Cherry Beats

by Vicki James

  This was for me. This was the reason he wanted me here tonight. He wanted to make another dream of mine come true.

  “Quick!” Bourbon said, nudging my shoulder and bending down in front of me. “Now. Do it now.”

  “What? What are you doing?” I frowned, looking down at him on his knees in front of me.

  “Get on his bloody shoulders, Tess,” Molly snapped, pushing me forward.

  “Wait. No. I can’t—woah!”

  “Do it now, young lady, or so help me God…”

  I moved at once, too eager to argue and too shaken up to take control. Bryan Adams was saying something, going back and forth with Rhett as Presley played alongside Hawk and Coops, but I couldn’t understand a word of it. Before I knew what was happening, I was on Bourbon’s shoulders, and I was being hoisted in the air, above the crowds, my body taller than ever as I balanced on strong shoulders and looked up at the stage.

  As if he’d been waiting for the very thing that was happening, Presley looked directly at me, his smile growing into a shit-eating grin that made the whole stage light up.

  He saw me.

  I saw him.

  We were surrounded by thousands of people, but none of them mattered. Not even the music god at the front of the stage. All that mattered was each other. The noise, the crowds, the scandals, the what ifs and hows… they could all wait. They could drown alongside my regrets.

  Presley’s arms tensed as he brought them down over and over again, his body working on auto as his eyes stayed locked on me.

  “Hey, Bryan!” Presley leaned into his mic, still looking my way. “You ready to do this?”

  “Sure am.” Bryan spun around, walking back to Presley to say something to him while Presley continued on with his effortless beat.

  They talked without any of us hearing what they were saying, and I watched as Presley threw his head back and let his laughter rain free. For the first time all night, he looked truly happy.

  When Bryan began to walk back to stand beside Rhett, Presley turned back to his mic and stared down at it as he spoke. “This one’s for…” He paused and huffed out a seductive laugh. “You all know who it’s for. Here’s to those who matter, those we’d lie for, those we cry for, those we’d fly across the world for. Those we’d drag up the earth to discover gold dust for, and those we’d, without question, without remorse, fucking die for. Here’s to the girls who make everything better.”

  Holding on to Bourbon’s head with one hand, I clamped the other over my mouth and let my happy tears fall free.

  The band did a mash-up of several of Bryan’s songs, one leading into the other, making every lyric count. Slow, painful songs were transformed into fast, edgy, love songs that mixed my two favourite artists together perfectly. Everything I do, Can’t Stop This Thing We Started, Run to You, Heaven, and then finally, it ended on Please Forgive Me.

  The moment I heard Bryan and Rhett weave their magic together so beautifully, and I saw the way Presley mouthed along to the words, I tapped on Bourbon’s head, begging him to let me down.

  “I need to get to him,” I called out, hanging on as he lowered himself, and me, back to solid ground.

  “My shoulders,” Bourbon croaked, gripping the left one and scrunching his face up in pain while I scrambled off and into Molly’s arms.

  “Molly, I need to get to him,” I said with urgency, gripping her arms tight.

  “Then go!” she beamed. “Stop wasting even more time.”

  Turning to look at the crowd in front of me, and then at the side, I knew what I had to do. I could get there. I could make it.

  The people were packed in tightly as Rhett and Bryan walked down the long aisle of the stage, delving deeper into their audience. I moved, my mind made up, and my face scrunched up as I used my shoulders and elbows to barge my way through. Women complained, men told me to watch it, and others tried to push me back, but I stood firm, not arguing, simply shaking my head and surging forward while Bryan asked the crowd to forgive him and Presley’s drum beats quickened.

  The words floated over me, seeping into my bones.

  I’m coming, Presley. I’m almost there.

  “Hey, I know you!” a girly voice shrieked as I got closer to the metal barriers separating the stage and the people. “You’re Presley’s girlfriend.”

