Kissing Bridge 01 – 01 – Tin Man's Dance

by MK Schiller

  He looked away from me, and turned his gaze downward to the floor. “I wish you the best of luck, Lilly.”

  The way he said my name made me wish for a longer name with more syllables.

  “It’s a long shot.”

  “If it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth doing, right?”

  “Right.”

  I turned away when they announced Colton Keyes. We’d practically missed the entire opening act.

  “Excited?”

  “I’ve been a fan since I heard his first song.”

  “Do you have a crush on him?” The question had an edge to it.

  I shrugged. “He’s cute.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” he said dryly. I shifted, teetering close to falling off his lap.

  Colton started in on a song right away. It was one of the few faster songs on his list. The screaming girls beside us all rushed toward the stage. The reset of the audience stood too. Finally, everyone was standing as the usher predicted. Everyone except us. People cocooned us on all sides. It felt surreal. People surrounded us, yet we were all alone. “Why don’t you lean back, Lilly?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, even as I started leaning back.

  “Hey, do you smell something burning?” he asked, sniffing.

  I sniffed too. “No, why?”

  “Because I believe you said you’d only sit on my lap if this place burned down and the chair made of ice.”

  I laughed nervously, torn between the unfamiliar feelings he caused and the need to be closer to him. “That’s not quite right. I said I wouldn’t sit here even if that happened.”

  “Got it.” After another song had passed, I felt him shift a bit.

  “Am I too heavy for you?”

  “You’re light as a feather, but you’re sitting so rigid that my spine is having sympathy pains for yours. You can’t be comfortable like that.”

  “I’m as comfortable as someone can be while being humiliated.”

  Hutch went stiff with my words, and in his face, I saw a gamut of expressions from disappointment to hurt. I immediately regretted what I’d said. The sentence had tumbled out of my mouth without the consent of my head. I’d never been a social person, hence the reason I attended the concert alone, but I wasn’t hurtful either. It was a defense mechanism against whatever powerful magnetism he possessed.

  “You can get up, Lilly.”

  “Why? I want to sit.”

  “And you should.”

  “I’m fine, Hutch, really I am.”

  He clasped my hips and moved me off the chair. “I’m not.”

  I stood and turned to him. Hutch smiled, but it was the saddest smile I’d ever seen. He leaned in close to my ear, his warm breath stimulating all the butterflies. “I never meant to humiliate you. It seems I’ve forgotten my manners somewhere. I should go find them. It was a pleasure meeting you, and I sincerely apologize for my lack of honor.” He gestured to the seat. “The seat belongs to you. Goodbye, Lilly.”

  I watched him take the steps toward the exit. “Hutch?” I called, but the music drowned me out.

  The seat felt surprisingly cold and empty. It took about fifty seconds before I stood up and rounded the steps myself. Breathless by the time I caught up to him, I screamed his name. He paused, standing halfway between the lobby and the exit doors.

  “Hutch,” I whispered this time, silently pleading with him to stop.

  He slowly turned back toward me. My steps were brisk, my footing more sure than my feelings. I paused a few feet from him, hoping he’d close that gap between us. “We can share the seat. You don’t have to leave.”

  His steps back were cautiously measured as if a sinkhole might suddenly appear between us. We could hear the music floating out from the auditorium. The guitar riff was very familiar. The first notes of Finding My Way Home surrounded us.

  “This is my favorite song,” he said, removing his hat. His fingers raked through his thick mane.

  “Me too.”

  He tucked a strand of loose hair behind my ear. “Lilly, would you do me the honor of a dance?”

  I looked around. The vendors were set up, and a few people loitered in the lobby, but once more, we were invisible…or maybe only visible to each other.

  I put my arms over his broad shoulders and stood on my tiptoes. “The honor is mine.”

  “I’m not a professional, but I promise not to step on your feet.”

  I laughed, laying my head against his rock-hard chest, surprised how comfortable I was. “I trust you,” I said, realizing the words were completely honest even if they weren’t exactly logical. Whatever spell he cast, I wanted it to last.

  As a tall girl with a larger-than-normal build for a dancer, it was difficult to find partners. Hutch and I fit well though. We moved to the song, silent except for the beating of our hearts, which created their own melody.

  “Thank you,” he whispered so softly I thought I imagined it.

  “For what?”

  “For this.”

  I caressed the back of his neck until I felt the chain tucked into his shirt. I traced it, pulling it from his shirt. My eyes widened seeing the dog tags with his name. “You’re in the military?”

  “A Marine. My contract’s over though.”

  The guilt invaded me like a tidal wave. He said he’d been through a lot to get to this concert, too, and here I acted like a child, throwing a tantrum about the seating arrangement. “If I had known, I would have given you the seat.”

  “Exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Everyone who finds out wants to do something for me. I’ve had people offer to fix my car or buy my meal. It’s nice, it really is, but I signed up for it. No one forced me.”

  “I think people just want to show support wherever they can, Hutch.”

  “There are charities for that. I am not a charity.” It was evident he was a very proud man. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m honored to have served, but I just want to live my life now.”

