6. Luke
6
LUKE
B loody hell.
I never thought of Daph as a temptress, but clearly I have it all wrong. She looks sultry and seductive, a siren whose call I can’t resist. When something seems too good to be true, it often is, so I take my time easing closer, savoring the view.
She doesn’t move away.
Her expression doesn’t change.
The ice queen has evidently been given her marching orders.
If anything, Daph’s smoky eyes fill with anticipation.
I put one hand on her waist, letting my fingers curl around her, and she sets a hand on my shoulder. She gives me a little squeeze, checking out the shape of me, and I’m glad I haven’t given up on my daily work-outs. We take it slow, slower than slow, staring into each other’s eyes like we’re both mesmerized.
There can only be one first kiss. I’m going to make it one to remember.
She looks like she has the same plan and I like it.
Two minds as one.
My other hand is on her shoulder, my fingertips sliding to the exposed skin at the neck of her sweater. She’s soft, of course, soft and warm and smooth, and my fingertips ease higher of their own volition. I feel the tiny hairs on her nape and push my hand into her hair.
Daph reaches up and pulls out the clip, shaking her hair free so it falls in waves around her face. She looks disheveled then, even more inviting, and I can’t resist her. My hand is wrapped around her nape, her hair tangled around my fingers, and I lean in to capture her lips in a kiss. She’s trapped between my hips and the lip of the farmhouse sink, which means she has zero doubt how much I’m loving this.
She wriggles her hips, message received, which sends a jolt through me. That’s nothing compared to the moment she opens her mouth to me, flicking that mischievous tongue across my bottom lip. Seductress in spades. I pull her up to her toes and slant my mouth over hers, claiming her with a kiss that demands a response.
Daph gives me one, arching against me, kissing me back with an enthusiasm I didn’t expect. I slide my other hand beneath her sweater and find bare skin under my hand. I can smell her shower gel and her arousal, and it’s the most potent aphrodisiac known to mankind. I deepen the kiss and she’s right with me, her hands locked in my hair pulling me closer, her foot rising up my leg, then her leg twining around mine. The heat of her is right against me and she rolls her hips again in silent demand, making my blood run white-hot. I find her nipple beneath the sweater and it’s both bare and hard as a pebble. I tease it with my thumb and she gasps and moans into our kiss, grazing my mouth with her teeth as she leans on the sink and wraps her legs around my waist.
I’m thinking about the sturdiness of the counter, before I catch myself.
This is Daph . This is my lawyer, my sister’s friend, the one person who is trusting and helping me. I break the kiss and remember that her windows are bare, that the whole town could see us if they were looking.
I want more than sex, more than this minute.
I want special.
Her cheeks are flushed and her lips are swollen, her eyes shining and her expression welcoming. We could do this thing, maybe without regrets—probably not slowly enough, given my recent abstinence.
But then it will be over, and it won’t have been enough.
I straighten, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “You need some drapes,” I whisper to her and she almost laughs. I lift her up and set her feet on the floor then she studies me.
“That’s not really the problem, is it?” she asks, her own voice husky.
There is something impossibly hot about smart perceptive women, something I’ve never appreciated until this moment.
“I want more,” I say, not knowing how else to explain it, and immediately see that she’s taken it the wrong way. I’ve said it the wrong way, but it’s too late. She’s straightening her sweater and slipping away, combing her hair with her fingers and twisting it up again. If she knew how much I want to kiss the back of her neck, she wouldn’t be presenting it to me like this, but I look and yearn and keep my mouth shut.
Funny how I’ve always known the right thing to say to women, until Daph.
Until it mattered.
“I’ll draw up the paperwork tonight,” she says, all business again. “If you can stop by to sign everything, I’ll visit Meredith Thursday in the city.”
I pull out my phone and give her the address, ridiculously pleased that the transaction results in my having Daph’s cell phone number. “I don’t think she’ll be around in the morning.”
“Good. I’ll have time to meet a friend for lunch first.” She’s avoiding my gaze and I know I’ve hurt her feelings but I don’t know how to make it right. My own reaction is too chaotic and new for me to manage that.
“Nine?” I suggest and she flicks me a look. Her gaze is cool again, and even though I should have expected it, it’s like a knife to my heart.
“Nine,” she agrees.
It’s clear that I’m supposed to leave now. I head for the door, tug on my boots and shrug into my jacket. “It’s not you, Daph.”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t give me that it’s-not-you-it’s-me garbage.”
