In Your Honor

by Heidi Hutchinson

  “Lucky,” he slurred, confused by her presence. “You came?”

  “Kendra couldn't find you, she was really worried,” Lucy explained gently.

  His face twisted as he listened to her words. His eyes grew cloudy as he sought for clarity in his drunken state. No matter where he was or who he was with, Blake was always the most undecipherable and enigmatic person in the room—except for those eyes. He normally kept them hidden behind dark glasses or half-closed eyelids. The color reflected so much of his inner turmoil, reacting and changing as quickly as an electrical storm. She used to get so lost in their complexity.

  “Kendra was worried,” he repeated, looking for all intents and purposes like a disappointed child. His face flashed with belligerence and he smirked at her.

  ***

  “Kendra is my girlfriend.” He smiled, proud of his lie. If she thought she was going to toy with him just because he was drunk, she was mistaken. He was still in charge of his thoughts, not her. But damn, if she wasn't gorgeous right now.

  He saw Kendra coming in the door at that moment and started waving her over.

  “Kendra! Come and give me a kiss, love!” He grinned at his assistant. She looked angry. Uh-oh, she might not play along.

  “I know that Kendra's not your girlfriend,” Lucy sighed. She looked so disappointed in him. He hated that look on her face.

  “No, we're in love. She's carryin' my child.” He tried to signal to Kendra to cooperate but she was ignoring him, which was probably for the best because he couldn't tell if he was winking or blinking.

  “Blake, that's how rumors get started,” Lucy reprimanded him, unaffected by his words.

  “Carl said the bus will be here in fifteen minutes.” Kendra, as demure as she usually represented herself, was actually glaring at Lucy. Full on daggers with fire and venom. Blake was impressed, as much as he could be in his state.

  “Good, ask that old boy if he wants to have a drink with me.” Blake giggled and both girls frowned at him so he covered his mouth, pretending to be ashamed.

  He wasn't.

  ***

  “You know this is your fault.” Kendra said quietly. Lucy's eyebrows went up slightly at the unexpected accusation.

  “How in the world...?” Lucy was shaking her head slowly, confused at the smaller girl's change of attitude towards her. She'd seen Kendra switch like this on her before, the night Shane came to visit her backstage.

  “Kendra, I don't think you know what you're saying. We can talk about all of this later.” She slowly exhaled the words, suddenly feeling all the fatigue that was now catching up with her. She didn't feel like getting blamed for one of Blake's idiotic decisions yet again. It wasn't fair and she wasn't going to do it anymore.

  “This would never have had happened if you had just stayed home where you belonged.” Kendra's voice was shaky as she tried to keep from trembling, whether from anger or timidity, Lucy didn't know. She understood that Kendra was probably coming from a place of anxiety. She was nervous about her job, and she was nervous about her friend, Blake. Who, at the moment, was trying to wave the bartender over for another refill. Like Lucy wasn't sitting right there.

  Lucy understood a little of what Kendra was feeling. But she was too tired to be empathetic. And she didn't have it in her to be Kendra's emotional trash can.

  “How is this my fault?” Lucy began to raise her voice, causing Kendra's face to flush with new-found defiance. “He's a grown man! I have nothing to do with this!”

  “Oh please, we didn't have any problems this whole tour until you showed up and messed with his head!” Kendra's tiny body was shaking with rage and Lucy rolled her eyes at the absurdity.

  “Just because you're his secret little friend doesn't mean you know anything about me or what's between Blake and me. I'm glad he was an angel for the first seven days you knew him. But this,” she waved with one hand to Blake, who was watching them curiously, “this is who he is, sweetie. This would have happened whether or not I had been here.” She hated how her drawl got thicker when she got upset.

  “Are you kidding?” Kendra's eyes narrowed and she crossed her skinny arms over her chest. “We all know what you're doing to him! You're too self-involved to see it.”

  “Girls, girls, girls, don't fight over me,” Blake interrupted from his corner, a dumb look on his face. “Let me buy you both a drink.”

