Our Song

by Savannah Kade

  After the second time a man had looked up from the kids to see Kelsey standing there in full Jeannie gear and asked her if she needed some candy, too, Kelsey’s arms crept around her waist. The kids were already hopping and skipping their way to the next house, so he leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “Why did you wear it, if you’re uncomfortable in it?”

  Her head turned when she spoke to him and he nearly missed what she was saying, he’d caught the scent of her shampoo and some wild soap or perfume, and his body reacted without much decision from his brain.

  “—the only thing left in my size. It’s Halloween and the stores are cleaned out.”

  He nodded. He had no stake on her, and he knew it. Every time he’d thought he might have caught some interest from her, something else came along and made him think he was wrong. Like now, here she was walking down the street in a sheer top and gauze harem pants that he could see her legs through. There was some trick of the fabric that no matter how hard you looked you couldn’t see her ass. And he was trying. He was certain everyone else was going to try, too.

  She had to see she had the perfect opportunity to let him know if she was interested.

  And she didn’t.

  He took a deep breath. She deserved to be happy. Tonight was as great a time as any for her to meet someone. He grabbed her wrists as they snaked across her bare belly again, and pulled them to her side. “Put your arms down, Kelse. If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”

  The tour bus seemed so cool when it pulled up on the busy street in front of the condo. The driver was making the inaugural pick-up. Brenda warned them that this wasn’t going to happen again, from now on they’d have to get their own butts to the bus on time. His had been the last stop, and TJ, Alex and Craig were all gathered at the front window waving to him. Then they all spilled out onto the sidewalk to admire the side of the bus.

  The Wilder logo was under the front windows, and on the back half of the bus was that same photo Kelsey had doctored of the four of them. She and Allie had come out to see him off and he carried Allie around showing it all off.

  When he got back around to the sidewalk, Kelsey was hugging each of the guys in turn, and JD got himself in last, twirling her around and enjoying the feel of her in his arms far more than he ought to.

  He promised to call every day, and then the guys were all on the bus, whooping it up and opening beers. Then they hit the road for real. They played Memphis that night, at a small amphitheater that filled as they played. Amped up, they’d happily boarded the bus before the rest of the acts were done and headed off for Jefferson City, Missouri. They played some county fair then played Kansas City with the rest of the tour that night.

  They learned real fast how to sleep on the bus. The thing actually had bedrooms for each of them—though ‘bedroom’ was stretching it. There were four three-and-a-half-by-eight-foot cubbies. The upside was that they came with soundproof walls and sliding doors. The room kept out most noise. If only it was also motion-proof.

  The beds folded up into the wall. When it was down, it was comfortable enough, once you got past the fact that it was suspended by metal wires bracing from the outer corners to the wall. After the first night, when it didn’t drop him despite all the bouncing, JD got to trusting it.

  On top of everything, adding to the surreal quality of the whole trip, Kelsey was no longer their only groupie. Hot chicks were swarming the stage and hanging out afterwards waiting for them. JD figured that most of them were after anyone who walked by. In his head, he heard Kelsey’s voice telling his mother that ‘musicians are sexy as hell.’

  He’d always thought it was the money and the fame that made them attractive, but Kelsey must be right. Wilder sure wasn’t famous, and he didn’t see anywhere near as much money here as he had as a stock analyst. When they came off stage they were tired and sweaty, yet there were the girls.

  And the guys indulged. Craig went through condoms faster than water bottles—and managed that even within the ground rules that only serious attachments got onto the tour bus. Serious, like “your wife” serious. Craig had asked for that rule, seeing early on that ‘women were nucking futs’ as he put it.

  JD had never entertained the thought that he’d be ‘swamped’ in women. Then, in Vegas, they got panties thrown on stage, and it was all JD could do to not stop the music and ask what the hell was going on. They sold their single by the fistful, so apparently someone was actually listening to the music. But he felt he’d stepped into the twilight zone, and he desperately wanted to go home.

