Learning to Love Again 2

by A. K. Rose

  As Chuck finished the last line of his verse, he rose from the kneeling position he’d been in—playing the violin on this song had its advantages—kissed his wife sweetly and took his place back on the stage. They’d all mic’d up with wireless headsets that night, wanting to be able to move around off-stage for the choreographed finale.

  Lana heard the words in her ears, signaling it was time, “I’d still miss you baby, and I don’t want to miss a thing . . .” She took two steps forward from her position behind the mic stand, flipped the switch on her headset, and scanned the audience for Jessica, finding her wild red hair almost immediately.

  And then, she missed her cue.

  Lana Parker was flummoxed. Luckily the band had her back, they kept playing the refrain, giving her another chance to join in at the right moment. They’d rehearsed this song so many times, the last thing Lana expected to happen was to miss her cue, but she did. The second time, she found the beat and started singing the riffed verse she’d written, turned at forty-five-degree angle so she could look beyond the spotlights and at Jessica, so she could see the reaction on her face when she realized the verse was new, that it was written just for her.

  I just want to hold you close to me

  And let you know you’re safe and free

  You’re the only one I want in my life forever

  Hand in hand we’ll stay together

  It was a simple lyric, not nearly as polished as the original song, but it came from the heart and as Lana sang, she felt tears form involuntarily in the corners of her eyes, pure emotion expressing itself in the form of liquid saline. As she finished the last line, just as they’d rehearsed, the band softened the volume of the music and Lana took the handheld mic and switched to her normal talking voice. “I love you, Jess. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

  This emotional moment made the crowd go wild, erupting in a collective clapping fit, high pitched whistles filling the air. The flowing champagne had created a very happy crowd.

  “I love you, too,” Jessica said back, though she couldn’t be heard over the crowd noise, her heart racing in response to the surprise. Lana had planned such a special moment for her; she was fighting back tears of her own. She hoped Lana could read her lips, that she could see her over the blinding spotlights that washed over the stage.

  “That was beautiful,” Cassie said into her friend’s ear, squeezing her hand. “You’re very lucky. She’s a keeper.”

  “I know,” Jess smiled. She wanted to stop time for a minute, to record this moment in her memory bank so she could call on it anytime she wanted. She wanted to hear the first time Lana told her she loved her over and over again, to remember the most beautiful adaptation of a song any time she wanted. She’d been completely taken aback by the song, the new verse, the way the band divided up the lyrics to sing to their significant others. She’d wondered why Jon didn’t sing, but figured he didn’t feel comfortable singing from behind the drum kit. She’d never seen him sing anything more than backing vocals. It didn’t matter, the night wasn’t about Jon.

  The night was about love, and for the first time in her thirty-one years on the planet, Jess was truly in love. Not some false version of love she’d fabricated for the man of the month. This time, it was real. This time, she was certain. She couldn’t wait to get her sexy bass player alone to show her just how much she loved her, how much she wanted her. After fifteen years of bad relationships with musicians, she’d finally found the one for her.

  # # #

  “You are amazing,” Jessica said with a grin, closing the door to Lana’s apartment behind her.

  “You are, too,” Lana smiled back, pulling her girlfriend close, arms wrapped around Jess’s waist, lips finding lips in an instant, the taste of champagne and smell of the bar lingering on both of them.

  “I feel so lucky,” Jessica said, breaking the kiss, her forehead resting lightly on Lana’s so she could look into her eyes, into her soul.

  “It’s funny, isn’t it? All this time, you thought you were living. You thought you knew what life was like, and then, a chance meeting changes everything. All of a sudden, you see the world differently, colors are brighter, more vivid. The fog you didn’t know was following you burns off . . . at least, that’s how I feel.”

  “That’s exactly how I feel . . . and, I was hoping . . .” Jess paused, sinking her hands into Lana’s back pockets and leaning the weight of her body into the bass player’s, lowering her voice to a whisper as she spoke directly into her ear, “I wondered if . . . do you want to try something new tonight?”

  “What do you mean, something new? Are you going all kinky on me?” Lana laughed, knowing there was no way her girlfriend was thinking of anything bordering on kinky. She was a lot of things. She was beautiful and smart, she was funny in her own way, but she was definitely not kinky. She was still a lawyer. She was still a good girl.

  “Not kinky, no . . . unless, well . . . I wondered if you wanted to . . . just come with me,” Jess finally stopped. She couldn’t force herself to say it. She’d demonstrate instead, the silence provided by passion empowering her to say what she wanted without words.

  “Okay, yeah, but I really need a shower first.” The last thing Lana wanted to do was reject Jess when she was being romantic, but she did need a shower. She always got so sweaty on stage, and the nerves from the night had created extra sweat.

  “If you insist, but I’m coming with you. It’ll let me tell you a little about my idea . . .”

  “Oooh, I’m really intrigued.”

  “You should be, it’s good.”

  “You are such a tease! What’s the idea? Just tell me.”

