by Emma Scott
“No.” Theo took my face in his hands. “We’ll make it. I’ll get you there, Kace. I swear.”
We hurried down to his truck and Theo raced us to my hotel where I had only time enough to grab my suitcase. Then on to McCarran where I’d embark on a cross-country Flight of Shame in a wrinkled dress, with Theo all over me. No shower. No time to wash my face. It seemed to like no time at all from waking in his bed to my hurried departure.
On the drive to McCarran, Theo’s eyes were intent on the road, driving fast as he dared with cool precision, weaving expertly in and out of the lean Sunday morning traffic. He glanced at me sideways, then did a double-take, his brows coming together. Without taking his eyes off the road, he reached over to touch my lower lip. I felt the little sting of a cut on my bottom.
“Shit, I did that…”
“It’s not just you.” I reached over to touch the small bruises and bite marks on his neck. “We got a little carried away. God, did we ever.” I shook my head, turned to watch the road race by beneath us. “We haven’t talked. We haven’t figured out…anything.”
Theo kept silent, his eyes on the road and dropping now and then to glance at the clock, racing the minutes.
I bit my lip. “What are we doing? Is it commiseration? Comfort? No one gets it but us…No one understands what we went through…Is that it?”
Theo’s jaw muscles clenched.
“Or was it just an insane sexual attraction we seem to have? Just sex—”
“It wasn’t just sex,” Theo said, his eyes hard. “What Oscar said was bullshit. I’m not like that. I haven’t been with anyone since…” He bit off his words.
“Since when?”
“Since Great Basin.”
My head shot up. “Wait… Great Basin?”
He nodded.
I stared. “When? The time that we all went…?”
“Yes.”
“You were with Holly…” Memories flooded back. “No, you broke up with Holly. Right in the middle of the trip.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Teddy…” I gave my head a little shake. “And that was the last time you were with another woman?”
“I didn’t sleep with Holly in Great Basin. The night before, maybe, but not while we were up there.”
My heart was thudding in my ears. “Why not?”
“Because of you,” Theo said. “You sang, Kacey. And that was it.”
“That was it…” I sank back in my seat. “Why…why didn’t you tell me?”
He glanced at me sideways. “Tell you when? When you were with my brother?”
“No,” I shook my head. “After. Any time after…”
“I couldn’t. I can’t. It’s not up to me.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
He started to answer but we’d arrived at McCarran. There was no time for Theo to park. He screeched his truck into the departing flights drop off, and jogged around to my side to help me with my luggage.
On the sidewalk, he pulled me into the strong circle of his arms.
“What do we do? What happens next?” I said into his chest.
“You get on that plane. You take the next step. Sign a contract, make a shit-ton of money.”
“You know that’s not what I’m asking.”
He sighed, shook his head. “You have to get on that plane and make that meeting, Kace. You have to. I can’t let you lose this opportunity.”
“What about us? You and me?”
You and me. Kacey and Theo.
I swallowed hard. A heavy swamp of emotion suddenly welled in my chest at those words; a deep warmth that spread out from my heart and a million times more potent than the physical pleasure Theo and I had created.
“Please, Kace.” Theo said. “You have five minutes.” He pulled me to him in a swift, strong embrace. “Get back safe, and call me tomorrow after your meeting. Let me know how it went.”
“Then what?”
“Then we’ll go from there.”
Go where? I wanted to ask. He was in Vegas, I was in New Orleans, and in between us lay not just fifteen hundred miles, but the judgment of our friends and family who didn’t want to see Theo and Kacey, but Kacey and Jonah.
Theo pulled away to kiss my mouth—a soft, deep kiss—and then let me go, and the truth I’d been waiting to feel finally rose from the quagmire of emotions.
I’m tired of saying goodbye.
Theo
It was after hours. Vegas Ink was dark. I sat at my station, rolling a little bottle of blue ink over my knuckles. Inked magazine lay open on my reclining tattoo chair.
