by L. B. Dunbar
“I’m not hungry,” I say, but then my stomach rumbles, and neither Gage nor Tommy miss the gurgle.
“Food,” Tommy demands.
“Let me change.”
I slip into a short, flowy dress, hoping to cover the small bump. My body has a strange shape to it. The best way I can describe what’s happening to me is I’m thickening.
Back in the living room, I meet Tommy and Gage, noticing how Gage rubs his hands down his jeans, avoiding my eyes. He looks nervous. Why would he be nervous?
We head to a little bistro in the resort. My mother selected this location because it wasn’t on the beaten path, and it wasn’t a high-end hotel. It was privately owned with a penthouse suite, which she preferred.
I feel on top of the world up here, she’d say.
The thought of her pinches my heart again, but I smile at Tommy as we sit and remember it was my choice to come here. I want to reminisce about the good times through the holiday season. I didn’t expect to have additional company, but I understand Tommy’s concern for Collision. He likes the boys, and he sees himself in them. Young. Ambitious. Talented.
Tommy’s original band was Colt45, and he took the name Lawson Colt as his stage name. When they were only a few hits wonder, a manager suggested combining Kit and her husband with them. They lost an original member of the band named Tucker Ashe. When my father killed himself shortly after Kit Carrigan and Chrome Teardrops was formed, and they added Hank Paige as their new drummer. It had been a rocky start to a tremendous career.
Dinner isn’t long, and the conversation revolves mainly around Tommy’s history and Collision’s future. I listen, but my mind wanders as I remember what I did with the man sitting across from me. I like sex. I like men. I just don’t know when to control myself around them. I’m always looking for a fix, a connection, but I never find it, and I know why. It’s not going to be found in the back seat of a car or behind a bar, yet I don’t know how else to go about things with the opposite sex. I blame my mother. Who wants to date the daughter of a rock star? Lots of men, actually, but that wasn’t the point. You can’t form lasting relationships if you’re always on the go, and it was my choice to walk away from most. I didn’t like it, but I learned to live with it. I didn’t attend a structured school until college, and when I did, the boys were so…normal. I tried to keep it on the down low who I was, who I was related to, but once someone found out, assumptions were made. I decided there was nothing wrong with enjoying myself—or trying to, at least—but I’d yet to find the satisfaction I’d searched for.
A young roadie a few years older than me was my first. He was as gentle as he could be for a guy overly excited about a virgin and the daughter of Kit Carrigan. After him, most guys blurred together except for Gage. It’s strange to think seven minutes in heaven could be life altering, but it was. Something about the way he kissed me made him different.
My mouth waters with the thought of his lips on mine, and I reach for my water glass. I swallow the cool liquid, reminding myself I’m pregnant and no man is going to want to lay their lips on mine in my condition or afterward. A single mother isn’t a stigma, but I’ve been reading. Pregnancy is tough, but when the baby arrives—life altering. It makes me wonder if my mother felt the same way. Did she think having a child changed her?
Before I know it, dinner is finished. Tommy says he’s going to the bar, but that’s one place I don’t want to visit.
“I’ll walk you back up,” he offers, but Gage interjects.
“I’ll do it.” He doesn’t appear to have an ulterior motive although Tommy narrows his eyes at him.
“I can,” Tommy says, his voice verging on a growl. What is wrong with him?
“It’s fine. Go have fun,” I suggest, waving dismissively at them. Gage slips his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and shifts his eyes from Tommy to me.
“I’d like to do it.” A heaviness hangs in the air around all of us, and in order to be polite, I nod.
“That would be fine.” I reach for Tommy’s wrist and pat it twice. “Try to behave yourself.”
He chuckles softly, shaking his head. “You know I always do.”
He’s a player, that one, and I don’t blame the women. My uncle is a good-looking man. His slicked back dark hair has gray at his temples and curls at his nape. He defines the five o’clock shadow with a dusting of scruff on his cheeks mixed hints of silver. A glance at Gage has me noting he’s not much different from Tommy. Thick scruff covers his jaw as if artfully sculpted to him. His midnight eyes sparkle in the dim lights of the bistro, and his matching hair hangs to his chin, cut choppy, kinky, and wild. Did I run my fingers through that hair? I can’t remember, and I wonder what it would feel like.