  A tear stung my eye. How did he make me do that? He tilted my chin. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m a lucky man.”

  “You are?” I asked, hoping my voice didn’t crack.

  “I’m dancing with a beautiful girl, aren’t I?”

  I laughed, patting his chest. “I know what that’s like in a way.”

  “You’ve danced with a very beautiful girl? Tell me more and spare no details.”

  “Very funny, I meant about how you feel. I don’t usually tell people this, at least not right after I meet them, but my parents died in a car accident right after I turned fifteen.”

  “I’m sorry, Lilly.”

  “It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”

  “Where did you live after that?”

  “With my grandma until she passed away. Then there was no one, and I went into foster care until I aged out of the system.”

  He frowned, his hold on me tightening. “Foster care? Did they treat you well?”

  “Yes, I mean they were decent, but I wasn’t kidding myself. They liked the paycheck more than me. But the reason I’m telling you this is so when I tell you I get it you know it’s true. People had a constant need to make me smile or help me get over the loss of my parents, but they didn’t understand that I just needed time. I didn’t want to get over it. I wanted to be sad for a long time. I needed to be. I had to mourn in my own way.”

  “That’s exactly right. Everyone wants to call it PTSD or depression. Can’t a man just be sad without it being a disease?”

  “I think so.”

  The last note sounded. Colton’s next song was much faster, but we still swayed against each other. I never talked about my parent’s death, especially not to strangers, but somehow Hutch didn’t seem like a stranger. Not anymore.

  “They would be very proud of you…your parents.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  “My mother danced with the New York Ballet compan
y, but she had to give it up.”

  “Why?”

  “Her partner dropped her, and she injured her femur. My dad was her physical therapist. That’s how they met. She never danced again. I guess their story was a romantic tragedy if there ever was one.” What was I doing? It was as if he’d broken a damn inside of me. I didn’t admit these things to people. I carried a façade that I regularly checked for chips and cracks.

  “I’m a realist not a romantic, but even I think that’s more romantic than tragic.”

  “I suppose.”

  I leaned my head against his chest. There was something so emotionally pure about being in his arms that I couldn’t pinpoint when our feet stilled. We simply embraced each other. I stood on my tippy toes and kissed his cheek. His hands tangled through my hair. I trailed kisses until I found his mouth. When he kissed me back, my knees weakened. He tightened his grip on me. His kiss, soft and tender had an urgency to it as if he needed the connection. I lost myself in the moment. For the first time in my life, I didn’t mind the idea of being lost.

  The press of something hard against my waist stilled me. He pulled back immediately and shot me an apologetic look. He put his hat back on and turned the bill low, covering his eyes.

  “I should go,” he said, bowing slightly. “Thank you for the dance and your company, Miss Franklin.”

  Go? No. No. No! I didn’t want this night to end. I had come here for a concert, but whatever craziness was happening between us wasn’t something I’d give up. In fact, I wanted to surrender to it.

  I clasped his arm. “Don’t leave.”

  “There’s only one seat, and it belongs to you.”

  “I’m willing to share. Please sit with me, Hutch.”

  He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t resist when I took his hand in mine and led him back inside.

  I took my place on his lap, and this time I did lean back. He put his arms around me. Colton finished one of the few fast-paced songs he had. I shifted, moving to the music. “Stop that, Lilly,” Hutch said in a commanding voice.

  “Why?” I turned, narrowing my eyes at him.

  “Because of this.” He jutted his hips, grinding his erection into me. In the diminished light, I could see the vibrancy of his eyes and the wicked smirk on his lips that bordered a space between sexy and menacing.

  “What if I don’t?”

  “Then I’ll have to retaliate,” he said, moving my hair to the side and kissing my neck. It caused an electric spark to travel down my spine. His lips were the perfect combination of soft and firm against my bare skin. “I don’t want to get arrested for public indecency. I’m a weak man in your presence, Lilly Franklin.”

  I was about to say something when Colton Keyes got on the microphone, stealing my attention from Hutch’s dark brown eyes. I sigh, frustrated by the interruption.

  “I wanted to thank y’all for coming out tonight. I especially want to express gratitude to my big brother, Hutch, who’s just returned from Iraq.”

  I spun around so fast, my hair whipped Hutch’s face. He gives me a sideways smile, almost nervous. His heart beat so hard, I felt it over his shirt.

  “He always tells me how proud he is of me, but the truth is I’m honored to be his brother,” Colton continues. “I owe whatever success I have to him. He saved my life more than once. He actually helped me write Making My Way Home, too. He always believed in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself.” His voice chokes. “Especially then.”

  Hutch looked uncomfortable as the whole audience applauded.

  “And I have to admit, I’m a little jealous since you’ve had this beautiful girl in your lap for most of the show.” Colton continued his speech, and everyone cheered and laughed, but I drowned it out.

  “Colton Keyes is your brother?”

  Hutch nodded. “Guilty.”

  “Is Keyes a stage name?”

  “No, legally we’re half-brothers…different fathers. But he’s my bro in every way.”

  “You could have watched from backstage.”

