A Song For Josh, Drifters Book One

by Susan Rodgers

  She replaced the magazine in the nightstand and burrowed back under the duvet, her fingers curled over the edge and her nose sticking out like those old pictures of Kilroy she used to draw at elementary school back in Prince Edward Island.

  Memories of the surreal day and then the exquisite sensory explosion of the night before came tumbling back, stimulating an involuntary tremble from Jessie’s toes to her fingertips. The way Josh played Life with the girls, revealing a sense of humor she rarely saw on set, but which presented itself while he was relaxed and having fun. The gentle manner in which he handed out apples and sleeping bags to the people with whom she once shared the streets. Her hand over his on the pool cue and that heady electric, tingly feeling, and then – the starlit drive from her place to his, which had seemed to take forever in longing and anticipation of spending a magical night in his sweet company.

  Josh was a patient lover, even despite the urgency of the moment, the yearning to be together. Even now her skin prickled, recalling the electric feel of his hands on her body, his lips on her skin. Mostly, though, as out of this world as the physical lovemaking had been, it was the sense they were meant to come together as one that overwhelmed her in memory. In all of her couplings with Sandy and Charlie, and the few stragglers she took to her bed out of sheer lonesomeness in between, she couldn’t recall having ever felt so simply and completely loved and cherished and wanted and needed the way she did with Josh. They fit perfectly together; their timing was right from the first time they made love - they continued until dawn - and somehow they seemed to just perfectly complement each other. It was erotic, charged with emotion, and it rocked the earth from beneath her feet.

  Picturing the eggs and bacon being carefully tossed and turned by Josh’s sexy, muscular forearms (even though one was hidden from view at the present time by his cast), Jessie finally crawled out of her comfy nest and waded to the bathroom, rubbing a sleepy hand over her tired eyes. The playful side of her had woken; the cocky side that occasionally showed up in moments of happiness. She pictured calling a paparazzo and telling him she spent the night with Josh Sawyer. Then, the next second, she felt a twang in her heart as she thought of Charlie and how he would react. But she quickly pushed that feeling away. Charlie had been publicly disloyal to her more than once. She had swept his indiscretions under the proverbial rug, or at least thought she had, until she met Josh. She wondered if she was using that as an excuse to be with Josh – that Charlie’s attitude had colored hers to the point where she could sleep with Josh and feel somewhat okay about it. However, the more urgent question here seemed to really concern Josh. She knew last night was not a random sleepover. There were deep feelings involved, on his side as well as on hers. Unless she sorted herself out, and did something about this wedding the whole world seemed to be excited about, it was certain there would be some real hurts caused by their newly christened intimate associations.

  But for now - there was hot water and, downstairs, a man she adored, and the comfort of eggs and bacon.

  ***

  Jessie didn’t hear a car door slam when she stepped under the pleasure of hot water and soap, but Josh did, and he almost dropped the spatula he was trying to manage with his left hand. It wouldn’t have been a big deal, but there was at that time a perfect fried egg on it, over easy, and when he started at the sound of the car and ensuing footsteps on his back deck, Josh almost dropped the egg. It had to be Stephen, or Sue-Lyn and Carter, or some combination of them plus perhaps Maggie…they occasionally dropped by on Sundays to drag Josh off to ROAM Coffee at UBC, so he wasn’t entirely surprised, but was hopeful that today they’d have found better things to do.

  He listened for the shower upstairs, and hoped that Jessie would hear voices and perhaps remain hidden until he could find a reason – maybe an alleged flu – to send his visitor(s) away. He sent her a silent prayer.

  “Slept in today, Josh?” Stephen bounded over to the kitchen island and pulled out a stool, plopping down with an apple grabbed from the small fruit bowl in the center. He took note of Josh’s rumpled hair, wrinkled T-shirt, faded jeans and bare toes peeking out from beneath the frayed denims. Quizzically, he eyed Josh.

