotel room to myself.
And I used it wisely.
If we couldn’t go down to the restaurant at the Four Seasons in St. Louis, I’d pull every string to get the restaurant up to us. And all I had to do was say it was for the presidential suite, and bam, they offered everything. A whole three-course dinner of arugula salad, rib eye, and three different sides: French fries, charred broccolini, and polenta, with chocolate cake for dessert. Oh, and we couldn’t forget the two bottles of Napa Valley cabernet that the head chef had personally gifted us. The kitchen staff brought up a white tablecloth and some candles, which I didn’t even ask for but was beyond grateful for anyway.
And here I just thought my request was going to be a strip steak and French fries.
I tipped them well. I mean, I had to since I hardly worked for this simple request that turned into a five-star restaurant in our own hotel room. As I waited for Reagan to return, I threw on a special outfit that I’d hidden underneath the Egyptian cotton robe—yes, this place had an Egyptian cotton robe. No wonder Grandma insisted on raising me modestly, because touring with Reagan Moore was anything but modest, and these perks were addictive.
Since it took Reagan longer than I expected to write her statement, I broke into one of the bottles because I knew that Reagan would only have a glass or two, and it was practically taunting me. Plus, she wouldn’t have known the chef gave us two.
One bottle later, I felt a nice wine drunk. The door creaked open, and the light from the hallway cut through the darkness lit by two flickering flames from the long candles on the table. Reagan’s mouth dropped, and for the first time since the Grammys, her eyes softened, and a smile touched her lips. Seeing her smile made my insides flutter.
“Holy crap,” Reagan said as she took in the sight of the food in the candlelight. “What…what is this?”
“Dinner for you. Now come sit.”
“What? Blair? This is…is that a rib eye?”
I nodded. “Yup. And three sides, a bottle of wine, a salad; oh, and there’s chocolate cake in the fridge.”
Her eyes lit up. “Chocolate cake? Did you make it?”
“No, but I’m sure this is way better.”
“I don’t know. That caramel apple pie at Thanksgiving still shows up in my dreams.”
“Sit down. Let me pour you some wine. Time to unwind.”
I pulled the seat out for her, and she slipped into the chair. I poured us both a nice, liberal glass and then held my glass up for a toast. She followed.
“Remember when you said you were bummed about not going to prom because of the romance?” She blinked a few times before nodding. “Well, I can’t give you a prom, and I can’t take you out to a nice restaurant because you’re a musical genius, and that’s your own damn fault, but I can give you the fancy meal way better than you’d ever get at a high school prom and something to hopefully cheer you up. I know how hard this week has been on you, and I know that my walking in drunk last night was the last thing you needed, and I’m really sorry about that. You have every right to be angry, sad, depressed, confused—all the emotions you’ve been feeling. But you also deserve to be happy and to be treated like a fucking queen because you’re an amazing person, and you’ve made my life so much happier, you’ve made everyone on this tour happier, and you definitely made all your fans happier for just being you.”
Reagan reached across the table to grab my hand and held it tightly. “Blair…that’s really sweet. Thank you. I really needed to hear that.” Her voice quivered faintly, and she pulled my hand up to kiss it. “This really means a lot to me. This is, like, the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. You’re amazing.”
“You deserve it. I know it’s a tough time right now, but we’ll get through it. You’re not going to have to do this alone. I’m here for you, and you have a whole army of people who are here for you. We’re not going anywhere. This is all going to pass soon.”
“You make this all a little easier,” she said, kissing my hand one last time before switching her wine glass for her knife and fork. “I’m so drained from writing that statement with Finn that I don’t even want to think about it right now. I just want to enjoy this amazing meal with my super sweet girlfriend. Now, eat your vegetables.”
“Can I have a pass?”
“Why?”
“Well, there’s another dessert besides chocolate cake, you know. I’m thinking about bringing it out if you allow me to pass on the arugula.”
I untied the robe and let it fall to my side. Reagan’s eyes widened when she found me in the black lacy teddy I bought back when I dated Alanna but had never used. The lace narrowed down my stomach and to my center, showing off my sides with only a strap wrapped around my waist to hold it all in place. When we were in LA for the Grammys, I figured I might bring it just in case I found the right moment.
Well, the moment was found.
Reagan lowered her utensils without even slicing into her steak. “Holy shit,” she muttered.
“So, can I skip that salad?”
Her eyes didn’t flinch, but her mouth drooped lower the longer she took in my lingerie. “Um, yeah, wow. You can skip anything you want. Can we pause dinner so I can feel you in that?”
If it weren’t for the fact that my stomach had been growling for the past two hours, you better believe Reagan asking to feel me up in my lingerie would prompt me to scoop her up, throw her onto that bed, and have my way with her…or rather, let her have her way with me.
But as much as I really wanted that to happen, I also really wanted those French fries and wine…and maybe to tease her for a bit. Karma for all the teasing she did to me.
“How about we fuel up, and then you can do whatever you want to me?” I said.