Stop, my brain scolds. You cannot be attracted to him, and he’s certainly not going to be attracted to you now. Have I mentioned that being pregnant also makes you horny? Some days, the ache is so bad I use my vibrator twice. I shiver with thoughts of my toy, and how Gage Everly would be a much better substitute.
We walk slowly as he leads me out of the bistro and then through the lobby. We should head for the elevators, but a hand on my lower back stops me.
“How about a walk? It’s my first night here, and I heard the stargazing is something else.”
“It’s amazing from the penthouse.”
“I could use a stretch,” he says, not giving up. I should tell him I can’t. I should excuse myself and go up alone, but I don’t want to be alone. It’s good to be here, but the memories haunt me.
“Okay.”
We walk around the pool to a boardwalk connecting the resorts. The path isn’t packed, but a number of people have the same idea as us. They stroll in the dark, keeping their conversation low so as not to disturb the quiet around us. The ocean roars as background music on what could be a romantic night. As we near the next resort over, the pulsing sound of a band reaches us. We haven’t said more than four words until I speak.
“Do you miss it?”
“What?”
“The band.” I feel his eyes on the side of my head, but I don’t look over at him.
“We didn’t break up. We’re just on a break.”
“I didn’t know. I just assumed…” My voice drifts as I don’t wish to mention Cash, but I did assume the band was over. When my mother died, Chrome Teardrops fell to pieces. Then again, they’d been falling apart before her death.
“We’re looking to replace him.” The words catch my breath, and my head twists to look at Gage. He doesn’t glance back at me. “I mean, we can’t really replace him, but we need another bassist in the band.”
We’re silent a minute. The sound of our feet softly hitting the wood. My flip-flops slap the deck. It’s then that I notice he’s wearing flip-flops as well. The idea of it makes him seem a little less rock star and a bit more real to me. Not that I’m impressed by rock stars. I’ve been surrounded by them my entire life.
“I didn’t mean…” He stops. “I’m sorry. For you as well, you know.”
“Why are you sorry for me?”
He shifts to peer at me, keeping his eyes on my face. “You lost Cash as well.”
I swallow before I answer because it’s going to sound crass and careless. “I didn’t really know Cash. I mean, we were together. But not together-together. That is we…but…I don’t think I’m making sense.”
Gage reaches for my forearm, the touch warm and sympathetic. “I get it. He liked you, you know.”
The words don’t fit, and I chuckle without humor. Sure, he liked me. He liked my body. But Cash Bennett knew nothing about me. It was the way we wanted it, and the thought makes me sad.
“I don’t think like was the right word but thank you.”
Silence falls around us again, but within a few feet, he speaks again.
“Can I ask you something?”
Oh, no. “Sure.”
“Do you remember…I mean…do you ever think about…?” His hands rub up and down his thighs
as he asks.
“I try not to dwell on the past.” I don’t know where the words come from, and the formal tone makes me sound haughty, but I don’t want to admit I have thought about that day. The timing of everything was just off for me, and I can’t turn back. My mother needed me. Or maybe I needed her. Gage goes silent, and I decide to give him something. A little piece of me won’t hurt.
“I’d just learned the cancer was back, and I was so pissed off a tabloid told me instead of my own family. I was hell-bent on confronting my uncle because my mother wasn’t answering my calls at first...” I pause and turn to him, forcing us to stop walking. “And then we collided.” I sigh. “I took advantage of you on that day, and I’m sorry.”
His dark eyes appear darker with the backdrop of shrubs behind him. A reflecting spark hits them from the stage lights behind me up near the pool of this new resort. His hand reaches for my cheek, cupping my jaw like my face is fragile.
“I have no regrets, Ivy, other than not seeing you again.”
