by Cat Porter
A soft groan rose up a few feet away from me, and my body tightened. I blinked, turning toward the groan, stepping back. Someone else was in this darkness with me. A guy, his arm outstretched against the wall, leaning over. Was he dizzy? Then he wasn’t doing much better than I was.
I took a step forward and in the red glow of the exit sign, I could make out wavy hair, long lean arms in a cut-off shirt. My pulse slapped me. My body stood at attention.
It was Beck.
“Hey—” My voice was more like a croak in the bristling silence of the hallway. I moved toward him. He took long, deep breaths. “Beck? Are you okay?”
He jerked back from the wall, his hand brushing at his mouth, narrowed eyes meeting mine in the dim red glow.
Would he remember me?
“Violet?”
Tingles raced over my skin. He remembered me.
“Yeah, it’s me. Are you okay?”
He sniffed in air. A hand slid around his throat. Silver rings on his long fingers gleamed in the dimness. “Yeah I’m … better now.”
“Do you need water?”
“Um—”
“A bottle of tequila?”
He let out a tight laugh as he fell back against the wall, his hands digging through his hair, sweeping it away from his beautiful face. So beautiful. A tight jawline, flexing muscles along that jaw, revealing pronounced cheekbones that in this shadowy dimness made me itch to capture that remarkable face on film.
Those unique bright blue-green eyes paired with long, full lashes gave him a boyish sweetness that made for an intriguing contrast to his rough edges. He wore a number of rings, and both wrists were stacked in bracelets—silver, metal, beads, leather. His black leather belt had metal grommets which added a bit of edgy to his sexy laid back bohemian vibe. Maybe a little dirty, too.
My teeth scraped over my lower lip. “You sure you’re okay?”
He cleared his throat. “I needed a moment after…”
“Of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come up on you like that. I’ll get out of your way.”
“No, Violet. You’re not in my way. Stay.” He moved to his side, still leaning against the wall, but now facing me. “Please stay.” His voice was suddenly a rough whisper that stopped me in my tracks.
“Okay.” Both of us stared at the other. Say, say, say, say something, Violet. “You were fantastic up there on stage.”
“Thanks.” His arms wrapped around his middle.
“The song was beautiful. And the way you sang was…beautiful.” Ugh, I’d lost my vocabulary and sounded like a starstruck fangirl. Wait, I was a fangirl. I pushed my hair away from my face. “You have a real gift, Beck. You got up out of nowhere on that stage, and…”
I was babbling again. Leave the guy alone. My lips pressed together.
“And?”
I lifted my gaze to his sea crystals. To hell with it, blame the whiskey sours. “And you blew us all away.”
An eyebrow lifted. Lips parted.
“Your voice, that song, those lyrics for your mom—I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.” My voice shook as I spilled the words. I never got nervous talking to people. This was different. This conversation bit straight to my quick.
“Why?” he asked.
“Why?”
“Tell me.”
The words stampeded up my throat. I knew exactly why. “Your bare honesty. Your creative truth. You, up there, expressing a deep, real part of yourself through your own work. And it was so natural for you. So sincere. You laid out your heart, and it was the most powerful thing I’ve ever witnessed. I envy that. I admire you.”
He stood up straight. “Violet—” He said nothing more, a ragged silence stretching between us.
Had I embarrassed him or just embarrassed myself? I wanted to zip into the nearest hole in the wall, like a cartoon mouse. “Uh—let me get you a bottle of water. There’s a stash over here.” My face blazed with heat, and I darted toward the stacked packs of juices and water bottles in the small storage area off the hall. Clawing at the thick plastic in the dark, I willed my face to not be beet red by the time I was finished.
Finally, I was able to yank a water bottle free from its plastic prison. “Here you go. It’s not cold—”
“It’s perfect, thanks.” He cracked open the top and drank deeply, his throat moving. He wiped at his wet lips and met my gaze. “This is going to sound stupid…”
“Try me.”