  “Please… just… move,” I pushed out, ignoring any attention that was coming my way, and somewhere along the journey, losing my trilby hat in my efforts.

  “Oh my God, it’s her!”

  “I need to get to him,” I said to myself. “I… need to…”

  “Fucking help her then,” someone else cried out, and before I knew what was happening, the crowd were no longer fighting me, hushed whispers making people step back and create space for me to slip through. It was then that I slowed down, looked up and glanced around at a sea of strangers who were all smiling and nodding at me, wanting me to get to the stage.

  They wanted me to get to Presley.

  “Go get him, honey!” another woman shouted, making me spin around to look, only to see how close I now was to the barriers.

  I ran.

  I ran as soon as I saw the clearance, crying out my gratitude to those around me before I reached the metal barrier and jumped onto it, my feet off the ground and my arms taking all my weight.

  “Hey, hey, hey. Get down!” a security guard growled at me, his hands forcing my feet back down to the ground.

  “No. You don’t understand. I need to get to Presley.”

  “Sure you do, honey. You and twenty thousand others in here.”

  “I’m his girlfriend.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “She is, man, let her over,” a big, burly man behind me said in a voice so low it echoed Barry White’s.

  “She really is!” someone else said.

  “Please! I begged, jumping and climbing up again.

  Bryan and Rhett’s voices grew closer, and when I looked up, I saw Rhett standing over me, singing into his mic, his arm stretched out as he bent down and waited for me to go to him.

  With one glance at the security guard, I silently asked for his permission, only to see him sigh and help me over the barrier, lifting me up like I weighed nothing at all.

  Then it was on.

  Everything. My life, my love, my urgency.

  I moved to a block of black steps in front of the stage, and I reached for Rhett’s hand with a smile on my face as he pulled me up, never once breaking his duet with the legendary Bryan Adams.

  Bryan Adams, who was standing behind him, singing so closely that I could see the strain of his neck as he reached the high notes and asked for my forgiveness. Any other time, I’d have dropped to my knees and told him I wasn’t worthy.

  But I had somewhere else I needed to be. Someone else I wanted to worship.

  With one last look at Rhett, I mouthed a thank you, and then I turned to Presley. My Presley. The man whose eyes were focused solely on me as I surged forward—jogging at first only to turn it into a sprint that sent me towards the main stage. Coops stepped out of my way. Hawk, too, and then I was pushing past equipment, scrambling to reach him.

  I didn’t care about the crowds.

  Didn’t care the song wasn’t finished.

  I didn’t care about anything other than him.

  I moved with precision, knowing where I needed to go, and just as I climbed onto the platform that Presley was on, I heard the song finish, heard the crowd cheer, and I saw Presley jump up from his stool to catch me as I threw myself at him and wrapped my whole body around his as tightly as I could.

  He caught me, taking the brunt of it, his body unshifting as I jumped into his arms and wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck. I wanted to hug him so hard, I could make him burst.

  First… I wanted to kiss him.

  My lips landed on his with a heavy crash, the urgency so powerful and potent, I felt on fire. Heat rose in my cheeks, toes, fingers, chest,
face, and most noticeably, in between my legs as I tightened my thighs around his waist and got lost in his lips.

  The world could have been in flames, and I wouldn’t have noticed anything beyond him and me.

  He was all I felt, all I tasted, and I knew in my heart, he was all I’d ever need.

  Gasping, he pulled away, his breaths ragged as one arm held my arse and the other pushed fingers into my hair and held on tight.

  “You did all this for me,” I whispered, tearing my gaze from his swollen lips up into his bright, intense eyes. “For me?”

  “There’s nobody else but you, Tess.”

  A single tear slid down my cheek, my happiness too alive to control.

  “You’ve got to promise me you’ll talk more and drink less, Presley,” I croaked.

  “Okay.” He smirked.

  “You’ve got to promise me there’ll be no more secrets.”

  “Okay.”

