“I guess we’ve grown up, haven’t we?”
“I hope so.”
“Blaze, there’s gonna be something in the papers tomorrow. Either about the fight or about the girl or about both. And it’s gonna be ugly. It’s always ugly. If it ain’t ugly then it ain’t news.”
“I know.”
“They’ll drag you into it as well, Blaze. Just by the fact that you’re beautiful to look at so you make their magazines look pretty. For that reason they’ll post photos of you right alongside the dude I hit or the teenager who kissed me. If she was a teen. God, Blaze, I really hope she wasn’t! Anyway, it’s gonna be gritty, Blaze. Things have changed for me. Now everything I do gets plastered all over the news. I even look for cameras when taking a crap in a public toilet sometimes.”
She laughs, and it’s nothing compared to the high-pitched giddy laugh those other girls had made earlier tonight. Blaze’s laugh is full of mirth, full of warmth.
“And have you ever found any? While taking a...crap...I mean.”
“You know my history at finding cameras. I suck at it. I only find out about photos too late. Photos, photos, photos. Everyone loves taking photos of Declan Cox.”
“And now you’re just being vain.”
“Oh, you think I’m kidding?”
She chuckles again, and if she were right here beside me I’d slide my hand over her tiny belly and start kissing her navel, moving up, dancing my tongue around her milky skin...
“I need you too, Blaze. And you can have me as soon as you want.”
Silence.
“Blaze?”
“Sorry, uhm, yeah.” She exhales, and it sounds like she’s fanning herself. Do girls actually do that? “OK, uhm, how’s tomorrow sound?”
“Tonight sounds better.”
“Tonight technically is tomorrow, Deck. It’s almost three in the morning.”
“Yeah, and I have practice in the afternoon. I’m already suspended. Maybe he’ll take me off the first playoff game.”
“Does that mean you get time off?”
“I wish. But sadly, no, it doesn’t. It just means he works my ass harder at training. And I get paid less for it! Blaze, what are you doing for Christmas?”
“Hanging with Vikki? Dunno.”
“Spend it with us, with Trev and me, at his mom’s place.”
Silence for a microscopic second. Then, “Uhm...yeah...that would be...awesome...actually. I can’t remember the last time I spent Christmas with...” She stops.
“With what?”
“Never mind.”
“No, tell me.”
“With”—she coughs—“family, I was gonna say. But I realized we’re not family.”
“Trev is my family. So is Skate.” And so are you...
“Yeah, yeah, I guess that’s what I was thinking. So, yeah, that’d be awesome. Should I bring anything with me? Help with cooking?”
“I’ll check with Trev and get back to you. Now about that other thing, tomorrow, after practice: I need you, Blaze. I need you...badly.”
Silence.
“Blaze?”
Her voice is raspy and breathy when she answers. “Yeah.” It comes out more like a long sigh. “I can’t wait...”
We hang on the phone for ages. Finally I force myself to say goodbye and switch it off. I drop my hand and start walking. Then I stop, and smile, and look down.
I’m, uhm, aroused.
I laugh, shift my jeans, and let the cold wind wash over me. It’s better than a cold shower. A cold shower wouldn’t do it for me tonight.
Blaze has always had that effect on me.
I’ve missed her.
And, evidently, so has my body.
-4-
I can’t sleep. It’s four A.M. and I’m looking up at the ceiling, still turned on from earlier, thinking of Blaze...
...and about her groans, the shuffle of her shirt on mine as I slide it off, and about the moonlight on her skin, her swollen breasts...
“Jesus, Deck, jack off and get some sleep or something! Coach is gonna rip you in half!”
So now I’m talking to myself...
But I won’t do it, I won’t put my hand around myself and think of Blaze. Not tonight. Lord knows I’ve done it an uncountable number of times after she split up with me.
But I won’t do it tonight. Not when we have a “date” for tomorrow, a euphemistic agreement to consummate our relationship newly.
And after that...I’m gonna ask her to marry me.
Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, but eventually. Because I can’t lose her again, won’t lose her again! And even saying that scares the shit out of me, because Blaze also went a little wild, and she split up with me after all. Marrying her doesn’t mean I get a right to keep her like chattel for the rest of my life and that she’ll never get upset or never flip her lid if she suspects something’s going on behind her back. Marrying her won’t unravel her uncertainties and replace them with shining self-assuredness and personal security. I can only promise to open up to her, to let her know what’s happening, like tonight, and to do my best to make her feel safe. She’s had a tough life, a crappy life! And I can understand her fears, her worries.
My own fears have abated. Tonight was a good step. Calling her and telling her what’s coming up was a good step. Openness, honesty, being upfront. I can do that shit, can’t I? Why bear the burdens on only my own shoulders? Isn’t a marriage supposed to be two people? (Here I am already talking about “a marriage” as if it were a done deal. Does she feel the same?)
But tonight was good, being frank with her was good, hearing her voice tell me...
...that she wants me, grazing her tongue over my eyelid while her hardened nipple scrapes over my chest and her mound presses down against me...
“Jesus!”
I get up, rush to the shower and turn on the icy cold water.
When I’m done and jump back in bed I’m still horny as hell.
I pull out my phone, look at her message, I need you, Declan Cox. When can I have you?
“Fuck!”
I realize I should probably prepare a dinner for tomorrow (technically tonight), perhaps even some flowers. Maria’s not here. She could’ve taken care of that...
“You fucking moron, thinking only about sex sex sex and not about the goddamned romance. You fuckin Neanderthal!”
I get up, start making plans, start googling for flower shops, romantic food to go, Music to Get You in The Mood...
I eventually fall asleep.
THIRTEEN
THE UNIVERSE
-1-
Blaze Ryleigh
The headlines are worse than I expected, probably worse than Declan expected as well. At times, while looking at them (because I can’t look away from them, like driving past a train smash), while feeling the instantaneous gut reaction they cause in me, I’m filled with a momentary repulsion for the personality which is Declan Cox, Giants Running Back, Number 37.
This is what they want to happen, the press. The headlines are designed to pull out that gut-reaction, the unthinking one, the one where emotions take over and rationality is forgotten about.
But news is news. And the press loves a sensational spectacle.
Only now do I see this, because I can see it happening. Hearing that my LP made it to the Top 100 of the DJ Charts, someone might be apt to believe that I’m out there drinking cocktails with Lana del Rey and smoking up a doob with Snoop Dogg. But the DJ Top 100 is a niche chart, something to make artists feel better about their music so they keep playing it. Like the peewee league, it ain’t gonna match up with the big boys. If I’d been on the Billboard 100—whoa. Then perhaps I’d be more familiar with how these articles act like gashes to one’s pride and hopes of ever living a “normal” life in the U.S. of Gossiping A.
Declan Acting Cocky with Underage Girl
Declan Cox’s Exes...And Their Ages!
Bad Boy Declan Kisses Little Girl
Cradles
natcher!
The Public to Declan Cox: GROW UP!
Cox in Yet Another Bar Brawl. Again. One More Time. Yawn.
I can’t look anymore. I can’t stand the way it’s twisted, the way it portrays him. And, worst of all, the way they make me feel, as if by reading them over and over I might actually start believing them!
I close my phone’s browser and promise myself to not look at the Train Smash again today, or tomorrow. Or ever! The headlines have made me angry, because I know they’re false. But, technically, no lies were told.
Shit. It must be hell being famous! I get a sudden longing for Berlin, those dark underground clubs where things happen behind the scenes and no one cares who or what you are outside those heavy club doors. But even if that’s true, you always gotta wake up the next day and face the reality of life. There’s no stepping out of life itself...
Stories about “Blazing Romance” are gone. Today’s news is hotter, much hotter, more likely to sell papers or ad space. And even though there were no granulated pictures of me with my lips half-open and my eyes half-closed on those sites, I actually find myself wishing there were. Because if there were, then Deck would be off the hook, the heat would be on me and not him. And at least the statements would be semi-true, or at least less scandalous!
