Played

by Jeanette Battista

  Donovan kept his head cocked, trying to hear what Lila was strumming out. Slowly, he began to piece together the song, but just before he could pinpoint it, the sound stopped, then started again. It sounded like she was practicing.

  “I didn’t know she played,” he said, just to have something to say. The things he didn’t know about Lila could have filled the ocean. He was hoping Gretchen might fill in some of the blanks. He was very interested in finding out about the elusive Lila.

  “She hasn’t for a long time.” Gretchen’s mouth tightened in a frown. “Not since…” she trailed off, looking at Van with narrowed eyes.

  “Not since what?” Donovan was curious. He listened again and could hear the song again, and this time he thought he heard singing to go with it. From what little he could hear, she sounded pretty good.

  Gretchen sighed. “Not what. Who.” Her gaze shifted to her doorway, then back to him. “Look, I’m going to tell you something, but you can’t share it with anyone else, okay?”

  “Sure.” Donovan didn’t know why she was getting all cloak and dagger about it, but she looked serious and Gretchen didn’t often do serious.

  “I’m not playing. Promise me.” She stood with a hand on her hip, waiting.

  Van met her blue eyes and held them. Whatever she was going to say had to be major. “I swear. It doesn’t leave this room.”

  “Lila used to date a guy who wasn’t exactly in the running for boyfriend of the year.” G scowled, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Okay,” Van said, still not understanding the link between this guy and Lila’s guitar playing. “So he was a bad boyfriend. What does that have to do with her practicing guitar?”

  Gretchen stalked over to her bed and flopped down on it, still keeping an eye on the door. “He used to hit her. Once he smashed her hand in a door and broke a couple of her fingers. She hasn’t really played since then.”

  Donovan walked over to the doorway, closing his eyes for a moment. He leaned his shoulder against the doorframe and just listened, finally understanding so many things that seemed off about Lila since he’d met her. Instead of satisfying his curiosity though, it just made him want to know more about her. He turned back to G after a few moments. “That’s why she’s sad.”

  Gretchen nodded. “And she doesn’t want anyone to know. When she told him she was transferring schools, he put her in the hospital. She won’t talk about it though. Nobody else knows.”

  “What about her parents?” How did her parents not recognize something bad was happening to their daughter? How could they not know? Then he thought of his own mother who half the time didn’t even know what time zone she was in. He thought he understood.

  She shrugged. “Her dad left ages ago. Her mom, well, I don’t think her mom wants to know, you know? A lot of what he did happened when they were at State and she didn’t go home very often. I don’t think douchemaster let her out of his sight much.”

  Donovan turned his face back to the hallway and the closed door where the music came from. He felt even more drawn to her and more afraid of her at the same time. He wanted to sleep with her, hell, any guy with eyes and a functioning dick would feel the same way, but he found himself liking her too. That was the problem. He didn’t want complications in his life. He’d finally gotten free of his overly complicated family, sloughed off a relationship that wasn’t working, and found some peace.

  But her eyes captured him and drew him in. Her skin was so creamy white it put milk to shame. He wanted to see it all exposed for his eyes alone, trace it with his tongue, and hear her gasp his name while he made her come.

  He shook his head, trying to get images of Lila’s lithe, naked body out of his head. The girl was nothing but complications now that he knew her story. She wasn’t worth it.

  Was she?

  Gretchen’s voice distracted him from things he didn’t want to think about. “Hello? Van? You in there?”

  “Yeah.” He realized she was waiting for some kind of reaction from him about what she’d just told him. “That sucks. Some guys are complete assholes.” Wow, that was possibly the lamest and most generic thing he could possibly have said.

  “But you’re not one, right?” Her eyes skewered him and he wondered if she could read his mind. He felt ashamed for no damn good reason.

  Van tried humor. “Last time I checked, I wasn’t.” He bent down to tie his shoe that didn’t need tying.

