Racing to Rhapsody: A Rhapsody Novel

by Selena Laurence

  “He always get you to do the groveling for him?” Mike asks, a mean glint in his eyes.

  “Don’t,” Joss warns quietly. “We love Tully. She’s part of the family, and we’ll do pretty much anything to help family.”

  Dez nods. “And Blaze is my family.” He gives Mike a steady gaze. “He has his faults, but he’s my brother, and I know that he and Tully need each other. Anything or anyone who helps facilitate that is also a brother in my book.”

  He puts his hand out again and Joss grabs it as they give a hard clasp and shake. Mike clears his throat, actually seeming slightly embarrassed for once. “Well, if I earned a second chance from the people around me, then I guess Blaze does too. I’m just happy he’s proving worthy of it so far.”

  Dez shakes with him too, and the warm fuzzies are all over the place for a few seconds.

  I feel Dez’s hand on my elbow before I even realize he’s reached for me. “I have a car on standby for us as soon as you’re ready to go back to the hotel,” he says, giving my arm a slight squeeze.

  I don’t know what to say, so I just nod, and wish that my heart would stop racing like a goddamn engine revving far too hard.

  Dez melts away into the crowd and I look back at Mike and Joss.

  “See? He was stalking you guys, had nothing to do with me.” I realize the moment the words are out of my mouth that I ‘doth protest too much’ and have now officially screwed myself over.

  “Shannon,” Joss says, “I know you’re not stupid, because there’s no way you could be so good at your job if you were.”

  “Thanks?” I narrow my eyes at him.

  “Which is why I can’t figure out if you’re in denial or simply lying to us for some reason.”

  “What…?”

  “Dude, he’s so into you,” Mike blurts out. “Anyone can see it from a mile away. Although I have to admit I’m kind of surprised. I always heard Dez likes boys.”

  Joss cocks his head and looks at me. Waiting. For what, I’m not sure.

  “He likes boys and girls,” I answer before I can think better of it. “But I’m not one of them. The ones he likes I mean.” I rub a hand over my forehead in frustration. “He doesn’t have a thing for me. You guys are wrong, that’s all.”

  Mike holds up his hands like I have a gun on him. “Okay, okay. No worries. If you say there’s nothing going on then there’s nothing going on.”

  “Good. Now—” I plaster on my best professional smile, “—I want to go check on Tully and Savvy, make sure there aren’t any leftover details they need help with. It was great to see you guys though. Feel free to stop by the office next time you’re in L.A.”

  Mike grins and wiggles his fingers at me before he takes a few steps over to his wife who’s talking to Tully’s mother nearby. He wraps one big arm around Jennie’s waist and pulls her in for a kiss and for some reason I can’t explain, my heart squeezes inside my chest.

  Joss leans back against the bar, nursing his drink. But before I can walk away he reaches out and touches my hand.

  “Shannon? We weren’t just teasing. He’s got it bad for you.”

  I sigh and stare at him.

  “I’m just saying—Dez is a really good guy from everything I’ve heard. If you really can’t go there, maybe find a way to let him down easy? Because what I see is a guy who still has hope, and hope where there isn’t any is soul-crushing as much as it’s heartbreaking.”

  I blink. Once. Twice. And since I have no response to what he’s said, I go in search of Tully and Savannah. Because I have my priorities straight, and a relationship with Dez doesn’t make the list. Not now. Not ever.

  “She’s completely hollow,” Tully laments as we sit outside the bar against the wall in the alley. She is cross-legged on her folding metal chair, and I’m curled up in mine on my side, watching her pretty features coated in such sorrow.

  “She won’t talk to you at all?” I ask.

  “No. The night it happened she was hysterical, she could hardly get the story out she was crying so hard. After a couple of hours at the ER they sedated her because she couldn’t calm down. When she woke up the next morning she was sort of disoriented and I had to be the one to tell her that Kevin was gone. She nodded and thanked me—fucking thanked me—for telling her. She’s been a shell ever since.”