The story on me and my unfinished tattoo series was major. Not the cover story but the second feature. Two and a half pages of text about me and my job at Vegas Ink. Plus three glossy photos of the new tattoos, Edgar and two other clients providing my canvases.
The article had spurred a ton of new business. I had clients booked solid every day. Good money, but I was exhausted.
The ink bottle rolled over my knuckles, under my palm, across my knuckles again.
Weeks had passed since I’d seen Kacey. She’d made her flight, met the execs at Sony, and four days later, they flew her and the Olsens to Los Angeles to sign a contract. Then to New York to do a photo shoot for Spin. Then back to L.A. to discuss a tour she wasn’t sure she wanted to take. Then the holidays were upon us, and she stayed in New Orleans, no doubt feeling unwelcome at my parents’ house now.
Time spun away from us. We were both busy, both tired. Our phone conversations were shorter, less frequent.
We didn’t talk about our night together.
The ink bottle rolled, around and around.
A knock on the front door or the shop pulled me from my thoughts.
My heart thudded at the possibility it was Kacey, but it was Dena. I unlocked the door and let her in.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, as she gave me a hug. “Little late for a tattoo. But for you, I can make an exception.”
“It’s been too long,” she said. “And some conversations are too important for the telephone.”
She moved through the small shop to my station. She inspected the magazine, a smile spreading over her lips.
“This is magnificent,” Dena said flipping the pages. “You’re so talented, my friend.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Have a seat. What’s up?”
She sat down, and cocked her head at me, a knowing look in her eyes. I hadn’t spoken to Oscar in weeks either; it’d been easy not to. They’d gone back east to visit his family over the holidays.
“He feels terrible, you know,” Dena said. “He won’t admit it because he’s stubborn, but whatever was said between the two of you that night is eating him up.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Good.”
Dena arched a brow, but then sighed and shook her head. “You’re right. I can’t defend him, except to tell you his ugly words were fueled by pain. He won’t talk about Jonah either, but I know he’s still hurting.”
Take a number, pal.
Dena leaned over her knees, elegant in dark jeans and a white blouse.
“I think he sees Kacey as less of a real human being, and more as the impetus for Jonah’s happiness. She came out of the ether to love him those last months. But the reality he saw the night of your graduation, is she’s a young human being, with a life ahead of her. With decades to live and love. It took him by surprise. It took us all by surprise. We had no idea something was happening with you and her.”
I sighed, ran my hand through my hair. “I don’t know what’s happening with us. I think we’re both hiding out, afraid of what people will think.”
She was quiet for a minute. “I know it’s been so hard for you since Jonah passed,” she said, her voice rich and soothing. “I know Kacey’s been a great comfort to you, and you for her. I’m glad for that. You know I worry about you.”
“You don’t have to worry about me. I’m good.”
“Mmm, yes
, that’s exactly what Oscar says.” Dena grinned, but it faded over her next words. “We’ve all suffered from losing Jonah, but nobody was as close to Jonah as you and Kacey. I hope being together has brought you both some peace.”
“It doesn’t feel peaceful,” I said. “A lot of times it feels like a fucking mess.” I met her eyes unblinking, my voice sinking to just above a whisper. “Because he was my brother.”
Dena’s hand reached out to touch my arm. “I don’t see any wrong in this, Theo,” she said. “From the depths of grief and pain, something good and joyful growing? Where’s the shame?”
“Tell that to my mother. Or your husband.”
“Time is the great healer,” she said. “But you can’t put your life on hold until the rest of the world accepts what you know is true in your heart.”
“I know what’s true for me,” I said. “I don’t know what’s true for her. I can’t…talk to her. I try. I want to, and then I get close to her and I’m kissing her instead.”
Dena hopped off the chair, and reached up to cup my cheek. “Don’t let another moment go by without telling her how you feel, Theo, and ask her how she feels. It’s both the simplest and hardest thing you’ll ever do, but ask her. Ask her as if no one is watching. Because in the end, it’s your life and hers.”