  That feeling got even worse, when the beat behind him stopped for a moment, and he turned to find Alex unwrapping something red and lacy from one drum stick. Alex then motioned to the girl who had thrown the panties to wait on the side of the stage. She happily obliged and jumped up and down like Allie for the remainder of the set.

  When they finished, to whoops and cat-calls, Alex ran off and gathered the girl into a lip-lock the likes of which JD didn’t think he’d ever seen. Alex and the pretty brunette then disappeared.

  In fact, JD was the only one on the bus when the call came later that night. Alex said he would fly in to Phoenix in the morning to meet up with them. JD scrubbed his hand over his face, and called Kelsey.

  “Wow, it’s late.” Her voice was an anchor in what was becoming a crazy storm.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “You didn’t. I was up.”

  She was wondering what was going on with him, he could hear it in her voice. He’d already called earlier today and talked to the kids after school until he’d lost the signal.

  “We just played a casino. It was crazy.”

  “Where are you?”

  She knew he was in Vegas, and he knew she wanted the specifics. “I’m standing in the parking lot behind Harrah’s. I can’t get back on the bus; I can’t deal with that. We’ve been given another,” he looked at his watch, “two hours to go drinking and gambling. And whoring.”

  “So why are you standing in the heat in the parking lot?”

  “It’s not that hot.”

  She waited him out and he gave in. “I’m a Dad. I make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the morning. I pack juice boxes in my daughter’s lunch. I walk to kindergarten twice a day. The other guys, they’re used to this. Craig and Alex are out there partying. I just can’t handle this touring anymore. . .”

  “You have to do it.” Her tone of her voice was soothing, but the steel he heard under it was not.

  “I don’t want to let the guys down, but I don’t really know that I can.”

  “Because this is what you wanted. You love being out on stage. It shows in your eyes, and in the way you hold yourself. You may not like this part of it, but you do like some of it. Enjoy that part. Besides, if you stop now what are you going to do? Be a stock analyst again?”

  He cringed.

  “This is the gateway to what you really want to do.” She lowered her voice as deep as she could. “This, too, shall pass.” She laughed. “So you ought to enjoy it while you have it.”

  “Thank you.” He breathed out.

  “So get your butt out there and drink and gamble, while you can. We’re fine here. We miss you, but we’re doing all right.”

  He smiled. “I’m so proud of you, too.” She’d said earlier that she had booked two new clients for family portraits, which she was making her mark by doing around town, rather than in a studio. He’d felt guilty about that. She didn’t have a studio because Wilder had her garage. But Kelsey was one of those people who made lemonade.

  There was a silence over the line, and while it didn’t seem to bother either of them, JD signed off and went off to do what she had told him. Tucking his cell phone into his pocket, he walked in through the grand double doors to Harrah’s.

  After wandering around the outer loop, following the wildly patterned carpet trail, for about half the casino, he spotted the blackjack tables. He hadn’t done this in forever. He
spent another ten minutes finding the cheapest table that he could, thinking back to when he’d been here for meetings, and testosterone demanded that he play hundred dollar minimums.

  He pulled out a couple of twenties. Seven hands later he’d doubled his money, and downed three of the drinks that just kept coming, when a tart blonde thing in something spandex sat down beside him.

  Her hand touched his arm in a way that was almost possessive, and she smiled an invitation, “You’re from that band that played tonight, aren’t you?”

  Chapter 23

  He sat with his head in his hands, elbows perched on spread knees while the whole place jostled and bounced with every little dent in the road, and JD felt his stomach turn over. He’d barely made the bus.

  If TJ hadn’t called when he did, missing the bus would have been the least of what was making him sick. He’d like to attribute it to the rum and cokes; he wasn’t sure how many he’d had. All he knew was that there was about a hundred dollars in Harrah’s chips in his pocket and Harrah’s was getting smaller in the distance with each passing second.