“Okay, can you eat your meal like that? Ditch the robe altogether?”
“Sure, if you do the same.”
Her grin became crooked as she slipped out of her seat and headed to her suitcase. She peeled off all her clothing, dropped it to the floor, and stood naked as she searched for something. I lowered my utensils.
Seeing her naked was nothing new to me, but she was so beautiful that every time I saw her naked, I lost my train of thought. Nothing else existed except for her and those sexy legs and flat stomach. Oh, and the back muscles. God, how could I forget about those?
She slipped into a red lace bra with matching underwear, both I’d seen at least once before but took on a whole new meaning now that she used it as a ploy to torture and seduce me throughout this whole dinner.
“So, shall we eat?” she asked after she joined me.
I took a large gulp of my wine. “Yes, let’s do all the eating.”
So, we ate. We downed the whole bottle of wine. She enjoyed me in the teddy while I enjoyed her in her laced bra and underwear. But that only lasted for a few minutes because they did a really good job of disappearing right when we needed them to. Afterward, we blasted eighties music because she said she always did that to make herself feel better. With both of us wine drunk, we listened to all of her favorites. “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” by Sta
rship. I sang the guy’s part into the empty bottle of wine. She sang the woman’s part into her fist. We jumped on her bed listening to and belting out “The Best” by Tina Turner, and then we slow danced with each other to “Heaven” by Bryan Adams where I got lost in that familiar sparkle of her eyes and her beautiful smile that I missed desperately.
A romantic dinner in, blissful sex, spending an hour listening to her favorite decade of music, and cuddling each other to sleep was the remedy Reagan needed. She smiled the whole night. She laughed. She seemed genuinely happy. It was like I finally got her back, and just for that night, nothing else existed. No hacking. No intruders. No rumors. It was as if we drifted back to all those stolen moments early on in the tour when the world just felt right. When we felt right.
Just us.
* * *
Something awful happened right before our Louisville show.
Miles and I discovered that the llama only had enough weed for one more joint.
“Fuck,” I said, taking another hit. Great. Awesome. Everything was disappearing. “We’re out.”
“Seriously?” Miles jolted off the couch and investigated the llama as if to make sure I wasn’t telling him an awful joke. “Damn it. You smoke like a chimney, dude.”
“It’s a stressful time.” He gave me a sharp frown, and I raised my hand. “Okay, fine. I’ll go find some. I’m sure someone here has stuff.”
All I had to do was casually walk around the premises, looking for people smoking out back, and if they vaped, I was one step closer to finding some weed. Miles occasionally smoked a cigarette if he was in the right mindset with a couple of drinks in his system. I wasn’t a fan of tobacco. Tried it multiple times, hated the taste and how it lurked on my clothes and made me smell like a stale, filthy, old casino. But these were the sacrifices we had to make. I guess I’d smell like stale, filthy, old casino if that meant I could feel like an inflatable floating on a pool.
I found four guys working the venue, huddled in a circle right outside a backdoor entrance, smoking cigarettes and sharing laughs. I asked them if I could bum one off them, and they happily gave me one and lit it for me, exchanging compliments about our music.
“My girlfriend introduced me to you guys a couple of months ago,” the guy who gave me the cigarette said. “I love that song ‘Wilted.’ So freakin’ good. I listened to it nonstop for a week straight.”
“The song with Reagan Moore is badass too,” the guy who lit my cigarette said. “Not even gonna lie. It’s been in my head all night. You guys gonna sing that tonight?”
“Negative,” I said and took a disgusting inhale of the tobacco smoke. “Too much attention right now with that phone hacking stuff.”
“That’s pretty fucked up,” the third guy said.
“Tell me about it.”
“Man, I was really hoping you guys would sing it,” the second guy said.
“I wish we could sing the song for you too. People suck, though.”
We chatted for twenty more minutes, when I finally had the courage to ask them if they happened to have any weed. They all turned to the fourth guy, who told me he had some, plus anything else I wanted.
“Well, what do you have?” I asked, feeling like a kid on Christmas Day.
“Almost everything.”
It wasn’t false advertising. He had everything I needed to replenish my book bag. Weed, Xanax, Ritalin, coke, Molly. My eyes rounded at his supply. All the possibilities to take the edge off and tune out the constant noise and hacking following us around. I bought all five, keeping the fourth guy in business for a few extra weeks. I had to make sure that I had enough stuff to get me to the end of the tour because who knew when I would meet someone as well stocked as this guy?
Since Miles was very against anything that could get him addicted, and I wasn’t about to listen to his lecture, I planned to hide the coke from him. Ignorance was bliss, I guessed. But hey, he was much happier when I brought back the weed and even happier to know I also scored some Molly that we’d use at a much later date, preferably if and when we went out to a club.