  “Shut up, Blake.” Lucy glared at him.

  “Don't you talk to him that way!” Kendra snapped at her.

  This was unbelievable. Lucy was not going to get into a cat fight in a bar with a girl who was only as big around as her left leg. She slid out of the booth and quickly gabbed the younger girl by her arm, steered her toward the door, and out onto the sidewalk. Kendra squirmed and wriggled, but she didn't have the upper body strength to get away.

  “You need to get a grip and listen to me!” Lucy's voice was low and threatening and Kendra suddenly shrank back, some of her fire going out.

  “If you were really his friend, than you'd see what he's doing to himself. You can't enable him like this! He's a man with a real problem and pretending that it's someone else's fault will never help him!” Lucy steeled herself to avoid revealing her own insecurities in the matter. Kendra had no way of knowing what she was defending, but her accusation that it was Lucy's fault still burned inside her. Isn't that what she had always been afraid of?

  The buses pulled to a stop in the middle of the street and Carl barreled out. Lucy turned Kendra in Carl's direction.

  “Blake's gonna ride with me.” She pointed at Kendra. “You keep her off my bus.”

  Carl must have seen something in Lucy's expression because he simply nodded and gestured for Kendra to get back on the crew bus.

  “You need help with Blake?” Carl asked as Lucy headed back inside the bar.

  “Nope.” She ground her teeth together. Kendra's accusations still rang in Lucy's head and she approached Blake with more fire than before. She was not going to be the excuse for his bad behavior anymore.

  “It's time to go.” She put her hands on her hips and waited for him to crawl out of the booth.

  “Yes, ma'am.” He nodded weakly as he struggled to stand.

  “You know the drill,” she said as she positioned herself by his side. She pulled her hair over one shoulder as he draped his arm across her. She wrapped an arm around his waist and used the other on his chest to keep him steady.

  ***

  Blake did indeed know the drill. He was ashamed of how many times she'd had to carry him home. As much as he had tried over the past couple of weeks, he hadn't really changed at all.

  And she knew that now.

  He staggered against her and marveled at the strength she possessed. He shouldn't be surprised, she'd always been a lot stronger than she looked. In more ways than one.

  Blake didn't question why they were heading to the red bus, or why Carl wasn't yelling at him. He knew it was Lucy. It was always Lucy. She was always the one to show up and save him from himself. God bless her.

  He waved bashfully at the silent onlookers in the main lounge as Lucy muscled him to the back lounge. Collapsing onto the large couch, he rolled onto his back, closing his eyes. He could hear her leaving instructions and gathering supplies as he drifted in and out of awareness.

  She reentered the back lounge and shut the door behind her. He peeked one eye open and saw her frowning down at him, hands on her hips, lips compressed into a hard line.

  “You're pretty.” He smiled when her angry face cracked a bit of a smile.

  “What the hell are you doing?” She dropped her hands to her sides and pushed him up into a sitting position, taking a seat beside him.

  “I was planning on coming right back,” he protested, knowing it was pointless.

  “I almost had to kick Kendra's ass. Why are you draggin' her into our business?”

  “Your accent gets a lot thicker when you're mad,” he pointed out, and then laughed as she punched h
im in the shoulder.

  “How drunk are you?” She squinted at him.

  “Not as drunk as I wanted to be.” He waggled his eyebrows up and down.

  “You always were a happy drunk at least.” She sighed and pulled the trash can closer, setting it next to him.

  “Remember that time you dressed up as my mom and tried to get me out of detention?”

  She snickered from beside him. “What in the world made you think of that?”

  “I was just going through some of my best memories. You're in nearly all of them.” He smiled his drunken smile and she bit her bottom lip. How he wished he could kiss her. Even just one more time. But one more was never enough.

  “I have no idea what I was thinking. Like a thirteen-year-old was going to pass for an adult.” Her dark eyes had lost their look of dismay as she thought back.