  Hutch smiled, twisting a strand of my hair around his finger. “It gets crowded back there, so I prefer it out here. Besides, I wouldn’t have gotten to sit with you. I definitely had the best seat in the house.”

  I turned around and focused my attention on Colton’s next song. My stomach churned processing every little detail of this evening and the enigmatic boy I met. We don’t speak, but I’m still on his lap, the contact almost too much…and yet, too little at the same time. Colton finished with an encore of Making My Way Home.

  “You wrote this song with him?” I asked, keeping my eyes locked on the stage.

  “Not exactly. He took lines from the letters I wrote home during my tour. He added his own stuff to make it sound better and wrote the song that way.”

  “I danced to this song at my recital. I choreographed the steps and chose the music.”

  “Why do you like it?”

  I swallowed and turned in his direction. “When my parents died, I lost a lot of hope. And then after my grandmother...well, I thought I had no real home.”

  His eyes darkened. “That had to be difficult.”

  “It was. I kept thinking if I just had a little more hope, I could make it through each day. I prayed for it.”

  “Me too, Lilly. I know how you feel, but who needs hope when they have strength? You have plenty of that.”

  It was hard to believe how easily I shared the most intimate details of my life with him. I suppose pain recognizes pain. It was like two turbulent waves crashing and quieting.

  “I’ve always wondered what the meaning of the Tin Man was in the song. You know, when he says A Tin Man in disguise, ruled by bad decisions and lousy ambitions.”

  “That’s Colton’s nickname for me.”

  “Why?”

  Hutch took a deep breath. “I have a few ideas, but he won’t tell me for sure.”

  “What is your idea?”

  “Maybe it’s cause I’m really rusty with my game.”

  “Your game?”

  He smiles a boyish smile. “Yeah, my swagger is stiff. See that right there? That was a weird sentence.”

  I cupped my mouth, trying not to laugh.

  “It’s okay, you can laugh.”

  “You mean this isn’t the way you usually pick up girls, getting them to sit on your lap?”

  “No. I swear I’m no creepy Santa Claus.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  The song finished. Everyone clapped and gave a standing ovation. Colton deserved one, but Hutch and I continued to sit, staring at each other. A chant for another encore stared. I prayed Colton would. I wasn’t ready to leave. But he didn’t. The auditorium started to clear out.

  “Want to meet Colton?” he asked.

  If he asked before the concert, I would have squealed like a pig, but now I just nodded. I did want to meet Colton Keyes, but more so, I didn’t want to say goodbye to James Hutchinson.

  Chapter 5

  Lilly

  As everyone headed toward the exit doors, Hutch led me to the backstage entrance, his hand on my lower back. Everyone in Colton’s band seemed to know Hutch, giving him fist bumps and those complicated handshakes guys did with each other. There was an awkward moment when Colton’s drummer let out a low whistle.

  “Did you bring us a groupie? We’re pretty full up, but I’ll make room for this pretty thing.”

  I’d never heard a man growl before, but that’s what Hutch did. “This is a warning, but if you say anything else to her or about her, I’ll make sure it’ll be your last words for a good, long time.”

  “He was joking, Hutch,” I said, pulling his arm.

  “Yeah, just kidding around, man,” the drummer confirmed, holding his hands up in a surrender gesture.

  “I missed the punch line,” he replied, but thankfully, he took a deep breath and kept walking.

  “Hey bro,” Colton greeted, giving Hutch a huge bear hug. “Did you like the show?” Colton
turned toward me, his pierced eyebrow raising. “Or were you too distracted?”

  “It was a good show, man. You didn’t need to share your spotlight with me, but what you said was nice.” His smile brightened as he turned to me, “This is Lilly. We both had the same seat number so we decided to share.”

  Colton shook my hand. “I’m sorry about the mix-up.” He handed me a card. “This is my manager’s information. The next time you want to see a show, call her up, and she’ll make sure you get a good seat on me.”

  “Thank you. I hope I can come to another show.”

  “Why couldn’t you?” Colton asked.

  “I might be traveling for the next few years.” Colton looked from me to Hutch. “But this seat was just fine,” I added. I smiled at Hutch. “No complaints.”

  Colton’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sure we’ll hit a city you’re in. We’re gonna be on the road a ton this year and next.”

  “Are you planning on a European tour?” I asked.

  “Europe, eh?”

  “Lilly’s a dancer and she’s auditioned for an international company,” Hutch explained.

  “Nothing is for sure,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Hutch said. “You’re very good.”

  I laughed. “How would you know?”

  If I hadn’t been looking so close I would have missed the slight way his smile faltered. “You forgot about our little dance already?”

  I shake my finger at him. “That’s right.”

  “Am I that forgetful?” He asked, the smirk making an appearance again.

  Something told me I would remember this night for a long time to come and not just because it was my first concert. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  Colton cleared his throat. We turned as he waved his hands between us. “Hey guys, still here. Did y’all forget me? Colton Keyes? Indie rock star? Hot as fuck younger brother.”

  “How could we forget? There’s hardly room back here with your big head.”

  Colton ignored Hutch’s ribbing. “To answer your question, Lilly, a Euro tour is not in the works, but you never know. So how long will you be gone exactly?”