“All these months on tour, I haven’t gotten stage fright or nervous before a gig, not once. All those cities, thousands of people in these insane arenas—nope, just excitement. Every time I chomp at the bit to get out there and play, have fun with the crowd. But stepping out there tonight, now, freaked me the fuck out.”
“You were out there alone and maybe because this performance was so personally meaningful? You were playing for your mom in her town, not for the anonymous masses with your band opening for another band.”
“Yeah, exactly.” He let out a heavy breath, his lips tipping up into a small smile. “There’s a lot going on right now.” His defined shoulders relaxed. “It’s odd to be off the tour rollercoaster and in the real-life world for just a couple of days.”
“I’ll bet Meager must be a super shock to your system.” I let out a dry laugh. What was a tiny town in South Dakota compared to all the major cities of the United States?
“I got here, and suddenly everything’s at a different pace, and I have no idea how to keep pace or even if I want to. At this point, I’m not sure which is crazier: real-life or touring.”
“That’s so great that you took the time to come all the way here to visit your mom.”
“I had to.” He leaned a hand against the wall. “Mom called me and told me she was getting married. I wanted to meet her man, so I zipped up here the minute we had a break.”
“Yes. Finger. How did that go? Do you like him? Did you hit it off or—”
Violet!
I raised my hands in the air. “I’m sorry. Those are all really personal questions—”
“No, no, it’s okay. Really. I haven’t talked about it with anyone. He’s a good man. You live here, you know my mom. Have you met Finger?”
“A few times at the coffee house. And I’ve seen him and Lenore around town together.”
“They fit.”
“They do. That’s a great way to put it.”
“I’m so happy for her. It’s just…a shock.” He averted his gaze when he let that word out.
“Oh. It was unexpected?”
“Totally. Completely. All my life, the sure thing was that my mother belonged to no man, did her own thing her way, and screw you if you didn’t dig it. I respected that. Admired it even. She’d always seemed comfortable with being on her own. That’s the way it was with her. Total opposite from my dad, by the way. But that’s always been my mom. End of story.”
“Now, the story changed.”
His head tilted, he shifted his weight. “Yeah. The story changed.” The ache in his voice sent a stab of heat through my chest.
Beck’s mom was one very shrewd, very tough woman. Although not a smiley happy go lucky kind of lady, Lenore was always pleasant and polite, and underneath, always tough as nails. “Down to earth and salt of the earth, tell it like it is,” my mother had once remarked about Lenore. Exactly that.
Both glamorous and grungy, tattooed from head to toe, Lenore was a lingerie and clothing designer and sold her pieces at her boutique in town—in addition to a number of sex toys—all of which caused a stir, at first. She definitely moved to the beat of her own drum.
Men and women were both turned on and intimidated by her. Of course, she was close friends with all the biker old ladies in town. I always sensed Lenore could slice you with her brisk smile. It was a sharp blade filed with derision.
She was my superhero.
Beck’s hand went to the back of his neck and rubbed. He was uncomfortable.
“So I guess to suddenly
hear your mom tell you that she was getting married—”
“Flipped me the fuck out, in plain English.” His voice was raw, he took another swig of water. “Turns out she and Finger knew each other a long time ago. They were each other’s first loves.”
This new information was a revelation to him. A jolt.
“I always thought she had a secret locked down deep inside her.” He wiped at his lips. “But I never realized that it could be this.”
“Oh, wow. I get it.”
“I never knew about her life before my dad—nothing about her past. She never wanted to talk about it and never did. And from what little she told me now, I get the feeling that her past was pretty brutal and really dangerous. She’d lived a whole other crazy lifetime before she met my dad, before I came along.” He took in a tight breath.
“You couldn’t have known. She didn’t want you to know. Maybe it was hard for her to deal with.”
“Yes. She was brave as fuck, and Finger had been there for her back then. They went through a lot together.” He winced, tugging a hand through his hair, pushing one side behind an ear.