“Even if it’s true?” I hold my ground, needing her to know this. “There was a time that I would have taken whatever you would give, right there on that counter, then walked into the night and never seen you again.” Her lips are tight and her arms are folded across her chest, but she’s listening. “But I’m not that guy anymore. I don’t want that anymore.” Her gaze drops pointedly to my jeans and I shake my head. “I don’t want just that anymore. I didn’t know it until tonight, until you, until this.” I wave at her house including her and our conversations in the gesture. “And I don’t know what it means, not yet. But I do know that I don’t want to mess it up.”
“Maybe there’s nothing to mess up.”
“Maybe not. But I’m not going to have you think later that it was pity sex because you were sad about this Justin jerk...”
“I am not sad about this Justin jerk.” She bites off the words and I know she’s mad.
“I’d like to be sure of that.” I look out the window and back at her. “There’s something going on here, Daph, something more, and I don’t want to rush it.”
She looks across the room, her lips tightening, and I know she doesn’t believe me. That’s fair. It just means that I’ll have to convince her that I mean what I say.
“Tomorrow at nine,” I say and she nods without looking at me. I turn and leave, knowing I’m doing the right thing, but feeling like I’ve made a mistake all the same.
How could anyone toss her back?
How could anyone mess around on Daph and lie to her about it?
On the other hand, if Justin the Jerk hadn’t done that, she’d be married to him, living in Toronto, making babies and living the good life.
That means I owe the moron.
I’m just not sure how much yet.
I don’t sleep. I spend the night staring at the ceiling of my room at the motel. There’s a big tv, apparently with satellite service, but I don’t turn it on. I don’t even turn on the lights. I just crash on the king-sized bed in my T-shirt and skivvies, thinking about Daph.
No. Haunted by that kiss.
By her.
I’m not surprised very often, not by people anyway. Events, sure, they catch me off-guard. Death is particularly good at that, but I don’t want to think about the grim reaper right now.
I want to think about Daphne Bradshaw.
I want to fantasize about Daphne Bradshaw.
I’m hot inside, that perfectly delicious combo of impatience and a conviction that the experience should be prolonged. I can’t be sure where this is going. I have ideas, but Daph is the kind of person who will have some of her own. I like that, too. I love that she’s not afraid to set me straight or share her view, but that means doubt.
The very essence of romance is uncertainty. Yes, Oscar, I see now that you were on to something there.
I want to make the uncertainty last, draw it out, seduce Daph as slowly as possible—if that even can be done—and that desire contrasts with the need to know right now what it feels like to be with her. That’s an imperative.
I need to kiss her again. No, I need to do more than kiss her. I need to know what she likes and what sounds she makes and how she moves—and I need her to want me back. I want her wrapped around me, telling me what she wants, demanding more.
Again and again and again.
I want it all. I want to fall into her and drown, losing myself in what we’re like together.
I shiver and run my tongue over my lips, tasting her again, thinking of the dangerous little move with her tongue. Who would have guessed?
Not me.
It’s gratifying to have a good surprise. It’s good to feel the rush of adrenaline again, to feel alive, to be interested and intrigued in something—or better yet, someone.
When was the last time a woman destroyed me with just one kiss? I’m not sure it’s ever happened. Maybe my first kiss ever, the novelty and all that, but I can’t even remember who it was with. So, it was the sensation of a kiss, not the kisser herself, who made an impression.
This time, it’s the other way around.
Funny thing. I couldn’t get enough of the women when we had the band. They were everywhere. They were pretty and enthused. They flung themselves at us, and I thought it only decent to catch as many of them as I could. I was insatiable and apparently their numbers were infinite. If I’d realized my joke during an interview about my fondness for lingerie would have the stage knee-deep in lingerie at the end of every performance, I would have made it sooner. The only thing better than a lacy treat of a bra is one filled with breasts of whatever size and shape—and the only thing better than that is setting them free, and worshipping them. Thoroughly.
But I haven’t been that way for thirteen months. When Taylor died, my best friend left me, the band fell apart, fame slipped through our fingers—and a part of me died. I couldn’t sleep for months, I have no music in my heart and mind, and I haven’t had sex since.
When everything is shit, temporal pleasures are irrelevant.
Maybe I was sleepwalking. Maybe I was drifting. I sure didn’t care about much of anything.
Until today.
Until Daph.
Is it possible that I only arrived in town this morning? I look at the alarm clock, the numbers glowing red in the darkness. Not even twenty-four hours ago.
Impossible.
And yet true.
What has she awakened—and why did it come out of hibernation for her? I don’t even want to think about it. It makes one kiss seem way too important. Sure, Daph is great, but I remind myself that all of those women were great. That truth rings hollow. I didn’t want more of any of them. The once was enough.
