Jump Then Fall

by Alyssia Kirkhart

  Lawson volunteered.

  He hadn’t performed a full set, Savana said, in eight months.

  “Are you nervous?” he asked. The record label had sent a limo to pick us up. Lawson looked sharp in all black: jeans, tee, leather boots. His hair was shiny and styled. I wished I’d had something smarter to match him. As it was, I’d pulled my hair back in a ponytail and opted for minimal makeup, the one LBD I owned, and the kitten heels that matched. His hand squeezed mine in the backseat of the limo.

  “A little,” I admitted. “I just agreed to quit my job, because too many people were noticing us together and yet here we are.”

  “Going out in public.” He nodded. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry. There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

  “Still. It’s a lot, when you’re not used to it. I get that.” In the dim light, his eyes met mine. “I just want you to know that I’m appreciative.” He brought my knuckles to his lips.

  “Are you nervous?”

  “Before a show? You know the answer to that.”

  “Savana said it’s a small setting. Ninety seats or so.”

  “Crowd size doesn’t matter. Large or small, I’m still up there, offering up pieces of myself and hoping someone, anyone will connect with even one little slice.”

  I didn’t know how to respond, the right words to say to offer a pillar of support. He was amazing. He’d reached millions worldwide and yet he was still unsure of himself. A mere boy taking the stage for the first time, taking the chance he’d either be received or rejected.

  “Hey, can I tell you something?” He leaned into me. “Might be a little crude.”

  “I can take crude.”

  His lips touched my neck. “You’re gorgeous when you come,” he whispered, and I had the fleeting thought I should’ve shoved an extra pair of panties into the small shoulder bag I’d brought.

  Upon arrival, we were pulled in opposite directions. Savana was waiting for me at the crowded entrance, her blonde hair gleaming. Chris was at her side, nursing a cocktail.

  “Come on. We’ve got a table.” Savana motioned for me to follow. “Right up front.”

  “You look nice.” Chris nudged her arm against mine. She looked like a starlet in an off-the-shoulder red sweater, skinny jeans and heels. “Fun times, right?”

  “Thanks. Yeah.” The place was packed, standing room only, save for one empty round table that had a RESERVED sign on it. As Savana said, it was directly in front of the stage.

  We sat and I allowed my eyes to carefully travel the room. Large black and white photos of famous singers and songwriters dotted black walls. White icicle lights hung across the stage and the bar in the back of the room. It was small. Cozy. What most people would call a hole in the wall, seeing as it was, indeed, in the middle of a shopping strip downtown.

  “Steven Tyler was here last week.” Savana offered me one of the two vodka tonics the waitress set before her. “Liquid courage?”

  “No, thanks.” I smiled at the waitress. “Just water, please, thanks.”

  “Just water, please, thanks.” Savana laughed, sipped her mixed drink. “You and Chris with your no-drinking policy.”

  “Hello.” Chris raised her own glass. “I do drink sometimes, thank you very much, just not as often as you do.” She looked at me, patted her neck. “Vocal cords. Gotta take care of ‘em.”

  Two women at the table next to mine were staring, their gazes lingering well-past acceptability, until I finally looked away. There were more, too. More prying eyes, more whispers. I overheard someone say, “That’s her. That’s the girl I was telling you about. The one he’s been hangin’ out with.”

  “Hey.” Chris placed a hand on my wrist where it rested on the table. “Don’t worry about them, okay? Ever seen that movie where Kevin Costner’s a baseball player? What’s it called?”

  “For Love of the Game,” Savana provided.

  I nodded. I knew the movie.

  “Remember what he used to say when the crowd was getting really loud and he needed to pitch?” Chris tapped her temple. “Clear the mechanism. Well, that’s what you’ve gotta do. Silence them. Their stares, whatever they’re saying. Don’t listen to anything but the truth: that Lawson’s with you, because he wants to be.”

  “Clear the mechanism.” The words sounded strange but somehow effective. Like maybe I really could make the room vanish, or at least choose not to engage their curiosity. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Oh! Here we go!”