I walked her to the front of the store where she hugged me tight.
“Will I become a cliché if I quote my favorite poet one more time?”
“Lay it on me.”
“Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasure.” She gave me another of her knowing smiles. “It’s one of my favorites.”
“Yeah,” I said, a smile finding its way to my lips. “It sounds pretty fucking good to me too.”
Kacey
The rain came down hard, pattering on my roof. I sat curled up on the chair in my living room listening to raindrops hit the gutters with a metallic clang and break open. An addendum to the Sony contract I’d signed sat in my lap, Grant’s plain-English translation of the legalese scribbled along the margins. A tour addendum. They wanted me to go on a two-month, fourteen-city tour.
It didn’t look so bad on paper, especially with Grant highlighting all the perks and riders in bright yellow. Three different kinds of sparkling water in every dressing room? It sounded like waste, not a perk. Touring meant I’d be cut loose like an astronaut, floating far away from home base. All the fancy bottled water in the world wouldn’t keep me from missing my house. And Yvonne.
And Teddy.
I already missed him. We’d both been so busy. His client roster had become a mile long since the Inked feature. Soon, the market would turn and he’d buy a place in Vegas, just as I embarked on my career. A tour would only pull us farther apart, and we were already stretched to the breaking point.
I missed him. My chest was hollow with it.
My phone rang, showing the Olsens’ number. “Hey,” Grant said. “So. Any closer to putting your pen to the dotted line?”
“Sony Records tour,” Phoebe drawled in the background. “No dinky little side shows. It’s the big time, girlfriend. Big, big time. Like Peter Gabriel ‘Big Time.’”
“Okay, okay, she gets it,” Grant said, and cleared his throat. “So, Kace? What do you think?”
“I don’t do well on tours.”
“So you keep saying. Is it nerves?” Grant asked.
“Booze,” I said. “I’m just starting to have a sense of settling down. I don’t want to be uprooted already.”
Phoebe snorted. “It’s only a two-month tour. Hardly the stuff of uprootage.”
“That’s not a word,” Grant said.
“Yes, it is,” Phoebe said. “I just used it.”
“Well, shit, can’t argue with that logic.”
“Guys,” I cut in. “I just…give me some more time.”
“We can try,” Grant said. “But with no new album on the horizon, a tour for Shattered Glass is the next big thing. We don’t have the clout of a high-end lawyer to negotiate.”
“Don’t say that,” Phoebe hissed at her brother. “She’ll replace us with some high-end lawyer.”
“Guys, I’m not replacing anyone. Give me a week, okay? I know it’s a big deal to you two, I haven’t forgotten.”
“Sure, sure,” Grant said. “One week. No problem. Take your time and think it over.”
“Don’t think too hard,” Phoebe said. “Mardi Gras is in two days. Jump on that tour, and we can pretend the whole city is throwing us a party.”
I hung up, feeling shitty for making them wait. As my de facto agents, they stood to make a hefty percentage of a tour’s ticket sales. The Olsens had never tasted success like this before. I had. Like any sugary treat, it tasted heavenly at first, but if you gorged on it, you’d be sick. And I was a recovering glutton.
Yvonne was working a graveyard shift that night, and I didn’t feel like going out. I put on sweatpants, a t-shirt, ordered a pizza and vegged out on the couch. A cable channel was playing a marathon of the Vacation movies.
It was after one a.m. and I was on Christmas Vacation, chuckling as Randy Quaid emptied his RV’s septic tank into Chevy Chase’s sewer, when my phone rang.
Teddy…
“Hey,” I said. “It’s late.”
“Did I wake you?” he said.
“No. I’m sitting around, watching silly movies. Missing you.”
“I miss you too,” he said. “So much.”
A short silence fell and I knew this conversation couldn’t be like the others we’d had—rushed and nervous, with neither of us telling the other what we felt.
“God, Teddy… I feel like I’ve been hiding out here. We haven’t really talked, and now the label wants me to do a tour. I’m scared.”