So, why did I step back from Daph tonight?
I try another argument. Daph’s just the right woman in the right place. Maybe I was due to shake off my grief. Maybe it was time, and any woman’s kiss would have provoked this change.
Nope. All of those sound like rationalizations, too.
The sad fact is that you can’t expect different results by making the same choices over and over again. I’ve seen where surrendering to temptation repeatedly gets me. It certainly yields a measure of short-term satisfaction, but nothing that endures. And when the bit that was enduring—the fame, the money—went away, so did everything else. I learned from Taylor what it was like to have a friend who was indifferent to my circumstances and I want another one.
His death has left me lonely.
There. I said it. Or at least I allowed myself to think it. And I haven’t felt a connection with anyone in thirteen months, not until Daph shook me awake. She did it even before we kissed. She doesn’t accept the easy answer. Maybe that’s the secret. She sees through me and demands more. That reminds me of Taylor.
She’s tough and smart and beautiful…
And I like her. I really like her.
I want to know everything about her.
Of course, I want a hook-up—I’m still human—but I’m thinking about more than that. I’m pretty sure that once with Daph might not be enough. She’s got layers of secrets, and though I generally don’t worry about unraveling anyone’s mysteries, she’s different.
Her kiss was different. It gave and it took. It hinted. It definitely enticed. She met me halfway and led me on. We were in it together.
I like that.
A lot.
So I’m awake, wondering a perilous and unfamiliar thought.
What if the songs are true?
It’s a crazy notion, one I’ve never considered before, but it’s persistent in the way that unexpected insights tend to be.
Could this be what we write songs about? ( All the songs.) I’ve written a bucket of them myself, maybe out of yearning, maybe out of optimism. I don’t think I ever really believed in love and forever, but what if it is a real possibility?
That’s a gamechanger.
It’s certainly enough to give your world a hard shake.
What if you can fall in love with someone who turns out to be your partner and your lover both? What if eighty-four million love songs are true?
It should be too terrifying a prospect to be given serious consideration.
But I can’t stop thinking about it.
That kiss.
Maybe Daph’s The One.
I can’t believe this thought has even come into my head, but I can’t shake it. Taylor was the only who believed in kismet, that there was one true love out there for everyone, that paths would cross when the moment was right for both. I always thought that was nonsense. Maybe wishful thinking.
What if he was right?
I can’t help thinking about a love song, the ballad Taylor wrote that was our finale at every show, the one that ached with yearning, the one that was so transcendent that women stormed the stage, wanting all we had to give. The song was what brought them to their feet. Its sentiment brought out the cigarette lighters in the sea of darkness—that was Taylor’s interview confession, that he loved to see the lights. After that, we sold branded battery-powered lights by the thousands before every show. It was magical to look out and see them all swaying in time to the music. I sang that song thousands of times and it always felt new.
I hum it to myself in the darkness, unable to stop wondering if its words might be true.
It seems infinitely more probable that I’ve lost my mind.
But what if I haven’t?
What if I’m in the right place at the right time to have my dream—the one I didn’t even realize I had—come true?
It’s no wonder I can’t sleep.
In the morning, I’m right on time. I’m wearing my last clean shirt, the one with our band logo across the chest. I always liked this one, since it has silhouettes of each of us cut out of the block letters. I’m in the upright of the M serenading the microphone, Taylor is in the B with his guitar, Brent is in the D bent over his bass and Zach is triumphantly waving his drumstick in the K. The shirt is black, the letters white.
When I arrive at the law office, the receptionist has the paperwork for me to sign. She sits me down in a small conference room and I start reading. Never sign anything without reading it and understanding every single word. I can hear Daph talking to someone in the office with the closed door. Her dad, undoubtedly. The Honda is parked out front beside the Mercedes sedan that I saw outside his house. There are more papers to sign, contracts to read, funds to transfer.
When they emerge, her dad is polite but distant. A gracious gentleman and I can see where Daph got some of her good looks. He’s not out to make friends with me, but then if some dickweed had cheated on my beloved only daughter and effectively jilted her, I’d be giving the side-eye to a whole generation of guys, too, particularly any who were in her proximity.
Daph is glacial. I guess I deserve that, but it’s not like I can explain as her dad and his receptionist circle around. Just before noon, her dad leaves to have lunch with Patrick while Daph heads to Havelock to finish up the title transfer. I thought they did all that online, but apparently not when you’re in a hurry. The receptionist, Mrs. Prescott, firmly ushers me out the door and locks it behind us, marching down the street after a curt nod to me.