  Nervously, Josh played with the eggs in the pan. He waited for the inevitable, and a twisted smile played on his lips. He wanted to announce to the world that he and Jessie had just shared the most exquisite night of his life, but he knew in his heart she wasn’t his. But what did she say when his life seemed like a bottomless pit so long ago? There is always hope.

  He flipped an egg. Not expertly, but it did stay in the pan. Funny how with one arm out of commission the other was stepping up to the plate and quickly learning to take the reins.

  Stephen cocked his head towards the stairs, listening. He looked at Josh and the twinkle of a surprised smile lit the corners of his eyes. He took a big bite out of his apple and raised his eyebrows.

  Josh glanced over at him, reddening. “Not so sure I’m up for coffee today, Steve,” he said.

  “Long night?”

  “Company.” There. He might as well admit it. Steve could hear the shower loud and clear. He sent an extra, more earnest prayer up to Jessie to stay put. Maybe he should head her off at the pass and just bring her breakfast upstairs. They could eat on the small deck outside of his bedroom, and watch the sailboats as they filled their white wings and danced on the cool wind.

  “Bring her with you. I’m sure we’d all like to get to know her. Besides, she has to pass our inspection. We have to make sure she’s good enough for our boy.”

  Steve took another bite and leaned forward on the counter. Frowned. Something was up. Josh had invited women over before. Plenty. But he wasn’t usually so reserved about it. Suddenly, a light came on.

  He waved the apple in front of his face as he talked with his mouth full. Little bits of apple spittle sprayed witlessly as he spoke. “Oh, I get it,” he enthused, wiping the corners of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger. He was going to have some fun with this. “She’s someone from set. Awkward! Is it the stand-in, what’s her name, Rosie? Or maybe it’s the girl from wardrobe who always tries to come on set when you’re in? At first I thought maybe it was a chick you met in Seattle…or one of Kayla’s dancer buddies.”

  Above them the water shut off and, as Josh dished the bacon and eggs onto square mustard colored earthenware plates, Steve noticed that his hand was shaking. Curiouser and curiouser.

  Josh spoke without turning. “Steve. I’m really not up for coffee today.”

  “Ah,” Steve said. “You want me to depart, get lost, vamoose – I get it.” He waited a moment and then eased off the stool and started backing up before pointing the apple at Josh. “But this is weird, Sawyer. You’re not usually so blatantly secretive about your women, unless it’s not…or maybe it’s…?”

  Josh glanced nervously at the stairs and then over at Steve, who had stopped moving and was holding the apple out in front of his face at the end of an outstretched arm. “I’m not gay, and no it wasn’t a threesome. Go. Please. Get the fuck out.”

  “Jesus, Josh, I’m gone. But I want to hear all about it – later.” Steve was starting to feel rather put out by his friend’s weird attitude. It was just a girl. Unless…maybe his friend really liked said girl. That could explain it.

  Josh finally heaved a sigh of relief as Steve turned to head for the sliding glass door to the back deck, from whence he’d come, when he saw his friend freeze. The hand with the apple fell to his side. Knowing the game was up, Josh slowly followed his glance to the stairs. There, mid-flight, was Jessie, wearing naught but the grey hoodie Josh tossed on his chair a few nights ago, accompanied by an expression of terror. She appeared frozen to the spot.

  Steve didn’t speak. This couldn’t be happening. It did not compute. His co-stars were less than friendly towards each other. Jessie did not have a reputation for sleeping with her fellow actors. Josh – well, he was a man, yes he would sleep with someone from the show if they came o
n to him; at least Steve thought he would, although he caught himself thinking he hadn’t noticed this type of behavior from Josh in the last few months - perhaps just at the beginning of the shoot, maybe. He shifted his balance as if to gain a greater hold on terra firma after the shock of seeing his engaged co-star in a state of half-dress at his friend’s place. Jessie pulled on the hoodie, hoping it would stretch further down her body, and then crossed her arms and ankles as if to protect herself from Steve’s stare.

