by Lisa Gillis
I literally feel my mouth water. I know the pair of jeans hugging her hips and legs. They are one of my favorites in her wardrobe. When she bends forward, the denim rides up enough that the rip just below one fine ass cheek stretches showing more skin.
I have an incredible urge to run my tongue over the exposed skin.
My fingers falter for a half second. My next chord is a half beat off.
The guys don’t seem to notice, but Sash does. I’m deprived of that bit of bare thigh when she straightens and glances over her shoulder to me, all the while never missing a beat of her own licks or vocal. Whatever she sees in my expression causes her eyes to linger through a quarter of a measure before she turns back to our audience with her next verse.
The song winds down, and she holds the last note as her fingers spider on the frets. My last chord is played. I let my guitar hang but respectfully wait until she strums one last time and sucks her lungs full of air before I close the short distance to my water.
They scream her name, whistling catcalls, and hoarsely yell out proposals, propositions, and praise. To my knowledge, Sash has never slept with any of the fans who have come to our shows. Nevertheless, I fight the jealous burn in my gut.
A barely-dressed waitress changes out the iced bucket in my area, but I ignore the beers. I’m designated driver all night. She sets another near Mark and then gives me a wink as she sashays away. I smile and turn back to the crowded room.
The stage lights are dim for a moment between this song and the next, allowing me to see more than just a blur of light and shadowy movement beyond the stage. Routinely I skim the crowd.
Seeing Jillian startles me into a mild choke, and when she waves, I cough up water. As I turn away, I notice a couple of others I’d met the same night.
Mark begins a rhythmic pump of the bass drum, and letting the emptied plastic bottle drop out of the way, I position my fingers on my own instrument.
‘If I call, if I call your name will you come will you come for me……’
‘If I ask, if I ask will you wait for me…’
The song is one of my favorites. I’ve never asked, but I’m certain the verses have double meaning. I don’t want to know if they don’t. Because hearing Sash breathe a throaty ‘will you come for me’ into the sound system always gets me hard enough that I consider grinding the guitar for relief.
‘…touch me too…’
‘…rush me to…’
A flash of light such as I’ve never seen blinds me.
‘…saw you there …’
My knees buckle and then hit the floor. For a few stuporous seconds, I’m struggling to save my guitar from the fate of my knees.
‘…to feel the touch—”
Sash abruptly stops. Sladen dwindles, but Mark doesn’t drop the beat yet. I’m confused as the blinding ray seemingly comes from inside my skull, instead of outside.
That’s my last coherent thought before my head hits the stage.
I don’t know why I’ve fallen, or why my eyes want to close. As I give into my heavy lids and light feeling, the drumbeat halts.
The smell of raspberry rides one of my next breaths, and I know Sash is next to me. ‘Raspberry Rhapsody.’ I’m so bewitched by Sash’s body wash that sometimes I lather up with it myself.
“Trey!” Her voice is shrill. The next time she screams my faux name, her voice hoarsely cracks. “Trey! Shit! Shit! Shit! Somebody call 911!”
911? No! Every effort of strength goes into an attempt to push my eyes open.
There are more people around me, I feel the nervous buzz of energy, and Sash yells again. “Trey! Wake the fuck up!”
She’s said that very thing at least one morning every week since I’ve known her. After shows, it’s not so easy to wake up for work if we’re on the early schedule.
“Who did this? Did anyone see?” Sash again, and her voice is even hoarser. Others mumble, but my mind seems focused only on what she has to say. “Trey… Please…” I feel her breath on my face.
My eyes jerk open and I’m staring into her beautiful blue irises.
“Oh, thank God. Thank you, God!”
As she speaks, the tips of her blue tresses tickle my chin, and I realize this is the nearest I’ve ever been to her.
Turning my head the fraction that allows her hair to caress my lips, I continue to enjoy the close-up view of her beauty. Thick black lashes. Full lips. The arch of her brows and the barest dust of freckles on the tip of her nose where her makeup has sweated off.
“You look scared.” I say the first stupid thing popping into my head.
“I am! I was fuckin’ terrified. I thought you were… My God, I thought you could die or something.”
“No fuckin’ way. I’m not going to kick off when we have a show to play.” Throwing some strength to my upper arms, I attempt to push up on my elbows. Now that my besotted moment has faded some, I wonder again what the hell happened—why I’m staring up at the beams and air conditioning ducts of our venue.
As if I conjure them up by that thought, paramedics begin shoving their way through the mass of bodies around me. With more determination than ever, I push past my elbows, managing to leverage up on my hands, but I’m quickly restrained.
“Sir, no. Easy now. Just hold still.”
“I feel okay. I just…” An excuse eludes me as I remember the flash of light. And I realize my head is pounding like it’s being hammered with a bass pedal.
“Can you tell me your name?” The woman is taking my vitals while a man is shining a penlight into my eyes.
Can I? I want to joke around and say I’ve no idea, but I don’t. “Tris—Trey.”
“I’m Tina.” She introduces herself as if we’re meeting at a social event. I know she’s doing it to put me at ease. After I humor her with a return greeting, she asks, “Trey, can you tell me what happened?”