  “Good,” she said, and her voice held a note of warning. “Because it seems to me that you’re interested in her and I’d hate to think you’d use her for a bit of fun. She’s been through enough.”

  He straightened, scowling at her. “I’m not Mr. Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em, G.” She had some big ass balls to tell him whom he could or couldn’t see.

  “Um…actually, yeah, you are. How many hookups did you rack up last year?” She held up a hand before he could say anything. “I’m not judging you, Van. Dip your wick as much as you want.” Her voice softened. “Look, you’re my friend. Lila’s my best friend—she was one of the few people who didn’t freak when I told her I was gay. I just want to make sure she doesn’t get hurt.”

  “Jesus, Gretchen,” he bit out, suddenly angry. “She’s not a project for you to fix, okay. I think she’s cute,” Major understatement there, Lila was fucking atomic levels of hot, “and cool to hang with. That’s all.” He walked out of her room, then thought better of it and came back in. “And if I was interested in her, I sure as hell wouldn’t need to ask your permission to do something about it.”

  He stalked off, slamming the door on his way out.

  ***

  Lila heard the door slam and jerked aside out of habit. Her heart had begun its inevitable gallop, like a horse racing toward a cliff. She put the guitar down with shaking hands and climbed to her feet. When she opened the door, no one was in the living room of the apartment. She took a look out the window and saw Donovan’s disappearing back as he loped out of their parking lot and down the hill.

  “Gretchen?” she called, wondering where her roommate was. She hadn’t heard them come in.

  The blonde stuck her head out of her bathroom door. Lila could hear the shower running. “Hey. Just going to wash off.”

  “Was Donovan just here?” Lila wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Had he heard her playing? She thought she was alone.

  Gretchen’s mouth turned down in the barest of frowns. “Uh huh. We went for a run.”

  “Oh.” She wasn’t sure why it bothered her that he hadn’t stopped in to say hi to her. “Okay.” She turned to go back to her room.

  “I heard you playing when we came in. You sounded great!”

  Lila shook her head, highly doubting it. It had been months since she’d picked up her guitar. Her bad hand was still pretty weak and her fingering sucked, but it felt good to play again. She was sticking to simple exercises, trying to get her hands back in shape. She’d been given some exercises when she’d gotten the splints off, but she hadn’t been really serious about doing them. It was evident in her playing.

  “Be out in a sec.” Gretchen disappeared behind the door as steam began leaking out of the room.

  Lila headed to the couch to wait, snagging her guitar so she could continue to practice as she did so. She settled with her legs crossed, the body of the guitar, curved like a woman, in her lap and began to pick out chords slowly, like she was just learning. She flexed her fingers, feeling like her hand was a stubborn puppy she was trying to train, determined not to follow her orders.

  She looked out at the grey day. It wasn’t raining, but it sure looked like it was about to. Tattered clouds hugged the top of the mountains in the distance, wrapping shabby coverings around the peak’s weathered head. Lila strummed her guitar absently, staring out the window, replaying the past in her head, like a movie.

  Truth was Lila hadn’t known that broken bones could hurt so much. It had been a heavy dorm room door—his—that had broken her hand. She didn’t rem
ember much about the fight she and Tyler had, and she had no idea what she’d done to piss him off. In those days, it hadn’t taken much. He definitely didn’t like anything that took her focus from him.

  It was the first time he’d ever really seriously hurt her, physically anyway, and the shock of it had made her not feel the pain at first. That couldn’t last though, and she’d taken her battered hand to the university’s infirmary. They’d sent her to the emergency room for X-rays.

  Flowers were waiting for her when she got back at her dorm room. And not just one bouquet either, but dozens. Her roommate had tucked her into bed before she got a chance to check, but Lila knew who all of the red roses were from. She was just grateful that Tyler wasn’t there waiting for her with them. At that moment, she hadn’t wanted to see him again.

