by Becky Wicks
‘I don’t think he’d like my stuff,’ he answers wryly.
A bark from Bob draws my eyes to the open screen door. I can see him in the distance. I move my hand, still lingering awkwardly on his shoulder and walk outside. His song is still playing in my head. What kind of god would want that? He listened to me. He wrote about it.
‘Are you OK?’ Conor asks hesitantly now, leaning in the doorway behind me. Winged creatures dance with each other in my stomach as I stare across the fields. I know what he’s going to say before he says it. ‘Look, Jackson, about last night…’
‘What?’
‘I didn’t want to make things weird between us,’ he says. ‘And right now, I feel like they are.’
My heart speeds up its crazy dance. He is as nervous as me and not just about his song, I don’t think. I keep my eyes on the treeline. I can’t let him know how much this gets to me – the physical ache I feel being so close to him and hearing his heart bleed like it just did at that piano. The more he opens himself up to me, the bigger the hole gets in my own stupid heart and I want him to fill it. We shouldn’t have come here. There are no distractions... nothing to face but each other.
‘We’re good,’ I manage. ‘Conor, I’m glad you told me everything. We’re friends. You can tell me stuff, it’s not weird.’ I walk towards him to head back inside but he catches my arm, stops me. ‘You wanted to make good music,’ I say as my veins tingle and my blood fizzes and his eyes bore into mine, so close I can see golden flecks with the brown.
‘Stephanie…’
‘So let’s make good music.’
12.
Conor
Coward. I’m a goddam coward. That’s all that’s been going round in my head for the past hour as the rain beats hard at the windows and Stephanie sits at the piano, filling the cabin with her own voice now. This day will haunt my dreams, like last night always will if I don’t do something soon.
Friends?
Sure, we’re friends. But I don’t picture my other friends naked. I don’t make love to them in my dreams and wake up with a hard-on so damn hard I can’t get out of bed.
‘I think this is it,’ she says now, running her slim fingers across the keys in another melody she’s been trying to perfect for the past thirty-four minutes. I know it’s exactly thirty-four minutes because I’ve also been watching the clock on the wall by the kitchen. ‘Where’s your book?’ she asks. ‘I forgot mine, I think we need the lyrics… you know the ones we wrote at Ace?’
I look up from my guitar. The second our eyes meet my stomach muscles contract again like I’ve been gut-punched; like she’s staring at my soul. Like she’s been doing since last night. I couldn’t sleep when we left each other, I could only sit and write that song. You could cut the tension between us with a goddam machete right now. She knows everything. She knows all my secrets now, except one. And I’m sitting here making good music, acting like my hands would rather be on my guitar than her.
‘Conor?’ she says.
‘It’s in my bag,’ I answer quickly, standing up and reaching for it on the couch. I open it up, look through it as she turns back to the piano, starts playing again. I notice she’s recording it on her phone as she plays. You have to catch a melody sometimes, keep reciting it over and over because melodies have a habit of changing just when you’ve committed them to memory. ‘I think it could be another duet…’ she’s saying as I open the side pocket, run my hands along the insides.
‘Maybe we just need a new bridge…’
‘It’s not here,’ I interrupt, rifling through the bag again, faster now. I open the other side pocket, the one at the front. A handful of Fret picks, a pen, a Snickers wrapper all run between my fingers, but no songbook.
‘Maybe you left it at home?’ she says. She stops the phone app, gets off the stool and reaches for my guitar case. There are other sheets of paper inside, even more picks, but still no songbook.
‘I don't know,’ I say, watching her close it again, wracking my brains. ‘Maybe I didn’t pack it, but I’ll go check the car.’ I head for the door, fling it open. The rain is hammering on the porch steps now and there’s nothing but gray sky lingering above the trees and beyond. I run to the Toyota, check the front and back seats quickly. I push my hands in the seat pockets, although how the hell it would have gotten in either of them I have no clue. It’s not here. I check the trunk, where the guitars were. Empty.
Cursing to myself, I run back to the cabin. ‘Well?’ Stephanie says from the doorway as I shake out my hands.