“I fell. I think a camera flashed or something… and I fell…” I know it makes no sense, and my words trail off.
The two paramedics are communicating with each other with motions as she questions me. “How did you get this gash? Was it when you fell?”
Sash had been quiet, probably conscientiously staying out of the way so the paramedics could do their job, but when I don’t answer, she materializes next to me again. “That’s where the bottle hit him.” With a forefinger, she indicates without touching me. “And when he fell, here’s where his head hit.”
“We need to close this up.” Tina speaks of the wound she is holding gauze to, and when she sends a look to the other paramedic, he gets to his feet. “We’ll get the gurney, take you to ER. You may need a CAT scan too.”
“No. No taking me.” When both paramedics give me a patronizing stare, I struggle again, wanting to get to my feet. I drill them with the look I’ve seen my father use when he goes into what my mom likes to call ‘Jackass Mode.’ I inject a deeper forceful timbre into my voice. “No gurney. No hospital. You can fix me up here.”
“Trey…” Sash lays a hand on my arm. “You should go. It looks bad.”
The identity records and ID a hospital requires panics me, and I shake my head. The movement is a big mistake. The ensuing pain almost lays me out again, but I tough through it, trying to hide the dizziness and nausea. “Are we still onstage? Can we not do this right here? I need to go to the bathroom.”
At this point, I’m saying anything to move into the shadows. Feet are everywhere. I’m surrounded by my friends, security, and the paramedics, but also too closely penned at a vulnerable time by people I don’t know. I don’t like being this exposed.
Mark and Sladen pull me to my feet, and I’m so grateful, I have to restrain from giving them a man hug. We head offstage, into the hall, and into the first bathroom, rather than the one adjoining the dressing room.
A few minutes later, after I take a leak for real, I recoil from my reflection.
Sladen is standing with a foot wedged to the bottom of the door. Mark is leaning into the mirro
r beside me and grimaces. “Looks hellish, bro.”
With a wet paper towel, I begin to clean the red trails and smears from my face, working my way closer to the wound. The blood has clotted, stopping the flow, and I judge the size of the gash extending from the right side of my forehead to my eyebrow.
“Bottle?” Trashing my second paper towel, I reach for a third. “I was hit by a bottle?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I didn’t see.”
“You had to see. It was hurled right to you—clocked you in front of your eyes.”
“Bro, if you don’t remember, maybe you should go to the ER.” Sladen chimes into the conversation from the door.
“My eyes were closed.”
They exchange dubious looks.
“Look, I just want to get this show over with. I don’t know about you pussies, but I need the money, especially now that I’ll have medical bills.” Reflexively, I wince when I dab too close to the wound. “Dammit! I can’t believe I was bottled!”
Both curve amused smiles.
“What?” I object and then deny any reason to be singled out by a disdainful heckler. “I was shredding!” I don’t count the barely missed beat of the song previous to the one during which I’d apparently been used as a pitching net.
“He really doesn’t remember.”
Wadding the current paper towel, I wait for an explanation.
“One of those chicks you boned after the Cleveland show.”
Suddenly I recall Jillian’s face in the crowd. “What about her? SHE bottled me?”
“Her boyfriend did.”
Boyfriend? “Son of a bitch!”
Chapter 25
ISP Mysteries
“Mariss?”
His wife was currently standing before the vanity mirror with a hair straightener poised in one hand and a hairbrush in the other. When she remained motionless for several seconds too many, he moved into the room, coming up behind her.
She jumped at his reflection, jolting out of whatever reverie she’d been in and went back to styling her hair.
“Honey, James called today about the ISP logs.”
The flat iron was gliding through her hair, but at this, she swiped it through the last several inches and waited expectantly for him to speak.
“They finally released them. Does J.J. know anyone in Detroit?”
“Detroit?” Her brow puckered. “Not that I know of… But he could, right?”
Just the other night they’d spoken about how they could never know the full circle of their son’s acquaintances when the internet was factored in. But their son was no dummy. The chances of him gallivanting across country—or God forbid, the world—to meet up with someone he knew only from online was crazy. Wasn’t it?
“Where in Detroit? Is there an address?” Her eyes, dulled by the stress of the last few weeks, began to wake up, sparks of hope flaring through the pupils.
“They’re demanding a court order to release any more than that.”
“But your family can make them, right? With their connections?”
“My family’s not the mafia, my honey.”
“I just mean they always get whatever they…” She trailed off, obviously reading his face.
They’d been together long enough to comprehend one another’s thoughts without speaking.
“Not this time. We tried. But using a private ISP for our security is not working in our favor with this one. They’re so intent on protecting what we pay them to protect that they won’t give out any more.”
“But you pay the bill!”
“I know, my honey. And I’ll get that court order. But it’s going to take a few days to go through the channels—even with our mafia connections.” She didn’t smile at his joke, and he hurried on. “In the meantime, James is talking to some guys he knows in Michigan. They’ll run his license, social security.”
“But he’s already done that for everywhere, right?”
“He’s done a national trace. But he’s going to do it again for the Michigan area. You never know.”