  Realizing that he was indeed staring, Stephen turned back to Josh, incredulous. He raised his eyebrows as if to ask why. But he was too shocked to speak. There were so many things to consider he couldn’t even begin to think of where to start.

  Jessie broke the ice, but all she could muster was his name. “Steve.” It sounded like she was pleading.

  He turned back to her, and could feel the floodgates opening, but not in the traditional way – instead it was more like they were caught in the middle of the Red Sea in the moments before God raised an arm and decided it should no longer remain parted. He could almost feel the water droplets on his face but checked himself. No, it was the sweat on his brow resulting from that feeling of fear in his stomach.

  Josh hadn’t said a word. They all knew the implications of this. Hell, he and likely Jessie, too, had known the moment they first met that a union between them was impossible. This was just a one-night stand, and now that their incredible night was over, they could get on with their lives. Or…not.

  Oh, God.

  “It’s okay, Steve,” Josh finally said. “We’ll handle it.”

  Jessie looked so small on the stairs all huddled up in his hoodie, her hand now grasping its neck as if pulling it tighter would hold her heart together. There were tears in her eyes. Josh had forgotten that Steve’s brother and Charlie were good buddies. She was probably terrified that word would get to Charlie. Heck, maybe that’s what she was after in the first place, he caught himself thinking. A way to get back at Charlie for all of his indiscretions. Suddenly he felt sick. He placed his good hand and his sore, casted fingers on the front edge of the sink and leaned over them. It was like the impact of what seemed so magical the night before was now sinking in, with a fierce force and violent power. At his movement, Jessie looked over at him and felt her heart break. She could see in Josh’s eyes that he was acknowledging the futility of their coupling, and she knew this was going to be a long, hard road.

  But then, truly loving somebody was not generally known to be easy.

  ***

  Stephen was a reasonable guy. When he thought about it, he wasn’t really surprised his co-stars were attracted to each other, although he had no way of knowing how deep their blood was flowing in each other’s veins. After Jessie went back upstairs and put on some pants and a bra underneath Josh’s hoodie –‘cause no way was she taking off that part of him just yet – she and Steve sat down at the island and polished off the eggs and bacon. Josh stood between them and the stove and fried a few more for himself as they talked.

  “Okay,” Steve reasoned. “You guys are consenting adults. You can do whatever the hell you want on your own time. But let me just throw it out there that things are already a little tense on set. I want to know how this is going to change that, or…maybe this is why things are tense on set. It sure as hell would explain why you had the nerve to yell at our girl on horse-stunt day.”

  It had become a famous day on set, already in the fated history books of Drifters shooting. They all referred to it as horse-stunt day, as if it were a sort of Drifters D-Day. “Fess up,” he demanded. “Have you guys been boinking all along?” Steve had a way of taking the tension out of a situation, although Jessie and Josh both knew him well enough now to know he was actually quite pissed.

  “Steve, don’t be an ass,” Josh said, his back to them. He wasn’t a talker at the best of times, he did not want to share this latest development with Steve, and besides, he and Jessie hadn’t even figured out what it was yet. Nor had they talked about what it would be, if anything. Mostly all Josh could think at this moment was that it sucked, the way their bleak future was reflected in Steve’s face. He flicked off the burner. He seemed to have lost his appetite.

  “No, Steve, look – we weren’t together before yesterday.” Jessie’s voice was small but she reached out to touch his arm. He looked up at her and believed that what she said was true. Steve had no reason to doubt Jessie, but he thought of Charlie, playing cards and sharing whiskey with his brother in the office at Charlie’s Club on Burrard. He set down his fork.

  “Jessie,” he asserted. “I thought you were better than this. Than Charlie,” he added, imploring. Then, to Josh, “I don’t know who is using whom here, or whether the two of you somehow really care about each other. But what I do know is this – not only is there something akin to the royal wedding scheduled to take place here in about, when, five months, but there is also a cast and crew of about ninety who depend on the two of you at least getting along for the next number of weeks. Or seasons, hopefully,” he added.