  “Folks, we’ve got a little surprise for you tonight.” An older man wearing jeans and a loose button up spoke into one of two microphones perched in front of two stools on the stage. “I’ve known this young man since he was fourteen years old and not only writing songs for himself but songs for other artists. He’s one of the most talented young musicians on the scene, a multi-platinum, Grammy-winning singer/songwriter, and we are so proud to have him here with us. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mr. Lawson Hill.”

  Chairs scraped across the brushed cement floor. People stood, clapped, hooted and hollered. The atmosphere vibrated as Lawson walked on stage, guitar strapped to his chest. He raised a hand, his famous smile intact.

  The cheers got louder. He sat down and the man who’d introduced him picked up an acoustic guitar and sat on the stool next to him.

  “Hello. I’m Lawson Hill.” Several girls screamed and his grin widened. “I appreciate y’all comin’ out. I’m gonna play a few songs tonight, some you may know, some you may not. Some I may not.”

  Laughter filled the room as he strummed a few chords on his guitar.

  “So, just sit back, relax, and let’s do somethin’ a little different. Let’s start with a song by the great Johnny Cash.”

  His gaze found mine and the pulse in my neck throbbed as applause split the air. He picked out the first notes of what might’ve sounded like an indie acoustic song, until he started singing, his voice a now-familiar balm. “Well, I hear the train a comin’, it’s rollin’ ‘round the bend, and I ain’t seen the sunshine in I don’t know when…”

  Chris kissed her closed fingers. “Like melted buttah.”

  She was right. His voice was so smooth, so powerful, even the waitresses stopped serving to watch him. Emotion wrapped around every word. The ease of his fingers gliding across the fret board had some of the guys in the crowd whew-ing. When he was finished, as the audience was still clapping, he went directly into another song. One I knew instantly, because it’d been on repeat on my iPod for months. Birds by Imagine Dragons.

  “Now, that’s different.” Chris scooted further toward the edge of her seat.

  But not for him, it wasn’t. He’d played it on the piano in the hours of early morning, when he couldn’t sleep. Every note, high and low, hit perfect. It couldn’t have been an easy song to sing. But the control he had, especially when he sang the oohs in the chorus, had the collective expressions of everybody in the room in a state of wonder.

  “Jesus, that’s beautiful.” Savana leaned over Chris toward me. “That’s a two-a.m. song, isn’t it?”

  I smiled at her in answer, and she winked at me, sipped her drink.

  “Seasons, they will change. Life will make you grow. Dreams will make you cry, cry, cry. Everything is temporary. Everything will slide. Love will never die, die, die. I know that ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh birds fly in every direction…”

  In that moment, a piece of me died and was reborn, changed. I thought about earlier, in my bedroom, when it was only the two of us. The bond I felt, the closeness. There was no denying the physical attraction. Lawson was a beautiful man. But this was more. It delved further, deeper. The man I watched pour his soul out on stage was a good man. A man of heart and virtue.

  He played a five-song set, ending with a slower, acoustic version of Maelstrom that had the whole room singing along. After, the man who’d accompanied Lawson on stage caught my attention and gestured for me to follow
him.

  “Go.” Savana shooed me. I wondered how many drinks she’d had. “Go, go, go. I’ll text you later.”

  “’Night, Harper.” Chris planted a kiss on my cheek. Then, squeezing my hand, she whispered, “For what it’s worth, I’m so glad it’s you.”

  chapter fourteen

  It felt as if I was slipping into someone else’s life. Degree by degree, like movers going into a house and coming out with boxes to load a U-Haul, Lawson wrapped the slivers of my past, moved them aside, and replaced them with pieces of him. He took me to a restaurant with a menu that required a translator, and he took me to one that served all-you-can-eat catfish for six bucks a plate. He took me on a helicopter ride that ended in a private tour of the Grand Ole Opry. And he took me for a round of miniature golf that ended with ice cream and a walk on the bridge over the Cumberland River.

  On Sunday, he took me to church.