“Of what, Kace?”
“When I was with Rapid Confession, all we did was tour. I had no home base, no foundation. I drank all the time…” I shook my head, sucked in a breath. “I’d be gone from my home, and I can’t help but feel that it would be the end of us. Whatever us is. More phone calls. More distance. More miles. I can’t do it anymore, Teddy. I can’t…”
“I can’t either, Kace,” Theo said. “Fucking hell, I’m tired of living life on the phone.”
“God, me too.”
“Good. Then can you open the door? I’m getting poured on.”
For one heartbeat, I sat frozen. Then the phone slipped out of my hand as I tore off the couch, crossed the living area and opened the front door.
He stood there, rain dripping off his leather jacket, sparkling in his hair like diamond dust.
“Teddy…” I gasped and in the next instant, I was in his arms, his mouth pressed to mine.
We didn’t make it to my bedroom. We didn’t even make it to the couch. I barely had sense of mind to kick the door shut to keep the rain out. The words we needed to speak were lost in a confusion of aching need. We fell to our knees, stripping clothing and kissing hard, then tumbled to the floor where he slid inside me with one perfect motion.
“Teddy,” I cried as he brought me quickly to the threshold, then sent me crashing over. I held him tight as his own climax shuddered through him, warming me from the inside out.
“God, don’t let me go, Kace,” he said against my neck.
“I won’t,” I said. “Never again.”
Kacey
The rain stopped by ten. Days ago, I’d made plans with Yvonne, Big E, and the Olsens to see the Krewe of Bacchus parade, which started on St. Charles Street and ran through the Garden District. Yvonne had told me the parade was the big daddy, with more than thirty animated floats. Some celebrity always came to New Orleans to represent Bacchus, the Greek God of wine.
I’d bought a gold flapper’s dress covered with black tassels, and a matching gold wig that curled under my chin. Yvonne showed up in jeans and a simple shirt but dressed it up with a mask and pink feather boa, and crowed over Theo being here.
“Guess I can retire my Louisville Slugger,” she teased, and gave him
a hug.
Grant and Phoebe arrived and put us all to shame with their costumes: he was almost unrecognizable as Beetlejuice, in a dusty black suit with white stripes, and Phoebe’s long red hair and flawless make-up made her a perfect Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas.
Theo and Big E both refused to dress up, the two men clapping hands and patting each other in the back.
“What,” I snorted, “you’re too old for costumes?” I asked Theo, as we headed out.
“I’m too busy trying to keep my hands off of you in that dress.”
“If I show you my boobs, will you throw me some beads?”
“Stop,” he said. “You’re making me lightheaded.”
I laughed and leaned close to whisper in his ear. “Tonight I’ll put on all the beads I catch today. And nothing else.”
We joined the crowd near the river, where the parade ended. I’d never seen anything like Mardi Gras. Music poured out of businesses and people in every kind of costume danced, drank and gaped at the floats trundling down the street.
I’d only ever seen the Rose Parade as a kid in Orange County. Those floats were sweet little things, covered in pretty flowers. Mardi Gras floats were parties on wheels: huge, elaborate and bursting with color and noise. The first was the King’s Float—an enormous white feasting table with huge gold coins. Bunches of purple grapes lay in front of a giant fiberglass Bacchus, raising a wine glass. In front of him, a raised dais held the King of the parade.
“Holy shit, that’s Matthew Broderick. Matthew Broderick is King of the Parade.” I tugged on Theo’s arm excitedly, and screamed, “Ferris Bueller, you’re my hero.”
Matthew Broderick didn’t hear me, but some of the krewe did. Teddy and I were immediately showered with ropes of colored beads. He slung a dozen of them over my neck and hauled me to him for a wet kiss.
“Our babies all grown up,” Yvonne sniffed dramatically, her arm around Big E.
The big guy wiped a nonexistent tear from his cheek. “I’m so proud.”