  I have to wonder how fair we’re being when we place expectations on people who’ve suffered a great loss or trauma? How they ought to act, what we think they should be saying or doing. Even the experts admit that the so-called stages of grief are really just phases that people can go through. There’s no order, no rules, no structure to how human beings respond to the worst damn things that happen to them.

  “It’s only been a few days,” I tell Tully. “Maybe she just needs some time to be inside herself before she starts trying to discuss it with other people.”

  The breeze kicks up and Tully shivers, bringing her knees up under her chin as her index finger traces the edge of the metal seat.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think, what to say to her.” Tully’s eyes tear up. “Jesus, I’ve never felt so inadequate in my entire life, and trust me, I’ve spent a good portion of my life feeling inadequate.”

  That I can relate to. Never being enough—not smart enough, not beautiful enough, not good enough. Never having the right answer, the right accomplishment, the right idea. If I’d ever been adequate in my father’s eyes maybe I’d feel like he loved me even a little bit, but it’s like I’m chasing a religious relic—the Arc of Daddy’s Love—and deep down I know that I might never find it.

  But Tully did find it—she found approval and love from Kevin and Savvy—she was enough for them.

  “You lost someone too, Tully,” I say, laying a hand on her arm for a moment. “This must be so hard on you.”

  She shakes her head, looking up at the sky in an effort not to cry. “I love Kevin more than I can ever express. For nearly as long as I can remember Kevin was there—he was steady and kind and he always made time for me, even when I was a squirrely little kid who followed him everywhere trying to spy on him kissing my sister.” She pauses, a small smile on her face. “They were twelve when they started dating.”

  “God, you’re kidding.”

  “No. Can you imagine? If I heard it from anyone else I’d think it was really weird, but they were just so…I don’t know…so always. It was like they had always been. Part of the same person, part of the same heart, the same soul.”

  I get another one of those damn pangs in my chest, and Dez’s words play in my head—“I miss you.” As if you could miss something you’d never had. Unless that something was already a part of you.

  “He seemed like a really good guy,” I answer.

  “He was. He was the best kind of guy. I mean not the kind of guy I could have ended up with—he needed this—” she waves her arm around at the pub behind us. “The business, the neighborhood church, the Sunday dinners with family. Kevin was the guy that ‘salt of the earth’ was modeled on. He was everything family, home, community, exactly like Father O’Donnell was saying this morning.”

  “And Savvy loved that,” I finish.

  Tully pauses, and looks at me, a thousand different emotions sliding over her face in a millisecond. “If you’d asked me a year ago I’d have said absolutely, but the last few months…I don’t know. She made a lot of jokes about me getting to do the things she never would, meet men she never would, go places she’d never see.”

  How sad. A woman not even thirty years old trapped in a life that eliminated a whole set of choices, ideas, people.

  “But I think the trade-off was that she was so loved. Just like Kevin never wanted anything but this bar in this neighborhood, he also never wanted anything but Savvy. He loved her so hard—” Tully stops, a small sob breaking loose as she buries her face in her knees.

  I haven’t done a lot of comforting in my life, so I’m a little out of my element, but I rub her back and make some so
rt of “it’ll be okay” noises as she quietly cries. Luckily, as if he has some sort of extra-sensory Tully abilities, Blaze comes out the back door right then.

  “Here you are—” He stops, looking at me for a clue. I grimace at him and mouth, “Just sad” and he nods before he squats on the ground in front of her.

  “Hey, baby,” he whispers. “Why don’t I take you home for a bit. Your mom and dad have Savvy. They’re taking her to their place and Ty is already there with the sitter.”

  Tully’s head lifts, her poor eyes red and her cheeks wet and splotchy. I stand and lean down, giving her a small kiss on the cheek. “We’re thinking of you, Tully. Please let me know if there is anything the guys or I can do.”

  “Thanks, Shannon,” Blaze says softly.

  As I look behind me one last time before I walk back into the pub, I see Tully throw herself into Blaze’s arms. He crushes her to his big body and stands cradling her like a child. “I got you, baby,” he whispers. “I got you.”