  Not in the Hozier, hot kind of way, although I couldn’t lie—I had entertained the idea once or twice.

  We donned our Sunday best, me in my go-to LBD and short heels, Lawson in his sexy dress slacks and baby blue button-up, and we attended worship service. I’d been to church before, but only for holidays and a couple of weddings. This church was beautiful. Sleek wooden pews, green carpet and fresh flowers. Up front, a woman was playing Amazing Grace on an upright piano. We were greeted with firm handshakes, Lawson with a few hugs and welcome backs.

  “I don’t get to come a lot.” He gestured to an empty space next to an elderly woman wearing a beautiful white fascinator. “Not as much as I’d like to, anyway.”

  “Why today, then?”

  He stretched an arm over the back of the pew. His thumb grazed my shoulder. “Thought maybe we could both use some uplifting.” He winked at me.

  Uplifting may’ve been too weak a word to describe the next couple of hours. The service was phenomenal. More than once, I found myself pushing a finger to my eyes, attempting to block tears. Dad wasn’t raised in religion. So, naturally, I wasn’t, either. But the singing at Mt. Zion Baptist Church that morning filled the entire room, reached down to something deep inside, something I hadn’t known was there. Maybe it was the singing. Maybe it was the pastor’s impassioned speech. Maybe it was Lawson’s hand gripping mine and the warmth of him next to me.

  Whatever the central cause, emotion climbed higher and higher up my throat, until finally the woman in the fancy hat quietly handed me a tissue. I smiled, nodded my thanks. Then I gazed up at Lawson, at his serene expression, and felt a sense of such peace I almost sighed aloud. He didn’t seem the least bit bothered that we were the only white people in attendance. Or that I didn’t know the words to any of the songs and struggled when the pastor asked us to flip with him to Romans 12:12. It didn’t matter. His hands found the exact spot, his finger pointing to the verse as our heads bent together.

  He was just him. I was just me. And it felt…right. Every moment was new, special, the kind you want to remember. The kind you keep going back to, beautiful reminders that good times are possible.

  In the days leading to Vegas, we went shopping. Not because I wanted to, but because he insisted. It wasn’t easy. He had his agent—the famous Katie I’d heard him talking to before and who’d flown with us to Vegas—write up a list of stores. Then, she called and requested private shopping. That was his life, mostly. People hired to do every job imaginable: cleaning, mowing, calling ahead to stores and eateries to ensure he wasn’t bombarded the moment his foot crossed the threshold. He had nutritionist, a fitness trainer, a personal shopper and, oh yes, a team of lawyers to negotiate entertainment contracts.

  I’d teased him that it was a wonder he didn’t have a butler and a chauffeur, like in Downton Abbey.

  “But without the British accent, obviously,” he’d said, reminding me of when I’d teased him, “because that would just be too much.”

  “Right.” What he didn’t realize was I adored his southern drawl. It was smooth, sexy, and it comforted me in ways I hadn’t realized needed comforting. Like when were tucked in together on the couch and he was murmuring song lyrics in my hair. Or when he was waiting on an overstuffed lounge chair outside a dressing room, and I stepped out wearing outfit number twenty-six, and he sat up straight, eyes alight and murmured, “Gosh, darlin’, that’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

  My heart was full of him.

  I wanted Dad to know. Wanted to share how happy I was, assure him I was okay, that Lawson was wonderful and, no, I hadn’t done anything stupid. Not yet, anyway.

  But every time I called I got his voicemail. And every time I texted it took forever for him to finally answer with a clipped Can’t talk right now. Later? Only later never came. Our relationship felt one-sided. It was weird. I knew he was alive. That was at least something. I tried to tell myself this was what it would be like when I was away at college. Distance, missing each other’s calls, quick proof-of-life texts. But I needed to tell him about Lawson. Needed to share my happiness with the only other man in my life—the man who’d always been there for me.