‘Not there.’ My T-shirt is soaked already and the wind’s picking up tendrils of her hair as she frowns at me.
‘Don’t worry about it, we’ll try and remember what we wrote,’ she says when she senses my irritation.
‘Sure, it’s not a big deal,’ I say as I walk back inside after her, but I’ll be pissed at myself if I did pack it and I’ve lost it. I wrote some good stuff last night, as well at what I just played her. I wrote till four in the morning. I force myself to think straight, lean my elbows on my knees and listen to her play as she sits back at the piano, starts humming softly, but I don’t pick up my guitar.
‘You’re worried about it, aren’t you?’ she says after a few minutes. ‘Maybe we should just head back.’
I shake my head. I don’t want to make her think I’m obsessing over it. I’m really not. I probably just left it in the living room when I was finishing up my coffee. She shuts the piano lid and watches me as I reach for my phone to call Lou. It beeps three times in my ear and dies. ‘No signal,’ I say, looking at the non-existent service provider symbol. ‘I can’t call out. I always forget how bad it is out here.’
She picks up her own cell. ‘Same,’ she says, furrowing her brow at it. ‘We’ll head back then, no problem. At least we got a melody down, right? We can always come back here another time… if you want.’ She looks away, makes for the door again and pulls it open. ‘Bob!’ she calls, walking to the porch railings as I put my guitar back in its case, take our glasses into the kitchen. ‘Bob, come here, boy!’
‘We really don’t have to head back…’ I start, but as I walk outside she’s still calling him and I watch as Stephanie heads down the steps into the rain. The wind has picked up even more now. It’s roaring through the trees, whipping her hair and dress around. I follow her, shouting his name. ‘Bob!’
‘Where did he go?’ she asks me, panicked suddenly. ‘Did you see him before, when you were out here?’
‘No,’ I say. The rain is soaking her dress and skin as she runs around the side of the cabin. I follow her, calling for him with her.
‘I’ll take the car, go look for him,’ I say. ‘He might have gone back to the lake. You stay here in case he comes back.’
She turns to me, fear in her eyes. ‘Conor, what if he’s hurt? He never goes far, he never goes far from me…’
‘He’ll be fine,’ I say, taking her shoulders. We’re both covered in goose-bumps. ‘He’s probably just sniffing around somewhere. Don’t panic.’ I head quickly for the Toyota, fling the door open again, turn the key in the ignition. Nothing happens. I turn the key again.
Stephanie’s running towards me now. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s not starting.’
‘Let me try, you have to wriggle it,’
‘What?’
She ushers me out of the seat, sits down behind the wheel and jiggles the key. It still doesn’t start. ‘Crap!’ she shouts loudly, banging her hands against the wheel. ‘Peace of crap!’ Droplets of rain are dripping from her drenched bangs now onto the dash. I knew it was only a matter of time before this car gave up the ghost but I bite on my tongue as the rain pummels onto my head.
‘Forget it. Let’s go back inside,’ I say as she tries again and again in vain to start the engine. It’s totally dead. Not even a splutter. ‘We’ll have to hope he’s just exploring.’
‘What about the songbook?’ she says, getting out of the car and slamming the door in frustration.
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br /> ‘I told you, it’s not a big deal. We can’t do anything from here anyway, come on, we need to get inside!’ I take her hand and we run back to the porch. Her pink sundress is another layer of scraggly, dripping skin over her perfect frame. Her hair is soaked now, dripping a trail of water down her back before she pulls it over her shoulder and wrings it out. ‘We’ll have to wait the rain out,’ I say, trying again not to look at her breasts through the thin, wet fabric. It’s almost impossible not to. ‘If he hasn’t come back we’ll go looking for him later, on foot. We can head to the marina, get someone to help with the car.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she says in annoyance, wrapping her arms around herself now and following me inside to the kitchen.
‘It’s not your fault,’ I tell her, walking through the adjoining door to the bathroom. I strip off my T-shirt and shirt, throw them over the edge of the tub and grab two towels from the rack. I can feel her eyes on me like lasers as I walk back through.
