At least she’d be there Wednesday night. And she was glad that, if things didn’t turn out well, she’d be able to slink home and lick her wounds for a few days before she had to face him again.
She barely slept, tossing and turning, and eventually figured she ought to make her waking time useful. So she got up and started to pack. She was determined to get everything into two carry-on bags. Her purse would go into the second along with her usual flight entertainment: music, a book, a magazine, gum . . . she needed a list.
Around five a.m. she slid into the other side of the bed. The side nearest the door was covered with possible outfits for tomorrow. She had to be comfortable on the plane and in the concert, because there wouldn’t be time to change. And she had to look single and sexy, without looking slutty. She’d heard the guys around the table on several occasions, waiting until after the kids left, talking about this groupie or that one that had thrown herself at him.
Apparently there was a whole sub-culture of women who went after unknown bands, wanting to get there first. Kelsey guessed they were going for numbers. If you fucked enough starter-band guys, some of them would make it big and you could claim you’d nailed them when.
That gave her pause, and ruined her chances for falling asleep quickly. She didn’t want JD if he didn’t want her, or even if he just didn’t want her exclusively. She would have to remind herself of that repeatedly during the trip. She wasn’t sure when she fell asleep, but the alarm woke her at six forty-five.
Blinking and suddenly wide awake, Kelsey knew what she was facing today. She got the kids all ready, reminding them several times that Bethany would pick them up and that they were to do what Bethany told them and to mind their manners. She had to tell Allie three times that she’d be back tomorrow afternoon. Even Daniel got exasperated with his little sister. “She said, tomorrow afternoon.”
That was a good sign. It was another indicator that Daniel was slowly starting to turn into a kid. He had probably been even more traumatized by both Andy’s life and his death than anyone had realized. Kids who lashed out made their feelings clear to everyone. Kids who were quiet were easier to believe when they said they were okay.
Kelsey walked them to school, all three kids jumping and squealing about the two inches of white fluff that had fallen during the previous night. Daniel wanted to know why school was open.
She rubbed his head through her gloves and his knit Tennessee Titans hat, “Baby, it’s probably going to melt before noon. So you enjoy it now, okay?”
“All right.” He grumbled. The grumbling was good, too.
She gave both the big kids extra tight hugs, and watched them get into the building before she tugged Allie’s hand, leading her toward daycare. Allie hopped along, singing some little song that Kelsey didn’t register right away. After a minute she realized her daughter was working her elfin voice through Go To Bed Mad.
“Lovely.”
“Thank you!” Allie beamed, completely missing the dry tones in her mother’s voice.
She was great until Kelsey tried to leave her at daycare, then Allie pitched a fit. Normally she was pretty good about drop-off, but it would figure that today was a bad day, because she was leaving. Then again, that was probably why Allie had chosen today to have a fit. Kelsey gave her a second, and then third big hug and kiss, then told her daughter that she loved her and she’d be back tomorrow. She talked up Bethany, knowing that Allie would be excited about that. Then she walked out of the daycare with renewed respect for Andie, who watched her father leave for a week or longer with great manners.
That, of course, slid into a thought of JD. Kelsey missed him. And that slid into a thought of JD leaving, and that last leaving had been the best.
She set out what she was going to wear—the great jeans she had bought a while ago, a sweater that was sheer enough to be clingy and sexy, and fuzzy enough to be warm. It also had a great tendency to slip off her shoulder. Then she finally decided on some heels. Her feet might hurt, but she didn’t think she’d notice, so why the hell not?
With her bags waiting by the door and two hours to go, she crawled under the covers and attempted to sleep.
After several forced deep breaths she was at the Cornbread Festival with Wilder on stage. Then the band disappeared. Kelsey searched for them in the crowd, only to wind up face to face with JD.
The world melted away beyond them and his hands were in her hair, holding her so he could kiss her. As though she might try to get away. His mouth was hot and seeking, and she kissed him back, unconcerned that the rest of the world was gone. His lips molded to hers, putting pressure on her to open to him, and she did willingly. She felt his tongue invade her mouth the way he was invading her other senses, as he backed her against a brick wall of a nearby building, holding her there with his own body.
Reaching out, Kelsey grabbed him and pulled him closer, as though they might climb inside each other, fighting for dominance in the war their tongues were waging. He pressed against her, allowing her to feel how aroused he was, and she pressed back in a sign of acceptance. His hands left her hair, even as the kiss continued, and wandered briefly over her shoulders, tracing her ribs, and coming up under her breasts. He took the weight of her in his hands, her shirt having long since disappeared, and his thumbs grazed her.
Kelsey gasped for breath and sat bolt upright, staring in disbelief at the darkened room around her. In the next second her alarm beeped at her startling her again.
God, why couldn’t she have stayed asleep just a little longer? She’d been making love to JD at the Cornbread Festival.
Still, she hopped out of bed, noticing how warm she felt, and wondering if the covers had been too hot or if she had. She dressed and fussed, and finally pulled on her jacket, checked her tickets and headed out the door.
She drove to Bethany’s and traded cars, thanking the girl again. Then headed out to the airport. For a brief moment she wondered what in the hell she was doing.