The sentiment sends a strange ripple through my body. Like the flutters I get right before an orgasm, which have been all self-induced because I’ve never had one with someone else. My skin goosepimples, and I shiver. I overreact to everything because of the pregnancy.
His warm palm lingers, his thumb stroking my cheekbone, and it feels nice. He’s nice. He’s trying to make me feel better about Cash and about what we did when he doesn’t need to do either. We stare at each other a moment, the gleam in his eyes undressing me, unraveling me.
Can he see into my heart? Does he know my secret?
Abruptly, I pull back, releasing my face from his welcome touch and his eyes from their probing gaze.
“We should head back. It’s getting late.” I sound like a ninety-year-old ninny. Getting late? It’s probably not even nine, but I can’t be out here with him. I can’t be alone with him. There’s a pull I don’t recognize. It’s just pregnancy hormones, I tell myself.
I turn and begin walking a little faster than our original pace. Gage catches up to me instantly and grips my upper arm.
“Hey, I’m sorry if I offended you. I don’t know what I said, but I’m sorry, okay?”
The wrap of his fingers around my bicep stops me from walking, and I’m caught up in his eyes once again.
“You didn’t say anything,” I tell him, not recognizing the shake in my voice. Are those tears burning my eyes again? I cannot cry in front of him. I don’t even have a reason for crying. “No regrets, right?”
He drops his hand from my arm and rolls his head back slowly. It’s not a flinch but a motion of resolve. He doesn’t like what I said, but he’ll keep his thoughts to himself. He turns his body, slips his hands into his jeans’ pockets, and takes one giant step to the side. He tips his head for me to follow him, and we walk back in relative silence.
He comments on how he’s never been to Hawaii. He tells me how he hopes to see whales and swim with sea turtles. His plans to go parasailing.
“You should come with us.” The band includes Jon Pettington, aka Petty, and Jared Kane. Wild with dirty blond hair, Petty defines a sexy drummer with surfer looks and a dangerous smirk. He has the reputation as the player of the group. Jared looks more bookish with glasses and short brown hair that’s longer on the top. He’s sweet, mature, and cautious. Gage falls somewhere in the middle.
As I don’t think parasailing is on the list of approved activities during pregnancy, I tell him, “I’ll pass, but thank you for asking.”
“Why? Afraid of heights?”
I’m not, but I can’t explain my reasons to him. “Something like that.”
“Strange, considering you’re renting the penthouse.” I feel his eyes on me again, but I only respond with a snort.
We part ways back in the condo.
“I think I’m going to read.” I have the next chapter of the baby book to catch up on. “You should go out. The bars are full of…” Women? One-night stands? What am I suggesting? Suddenly, I don’t want him to leave.
You could be with him.
The idea crosses my mind and then flits away. Another selfish thought and one I don’t wish to entertain. Being with Gage Everly would be way too complicated, and my life is complicated enough.
5
GAGE
I don’t meet the guys at the bar although they begged me to come down.
“You’re boring, old man,” Petty complains.
“What are you doing?” Jared asks.
“I’m playing my guitar,” I tell them, which surprises all of us. For the first time in months, inspiration comes to me, and I don’t want to give up the opportunity. Since Cash’s death, I’ve been struggling. We were a team—Jared, Cash, and me. Petty wasn’t part of our creative process, but he played his drums like none other. I feel like a loose wheel without Cash to bounce around ideas, but after my walk with Ivy, I’m refreshed.
Briefly, I think of Cash. We’d been in high school together, shared musical interests, and then he disappeared. I reconnected with him in a coffeehouse in Seattle. I’d left my small town for the music scene there, hoping to earn my way to someplace bigger. Cash had the same vision as me along with a charismatic personality and dumb luck, which got us into a studio for a demo. After his freshman year at Vanderbilt, Jared joined us. He had the connection with Petty, who wanted off his family farm, and the four of us became Collision. Our creative process included Jared prettying up my words and Cash fine-tuning our sound. I miss my old friend as I strum another chord and jot down another line.