  “How about when we both got the flu and my mama wouldn't let you leave the house for a week?” he kept going. One more last walk down Memory Lane. A chance for him to remind her of the good times and make the bad seem less awful.

  “We crawled into that room under the stairs and wrote out our wills. I was certain we weren't going to make it.” She laughed. “I wonder why your mom always accused us of being overly dramatic.”

  “Remember that time we got kicked out of Red's and we had to walk home?” He leaned his spinning head back and closed his eyes.

  “Yeah,” she said, her voice quiet, and he felt her shift on the couch to face him better. “You took off your shoes and wanted me to carry you, ya big girl. But we only made it as far as Thompson's field.”

  “We fell asleep under the stars... I woke up with you in my arms... that was when I knew it.” He sighed at the memory. Not really sure if she was still listening.

  “Knew what?” she prompted him gently.

  He peeked one eye open and looked at her perfect face. The face that had brought him his greatest joy and his deepest heartache. He couldn't tell her everything. Not like this.

  “That you would always be my best friend,” he answered carefully.

  The hush that followed was serene and he relaxed again into the sofa. He didn't need a response, he didn't want one either. He just liked having her nearby. She brought clarity to his thoughts and peace to his otherwise aggressive and discontent nature.

  Her phone buzzed, interrupting the silence, and she stood up.

  “I have to take this.” He opened his eyes again and she was hesitating at the doorway, conflict mixed with a touch of sorrow in her expression. “I'll be right back, I promise.”

  “I'm not going anywhere,” he replied with a crooked smile. He knew it was Shane. And it didn't make him as heartsick as it had a few days ago. She deserved someone as steady and reliable as Shane. He was better for her.

  ***

  Lucy answered the phone as she shut the door behind her. She hadn't yet explained to Shane about the complicated situation she was in with Blake, and she knew that it needed to happen sooner rather than later.

  Truthfully, up until tonight, she hadn't thought it was going to factor into her future. That had been a stupid assumption.

  “Hey,” she answered as she slipped behind the curtain of her bunk, trying to create as much privacy as was feasible on the crowded tour bus.

  “Hey yourself,” Shane replied, his deep voice instantly making her relax. She really loved how he could ease her tension so readily, just with the sound of his voice.

  “I'm glad you called.” She didn't hesitate letting her worries come out over the phone. She never felt like she had to be careful or hold back with Shane.

  “What's going on? Everything okay?” he asked gently.

  She scrunched her nose up as she tried to think of the best way to approach this subject.

  “I have to tell you something and I'm really hoping I do it right,” she confessed. He was silent, waiting for her to continue or possibly trying not to panic, there was no way to tell.

  “You know Blake?” she started, wondering if this was going to be the beginning of the end for them; over before it ever started. Either way, he had the right to know, and it was her responsibility to tell him.

  “Yeah...” He sounded unsure and confused.

  She swallowed a couple of times, trying to fight the fear that had started to do a samba in her belly.

  “You can tell me, Lucy.” Shane's voice was soft, coaxing. Safe.

  “We have a complicated history.” She tried to work the moisture back into her mouth as she slowly explained as best she could. How long they'd known each other, the back and forth of their relationship, the never-ending friendship that seemed to keep them tethered through everything. Shane listened, without interrupting until she was finished. She held her breath when she was done, wondering what came next.

  “Wow,” Shane chuckled lightly, “I had no idea. You said the relationship part has been over for awhile though?”

  “Yeah, years actually,” she confirmed, her palms beginning to sweat as he mulled over all the information she had just dumped on him.

  “Lucy,” he sighed and she held her breath, “I'm glad I know, I guess. But really, if you guys are just friends now, I'm not worried. I trust you. You guys have a past, I understand that. All I need to know is if there's room for me in your future.”

  Lucy closed her eyes, completely blown away by this man's ability to amaze her on a continual basis. No jealousy or weird stipulations. Is this what it meant to be in a relationship with an adult?