  TJ’s call had found him in the tart blonde thing’s room, about to do something he hadn’t thought through at all.

  His stomach rolled again.

  TJ was sitting on the floor, cross-legged in front of him. “It sounded like I interrupted something.”

  “You almost did.”

  Craig came out of the plumbed closet that was referred to as a ‘bathroom’ only because of the lack of more appropriate terminology. “Dude.” He shook his head at JD as though he’d caught his band mate stealing.

  “What!?” JD lifted his head too fast, but the liquor was going to swirl in his stomach regardless of what he did. “You guys have slept with every unattached female from here to Memphis.”

  Craig scratched his head and lit up a wicked grin, “They weren’t all unattached.”

  TJ laughed at that, and JD felt the world spin as the bus hit a pothole, or maybe another car.

  Still he ranted. “God! Alex didn’t even make the bus. He followed some chick who threw her lace thong on stage. Who are you to judge me? You both have fucked your way across America.”

  TJ’s voice was calm. He didn’t respond with the emotion that JD had laid out there. “And you haven’t.”

  The entire world came to a stop around him. His brain quit functioning, and his cells stilled.

  Somewhere in the fog he heard TJ and Craig’s conversation, Craig asking, “Is he finally going to admit—”

  “Give him a minute, sometimes he’s a little slow.”

  “Slow!? He should be institutionalized if he’s really this slow.”

  “Just about some things.”

  JD couldn’t participate, he was too busy watching all his carefully constructed denial crumble around him. He took the beating. “Oh, shit.”

  “There you have it!” TJ stood up, removing himself from JD’s direct line of sight. But JD didn’t raise his head, it was enough to watch Craig and TJ’s feet as they linked arms and square- danced in front of him.

  That only lasted a few turns, before Craig got down in front of his face. “You’ll feel better when you say it.”

  JD didn’t agree. His mouth didn’t work yet. He was still trying to keep breathing, and wondering how he could have lied to himself all this time.

  TJ joined in. “Come on, say it.”

  His chest didn’t expand all the way, but the lack of oxygen was almost welcome. He tried to work his mouth. Nothing came.

  TJ resumed his perch on the floor. “You gotta say it.”

  He finally found his voice. “I’m in love with her.”

  Craig let up a war whoop, startling the driver, who luckily only swerved a little. “There now, don’t you feel better?”

  “No, I really don’t.” JD shook his head. “You guys knew?”

  “Yup.” Craig smiled again, “Everyone else always figures it out first.”

  His heart knotted in his chest, dread spreading to all corners of him as a horrible thought took hold. “Does Kelsey know?”

  “I don’t think so.” TJ patted his shoulder.

  That was all he could process in one night. Placing his palms against his knees he pushed himself upright, “I’m going to bed.”

  “Sweet dreams!” Craig called to his retreating back, and JD heard them talking about him again as he shimmied his way down the narrow ‘hall’ to his room.

  “Will he be easier to live with now?”

  TJ answered. “Probably not.”

  JD ignored them and slid his ‘door’ open. Carefully he unfolded the bed, and climbed onto it before sliding the door closed. He had a sneaking suspicion that the bus had housed a female band before them. He was just too big to fit most of it.

  His thoughts swarmed and things emerged from the jumble. He hadn’t realized it until now, but he’d never truly been in love before. What a shame that this one was going to get wasted.

  He thought of her in his kitchen, telling his mother in the sweetest voice where to stick it. For a moment he wondered what she would have done if he’d kissed her then, like he’d wanted to. He’d almost gone in for the real thing, and had chickened out, instead kissing her forehead.

  He thought of sitting at the dining room table, and eating dinner, talking with the kids about their day at school, but this time knowing that she loved him back. That after the kids were in bed, they’d go off to their room. That she’d let him make love to her. That she’d want him to.

  He squelched the thought.

  He heard strains of the Dixie Chicks coming from the front common area. Apparently the rooms weren’t really soundproof. “Taking the Long Way” drifted back to him, and spoke to him on too many levels.