Vikki comes out the bedroom, feet shuffling, and semi-stumbles onto a stool at the kitchen counter. She picks up the coffee I made for her and tries to take a sip. “God, I feel awful.” She slurps it loudly and then puts the mug back down, looks up at me. “What’s up with you?”
“It’s nothing. Gossip.”
Her eyes squint. “About your man?”
My man? Yeah, I guess he is... “Yeah.”
“And, is it true?”
I shake my head. “Well, actually, yes, but...also no.”
“It wouldn’t be gossip if— Oh, God my head hurts!” Her hand goes up to it, rubs her hair. She looks up at me again. “Hey, uhm, how much did I...er...tell you last night?”
My hand pauses on its way to my Sexy Movers coffee mug. It’s actually Vikki’s usual mug, but it was the first one I grabbed out the cupboard for myself this morning. There’s a picture of Skate on it. Tax expense.
I look at her, realizing she really has no clue what she told me. “Uhm, everything?”
“Define...everything.”
“You basically told me you wanted to be a housewife. Skate’s housewife.”
She shuts her eyes. “Oh, fuck, that’s embarrassing.”
“I thought it was quite cute.”
“You would, Miss Romance Head in The Clouds.”
I chuckle. It’s true, I have been the more “sensitive” one of the two of us over the years. Vikki has always been such a bad-ass. “Well, you made me realize that there’s no sense to love, so you might as well just roll with it and just try and be happy with it.”
Her lips curl up. “Isn’t that the fuckin truth.”
“So what you gonna do? About Skate, I mean.”
She sips more coffee, looks up at the latest abstract splatter she’s purchased that almost covers her entire living room wall. She holds the cup up, blows at its steam. “I don’t freakin know. He...doesn’t seem to be too interested in... What’s that word you loser-romantics always use? You know, the one where you give up all your rights concerning screwing any man you want to just because you feel like it?”
I shrug, not knowing the answer.
In a mock gesture of surprise and realization, she snaps her fingers. “Commitment. That’s the word!”
“Ha-ha,” I say sarcastically.
“Well, Skate doesn’t seem to...ever consider it.”
“Have you spoken to him about it?”
She shakes her head ruefully, drops her chin a little. “I’ve tried. And, being completely honest, I also haven’t tried hard enough. I didn’t want to come across as... Fuck that hurts! ...as clingy. I didn’t want to...scare him away.”
I realize just how serious this is. Girl’s got it bad for my man Skate. I mean bad. “Wow.” I sip loudly at my coffee, totally speechless as to what else to say.
“Yeah, fuckin wow. I’m...Christ...I’m such a sop these days. And the worst is I can’t go spread my legs for the sexiest dude that walks into a bar to make me feel better because... Well, I just can’t. That Vikki’s gone. She’s been gone for a long time.”
“Wow.”
“Damn straight wow. I sound like you used to sound when you first met Deck. ‘Oh my, Vikki, I loooooove him. I looooove him!’”
“Hey, that’s mean!”
“Yeah, it is. And what did I get in return for laughing at you? The same shit. I tell you, it’s freaking Karma.” Vikki never has an accent when she’s not upset or when she’s not trying to impress anyone. She never has an accent when she’s talking the Straight Dope, talking from her heart.
“How does he feel?”
“Who frickin knows what he feels! Skate’s a mystery. He works well, plays football well over at his semi-pro gig, drinks well, and...” She looks up at me coyly. “...you know, does that...well.”
I know.
“But he doesn’t...talk well, Blaze. Talking upsets him. He shuts down, says, ‘Let’s deal with that later, babe,’ y’know. Then he kisses me. And a kiss becomes something else, and then his hand slides down and... By that time, of course, I’m horny as hell and sliding and ready for him and...so I drop it. It happens every time.” She pauses for a second, but I can tell she wants to say more. She puts her coffee down, looks up at me. “And that was fine, Blaze. That was fine for years, you know. But lately, well, I’ve been getting a little...scared. Maybe it was when I turned thirty, although it didn’t happen on that day as such. But...hell, I do want kids all of a sudden. I do want to take my little one over to Pier Six or Cobble Hill and have him (or her) play in the dirt and jump on the swing and...” Her chest rises slowly as she inhales, holds it, then exhales.
