Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
The atmosphere in the small room expands and lightens as he begins the next verse.
The stripped-down acoustic melody and Tom’s angelic voice is revelatory in comparison to the eighties percussive rhythm of the original.
His words are clear and honeyed above the rumble of the bus.
The look in his eyes is piercing—dark woods bathed in sunshine.
I join him, allowing my voice to blend with his.
The simple melody whirls through my lungs.
His voice has an ethereal richness that’s heightened by the intimacy of the moment.
Just us, him bare save for his briefs, me clothed in his sweats and big T-shirt.
Each curve of his wrist and bend of his fingers, the dip of his collarbone, the hairs on his chest.
His smile warms as his hands stop their strumming.
“When you sing to me with that voice of yours…” Tom presses his hand against his heart and tips his head back, and I suppress a giggle.
“You shine when you’re performin’, Clem.
As if it’s a part of you that can’t be kept buried any longer.
Indulging in the music brings out something of a romantic in you. Outrageously beautiful.”
The way Tom idealizes song and music when it comes to me, compared to the way he speaks about his own career…
they might as well be two different art forms altogether.
I haven’t asked him about his meeting with Brad Engelmann the other night—it feels like a girlfriend question, which I very much am not—but it’s gnawed at me for days, and now feels as good a time as any to bring it up.
“You never told me how your meeting with Brad went.”
“It was fine.” Tom eyes the guitar strings. “I told him I wasn’t going to do another contract with Sierra.”
I shoot up. “Are you serious?”
He nods and begins to strum once more, graceful and slow. A lullaby, it sounds like.
“Are you going to try working with a new label?”
He only shrugs, those broad shoulders lifting and falling easily. “I dunno.”
“How did Jen take it?”
Tom laughs a bit at that. “How do you think?”
The thought is so unpleasant I wince. “And yet I still count all four limbs?”
“I tried to ease the blow by cavin’ on the Rolling Stone piece.”
Clambering onto all fours, I crawl across the bed until I’m directly beside him. I snuggle under the covers and allow my feet to squeeze between his calves. “I’m sorry.”
Tom moves the guitar to the floor and lies down beside me. He smooths my hair back. “Don’t be. I’m glad I told her. I feel better than I have in ages.”
And when he looks at me like that, those mesmerizing green eyes steadfast on mine—I know he means it.
Everything around us fades to dappled light.
I no longer know what city we’re fleeing or which we’re barreling toward.
I have no clue what kind of pain awaits me at the end of this tour and beyond.
But here, in Tom’s bed, in his arms, the music flowing through us both, unencumbered by Cherry Grove or labels or any responsibilities altogether—here, we are free.
—
As the summer grows hotter and we make our way farther west, there’s no shortage of new ways for Tom and me to spend time together.
Two weeks pass as quickly as a movie montage, and somehow also as unhurried as if time is slowing just for us.
We try to keep PDA to a minimum, but between showers in his tiny en suite bathroom—he hunches like the behemoth he is, and I soap us both—and singing together each night before thousands, it’s a miracle the rest of the world is none the wiser.
And on nights like tonight, sitting around the front lounge with the band, on our way from Kansas City to Shreveport, I’m grateful to have carved out my own place within this group that exists when Tom is enjoying his much-needed introvert time.
“My turn,” Indy declares, slumped in the lounger. “ Lover by Taylor Swift—”
“Nope,” Grayson interrupts, beer in hand. “You’re done.”
“What?! Why?” I can see heat coloring the tips of her ears. Guys who make people feel bad about the things they love are the dregs of society, I swear.
“Leave Freckles alone,” Wren says alongside her trusty toothpick. “Taylor can write a mean bridge and has a vocal range you’d kill for.”
Indy dips her chin in appreciation. “Thank you.”
“Bullshit,” Grayson says to Wren. “You’ve never listened to Taylor Swift. I’d bet every dollar I have.”
“You’d be broke, pretty boy.”
“As I was saying,” Indy continues, “ Lover by Taylor Swift, Beyoncé’s Lemonade , and that one Moby album my parents played on repeat.”
“My parents, too,” Pete says. “They loved that bald motherfucker.”
Indy nods. “It’s nostalgic and would help me remember them when I’m lonely.”
Grayson offers an approving lift of his shoulders as if he’s deemed her other two choices worthy. I try to hide my grimace—Grayson isn’t the grand pooh-bah of desert-island-album decency. “What about you?” I ask.
“Easy.” Grayson leans back and kicks his feet up onto the table. “Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon ; OK Computer by Radiohead; and Paul Simon, Graceland .”
My irritation only grows—those are excellent choices. A little boy-heavy, but I’m annoyed I didn’t think of Paul Simon myself. I wish he’d said Nickelback.
“Sure you critters know my picks: Ramones, Patti Smith, Joni Mitchell.” Wren tips her head my direction. “You’re up, blondie.”
“Hold on,” I say. “ Blue or Both Sides Now ?”
Wren tongues her toothpick into the other side of her mouth. With those wide cheekbones and slender nose, she and Joni could be sisters. “Am I horny or sad?”
“Both,” Molly says. “Always both.”
Wren nods. “ Blue , then. Clementine?”
I weigh the question, but truthfully I had my three picked out the minute Grayson posed the question.
“Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours , the Original Broadway Cast Recording of West Side Story , and—”
But I cut myself off before I can admit the truth: Kingfisher has become my favorite album.
The gothic melodies, soulful choirs, massive guitar riffs…
Tom’s music isn’t just beautiful and playable and catchy.
It makes me feel something there are no words for.
It floods my chest, not just my ears. After listening to and belting these songs every night for weeks, I couldn’t imagine my life without them.
And maybe, just like Indy and her parents’ Moby obsession, I’d want to bring Tom’s voice to the island with me.
Something to remind me of this time in my life. And of him.
But suddenly it feels far too intimate to share that with the group. “—and Golden Hour , Kacey Musgraves.”
“Damn,” Indy says. “That’s a great one. I’m swimming to your island.”
A deep rumble of a laugh sounds behind me, and I turn to find Tom making himself a cup of tea. His glasses sit low on the bridge of his nose, pink indents visible where they’ve been pressed into his face in thought. Ink smudged into his fingers. He’s been writing music.
“Three albums you’d bring with you stranded on a desert island,” I tell him. “Go.”
“That’s a tough one,” Tom says as he tips his kettle. “I’ll need a think.”
My brows lift. He never entertains our post-show hangouts.
Barry’s tea bag sufficiently dunked into the steaming cup, Tom shocks me again when he walks over and takes a seat beside me, crossing an ankle over his knee.
Molly disentangles from Pete’s grasp, Indy sits up, and Wren takes out her toothpick.
Though I’m distracted by where our thighs now touch, I don’t miss the sneer Grayson makes at our proximity.
He wasn’t too thrilled to hear we were seeing each other.
During our show in Cleveland, Tom squeezed my hand at the end of “If Not for My Baby,” and some fan page picked up a clip of it.
It died down quickly—chalked up to a touring band that’s close like family—but Grayson made sure to bring it up for the next three days, each joke less funny than the last.
“ I Put a Spell on You by Nina Simone and Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison are both absolute stunners,” Tom says.
Wren nods her agreement, as does Molly. Both albums are so innately Tom. I’m jealous of how well he knows himself: the high priestess of soul and Cash’s roughed-up stomp-rock country have both snuck their way into nearly all of his songs.
“And Van Morrison, Astral Weeks . That’s a fine aul’ record.”
“My parents loved that one, too,” Indy says.
“Or U2’s Joshua Tree !” calls Conor from his bunk.
Their Irish pride brings a smirk to my cheeks. “I thought you were trying to sleep!”
“How can I with you lot playing feckin’ parlor games until the sun rises!”
I grin and turn back to the group. “Molly?”
“Fuck the desert island,” she says. “I’ll sink to the ocean floor with the rest of the ship.”
“Don’t say that,” Pete says. “I hate when you say shit like that.”
“I’d be a wicked surprise for the divers searching for the wreck.” Molly lays herself elegantly across Pete’s lap, her dark hair spilling over his jeans, and crosses her arms like a mummy. “A ghoulish mermaid skeleton babe.”
Wren approves. “Sick.”
Grayson, not so much. “Can’t you ever just answer the question?”
Molly stares daggers at him, but sits up as she says, “ Folklore , Midnights , Reputation .”
“Oh, come on,” Grayson whines.
“Yes!” Indy teems with delight. “Those are so you, Molls.”
Molly unleashes a serpentine grin and I beam right back at her.
She is the coolest person on this tour by a mile.
She leans into Pete once more and I slip my phone out to snap a pic—Indy and I have taken to sending her cutesy shots of the two of them just to see her blush.
My lock screen informs me it’s past three a.m. As if lying in wait until I realized the late hour, a monster yawn overtakes me and I bury my face into Tom’s side.
“Oh no,” I say through my yawn. “I’m fading. ”
Tom stands with a stretch and extends a hand for me to take. When I do, Pete releases a low whistle that sends the group into fits of surreptitious laughter.
“Animals, the lot of ye,” Tom mutters, wrapping his arm around me.
In his suite I strip Tom’s Trinity sweats off and let them pool at my feet before climbing into the double bed. Then I spread my legs and twist until I’m comfy. Another unexpected benefit of being outed—sleeping in bed next to Tom each night. Goodbye, tiny coffin, you will not be missed.
“Thanks for joining us,” I say when Tom slips in beside me.
His bare chest smells like his simple bar soap; that foggy, post-rain scent I’m helplessly addicted to. He pulls me in close under the covers. My eyes are already fluttering shut from his lulling warmth and comfortable sheets.
“It wasn’t too terrible.”
My hands curl around his arm, and I watch the hairs there rise with my touch. I press my mouth to the side of his wrist and Tom hums.
“They’re so funny,” I say into his skin.
I’m going to miss them all terribly. But I don’t share that part because we don’t talk about how the tour is ending in eleven days. Or, we haven’t, and I don’t plan on being the first one to bring it up.
“I’d forgotten what it was like. To spend time with the band like that.”
Something about his tone makes my chest ache. Maybe the self-imposed isolation had done more harm than he’d realized. But the man holding me against his chest is different somehow from the one who called our friends colleagues a mere month ago.
“I think it means a lot to them, too.”
“Thank you,” he murmurs after a beat.
When I peer up, his eyes are as wintry green as ever. “What for?”
He brushes his lips over the crown of my head as he says, “For bringing me back.”