“And after all these years, they managed to find their way back to each other?” My voice was bright and gentle. Beck needed bright and gentle right now. “That’s some epic dream of the highest order come true.”
Eyes gleaming, he only nodded his head, a small sound escaping his throat. “It is. But I could tell she was worried about how I’d take it, and I hated that.” His rough whisper tripped my pulse.
“You’re her son, Beck. She cares about what you think and how you feel. That will never change.” My mind raced back to memories of Mom and Five, and my insides tightened. “Trust me, never.”
“I told her that I’m genuinely happy for her—for both of them. She’s getting this once in a lifetime second chance, which is so awesome. I told Finger that tonight, too. I wanted him to hear it straight from me.”
“A real life happy ever after.”
“They’re lucky.” The muscle along his jawline flexed.
“What’s wrong?”
He let out a heavy breath, a fist curling in his chest. “There’s this piece of me that doesn’t know what to do with it.”
“And that upsets you.”
His gaze lifted to mine and burned. “It pisses me off, Violet. It pisses me off. This isn’t about me. I shouldn’t be feeling—”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Beck. All of this is so emotional and completely new terrain for all of you: for your mom, for her and Finger, for you, for you and your mom. It’s a lot, a lot to navigate, but it’s a lot of good, too. Plus, for them, a lot of healing old wounds and a fresh start, right?”
“Hmm.” He sniffed in air, his eyes brighter somehow. “I felt so overwhelmed by all of it when she first told me, and I started working on a new song, this one. Writing helps me figure stuff out. And I needed her to know that her happiness means the world to me. I needed her to know.”
My breath cut, smoldering in my chest at this confession of the soul. I touched his arm and squeezed. “Mission accomplished, Mr. Lanier.”
His hand clasped mine, his grip tight. Heat throbbed in my fingers, through my hand, pulsing up my arm. Suddenly we were only inches apart. I squeezed his hand. “This is what I know, Beck—ever since Lenore got together with Finger, whenever I see her around town, she is walking on air, she’s beaming—well, in her Lenore kind of way.” I let out a small laugh.
His face remained somber. He said nothing. Dang, did he take my remark the wrong way? I squeezed his hand again. “You know what I mean, right?”
His head fell back, and he let out a rich laugh. My lungs jumped back into action at the sound. “Oh, Violet, I know what you mean, and that’s exactly what I meant too.” He took me in his arms and hugged me, his taut, warm body engulfing mine. A woodsy clean scent filled my senses.
“You did? Really?”
He released me. “My mom’s dated a lot, but not one guy was ever necessary, you know what I mean?”
Oh, I know precisely what you mean. My knees wobbly, I leaned against the wall. “Sure.”
“But Finger? Absolute necessity. The two of them are in this harmony together that’s ages old. They have a secret language all their own, a language that was forged a long time ago, a bond with a deep history. Like you said, she’s different with him. At first I thought maybe it was me having come off the crazy of the tour because I’ve never seen her like this before. Jesus, the PDA and the giggling on the sofa last night? Man…”
We laughed. The lines of his face stiffened once more. “All this makes me wonder, do you have to suffer for the real thing? The real happy ending? Is the real thing so intense, so powerful that sometimes you just can’t hack it? Seems like if you don’t make the right choice at the right time, you stand to lose a hell of a lot, if not all of it, right?”
“True.”
“Then life gets in the way and…”
“I don’t know much about love, but real life ain’t Hallmark cards, that’s for sure.”
“Spoken like a survivor.”
“You could say that.” I ground my boots into the concrete floor. How did we get so melancholic? No more. “Beck, you gave your mom an amazing gift tonight. I can’t even imagine how she must have felt watching you onstage, listening to you sing her that song.”