‘You need to get out of that dress,’ I say, stepping even closer. I reach out with a towel and run it gently over her hair. My bare chest is almost touching the transparent material still covering her breasts. I can’t move anything but my hands as my heart starts a frantic throb in my ribcage.
Her eyes close and I hear her take a sharp breath before her hands land against my damp torso. We’re silent and still for a moment as the rain lashes harder at the glass. I step backwards. Her teeth are chattering and I resist the urge to rub her bare arms.
‘You’ll catch a cold, wait one second,’ I say. I sprint up the stairs to the bedroom. There’s a drawer in the closet where I keep spare shirts. I rifle through it, pick one out – a blue denim button up. I pick another for myself, plain white, throw it on and head back downstairs. ‘Put this on for now,’ I tell her, handing her the denim shirt and motioning to the bathroom. She takes it from me, but her eyes linger on my chest beneath the open shirt, then my eyes as she grips the towel to her.
‘Thank you,’ she says softly, scanning my eyes. Another moment passes.
Coward.
When Stephanie emerges from the bathroom, the towel is wrapped around her hair. My blue shirt is hanging from her small frame, stopping mid-way down her thighs. She’s rolled up the sleeves. I’m pouring boiled water over two teabags when I take in her bare feet with their pink-painted toenails and my eyes trace their way up her long, lean legs. ‘Doesn’t sound like it’s stopping any time soon,’ she says, leaning against the counter and nodding to the window. It’s getting darker by the second now. I hand her the tea and try not to note again how adorable and sexy she looks in my shirt.
‘Still no sign of Bob?’ she asks, carrying her tea through to the living area and putting it down on the coffee table. She walks to the window, looks out. I put my cup next to hers, walk up behind her.
‘He’ll come back soon enough,’ I say. Every strand of my being wants to wrap my arms around her. The scent of her damp hair drifts up into my nostrils and she sighs, turning around. The electrical current between us should be short-circuiting the place by now and I can see the smooth skin of her collarbone leading down to her breasts beneath my shirt; right to where her heart beats. Is it beating as crazy as mine? I realize I’m holding my breath. I don’t want the rain to stop. I don’t want the car to start. I don’t want to fuck this up. Is this the law of attraction she always talks about?
Stephanie tears her eyes from mine, steps back to the piano, lifts the lid. My thoughts are scattered… Bob running around somewhere in the rain, Stephanie’s eyes, Stephanie’s voice. Stephanie’s voice. She’s singing now. Her toes tapping on the hardwood floor, different words to the ones we wrote before, but the same tune; soft, slow.
Fated, complicated
I’m so tired of always waiting
There are some songs we’re not meant to ever sing
You try to take me with you
But the chances pass us by
And I can't fly
I'm trapped with broken wings
I stand up now, walk to her side, a line from my songbook coming back to me. I sing.
You don’t need to worry girl
Those wings will take us far
If we brave the jagged edge of where we are
‘Yeah but what if I fall?’ she sings now, looking up at me as I stand beside her at the piano.
‘So what if you do?’ I sing back, into her eyes.
‘What if I fall for you?’ she follows after a pause on the keys.
I stop for a moment, shaking my head; the thud, thud, thud of my heart almost as loud as the rain. ‘Girl I don’t understand. Put your heart in these hands.’
‘Are you crazy, I can’t.’
‘I promise you can. We’re both a little bit broken... and we’re both a little bit scared. Shall we trust one another…’
‘To jump into love unprepared?’
She stops playing and singing, hands frozen. Her eyes show surprise and excitement and nerves as she looks at me in the light of what just tumbled out of us, but quickly she starts up again and we both sing the whole duet through. I reach for the phone to turn the recording app back on.
Unprepared for your light in the dark
Unprepared for improbable sparks
Unprepared, I was so unprepared...
‘OK, stop,’ I say, putting my hand flat over hers on the keys. She gasps and the cabin falls silent. I pull her off the stool to her feet in front of me and her eyes widen as I take her shoulders over the fabric of the shirt. ‘Stephanie,’ I say, right into the blue, blue oceans, ignoring the drum in my chest and my father’s face still boring into my skull. ‘I didn’t want you to think I was on some kind of rebound.’