  Lila flexed her fingers before gently brushing them over the strings. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed playing until she started again. It was such a centering activity; when she was playing she was still, listening to the sound she coaxed from the guitar. No one and nothing else was present, even if she was in a room full of people. It was her and the strings and the music in her head.

  She tried to play the opening strains of Patience, a song by Guns and Roses that was one of the first things she had learned to play once she’d mastered the instrument. The first few bars came out garbled and strange sounding, but as her hands warmed up, she began to get into the rhythm of the song. Her fingering was still atrocious and she missed a number of notes and had to go back and replay them, but it felt amazing. It sounded like music.

  Lila couldn’t explain why she hadn’t broken up with Tyler after that incident. Legitimately, she’d thought it had been an accident. The horror on his face had been too real for her to even think he’d been faking it. He’d tried to walk her back to her dorm, had immediately gone to get her some ice, but Lila hadn’t waited. After her scream of pain, whatever they had been fighting about had been forgotten. While he’d gone to get the ice, Lila had gone back to her room.

  It was easier to stay with him when Tyler hurting her was an accident. Lila hadn’t been comfortable at State: she had few friends and didn’t really like the campus life there. Tyler was a constant, a familiar face. She realized now that she had ordered her time around his schedule, orbiting him like a small moon. To give up her safety net, especially over an accident, had—at the time—seemed unthinkable.

  She didn’t expect anyone else to understand. Hell, she wasn’t sure she understood it herself. Lila brushed her fingers over the strings, then stilled them when Gretchen emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam. “Everything okay?” she called, still surprised that Van hadn’t stayed longer.

  The blonde wrung her hair into a towel, looking guilty. “Yeah, sure. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  Lila gave her a concerned look, unsure of what happened, but pretty certain that something had. “I don’t know. Maybe because you’re acting really weird?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m perfectly normal.” She disappeared back into the bathroom.

  “Maybe for a mental patient,” she called, grinning when Gretchen shut the door.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lila decided to stay at school for Fall Break. Gretchen was heading back to their hometown, and she’d offered Lila a ride, but Lila had declined. Tyler might be home and the less chance she had of running into him, the happier she’d be. She had to go home for Thanksgiving—her mother wasn’t going to let her stay at Davis for the holiday—and that was soon enough to risk running into him.

  She’d hoped that Tyler would have forgotten about her if she wasn’t at State, but that didn’t seem to be the case. His emails kept coming, filling up her inbox with emails that sounded angrier and angrier. She got at least two voicemails from him every week. Tyler was as smart as his moods were unpredictable. And he wasn’t the kind of guy to give up easily.

  Picking up extra shifts at the coffee shop would keep her busy and would net her some extra money. Her manager expected things to be slow, with most students having gone home, so she’d given Lila permission to study in her down time if all of her work was done. It was more than she expected from her boss and she was grateful.

  She was rearranging the tables for acoustic night, moving the two tops and three tops to other parts of the café in order to open up space for some of the acoustic players that were bound to come in that night. It was mindless work, but Lila liked it. It gave her a chance to do some physical work and filled up the slow passage of time with something useful. She’d just moved the last table into place when two guys, maybe a few years older than she was, came in with instrument bags over their shoulders.

  “Hey, we’re playing here tonight,” the taller of the two said. “Mind if we set up and do a quick sound check?”

  Lila gestured towards the makeshift stage. “Make yourself at home. I’m Lila, if you need anything.”

  The taller guy smiled widely. He had a nice smile. “Well, hey Lila. I’m Greg and that’s Jason.” He gestured to the slim black guy who was in the process of opening one of the bags. “We’re Full Dangle.”

  “Hey,” Jason greeted from where he was unpacking his guitar.

  “Full Dangle, huh?” Lila smiled at Greg. “That’s, um, quite a name.”

  “Bet you won’t forget it,” he replied, winking at her.

  “Bet you’re right. You guys want any coffee?”

  “Hey, yeah, that’d be great. Jay, you want any coffee?” When Jason nodded, Greg turned back to her. “Two, thanks.”