  “And you’ve got to promise never, ever to forgive me if I selfishly run away from you again.”

  “Okay,” he said softer, lower, his eyes darkening as he drank me in.

  “I don’t deserve you,” I told him quietly, bringing a hand up to push some hair behind his ear so I could run a finger down his chiselled jaw. “But I’m going to take you anyway… if you’ll still have me.”

  “A lifetime with my best friend? Hmm. I might have to think about that. Sounds fucking awful.” He smirked, swaying us from side to side.

  “Kiss her! Kiss her! Kiss her!” the crowd chanted, the noise growing louder and louder, reminding me where we were and what I was interrupting. I glanced at them, just a never-ending view of muted light mixed with camera flashes.

  “Not everyone hates us being together, do they?” I whispered in his arms, unable to believe the love we were getting as I turned back to him and felt him twist his fingers in my hair.

  “It wouldn’t matter to me if they did. All that matters now is you.”

  I smiled brightly.

  “And us.” He beamed right back at me. “If you’ll forgive me.”

  “Let’s forgive each other,” I said softly before I gave the crowd what they wanted, leaned in and pressed my lips to Presley’s again.

  With that kiss, I gave him my promise of forever.

  I let him taste my regrets and savour my return.

  I lost a part of me on that stage I didn’t ever want back. I wanted him to hold it in his heart and take care of it because I didn’t trust myself with any of me anymore. I only trusted him.

  Everyone’s a little twisted, and I wanted to unravel with Presley. Only ever him.

  When he pulled back to look at me one final time, he dropped his forehead to mine and flashed me a private smile.

  “You do know you just ran straight past the Bryan Adams, don’t you?”

  “Bryan who?”

  “Fuck. You love me more than Bryan?”

  “A thousand times more.”

  “I’m gonna run to you,” Presley sang for me, his rough, edgy, quiet voice making me throw my head back and laugh.

  The crowd cheered louder, forcing us to look their way, the clapping and chants making my skin tingle. All I could see were smiling faces staring back at us. The band, Bryan Adams, the fans. Sometimes wanting someone isn’t enough. You have to want the life they live, too, to make it work. It was at that very moment I understood the truth of it all.

  For every person who hated you and tried to bring you down, there were a thousand more cheering you on from the sidelines—some cheers loud, others silent and unassuming. This was our love story, and we happened to have an audience of people waiting to read all about it.

  We were the lucky ones.

  We were our own youths gone wild—losing the weight of expectation, freeing ourselves of worry and doubt.

  “I’ve got to finish the set, baby,” he whispered in my ear, the heat of it making my stomach clench.

  Turning back to him, I gave him a smile and uncurled my legs from his waist, sliding back down until my feet hit the platform. It was like standing on shaky ground, my knees now jelly and my world spinning.

  “Wait for me,” he said, pressing a kiss to my forehead.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I assured him.

  And I meant it. Every word.

  Epilogue

  Two Months Later

  PRESLEY

  “Tess, come on.”

  “In a minute!” she shouted from the bathroom.

  “I can’t believe I’m the one chasing arse here,” I muttered to myself, shoving her things into a bag and zipping it up. Schedules weren’t for me. Keeping time was not my strong point. The only thing I was any good at was winging my way through life, getting by on a bit of talent and a lot of charm.

  Every bit of that was going to shit today.

  Today, I had to be organised. Every moment was set in stone, waiting for me to drag her along, hoping she didn’t ask too many questions on the way. Although, I wasn’t too worried about those. Since throwing herself back into my life, Tess had changed before my eyes.

  Gone was the unsure woman who didn’t believe someone like her could survive the spotlight. She didn’t spend her days looking confused, unsure, or in a daydream. Her confidence shone now, neither too heavy or too light. She lived her days holding my hand, following me and the band on the road and giving up her life back home so she could be a part of mine.