  “I would really like that,” she smiled, her anxious muscles relaxing.

  “Good,” Shane replied, his voice low. “Me too.” He cleared his throat. “I'll let you go take care of your friend, but I'll call you tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  “And Lucy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I can't wait to see you.”

  “Me too.” She ended the call and stared up at the dark in her bunk for a few minutes. Shane's understanding was refreshing. He trusted her. That meant more than she thought it would. She wasn't going to make him regret it.

  She returned to the back lounge to find Blake had passed out. She rolled her eyes and started taking his shoes off. He groaned and rolled onto his back.

  ***

  “How is the most interesting man in the world?” he asked, his throat dry.

  “He's good.” A small smile played on her lips and he knew that she was thinking of the other guy. Well, good, at least someone could make her smile.

  “What did you talk about? Planning your wedding yet?” He pushed himself back into a sitting position. The rocking of the bus was horrible and he fought back the urge to use the trash can she had provided him with earlier.

  “C'mon, Blake, don't be like that.” She handed him a bottle of water and sat next to him on the couch.

  He looked down at the bottle, his thoughts turning inward again. So many things he wanted to say to her. And really, he could right now if he wanted to, and use the excuse that it was just the alcohol talking if it didn't go the way he wanted it to.

  But he couldn't. Even drunk, he still only wanted one thing.

  “I'm glad that you have Shane,” he muttered. He waited a beat and then looked up into her gorgeous eyes. She was amazing and she deserved to be treated that way.

  “Really?” She raised her eyebrows like she wasn't sure. “That's not what everyone else thinks. Chad and Kendra seem to think you're going crazy with jealousy.”

  Blake frowned down into his lap. He hated how much of that was true. “Maybe I'm a little jealous,” he admitted.

  He almost jumped when her hand came into view and she pulled his chin up so he had to look at her. She studied his face with those dark chocolate eyes while her thumb brushed over the almost healed split on his lower lip, and he shuddered at the touch.

  “Is that what this was all about?” she confronted him tenderly.

  He tried to smile but his lips were numb from her caress. “Yes.”

&n
bsp; She shook her head as a ghost of smile played on her lips. “You were always too much like James Dean. You know that, right?”

  “We do share a birthday,” Blake reminded her.

  “How could I ever forget?” Her sweet smile shifted to one of pity, and he drew his eyebrows together.

  He stared at her seriously, imploring her to believe him. “You're my best friend in the whole world, Lucy. I want you to be happy. And Shane is a really good guy. You'll be safe with him.”

  The shift in her face was enough to break his heart into even smaller pieces so he didn't wait for her reply. Instead, he lowered his head to her lap and closed his eyes. The swaying of the bus and the spinning of his head forced him to focus on not puking. It was a decent distraction from the hollowness he felt in his chest cavity.

  She pulled off his beanie and slowly stroked his hair back. It was the secret drunk cure-all for him. She was the only one who could pull it off. A touch from anyone else was less than soothing, but from her... it was everything he needed.

  “Sing me the song,” he asked, trying to keep the sorrow from his voice.

  “What song?” she questioned softly, continuing her fingers' work in his hair.

  “The one you used to sing to me. For old times' sake,” he whispered.

  Her hands stilled briefly. He felt her take a breath. “Okay.”

  The Rolling Stones did an amazing job, but there was something truly fantastic about Lucy's voice singing “Wild Horses” with no accompaniment. Blake was glad for the whiskey still careening around his system, or he probably would have started crying. No one had a hold of him like this girl. She was his everything. Even if he was no longer hers.

  ***

  Lucy had slept sitting up with Blake sound asleep in her lap all night long. And it was a long night. So many memories had been stirred by his reminiscing, and most all of them were beautiful. She had missed him so much. And in those dark, quiet hours while he slept in her arms, she was reminded of what an amazing man he was. Then singing that song... she didn't know if he was aware of what that would do to her, but it had seemed to be a delicate and appropriate way of closing certain doors.