  Lila went behind the counter and poured out two mugs of coffee. She wasn’t expecting a big crowd tonight since most students were gone for break. Maybe some locals would come by, but it wasn’t going to be a full house. She was going to get some relief in another hour when Thomas came on shift. She didn’t expect there’d be much for them to do, but she’d welcome the company.

  She dropped off the coffees and then returned to the front of the shop. With half an ear, she listened to the guys warming up. They riffed on a few songs she wasn’t very familiar with, warmed up and got in tune with a few folk songs. Lila cleaned and listened, humming along when she heard a song she recognized. A few patrons came in and Lila got them their orders, delivering them to the tables.

  Lila was bussing a few tables close to the stage area when Full Dangle launched into a rendition of Guns-N-Roses’ song, Patience. Without realizing it, she began to sing along as she picked up empty coffee cups and plates and placed them in the grey bin. It was one of her favorite songs to play and sing, back when she played regularly in high school.

  Greg waved her over when they were about half way through the song. Lila put the bin down and went over, thinking they needed her to adjust something while they still played. But instead he pushed the mic in front of her and motioned for her to sing. Thomas began clapping, causing the few people in the store to do so as well.

  “You’re awesome,” Greg said. “Sing!”

  Though she tried to beg off, Greg and Jason weren’t taking no for an answer. They began the song again with Jason signaling for Lila to come in. She began tentatively, unused to singing in front of a crowd. But as she went through the first verse, she forgot about the people watching her and the coffee shop and all of her stress and problems with Tyler and focused only on the music. The words poured out of her and it was the most amazing feeling she’d had in a long time. This was for her and only her. It was something she’d loved doing and she was getting to sing once again. It didn’t matter if anyone listened to her.

  It was enough that she had a voice. And that she was finally using it.

  The song ended, and she moved to step away from the microphone. Jason asked, “You know Wonderwall?”

  Lila nodded. Greg gestured for her to take the mic again and joined Jason on the intro. Greg signaled for her to come in with a nod, not that she needed it. She knew Oasis like she knew her own reflection. Wonderwall segued into F
leetwood Mac’s Landslide. After that she begged off to a decent amount of applause.

  “You were great!” Thomas enthused, relinquishing his spot behind the counter. Full Dangle had launched into an acoustic version of Fight the Power. “I had no idea you sang.”

  Lila shrugged. “I don’t, not really.”

  “When did you start practicing with those guys?” He waved at a patron who was leaving. “Thanks for coming in!” he called after them.

  “I’ve never played with them before. It was just goofing around.” She grabbed a rag so she could wipe down the emptied tables. “No big deal—it was just a one-time thing.” She began to collect the empty mugs and plates and carried them to the bin now sitting at the counter.

  The night wound down earlier than usual. By ten p.m. no one was in the cafe except for Full Dangle and Lila and Thomas. He took the last of the utensils and stoneware into the back so he could run a full rack through the industrial dishwasher. Lila flipped the sign to closed, glad that she’d gotten the go-ahead to close early.

  “Hey Lila,” Greg called from where he and Jason were busy wrapping up their cables and mics. “Got a sec?”

  She turned the lock on the front door and made her way over to the musicians. “What’s up?”

  “You did an awesome job tonight,” Jason began, putting away his guitar. “Really great considering you had no warm up or warning.”

  Greg nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it was incredible. Would you be interested in joining us on a couple of local gigs we’ve got coming up?”

  “Me?” Lila couldn’t keep the disbelief from her voice. She just sang a couple of songs she knew. It wasn’t a big deal, at least she didn’t think it was. It was just something she did for fun; she hadn’t expected anything permanent to come of it. She eyed Jason and Greg to see if they were messing with her, yanking her chain. “Seriously? You want me to sing with you?”

  Jason grinned. “Why is that so hard to believe? You sounded good—better than good actually—with us. Why wouldn’t we want you to do it again?”