  “Okay,” Jess caved, her hands still in back pockets, her tongue finding an earlobe, a little growl emerging as she continued, “I thought we could try sixty-nine . . .”

  “Wow . . . I . . .”

  “You don’t want to?” Jess panicked. Was it too much?

  “God, yes. I want to . . . I just wasn’t expecting that. You surprised me, that’s all. Come on, let’s get that shower. I don’t want you to change your mind.”

  “Lana?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you. Thank you for my song. It was beautiful.”

  “I love you too. I’m glad you liked it. I almost blew it! I missed the cue the first time.”

  “I didn’t notice. You did a great job. I loved it, and everyone else did, too. I wish I had it on video. I’d like to see it again.”

  “Yeah, me too. It’s a complete blur. I don’t remember much. Except I remember the look in your eyes. I’ll never forget that. I’ll always remember the first time you told me you loved me.”

  “You saw that?”

  “I did.”

  “Good.” Jess said, taking Lana’s hand and leading her to the shower. “Now I’m about to show you how much.”

  SIXTEEN

  The day after Valentine’s Day was a Monday. As much as they wanted to stay in bed all day long like a couple of newlyweds, Jess and Lana both had to work, and the sun came up earlier than they’d have liked. They had spent the night in Lana’s studio apartment, high on love and drunk on champagne, forgetting for a moment that the real world waited on the other side of the darkness.

  “I love you so much,” Jessica whispered into an ear shrouded in short brown hair, rock star spikiness deflated in the morning light, only a hint of hair product remaining. “Thank you for last night. That was the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me.”

  “I love you, too, baby. Thank you for last night,” Lana growled softly, pulling Jessica into her and wrapping her tightly, early morning voice in full swing. It always took at least one cup of coffee for her to get her voice together after a late night with the band, especially as she got older. She was thirty-five but sometimes felt fifty, the late nights not as easy to overcome as they once had been. “I’m glad you liked the song, I wanted our first Valentine’s Day to be special.”

  “It was so special,
thank you, really. No one has ever done something like that for me, it meant the world. But . . .” Jessica paused, “I have to get up now. I don’t want to. But I have to be in court at nine and I need to go home and feed Peaches first. Thankfully, this should be the last week of the case and then I get my life back.”

  “That’s good. I know you’re anxious to get back to that law library, out of the courthouse . . . hey, do you want to have dinner tonight?”

  “Definitely,” Jess said, pushing herself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed and raising her arms as wide as they’d go while arching her back to get a good stretch. She’d slept completely nude and realized immediately she needed a shower. She needed coffee. She needed out of the courtroom. One more week and she could go back to the quiet anonymity that she preferred, back to chatting with Steve in the hallway, back to her nameless, faceless cases. “Hey . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “You really did knock my socks off with your Steven Tyler moves, you know? The song. The extra verse. It was just perfect. You’re so talented and I’m so lucky.”

  “Come here,” Lana insisted, lifting the covers and patting the warm spot in front of her that had just been vacated.

  “I don’t have time, really . . . I have to go to court . . .”

  “Come here, just for a minute?”

  Jessica caved, unable to resist the simple plea. She inched her way back into the bed, back into the strong arms that made her feel safe, and sighed. She was so content. As Lana’s lips found the nape of her neck, she realized she was going to be late for court. In fact, there was no other possible outcome.

  # # #

  At nine-o-five, Jess scurried into her usual position, right behind the lead counsel’s desk, navy blue skirt suit pressed perfectly, white blouse peeking out at the collar, not a hair out of place. She wasn’t that late; she could blame the commute if anyone asked. Traffic on MoPac was a nightmare as always—it would be an easy excuse.

  Rick Anderson turned over his shoulder and acknowledged her with a nod; he didn’t seem upset.

  As she took out her iPad to prepare for the day’s proceedings, she noticed something different. There was a card taped to the back of the tablet, her name written in block letters in an unfamiliar handwriting. Now wasn’t the time to open the card, the ruffling of papers would disturb the proceedings, so she silently pried off the tape and dropped the card into her bag. Lana had probably written her a love note, she figured, and she’d read it at lunch. I am so lucky, she thought for the second time that day.

  “The court will come to order,” Judge Hightower stated as she took her place at her bench. “I trust you all had a good weekend. As today is scheduled to be the last day of our proceedings, I want to take a moment to remind the jury that you are called upon to make your determination in this case beyond a reasonable doubt. It is your collective decision, and your responsibility to determine the truth in this case.” The judge turned her attention to the plaintiff’s table, and then, “Mr. Easterly, you may begin your closing arguments.”

  # # #

  It wasn’t a love note.

  It wasn’t a birthday party invitation.

  It wasn’t a thank you card.

  Dear Ms. Taylor, the card started. So polite. So formal.

  Then it took a surprising turn.

  You don’t know me, but I know you. I know everything about you. I know where you’re from. I know who your parents are, who your friends are, and where you live.

  I also know your secret. I know young lawyers like yourself don’t need personal drama making the rungs to the top of the ladder slippery. You want to climb to the top, don’t you?

  Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about your personal life. That is, if you help me.

  You see, I have a problem you have the ability to help solve.

  I want you to think about this problem and decide if you’re willing to help me.

  I’ll issue more instructions later. For now, I want you to think about what you know about O’Ryan Labs. Knowing what you know, what it would take to bring them down in an appeal?

  If you help me, I will help you.

  Sincerely,

  Mr. Brightside

  P.S. In case you doubt me, the enclosed DVD should give you confidence. It holds a video file of that lovely Valentine’s Day serenade last night. What a beautiful moment! I would love to share such a tender expression of love with the music lovers on YouTube.

  Jessica was flabbergasted. She was clearly being blackmailed, but why? She read that note a half dozen times, the coffee in her cup going cold while she sat alone at a table for two and stared blankly into space. She hadn’t touched her sandwich, her weekday usual turkey on wheat no match for what she just read. Her appetite went out the window the moment it hit her. Someone was trying to use her newfound relationship with Lana against her. It obviously had to do with the case, but she wasn’t important in the case. She was a researcher, not a trial lawyer. She knew nothing about O’Ryan Labs, aside from what she’d heard in court.

  Her hands found her head—as they so often did when she was stressed—elbows hitting the table and eyes closing concurrently, the busy sandwich shop across the street from the courthouse the possible site of her first adult meltdown. She’d been expecting a love note and received something so completely the opposite she wasn’t quite sure how to react. She was having dinner with Lana later, but she didn’t know if she could wait that long to talk to her.

  Okay, breathe, she reminded herself, trying to draw on some capacity for calm before she had to go back to court. She worked at one of the best law firms in the Southwest, she could certainly count on her partners and peers for help, if she wanted it. The thing was, she didn’t know if she wanted it, or could ask for it. Mr. Brightside had been right about one thing; she wasn’t ready to come out—she wasn’t ready for the news of her relationship with Lana to be common knowledge. She hadn’t been hiding their relationship from her friends, but she wasn’t broadcasting it. And she hadn’t even thought about talking to her family yet.

  Thoughts filled her head of her mother, sitting in church on Sunday as news of her daughter’s overnight gayness spread like dandelions in a bare field, nearly impossible to eradicate. Then she thought of her father, chatting up the old men at the weekly coffee shop chess game, trying to hide the fact that his only daughter was into women. She wasn’t ready to have this conversation with them. She’d been with a woman a little more than two months, it seemed way too early to have “the talk.”

  Paralyzed with indecision, Jess decided to do nothing. The mysterious Mr. Brightside said he’d provide more information later, and she’d wait for that additional instruction. She’d go back to court, pretend to pay attention, and make it until the end of the day when she could see Lana and talk about it.

  In that moment, Jess realized something powerful: She needed to talk to Lana about it. She had a problem and her first instinct was to call Lana, not Cassie. To phone her girlfriend, not her best friend. Lana had moved up the pecking order in Jessica’s heart—she’d become both best friend and girlfriend.

  Taking a deep breath and letting it go slowly, Jessica pushed back the plastic chair she’d been sitting on and stood on unsteady legs. She dropped a completely untouched sandwich and cup of coffee in the trash bin, and with her head held high, headed back to court. She knew he could be anywhere. He’d clearly been following her, watching her. He could be in the sandwich shop, he could be in the courtroom, he could be anyone, anywhere. He could even be a she. Jessica had no idea.

  It seemed like something out of a bad TV drama, not her real life. The fact that someone would try to blackmail her using her personal life seemed too ridiculous to be true, and yet, she held a card that was exactly that: the clear start of an attempt to blackmail her. They didn’t teach her about this in law school. There wasn’t a reference book for the newly gay who were the lead researcher on class-action suits and were being extorted to help the pla
intiff in some way.

  In reality, whoever put the note in her bag would’ve seen it anyway. He or she wouldn’t need to risk jail time threatening blackmail when he would’ve seen the only information Jessica had that could help the class win the case. It was right there, on the cover of her steno pad. She’d written it down weeks ago and forgotten, being so consumed in her relationship with Lana that she’d let it slip out of her realm just enough to forget, just enough until now.

  The question was, would she share it? Would she give up her intellectual property, her firm’s trust, potentially her job, and even her self-respect by allowing herself to be manipulated by some mystery person with an axe to grind?

  SEVENTEEN

  The rest of the day passed in slow-motion, a state of almost timelessness that just seemed to drag on. Jessica sat in court pretending to pay attention, nodding in all the right places, her services not really needed at this point in the case, but appearing ready to help if needed. In reality, she was unable to shake the confusion that took control of her being the moment she read the note. She had no idea what was going to happen next, and the worst part was she had no control, either—unless she figured out a way to take control.

  She didn’t know where to turn, but the moment Lana Parker walked into Alejandro’s and she saw the comforting smile spread across her girlfriend’s face, Jess exhaled for the first time in what seemed like hours. The dive was packed—it always was—but for her there was no one else around except the lanky brunette in her focus, everyone else was just in the background.