Then I sense her presence.
She’s so fucking gorgeous. Her blonde hair glows from the backdrop of a single light coming from the wall of windows dividing the living room from the rooftop patio. She’s wearing a long T-shirt down to her knees, exposing the great legs I remember wrapped around my hips.
Stop thinking of her like that, dude, I scold.
“Hey.” My voice cracks like I’m a teenager again as I address her. She’s leaning against the doorjamb of one of the open sliding doors. Her head tilts as if the frame holds her upright. Her hands crisscross before her, fingers entwined. She’s dressed in sadness. “Did I wake you?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she says. Her voice carries to me, but she feels so far away. I pat the cushion where I sit on the outdoor loveseat. She doesn’t take my offer but sits in a chair to my left, tucking her legs into the nightshirt and pulling it down to her toes.
Don’t look, man. I will myself not to check her out, but I can’t ignore the hint of her panties.
“Whatcha doing out here?” she asks.
Could I tell her about the song? I decide against it and look upward. “Just admiring the stars.”
Her head tips back, and she gazes up. “Wow,” she mutters.
Wow, I think, admiring the line of her neck where her hair drapes over her shoulder.
“It’s gorgeous,” she whispers.
“Yes, you are,” I say and then clear my throat when her head rolls on the cushion and eyes the color of the breaking dawn meet mine.
I glance upward. “I mean, it is.” I don’t look at her as I speak. “Did you know that when two stars collide, they don’t explode? They can either connect or collapse.” I don’t know why I tell her this, other than I feel as if Ivy and I are two stars circling one another. I want us to collide.
“Is that where the name came from? For your band?” she clarifies. My eyes drop down to her as she looks up again. Collision.
“No.” I don’t wish to share with her how we came up with the name.
“It’s rather metaphorical, isn’t it?”
I set my guitar across my lap and stare at her. “How?”
“My mother was a star, and whenever she was with Hank Paige, they collapsed.” I remembered well the fireworks between Kit Carrigan and Hank Paige. Their on-again, off-again relationship made backstage a hostile environment sometimes. Of course, we were only with their tour for a few months before everything fe
ll apart.
“Sometimes stars merge, making something larger than the two alone.” I try to sound positive, keeping my eyes on her. I have a strange sense that colliding with Ivy and connecting with her would make me a better man.
“Are you trying to impress me with your astrological knowledge?”
“Is it working? Impressing you?” I flirt. I don’t think she’ll want to hear about how hiding in the dark backyard to count stars and observe their patterns was a way to dull the pain of an abused kid.
She quietly giggles. “Since I have no idea if you are correct, I’ll admit it sounds impressive. To be larger than you are is better than alone.”
Is she lonely? Is this about Cash? I should ask, but I don’t.
“Hawaii was my mother’s favorite place,” she tells me. “It was the place where she was a mother, not a celebrity. She loved this penthouse. Maybe the view was part of the reason.” Ivy looks up one more time. We remain silent for several long minutes until my fingers can’t help themselves, and I strum my guitar. Ivy is a song waiting to be sung, and I want to sing her. With her head tipped back, she closes her eyes.
“Want me to sing to you? It might put you to sleep,” I tease because upon my second read of the words I thought would be the greatest ever, the song sounds boring so far. She chuckles softly and notices the pages on the table. She reaches for the notebook, but I’m faster. Her face lights up as she looks at me. “No one samples the mastery until it’s a masterpiece.”
She sits back in the seat and tucks her feet differently this time, her knees pointing at me as she shifts to rest her side against the cushion. I don’t sing, but I continue to play, looking over at her occasionally and noticing her eyes drooping.
Cash was a lucky man to have her, and he was a fool to leave us, but being smart wasn’t his forte. Everything came easily to him. He was a visionary but not a go-getter. Things just happened for him. The music. The connections. The women. And the drugs. I want to hate him for what he did, but my heart forgives him. I loved him like the brother I didn’t have, and with that came an acceptance despite his bad habits. He was a collapsed star.