  “It’s just a moment,” Lawson said when I finally confessed my concern. He’d been probing me ever since we boarded the plane, because I had tried. I’d tried to call Dad, let him know where I was going. Force of habit, I supposed, the dutiful daughter checking in.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean our lives are a series of moments, hustle and flow, and your dad’s in a life moment that’s out of the norm of what you’re used to, and maybe what he’s used to, but it’s just a moment, and moments pass.”

  “I guess so. I’m just, I don’t know, a little worried.” I huffed out a laugh. “Maybe a lot worried. Plus, I’m on a plane. Going to Vegas. He should know that.”

  “I get you’re worried, Harper.” He laced his fingers with mine, rested our joined hands on his thigh. “But you’re an adult, capable of deciding where you want to go, when you want to go and who you want to go with, if you want to go with anybody.”

  “Good, because I plan on ditching you the second this plane hits the tarmac in Vegas.”

  A lopsided smile. “Is that a fact?”

  “Yep. You’re on your own. I’m hitting the strip. Casinos, tattoo shops, maybe a titty bar or two.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. Head thrown back in a fit of laughter.

  The guy across the aisle where we were sitting in first class lowered his newspaper and glared at us from over his reading glasses.

  “What? You don’t believe me?”

  “Can’t believe you said…” He was laughing so hard he couldn’t catch his breath. “I can’t believe you said titty bar.”

  “Well, that’s what they are, right?”

  He thumbed tears from his eyes. His face was pink. “Yeah, but I don’t think I’ve ever—and I do mean ever heard a girl say that.”

  “Hey, you’re not the only one who can be crude, buddy. I’ve got a mouth and I’m not afraid to use it.”

  His laughter faded into a smug grin. He arched a brow. “Do you now?”

  My cheeks heated at the implication. We hadn’t had another moment like the one after my last day of work. We’d kissed. We’d kissed a lot. A collection of hours, off and on, off and on, that had left us breaking away each time with a gasp. He tasted so good. I’d memorized his lips, his tongue, the brush of his nose against mine, the way his cheek muscles moved when he was really kissing me. The fall of his lashes on the crests of his cheeks when he closed his eyes. The fierceness that took my breath away when those same eyes opened. The laziness of his grin, when he was comfortable.

  As we deboarded the plane, an attendant asked for his autograph and he obliged, signing a drink napkin for her.

  “Thanks!” She looked from him to me and back again. I raised my brows. “Well, good luck at the awards show tonight! I’m sure you’ll be great!”

  “Thanks.” Lawson threaded his fingers with mine. “There should be security when we reach the end of the terminal,�
� he said as we walked ahead of the other passengers. It wasn’t lost on me that we’d been allowed to deboard first.

  “Security?”

  “Always security.” Katie was behind us, thumbs flying on her phone. “Car’s ready at the front, Law.”

  “Okay.”

  “What about our bags?” I asked.

  “Already on their way to the hotel.” Katie tucked her phone inside her purse, smiled at me. I liked her. Recently divorced, she was in her mid-thirties and more organized than an army general. Let me check your calendar was her response to ninety percent of what Lawson said.

  “Cool,” was my lame response.

  “Everything’s good, Harper,” said Lawson, but his smile was rueful. And maybe a touch melancholic. Almost as if he was apologizing. “We’re just moving from point A to point B.”

  “And onto C,” Katie finished.

  Right.

  “Just don’t let go of my hand,” he said. “Can you do that?”

  I nodded.

  His anxiety wasn’t misplaced. Three police officers stood at the mouth of the terminal, armed with handguns and walkie-talkies.

  “Welcome to Las Vegas, Mr. Hill,” one said. “This way.”

  “Thanks,” said Lawson. “I appreciate your help.”

  “Oh, it’s no problem.” The officer’s leather belt squeaked as he led our little entourage, the other two officers falling into step behind. “You performing tonight?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Guess they’re airing it live again. Good thing, too. My wife’s been talking about this for weeks.” He chuckled. “She’s got a thing for you, you know.” He gave Lawson a raised look from over his shoulder.

  “Sorry, man.” Lawson pointed up. “It’s the hair.”