  Dez

  When I wake the morning after Kevin’s funeral my first thought is of Shannon. She’s going back to the tour today, and I can’t stop resenting it. I don’t want to be away from her even though she’s given me no indication that she might change her mind about us. Somehow though if she’s in the same city as me I can hope that something I do or say will change her mind. With thousands of miles between us I’ll feel like I’ve lost any chance I have to make inroads.

  But, I can’t indulge the pity party long because this is also the day Blaze and I take Garrett to rehab. I wasn’t sure that Blaze would be able to help out, but he texted late last night to say that the whole family was taking a day off—Savvy and Ty are spending the day watching movies at grandma’s house, Tully is going to stay in bed and read romance novels, and he was going to come with us to Cedar Valley, the place where he went to rehab, and so did Walsh Clark.

  After showering and getting dressed I text Garrett to make sure he’s up and ready. He asks me to meet him in his room for breakfast. Before I leave though I have to make one last try with Shannon.

  When she answers the door she’s dressed casually in skintight jeans and a purple top that has flowy sleeves and a deep-scooped neckline. My skin tightens as I look at her, my eyes running from the top of her head covered in all that shiny red hair, down to her creamy shoulders and the hint of cleavage that peeks out of her top. Her legs look longer than ever clad in the faded denim, and the black and purple cowboy boots on her feet are the finishing touch to my badass beauty.

  “Hi,” I say like the dolt that I always am around her.

  “Hey.” Her voice is soft and enticing like her skin, and I chew the inside of my cheek to take my mind off the want I’m fighting.

  “I wanted to check in with you before you take off.”

  “Come on in,” she gestures with a sweep of her arm and I follow her into the room.

  Her bags are sitting ready to go next to the door and I want to open them, climb inside and go wherever it is she goes.

  “You’re all ready?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Uber will be here in about half an hour.”

  I nod and we both stand there as if we’re complete strangers rather than two people who were wrapped around each other skin to skin a few days ago.

  “Listen, Shannon…”

  “We don’t need to do this, Dez.”

  “Maybe you don’t, but I do,” I snap. It comes out much harsher than I intend. “I’m sorry. But I really do need to talk about it, Shannon. I can’t just walk away from it like you can.”

  “That’s not fair,” she answers quietly.

  I step closer, drawn to the hesitation in her tone, drawn to the sadness in her eyes.

  “Then tell me. Tell me what you’re feeling, what you felt the other night.”

  She sighs and sways toward me. I reach out and stroke her hair, releasing the spicy scent of her shampoo. I can’t stop myself from breathing deep, trying to capture the very essence of her through my airways.

  “You know what I’m feeling, Dez.”

  “Why? Because I know you?”

  She stares at me, eyes glassy but fiery at the same time. She swallows hard once. “If you really do know me then you know that I already have a lover, and it’s called Gunn Management. That business is what I’ve committed to, and right now it’s in danger of ending up in the wrong hands—which would be any hands but mine—so I have to dedicate myself to that. I don’t have the time or the energy for anything else. Plus, if my dad knew I was screwing around with one of the clients he’d probably cut me out just for spite.”

  I grab ahold of her shoulder, torn between shaking some sense into her and stroking the smooth skin under mine.

  “You’re better than that, baby.” My voice is husky and I’m sporting a semi though God only knows why since she’s only here to reject me. “You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone, and you don’t need your father’s approval to be fucking great at your job. All you need to do is open up to the opportunities life is sending your way. Whether it’s work or me or a chance to race your fucking deathtrap of a bike on the streets of Paris, you just have to reach out and grab it, Shannon.”

  I step forward, caressing her neck as I gaze down at her. I can see the flush working its way up her neck and into her cheeks. Her breath comes faster and harder.

  “I’m right here, baby. Reach out and grab me—you can have it all if you’ll just take it.”