When she remembered that he’d kissed her, really kissed her, Sunday morning before he left, she knew why she was here, and she got her feet walking toward the airport. The air was warmer and drier inside, and she breathed a sigh of relief, before relegating herself to waiting in various lines.
The plane was midsized and unidentifiable from any other. Finding her seat, she got as comfortable as she could, given that she was stuck on endless loop fantasies about her next door neighbor. She tried to sleep, but then decided against it; she always felt gummy when she woke up on a plane.
After several hours and several cans of coke, her ears started to pop, signifying that they had begun their descent. Although that didn’t last long—the pilot quickly informed them that they had entered a holding pattern as the weather was causing problems.
She’d come all this way—she couldn’t miss the show now, not for this. She tried to find some Zen, but only found her own stupidity. Of course there were weather problems, she was hovering over Minnesota in the dead of winter. What had she been thinking?
In that moment, she felt that last kiss slip through her fingers. As though, if she couldn’t get to JD here, there’d be no second chance.
Instead, she tried to have patience. She excused herself to the ladies’ room and did her make-up, at least they were making nice smooth circles around the arena in St. Paul. And then she buckled herself back in and waited again.
Finally, they touched down with more than the usual bumps but Kelsey didn’t care. She had her gear over her shoulder and was in the aisle early enough for the flight attendants to give her dirty looks. The car rental took forever as usual, and she finally drove off in a compact that wasn’t at all what she reserved.
Right after she got her seat adjusted in the tiny car, her cell phone rang. The faceplate displayed only two letters: JD. She turned on the radio and answered. “Hey!” And tried, desperately, to sound normal.
“Are you all right?”
“Oh, yeah.” She kept it short. She said s
he was in the car—which was true. And implied that she was around the corner from the house—which wasn’t. She told him she’d call back in a few minutes with the kids—which was a blatant lie. And promptly hung up on him.
She hightailed it to the theater about an hour away, freezing her ass off until she figured out where the heater button was, and thinking that her destiny was to not make it in time. But she didn’t give up, even after two wrong turns and a parking spot that guaranteed her heels would get ruined in the sludge that blanketed the lot. Kelsey no longer cared.
She pulled her cash and ID from her purse, stuffed it in her pockets, and headed toward the lights.
With the weather what it was, and the fact that the show should have already started, there were more people selling tickets than buying, and she got one on the cheap. Which was cool, because it was the only thing on this trip that had been cheap. She even managed to snag a pit ticket, which would be fun while Wilder was out playing, but the main group was one that she wasn’t overly fond of. Maybe she could find the guys after their set and hang out with them. JD said they usually had a few hours before the bus took off. That was if they hadn’t already played and disappeared.
She hit the ticket line, and when it scanned, she slipped into the next line to get wanded for metal objects. The security was worse than the airport, and she wondered if she could get cancer from all the scanning.
She wasn’t stopped again, and managed to beeline past the long lines for beer and liquor, hoping that she hadn’t entirely missed the guys. The place was only starting to fill, and there was an announcement on the Trinitron that the whole show had been delayed an hour, because the main band was on a flight that was delayed. Kelsey almost laughed out loud. She knew what they were caught in, and she didn’t think an hour was going to cut it.
She found an empty seat in the first row, thinking she’d move when the owner showed. But after ten minutes she was bored, and didn’t even have anything to do with her hands. She’d left the cell phone in the car, so she couldn’t call and say she was here. And she didn’t think she had what it took to talk her way backstage. There was a bleached-blonde with deep-dark roots and almost no clothes trying that very thing with one of the security guys. She was not succeeding. Kelsey wasn’t up for that.
She wandered out to the ladies’ room, then into one of the long lines, where she could get a glass of white wine. It turned out to be a small plastic cup, and while it was in fact white wine, it was hardly what she’d choose. She returned to the seat that wasn’t hers and nursed the wine, almost falling asleep about half an hour into the cup.
Just as she polished off the wine, she heard music in the theater. Within a minute, a local radio DJ walked out onto the stage to welcome everyone and thank them for waiting.
In that short time, the pit became about five times as full as it had been earlier. The radio announcer called a few seat numbers at random until he had a winner, and he gave out a T-shirt for the station and tickets to the next concert they were hosting. Then he got down to it.
“All right, ladies and gentlemen, our first act is backstage warming up. And if you’ve been listening to your radios, then you already know and love these first guys. We’ve been getting such wonderful responses to their first single we just had to have them here tonight.”
Kelsey smiled. She felt a personal note of pride at the warm welcome the guys received, even though the announcer was slick as oil and paid to say whatever made the crowd happy.
“All the way from Nashville, Tennessee. Give it up for Wilder!” He disappeared as the lights all went out. The crowd went nuts, and the pit roared to life.
Kelsey felt she was being swept up in the tide. She heard the opening chords of Here and Gone, Again. As the lights drifted up during the first few notes, they were directed mostly on the stage, even though there was still some light floating over the audience, as an acknowledgement to the fact that the whole crowd hadn’t shown yet.