“That’s why you never pushed the music so hard, isn’t it?”
She smiles, sighs, wraps her hand around her own I Love You Myself mug. “I love music, Blaze, love it with all my heart. I’ll play it forever. I’ll do gigs from here to the West Coast even. But I won’t let go of something this close until I know it’s dead in the water. It’s like looking at gold, and being able to reach it if you just work a little harder at it. But the gold is there. You just have to stretch a little further out to get it! It’s not pie in the sky or something, y’know. I mean, it’s there, you can see it! Am I making sense?”
I nod.
“And, well, until you grab it and know within yourself that it really is gold or that it’s just fool’s gold, you don’t go chasing that Pie in the Sky. Skate, and being a mom, and all that mushy crap I’ve always been against, that’s my gold. Music is my Pie in the Sky.
“But...well...” She sighs. “...almost five years later...you know? Four years eight months later! I’m starting to give up on the gold a little. It’s starting to lose its luster. I’m in this jail cell with my guitar and the drums and my voice, and the gold is on the sheriff’s table and I’ve been stretching out trying to grab it from behind the bars, my fingers sometimes even touching it! But five years is a long time to be stretching out for it. And...well...maybe I’ve screwed things up, babe. Maybe I’ve held on too long. Maybe it was a mistake.”
Silence.
“Vik, you have to get him to talk about it. You can’t let him...y’know...turn you on and then you shut your mouth! You have to pull through and actually force that conversation. Maybe even...hold back on the goods if you know what I mean.”
Her face pinks up, and she rolls her eyes. “He turns me on a lot, Blaze. I mean, a-fucking-lot!”
“Vikki, focus!” My own skin has warmed, thinking of how Deck does the same to me. Especially now! Especially since all that veneer of his—the human body, the shell, the husk!—looks so much better since he’s moved into pro sports. “Damn! Now you’re making me forget my train of thought.”<
br />
“See?” She points a finger at me. “It’s not so easy!”
I start laughing, she starts laughing. After a while: “Enough! No, stop laughing, Vik!” I laugh more. “No, wait! Look...look.... Look!” She looks. “You have to get him to talk to you. You can’t let go of your dreams like this, Vik. You just can’t.”
“You made it. You left your man and you made it.”
I think of Laz, of empty sex, of having nothing more to satisfy me than the thought, Close your eyes, and think of him, think of That Other Man; and then, daydreaming...during the act...of That Other Man and, finally, climaxing, eyes closed, legs wrapped tightly around a work of art, but nevertheless being disappointed when I opened my eyes. Because, for that stinging second, for that endless moment of ultimate tension before the bursting release, I believed it was That Other Man...
That is no life to lead.
I think of seeing the money in my bank account increase healthily, buying my first car. And I think of the emptiness I still felt despite that.
Emptiness. That’s what my life, my success, my “Breaking Up With Declan” has given me.
I think of how the months rolled by like tepid water, merging into years, one indiscernible from the other for its monotony.
Worst of all, I think of how the music became a job. At first it had been an escape, a moment of hope, three hours of ecstasy in a lonely world. But eventually life caught up. The life outside the club doors had too many hours in it, too many cloudy European skies, too many moments of sadness to be overridden by the joy I’d felt inside the club, behind the turntables, bringing supposed joy and happiness to thousands of people below me.
I remember feeling utterly miserable inside my own, lonely, wasted heart.
Yeah, I “made it” alright. Made it good and fuckin solid.
“I didn’t make it,” I tell Vikki, and my voice is so raucous, so full of pain, that she doesn’t fight me on it.
“You didn’t?”
I shake my head, mouth the word, No. Because I can’t say the word out loud. I feel the thrash behind my eyes. What a waste, what a sorry, horrid waste of four miserable years.
Need Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy Book Three) Page 24