“Right.” She seemed deflated, punctured by his words. Her shoulders were slightly slumped, and the stance was even more real when she sighed out a breath. “Jack? I don’t feel like this PTA thing.”
“Me either. But we have to, for June.”
“I know.”
Chapter 26
Kissing in the Dark
SENDER: Tristan
SUBJECT Hi
Dear Mom and Dad everyday I’m convinced more than ever this is what I needed to do. This is part of my destiny and I can’t wait until you understand. I hope you’re not worried because I’m fine.
Dear Zoë and June, Sissies, I miss you. Someday soon, I’ll be home to play in the pool with you.
The return trip is quiet. Sash sits in the backseat with me after volunteering to make sure I wake up every hour if I fall asleep. She promptly falls asleep, and her weight slips to my side, her head almost touching mine on the seat.
After derma-bonding me up in the back of the ambulance, the ER team had warned me against the symptoms of a concussion and to follow up with my regular physician in the next few days. I had given them Trey’s information, and had made up a middle initial and a social security on the fly. I’m not sure what will come of that.
I’d insisted we finish up at least some of the show, but Sash’s voice gave out in the very next song. I know it was from not taking care with it when transitioning from singing to screaming at me on the floor.
Our tweeted crash pad of the night had been an option, but we’d unanimously agreed to make the long trip back to the security of our own house.
Sladen is driving after we all jokingly decided his two beers two hours prior was less risky than a driver who refused the ER room and could go into a coma at any time. The bartender had produced a disposable breathalyzer and handed it over to Sladen who had blown a point zero two.
The radio plays at a low volume, and I’m lulled by the current song. I want to curse when Sash’s phone begins to shrill. Not because it interrupts the song, but because Sash immediately sits up straight, and my body is deprived of the soft weight of hers.
“Trey?” She fumbles with it until it silences. She must have set the alarm app to go off every hour.
“I’m not asleep,” I don’t bother to open my eyes, but I promptly reassure her so she won’t raise her voice to more than a whisper.
She had mentioned one other time in the past when she had to baby her vocals after straining them. I know it’s dangerous. My parents have known of musicians who permanently damaged their vocal cords.
She pokes me, and I shake from my family thoughts. “Sure you’re awake?”
As I say, she’s wise to my ploys. I’ve talked in my sleep before and due to not getting up, made us rush to be on time for work. I feel a smile on my lips, and I reach for her, curving my arm around her neck as naturally as Mark and Sladen do.
Only, it doesn’t feel friendly to me. Touching Sash like this sends a surge through my body, but I fake my way through the friendly gesture. “I’m sure, ‘Mom’. Now go back to sleep.”
“I wasn’t asleep either.”
“Sure? You felt asleep.” I’m referring to the way she was resting against me until the phone alarm ruined it, and she picks up on it.
“I wasn’t,” she insists. “I thought you were sleeping… and you were warm… like a heater.”
She had deliberately rested against me?
My breath stops for a second, and I tighten the bend of my arm just a bit, enough to be inviting. “I’m still warm…”
She relaxes enough to lie fully against me again, this time, tilting her head to drop to the crook of my neck. I can feel my heart pounding so hard, I’m afraid she will feel it.
I want to kiss her, but every inner voice I’ve ever entertained tells me if I do, I’ll never have this closeness again with her.
One song fades into the next, and the roll of the
tires on the highway is hypnotic. So hypnotic it makes me stupid. Mark’s been sleeping since we left the venue. The phone alarm had barely roused him. Sladen is in ‘mindless drive mode,’ seemingly content to listen to the radio and let his passengers sleep. I know how hard it is to see from the front seat into the back when there are no city lights shining into the vehicle.
“Sash?” I whisper.
I’ll let destiny steer. If Sash doesn’t answer, then that’s how it’s supposed to be.
“Hmm?” Her shadowy form stirs a bit, and I breathe in raspberries.
“I was just checking to see if you’re asleep.”
Stupid. Oh fuck, I’m so stupid, but I can’t stop myself.
“No.”
It’s as if I’m watching myself from the outside and yelling at myself to stop, but I don’t.
“Me either…” I whisper back needlessly.
My fingers curl in the silkiness of her hair, tugging enough until her face is no longer on me. It’s so dark, I can’t see her expression, and that’s a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how this plays out.
My lips find hers easily, as if some force pulls them to just the right spot.
They’re softer and sweeter than I could have imagined. As I brush mine against them, I notice they’re also slightly chapped, but that doesn’t affect the perfection of them. Actually, it enhances them, making this kiss more real than my imagination ever dreamed.
She doesn’t pull back, and I relax my hand, threading through the roots of her hair, kneading her scalp as I breach her lips and touch the tip of my tongue to hers. A soft moan enters the kiss as our tongues flick together, and I savor the sound. Wanting to hear it again, I glide the tip of mine down the side of hers and back up. My jeans become incredibly tight when she groans again.
I know any sound we’re making is covered by the beat thrashing through the speakers. However, just thinking about the other occupants in the van brings me to a more rational state of mind. I don’t give a damn if Mark or Sladen see us kissing. But I know if it happens, she’ll hate it and maybe hold me responsible.