  He fought for sleep and found it. But he woke twice in a hot sweat only to find that his hands were not tangled in her hair and her mouth and naked body were not pressed against his.

  The third time he woke it was because the bus stopped. A loud roar, like a train bearing down on him, rattled the whole thing, and JD thought that might be a fitting end for him.

  He pushed the sliding black-out shade from the window just a touch, but it was still enough for the glare to blind him. Daylight. His night was over.

  He found jeans and haphazardly stepped into them. Figuring he looked about like he felt, he thought maybe the others would know to stay away.

  There were voices in the main room. Foolishly, he walked toward them.

  TJ and Craig were eating frosted flakes around the table they’d folded down. The bus shook again and JD realized they were at the airport. Then the driver opened the doors and Alex walked on followed by the girl from Vegas.

  TJ didn’t acknowledge her. “Hey, Alex, what’s JD’s problem?”

  Alex frowned, “What? That he’s in love with Kelsey?”

  “See?” TJ looked at him even as he shoved in another bite of frosted flakes.

  “Thank you.” JD was pissed that his unrequited love life was bigger news than the fact that Alex had brought the girl from Vegas onto the tour bus.

  Craig, at least, had the decency to point that out. “We agreed, ‘wives only’.”

  Alex grinned like a maniac. “I know. It’s all taken care of.” He held up his left hand, still interlocked with the girl’s. Both were sporting thick gold bands, hers with a sizeable diamond square in the center. “I want you all to meet Bridget.”

  “Holy shit!”

  JD wasn’t sure who said it. But the world had just gone to hell.

  They went back to Nashville by way of Arkansas. Bridget became a fixture on the bus, and Alex was clearly besotted. JD didn’t want to like her but it was hard not to. She said she’d never done anything like that before, and she’d lived in Vegas all her life. Even TJ asked, “Does that mean she’s never thrown her panties on stage before or that she’s never gone and married a musician on the spur of the moment before?”

  No one had an answer.

  JD called the hous
e at 6 p.m. The guys were on his case like white on rice, and if they had their way, he’d dial and say, “Good evening, good to hear your voice. Were you aware that I’m in love with you?”

  Luckily, the driver was off smoking, and right now JD was grateful for the man’s bad habits. Ben always had his ears open. He probably knew about Kelsey before last night, too.

  He sucked in a breath each time he heard a click on the line. But it was just the cell phone crossing the distance. The message came on in Allie and Daniel’s voices, and at least that made him smile. He listened to the whole thing, but didn’t leave a message. He went back to his speed dial and held down the next number, it went to her cell phone.

  That, in and of itself, was telling. Even TJ occupied only one speed dial button.

  She answered on the third ring. “JD!”

  “Hi.” He froze, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. His brain had no idea what to say to her. But Kelsey picked up the thread.

  “Ignore the background noise, remember Saturday’s soccer game got rained out? Well, the make-up game is tonight. Our kids are kicking butt.”

  A cheer went up in the background, and he smiled.

  She spoke to someone next to her, and then her voice gained clarity, “Where are you?”

  “Little Rock. On the bus, in a gravel parking lot behind an arena.”

  “A whole arena? That’s great.”

  “Yeah, we’re booked as fill-in’s tonight.”

  “Where are you tomorrow?”

  “I don’t begin to know. I miss you so much.”

  “We miss you, too.” Her tone was wistful, but he’d wanted I miss you, too.

  Another cheer swelled in the background, this time Kelsey joined in, before apologizing profusely for screaming in his ear.

  “It’s okay. It’s just good to hear your voice.” He stretched his jaw, figuring that he’d be deaf by thirty-five between that yell and the amps every night.

  “I’d put the kids on, but Allie won’t sit still and Andie and Daniel are out playing.”

  “That’s okay, just give them each a kiss for me, please. Goodnight.” And one for you, too. Again, he didn’t say it.