After smoking the new incredibly strong weed I swear was medicinal grade from Denver, we downed our preshow shots, and then I played around with my newly strung Hummingbird, courtesy of Ethan. I loved the sound of acoustic guitars with fresh strings on them. It was as if they got a haircut and looked so clean and fresh. It was exactly what the guitar sounded like: bold, bright, lively. My nervous plucking was even more enhanced by the killer weed. I felt as if I was sinking into the couch that was really a cloud, and my Hummingbird sounded the best it had ever been, and that thing was forty years old.
We heard a knock on our door. Since both of us seemed glued to the couch, we tossed a pleading stare to the other to open it. I grunted and acquiesced, deciding to be nice for once. When I opened the door, I found a tall security guard looking straight at me, and a rush of paranoia from the strong weed washed through me as I panicked that this was how I was going to be arrested.
“Just the lady I’m looking for,” he said and glanced over his shoulder at a man behind him who struggled to make eye contact with me. “I have someone who would like to meet you.”
Something about the guy was off. It was as if he was going through an internal battle to look me in the eye. He had to been in his mid to late forties. Dark brown hair with a couple of noticeable gray hairs popping out. Light brown eyes. He wore a VIP lanyard over his black leather coat, which was something I wasn’t used to on tour. Most of the VIPs were kids and teens with their parents or women in their twenties, a very small portion in their thirties. Not grown men who flew solo without a child or a girlfriend.
I offered a friendly smile and a wave, despite still being skeptical. “Hey,” I said.
The security guard took a step back and allowed the man to come forward, keeping a cautious eye on him. “Hi. Blair, right?”
Okay, this definitely got weirder the more he lingered. What kind of person dropped a thousand dollars for a Reagan Moore VIP ticket and asked my name for clarification? “Yeah?”
“I, um…” He let out a nervous laugh, and something about his smile seemed familiar. Strangely familiar. The warmth inside me wasn’t from the SoCo or the strong weed. It was now laced with actual fear. “I don’t know how to introduce myself, so I’m just gonna come out and say it, all right?”
I looked at the security guard, begging him with my eyes that he’d act if this man flinched toward me. We seemed to have an understanding by the way he nodded at me.
“Okay…” I waited.
“My name is Jason Hines. I, um, I’m your dad.”
Chapter Eleven
I wouldn’t have believed him if it weren’t for that nervous smile he flashed seconds before. I recognized that smile because it was my own. A structured jaw like mine but his was underneath a layer of thin beard. Growing up, everyone said I was a spitting image of my mother. We had the same dark brown hair, the same dark eyes that camouflaged our pupils, and curved, sculpted, thick eyebrows that I once hated but loved now that those were back in style. Mom did say I had some similarities to my dad, but I hated that man so much, I didn’t ever care to hear more. He wasn’t in the picture, so I never thought he was worth any more of my time other than the phase of wondering why all my friends had a dad in the audience for their recitals, school plays, etc., and I didn’t.
“Is this a joke?” I said it more to the security guard then the supposed Jason Hines in front of me. The security guard shrugged as this strange guy fished something out of his wallet.
He then handed me his ID. Sure enough, it said Jason L. Hines on a Kentucky license. Five ten. One hundred and sixty pounds. Oh, he was an organ donor! He was willing to donate his organs to a stranger if he died but never thought about donating his time and father ability to his daughter while he was alive. Cool.
“How did he get back here?” I asked the security guard.
“Because I paid for a VIP ticket,” organ donor Jason
L. Hines from Kentucky said and showed me the VIP lanyard around his neck as if I couldn’t already see it.
I flicked his ID on the ground like a finished cigarette. “Well, if you’re really my father, you can fuck off.”
“Wait, just…” He snatched his license off the ground and put it back in his wallet. “Just wait.”
“Been doing that for twenty-four years. I have nothing to say to you except fuck off.” I looked back at the security guard. “Can he please not be back here? He doesn’t belong back here.”
The security guard grabbed Jason’s arm, and he wiggled his way out of his grip. “Wait! Please, wait. I’m sorry. I spent a grand on this ticket just to get back here to talk to you.”
“Very charitable. Still not interested.”
Right as I closed the door on him, the dude’s grimy hands latched on to the door, and he almost risked getting his hand accidentally smashed. Or would it have been an accident? I wouldn’t have felt bad at all. I never had full hatred for any person in my life. Not even the girls in my high school’s show choir who were mean to me or freaking Brad Politch for all the shit he put my best friend through. I saved all my hatred for my dad. I had so much hate for that man that having to call him my father made me feel as if I chugged a fifth of bottom-shelf vodka, and now I had to violently barf it all up.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yelled. “Get out of here!”
“Please, just listen to me—”
“I don’t owe you anything. No words. No time. Definitely not money. And not a single more breath of air. You’re a piece of shit. I spent twenty-four years thinking you’re a piece of shit, and nothing you say or do will ever convince me otherwise.”
“Can you give me a second to explain?”
“Explain what? How you left your pregnant girlfriend to raise a child all by herself, and what, now because I have a successful job, you finally decide to be a part of my life? Fuck that.”
Hammers, Strings, and Beautiful Things Page 19