  She didn’t know what she’d done to deserve me, apparently. She had no idea how many times I lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling while she slept beside me, wondering how the hell I ended up with someone as amazing as her.

  After TriFest, Tess had taken to social media herself, creating an account where she could give her version of events, as and when it suited her. And, being the formidable woman I always knew she was, her first Instagram post happened to be a video directed at none other than Janey Dominic. She condemned her for her personal attacks, the lies she told, the video footage she illegally took and used against us. She belittled her without being venomous. Her quirky personality and immaculate one-liners making her audience grow to the hundreds of thousands within days.

  She demanded an apology from the newspaper Janey worked for, saying she had nothing to lose anymore and if they wanted to go after her, she’d have fun playing cat and mouse. Tess shone in front of that camera, and I couldn’t believe she was willing to put herself out there that way. Not for me. Not for us.

  It only made me love her more.

  Janey, apparently, was fired from her position at The Daily Times, and we hadn’t heard from her since.

  Tess had taken it upon herself to let the fans know that if we had anything important to say, they’d hear it from her first, and somewhere along the way she’d become our very own photographer, taking the best shots of us on stage and offering exclusive, mostly harmless footage of us backstage.

  Anything intimate, though, was for our eyes only.

  Youth Gone Wild fans were going crazy over her, and the tables were turning.

  She no longer had to worry about who was looking at me. I was worried about who was looking at her.

  Smiling to myself, I dragged her bag to the door and dumped it on top of her others. The woman was acquiring more shit than the whole band and crew put together.

  “Presley, I have to collect these memories for us. I have to get tacky gifts and postcards, and all that other stuff you hate from every city we visit because one day we’ll be old. We’ll be tired, worn out, and our memories won’t be so good. We’ll forget about dancing on the rooftop in Hungary. You won’t remember the way the crowd screamed your name in LA. I’ll forget the way I looked at you, knowing you were mine, while thousands of people wished you were theirs. Indulge me, please. I want these things for us,” she whined in a beautiful voice that only she could make sound adorable.

  I sighed at her and pushed my fingers through her hair. “It sounds like I’d better buy a house with a big fucking garage t
hen, doesn’t it?”

  “Don’t forget the pool.” She kissed me on the nose. “And the Mustang.”

  “You’re adapting to this lifestyle a little too quickly.”

  “No point me acting like you don’t have me for life anymore, right?” She grinned.

  Damn right.

  I never understood how my father had devoted so much of himself to my mum. Now, I got it. I got it more than I could bear some days. If Tess said she wanted to leave me again, I’d struggle to survive the after. I wasn’t weak, but with her in my life, I was definitely stronger. She made me feel indestructible, all the while being the only one to hold all the power that could destroy me.

  She wouldn’t though.

  I had faith in that. In her. In us.

  “Tessa Lisbon, come on!” I called out, using my commanding voice now. That one got her moving, usually. The downside was, it also got her horny, and that was only a bad thing today because we had somewhere to be.

  “Don’t you use that tone with me,” she said, opening the door with a dramatic flair before she began to walk closer with a seductive smile on her face.

  Fuck. Me.

  I couldn’t imagine ever getting tired of seeing her walk into a room. Other women could be dressed in glitter and gold from head to toe, and they still wouldn’t sparkle the way Tess did. They could promise to spend four days in bed, bending to my every command, and they wouldn’t turn me on the way she managed to do with nothing more than a smile.

  She was wearing a black pair of cut off shorts, a white tank that let the underarms fall down below her bra line, and she had a turquoise bra on underneath. Her cherry red hair was curled into soft, subtle waves, and she’d put makeup on today. Her eyes were lined in kohl, making the green of them pop.

  I wanted to scoop her up, throw her on the bed, and close the curtains on the world.

  “Why so speechless, rock star?” she asked, sashaying closer, coming to a stop in front of me.

  My eyes drifted down to her white tank, and I studied the four lines of text on it.

  I

  Prefer

  The