‘Conor, it’s OK.’
‘No it’s not. I didn’t want you to think I was rushing into anything or that you were just… someone, anyone. It’s just you, in my head,’ I say, moving my hand to her cheek. ‘You have to know that. Everything you do, everything you sing, everything you say…’
‘Conor…’
‘I don’t know what I’d do without you anymore.’
‘Or me, you,’ she croaks, leaning into my hand now. I can see the apprehension turn to relief as she turns them to me. ‘But Conor, if you need more time…’
‘No,’ I say, bunching up her damp hair at the back of the towel till it falls away and lands on the floor behind her. ‘I’ve had enough time. I just didn’t have the balls to break away. I’ve been such a fucking idiot, Jackson, holding myself back, not just from you, from everything.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ she says, wrapping her arms around me suddenly. My own circle her instantly and hold her tight. She fits against me like a puzzle piece as I breathe her in and the shirt rises up high to the bottom of her underwear and her hot breath heats up my neck in short, sharp bursts. ‘You were made to feel so guilty when you had no need to be.’
‘I should've seen it and left,’ I say, squeezing her hard against me and then pulling away, feeling the invisible fireworks igniting in the millimetre space between our mouths as she stands with her hands on my chest. ‘I should’ve done so many things before now. I should have been stronger,’ I say. ‘Ask me again what I want.’
She smiles now, grasps at my shirt beneath the collar. ‘What do you want, Conor Judge?’
I close what little distance is left between our lips, kiss her fiercely. She returns it with equal urgency as I move with her from the piano towards the couch. I sink with her onto the cushions, holding her waist in my hands above the shirt, holding her on my lap. We’re kissing forcefully now; our tongues are dancing and swirling and our lips are meshing and sucking and I don’t even remember where we are, let alone how the hell we took so long to get here.
I ram my hands in her thick, damp hair. ‘I feel like you’ve brought me back to life,’ I say, pressing my lips to hers again as she squeezes my torso with her legs. ‘How is that possible?’
‘You’ve done the same to me,’ she says breat
hlessly.
‘I lied when I said I just wanted to make music.’
‘I was getting that impression.’ She crashes her mouth to mine again, running her hands up my chest and then my neck and through my hair. I let my hands wander under her shirt, across the soft skin of her back and up her spine, kissing her more and more, harder, deeper, till she’s clutching my hair in fistfuls and all the passion we’ve been pouring into our songs is in our kisses and nothing else matters.
My hard-on is threatening to expose how much I want her, right here and right now as she starts lifting my shirt up over my head. She’s taken off her bra – it’s probably wet in the bathroom with the rest of her clothes. The thought makes me harder still as my shirt falls to the floor and my fingers start with the buttons on hers. She climbs off my lap suddenly, stands in front of me, looks me in the eyes, starts with the rest of the buttons herself. I watch her, mesmerised, as she flips the buttons on the shirt one by one until she’s standing with the whole thing undone and I can see her perfect, taut breasts with their small, hard nipples poking out at me.
‘No one’s going to walk in on us, are they?’ she asks. Her lips are curled at the corners but she looks a little anxious. I shake my head, watching her damp hair falling over her breasts, covering them as she leans down to me and kisses me again. She’s exquisite. Incredible. Better than in my dreams. And the flush of her cheeks tells me she doesn’t even know it, that she’s scared but facing it anyway.
The groan escapes my mouth before I can stop it. From my place on the couch I place my hands either side of her tiny waist, pull her between my legs till my lips are in line with her bellybutton. I kiss the soft skin around it and she sighs and watches me for a moment, running her fingers softly through my hair before pulling me up to her level. I’m standing in front of her, flesh to flesh. ‘Do you even realize how spectacular you are?’ I say and she blushes even more.
I brush her hair aside, let my eyes and right hand sweep down her incredible body the way I’ve been dreaming of doing for weeks, taking in the way she feels, so soft, so new and beautiful. I peel the shirt inch by inch away from her and down her shoulders, kissing every patch of skin as it’s revealed; her collarbone, her shoulder.