  There’s a moment, like someone pressed the pause button on time, we’re locked on each other, and she’s wavering, I can see it. Hell, I can feel it. Her energy is so strong around me that I can practically feel what she feels. Then she blinks and it’s all over. I know before she even steps away.

  She clears her throat and turns so she doesn’t have to look at me. “I can’t, Dez. I’m sorry. You have to give up on this. I’m sorry about the other night—I shouldn’t have let it happen knowing that I couldn’t follow through. I just—it has to stay a one-night thing. It has to.”

  She won’t look at me, so I’m talking to her back now, and I’m this strange combination of anger and disappointment at the same time. I try to breathe, try to focus on what I’m feeling and what I really want to say instead of simply flying off the handle.

  “I’m not sorry about the other night, because it proved what I already knew—there’s something strong between us, something unique. I know I’ve never felt like that with someone before, and I’d bet my favorite guitar that you haven’t either.”

  She doesn’t respond now, and I know that it’s done. She’s not going to change her mind. It’s humbling, realizing that as enlightened as I like to feel I am, even I can’t predict what choices other human beings will make. Because I know she feels what I feel when we touch each other. There’s no way you can fake that. But she’s choosing to ignore it, walk away and leave it behind her no matter how hard it might be. And there’s not a damn thing I can do about that. For the first time in my life I feel impotent, ill-equipped, and lost. For the first time in any relationship I’ve ever had I’m not the one in control, my feelings are ruling me and I can’t make them disappear. Suddenly it occurs to me that I’ve discovered the other side of this coin called passion. It’s like the greatest high in the world when the object of your passion returns the feelings, but it’s the lowest low when they reject you. The knife cuts both ways, and now I wonder if I would have been better off never learning what it all felt like.

  Cedar Valley rehab facility is about an hour from Portland, and Blaze is driving us in his brand new hybrid Audi Q5. Garrett’s in the backseat, quiet and serious, two things he rarely is. I made this drive a few months ago with Blaze as my passenger, and he’s like a different person today—in only the best ways—so I’m hopeful that the experience will be the same for Garrett.

  “You’re turning into a soccer dad,” I tell Blaze as I run a hand over the expensive dash of his new toy.

  “Fuck you, it’s comfortable,
has 245 horsepower, and fits my guitars and Tully’s keyboards in the back.”

  “She picked it out, didn’t she?” I smirk at him, because I know I’m right. He would have totally picked a truck.

  He sighs. “Fuck. Yes, okay? You satisfied? I mean I like it and all, but I wanted that new Silverado. They’ve got a model that’ll tow 18,000 pounds, dude. We could haul a tour trailer big enough for all of us and our shit.”

  “Yeah, but why would we want to? That’s what the buses and the roadies are for.”

  Garrett snorts from the backseat and Blaze sighs in frustration. “Jesus, Dez, because we could. Because big machines are badass and it’s fun as hell to own them and drag shit around with them. I swear you really are a girl sometimes.”

  I roll my eyes because he’s being Blaze, not being offensive. He’s never once had any issues with my sexuality. I’ve double-dated with one of my boyfriends and whatever girl Blaze was fucking at the time, we’ve been roommates and he’s eaten breakfast with my dates, both male and female, the morning after. Blaze is the most accepting straight guy I’ve ever known.

  “No way,” Garrett chimes in. “Dez is totally a top.”

  Blaze snorts as he tries to keep from laughing. While I don’t normally use my sex life to entertain friends, it seems to have gotten Garrett out of his head, so I’m willing to go with it.

  “Dude,” Blaze reprimands. “TMI. Don’t give Dez crap about the boys.” He winks at me and I shake my head. They’re idiots.

  “He might be right,” I offer, grinning.

  “But seriously, man,” Garrett continues. “Not to be offensive or anything, but can you explain to me the whole liking both thing? I mean, do you feel the same things when you see a guy you like versus a girl you like? I think it’s hard for me to understand people who are bi. I get just preferring vanilla to chocolate or whatever. But the whole chocolate and vanilla are equally good? I have a hard time wrapping my head around that one.”