“I didn’t plan on performing tonight. I knew she was bummed she couldn’t make it to any of our later shows. We came here after dinner, and there was open mic night and Finger suggested I take the opportunity. I had the song ready. It all worked out, and Finger is the one who helped make it happen.”
Beck twisted his empty water bottle, the sharp, cracking noise filled the hallway. “Thanks for listening, Violet. It was good to talk all this out. You really helped me.”
My chest surged with warmth. “You’re welcome.”
I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Beck. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to this kind of intense, frank conversation. Not yet.
I was a thirsty woman who’d reached an oasis in the desert and hadn’t drunk her fill.
3
I started a new conversation.
“I can’t imagine the kind of pressure you’re under on tour.”
Beck slid a hand down his middle. “It’s like a time warp in a vacuum, where every little thing is magnified, and every little thing revolves around us.”
“Not bad if you can get it.” I let out a soft laugh.
“It’s fun, but it’s a long haul. The Heave tour is so unlike any tour we’ve ever done before. It’s a big, structured machine with lots of moving parts, lots of people who keep it functioning, and lots of people that depend on it. As the opening act, we have our role in the machine, and we need to deliver.”
“I’ve never thought of it that way, but it’s a business at the end of the day with super high stakes.”
“Then the other side of that is the way people react to you, talk to you. They don’t know you, but they think they do, and they want more of that person they think they know. They’re in your face, they want your attention, and then they do crazy shit. You do crazy shit.”
“I’ll bet.”
I could only imagine the “crazy shit” that went on. There had to be major groupie action on his ass show after show—for all the guys in Freefall. They were all hot boys. And The Heave had a party reputation like a good ol’ hard rock band from the eighties.
Beck caught my smirk and let out a throaty chuckle. Yep, real crazy, real dirty.
He dug his hands into his jeans. “When you step off of that nuclear powered express train that is a tour, like I did coming here, it’s a mind fuck. Part of me feels that real life is the alternate universe, not the tour.”
I giggled. “That is a mind fuck.”
He planted a foot against the wall behind him. “The hard nut to break is that real life has moved on without you, and suddenly you’re scrambling to catch up, and you have to because—”
> “Because it’s real life.”
That muscle along his jaw flexed again. “I guess I’ll get used to all this one day—the train, the on and off the train.”
“You’re lucky you have your dad to talk to about it all, since he’s been there, done that, right?”
“He definitely gets it. Most of the time, though, I’m just too exhausted or strung out to even order room service, let alone call Dad and have some kind of meaningful conversation.”
“Get used to it, Beck Lanier. This is just the beginning. I see loads of tours in your future.”
“I hope so.” The lines of his face relaxed as his voice gentled, and my skin heated at the sound. That sincerity that came through when he sang was in his speaking voice—it wasn’t some artificial frosting for his performance. I could listen to that voice speak and sing forever.
Here in this dark shadowy hallway, just the two of us.
Anywhere in the dark, just the two of us.
He had no airs of “I’m a star,” no egotistical pretensions. Would they set in soon as he and his band kept on getting bigger and bigger?
Probably. Inevitably.
We stared at each other in the shadows, his eyes gleaming, my pulse beating harder, louder. With my spear, I hunted down something “normal” to say on this minefield of silence.
Ah!
“My mom told me that she’s catering Lenore and Finger’s wedding at the Meager Grand. She’s making big plans for decorating, the menu, the cake.”
“That’s right.” He grinned. “Good scones and croissants at the Grand. Finger went over there this morning and brought home a full spread. And the coffee—oh, Violet, I’ve missed good coffee.”
My private parts filled with heat at the way he’d uttered my name on a kind of primal groan. It may have been meant for the Grand’s coffee, but that groan was mine. I was going to snatch the memory of that “oh, Violet” very soon and pretend it was about something else. I pressed my legs together, my toes curling in my boots.
“Jesus, enough about me.” He licked at his lower lip, his gaze lasering on me. “The last time we saw each other, we were both still in high school. What are you up to these days?”