  Turning again to Jessie, he took her hand and held it. “Charlie has been an ass. But from what I hear, he’s trying. He’s not going to change his spots overnight. But you’ve known that about him all along. Hell, maybe you guys have some kind of open relationship agreement like half the other crazed actors on this planet, but I doubt it, judging from the way you broke down on horse-stunt day. I believe you genuinely care about Charlie, and that you do want to marry him.”

  He hesitated, then dove in a little further as Josh listened, embarrassed and upset, at the sink with his back to them. “And so, if that’s the case,” Steve took a breath, “then I am pretty fucking pissed at you for getting involved with my good friend Josh over here. If it’s a one-night fuck, then go for it, fine, I hope it was fun and that it got some shit out of your system. But if it goes deeper than that…” He sighed. “Then you are messing with someone who doesn’t have the strength or stamina to be messed with. All you are going to end up doing is fucking him up even more.”

  They were all immobilized in their odd little tableau in the kitchen as the impact of his words set in. Even worse – they all knew these words to be true. What started out upon Jessie’s invitation to Josh on Friday as, supposedly, a gesture to try to decrease the tension on set and to help Josh see that life could be worse and that people found hope even in the most apparently hopeless situations, had turned out to be a grave error in judgment. Jessie was instantly remorseful. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Josh. She wanted to beam herself out of this boy’s cozy kitchen on the double. But she couldn’t move. She felt as if the room was so fragile that if any one of them moved, it would begin to crack at the edges all around them, above and below, as if they were the insides of the eggs that Josh seemed to be endlessly cracking on this once wondrous but now beautifully delicate, fragile morning.

  Finally, Josh turned. He had been feeling his blood pressure rise from the moment Stephen walked into the house. Now it was about to overflow. His face was red and his eyes flashed. He spoke straight to his friend.

  “Get out of my house.” It was a whisper, albeit a dangerous one fraught with challenge.

  Steve paused for a moment, and Jessie could see the sorrow in his eyes.

  “God help the two of you,” he said. “And God help those of us who were just hoping for some steady meaningful work for the next five months.”

  He turned to leave. At the door, he spoke to Jessie one last time.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t be telling Charlie.”

  He slipped out through the sliding glass door while Jessie pondered how he voiced that last statement – he had emphasized the I. She pushed her plate a few inches towards Josh and he reflected that she always did that when she was finished eating. He wondered if she was through with more than just her breakfast, which remained only half eaten. And then, because he couldn’t stand it another second, he came around the barrier that stood betwee
n them like some gargantuan, unbreakable boulder, and he grabbed her and pulled her close. His throat closed, surprisingly, with cotton balls of unspeakable emotion; a wetness he did not want her to see formed in his eyes. They stayed together that way, clinging to each other, for quite some time before either dared move, and it was then both knew for certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they could trust each’s feelings for the other regardless of what happened or where they ended up.

  Finally Josh pulled away and kissed her, and it lasted the way all good kisses do, sugary and sweet and chaste and fresh and lovely, with the unspoken promise of love, always and forevermore.

  ***

  Stephen met the others at ROAM Coffee, and since it was an unusually warm late January day, they sat out on the deck basking in the comfort of the nearby propane-fed fire. He was grey and quiet; Sue-Lyn, being the most perceptive of the little group of actors, picked up on it right away.

  She poked him in the arm. “Stevie?”

  He looked over, but he had a promise to keep to friends who it seemed had betrayed all of them. He was even more miserable for having to stomach this by himself, to have to keep such a nasty secret in a belly now churning with anger and confusion. He didn’t even know if Josh – or Jessie, for that matter – would speak to him again. Certainly Josh, at least, was a quiet man at the best of times, and Jessie, who had finally been opening up around all of them, was not much better.