At the end of the song, TJ spoke to the people he could barely see. He did the usual thank-the-city for coming out. He asked if they were ready for another one, and the guys burst into Go to Bed Mad. The pit had started with the usual standing, then maybe swaying, with the slower Here and Gone, Again, but now they started really dancing. It was clear from the mouths moving that a decent number of them were familiar with the song.
Kelsey couldn’t keep her jaw shut. She scanned the crowd, dancing along with them despite feeling a little lost. When she looked up again, JD frowned at her, just a bit. It took her a moment to realize he thought she looked like herself, he just didn’t believe that it was her. He leaned over to TJ to sing the main line, then casually wandered back to her side of the stage, and looked again.
But the song ended, and TJ announced another, leaving her no time to really communicate with JD while he was up there. Oh well, she sighed and sang along. She knew this one by heart. No one else in the audience did. She felt just a little superior for it.
Again JD wandered to her side of the stage, scanning the audience, which was clearly hard to do by the expression on his face. Only then did she think of what it was like to be up there. The lights were in his face, and the guys might never know she’d been here tonight if she didn’t find a way backstage. So she pressed her way toward the front, and she smiled up at JD as he passed by.
His expression as he hit the last chord was fleeting, but clearly dumbfounded. He got it together, giving no acknowledgement to her other than the look of surprise that had crossed his features. As he turned, she saw that he mouthed something to TJ who was sweet-talking the audience again.
Kelsey decided to pay attention.
“This one is new, and . . .” Whatever JD had mouthed stopped him from what he was about to say. Smooth as silk, he changed tacks. “Well, we need to know what y’all think of it, so afterwards I’ll ask and you ladies out there let me know.” He grinned something wicked, and laughed at his brother while JD and Craig both changed guitars.
Kelsey was positively riveted to the spot. She hadn’t had a band in her garage for too long. They had a new song, and she hadn’t heard it. In a few moments the guitars joined each other for what was obviously soft and low. The drums were all but non-existent in the background, and TJ started with eyes closed and mic-stand clutched like a lover. He sang about what I am. A man, a friend, a shoulder to cry on . . . Then the I am again, but this time, scared, alone, in need . . .
After a while she realized that the song had no true chorus, just a repeating but subtly changing melody, with intricate but soft guitar work. And it had TJ, who milked the love song for every last drop. Damn, but the man could give Sinatra a run for his money. By the end he had every female in the crowd in love with him, and anyone who straggled was brought to heel with the last line, sung almost entirely without back-up, and played for everything it was worth. “In the end, all I am . . . is yours.”
Oh, yeah, as she looked around she wouldn’t have been surprised to see crying women throwing themselves at the stage. No wonder they had all those groupies. Any woman would screw the man who sang her that one. Especially TJ. He needed to sing a song about beating his wife just to get back down to where the human males were.
While his brother and Craig changed guitars back to the Fenders both men preferred, he asked the ladies what they thought. Kelsey nearly went deaf at the screams, and she shook her head. When she looked up JD was laughing at her. It only lasted a moment, before he looked away. He was on stage, he couldn’t just hop down and have a conversation with her.
They went through several other songs before TJ announced that it was the last one of the night. This one Kelsey knew Craig had written, and ended on one strong note, both vocally and instrumentally. Then the lights went down. For a moment she was in the dark, and aside from the shuffling and the sounds and smells around her, she was just alone.
It was over. Wilder was gone. All of twenty seconds later, the lights came back on, almost full bore, but the curt
ain was down, and any sign of the guys had disappeared. The radio announcer came back out, thanking the crowd, asking what they thought. Again there was the usual screaming, but Kelsey wasn’t caught up in it. She figured that the guys had seen her. But maybe they didn’t know how to get her. Maybe they thought she’d make her way back stage. She figured they might be calling her cell phone right now, but she’d left it in her car.
There was nothing holding her here, and she had cell numbers for each of the guys. Surely, she could get a hold of one of them and see if there was any chance to . . . hang out? grab dinner? at least to say hello face to face. The announcer’s voice caught her from behind as she was halfway up the stairs, “They’ll be signing autographs in the lobby, and selling copies of their album in just a few minutes.”
Kelsey smiled. With a new spring in her step, she bounded up the carpeted stairs, hoping to be one of the first on scene for the autographs.
She was. She was also among the sanest. There were screaming girls that radio-station employees were herding to a set of doors with a curtain and a table set out with Wilder CDs and eight-and-half-by-eleven reprints of the guys. Kelsey smiled at the display, fingering the album. She hadn’t seen the final thing—the total package with the disc and all the photos with the fold out. One of the people behind the table in a Wilder t-shirt asked if she was planning to buy it. Kelsey was tempted except she probably didn’t have to. “Oh,” Her hand flew to her throat at she realized he thought she was probably attempting to steal it. “I designed this, I was just looking at it.”
“Uh-huh.” His look said it all. Like fifteen girls every night claimed they had designed the album as a cheap ploy to get in with the guys. Kelsey was offended. As a cheap ploy, that had to be somewhat original, right? But she heard a voice she knew, and looked up.
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