She must go home for lunch.
My day yawns before me, devoid of commitments or errands. I’m supposed to come back to get keys etc. but not until the morning. I wander down Queen Street, impatient and hungry. I’m tempted into the thrift shop, and pleased to discover a lot of vintage T-shirts for sale. There are more than a few in my size and it’s tough to choose. I pick the purple one with Queen’s logo in silver across the chest, the Rolling Stones one in red, the INXS one in a blue so dark it’s almost black. I also found a great pair of running shoes that look new for a crazy cheap price. That they’re in my size means they should be mine.
The tattooed and pierced girl behind the counter is singing along to Tracy Chapman and doesn’t appear to recognize me.
Give me one reason to stay here.
Exactly, Tracy. Exactly. My thoughts to your lips.
Tell me that you have a soundtrack for your life, a mix that follows you wherever you go and provides the background to all your significant moments. I do. I’ve always had one. Even before there was the band, there was the music. And it’s funny, but being back in Empire has conjured up that old playlist of eighties and nineties hits.
It’s not as good as the playlist I’ve had since, the one of our band’s songs and the songs I was writing, a glorious mix that was ours alone. The best, though, is when a new song appears in my thoughts, tempting me to listen, taunting me with possibilities, a melody that has to be coaxed and urged toward a full song. I haven’t heard one of those since that fight with Taylor.
The music is gone.
I’m suddenly aware of the void within me. I refuse to think about it, not here in this store. I think of that old playlist instead.
Tracy Chapman was on it. The Rolling Stones (Can’t Get No) Satisfaction . INXS Devil Inside . Billy Idol’s Rebel Yell . I smile, realizing they’re all songs of teenage mutiny. My anthems, at least while I lived here. I have time to think that my T-shirt choices are right in sync with that before I see the anomaly.
I’m in Empire by choice this time. In those days, I wanted to get out of Empire more than anything, but I decided to come back. I could drive right out of town right this minute and no one would care.
It’s jarring to realize that Tracy is singing for a different version of me.
Even weirder, I have no firm plan to leave, even though I can.
Disconcerted, I head for the cash counter.
“Mad, Bad & Dangerous 2 Know,” she says, correctly interpreting the initials in the band logo on my T-shirt. “Aren’t they over?”
Ouch. I hide my flinch, but just barely. “Think so?”
“Oh yeah. Ages without a new song.” She chews her gum, blows a bubble and pops it, then nods at the shirt I’m wearing. “I’ll give you ten bucks for it, or fifteen credit. Vintage and all.”
Vintage. Vintage! This shirt was brand new a year ago and this is the first time I’ve worn it. I had to work up to flaunting the logo again, and right now, it’s working for me. Being back in Empire makes me feel MB&D2K, for sure. I’m ready to kick down some doors, wake people up, provoke change.
Not sell the shirt off my back.
Okay, maybe I haven’t changed that much.
“Thanks. I still like it, though.”
“Suit yourself. I’m all for a little nostalgia.” She rings everything up and I pay. “Someone told me the front man was from here,” she says as Tracy finishes the song.
“I heard that, too.” I manage this deadpan.
“Yeah? Maybe it’s true then. I thought she was putting me on.” She flashes a smile. “It’s not like he’ll ever come back.”
“You might be surprised,” I say, but she shrugs and starts singing along to the next tune.
Roxy Music, in case you’re wondering. More Than This. Not on my playlist but a good song. Evocative. I ask her what radio station she’s listening to, and it’s the one from Havelock we used to listen to in high school. They must be playing the same music, which is okay.
I linger until the end of the song, then she’s giving me the side-eye so I leave. It has been a while since anyone thought I was a shop-lifter, but that happened in Empire, too.
I treat myself to a sad-looking tomato-and-cheese sandwich from the convenience store across the street. There’s a boombox on the back counter, banging out salsa music so loud that I can’t hear anything the guy says to me. There are no other options for lunch in town, at least as far as I can see, and this sandwich hasn’t reached its best-before date. Call it a win. White bread, though. I eat it on the way back to the motel, thinking.
The thing is that if love is real, then it’s still untrustworthy. Love, or the illusion of love, is the justification for zillions of mistakes.
Like me. There’s a truth that’s tough to avoid in this town. I exist because of the folly of love—and its effect on my mom.
Is it a mistake for me to fall for Daph? The result might not be good for either of us, as much as I hate to admit it. I should be amused that I’m feeling so protective of her—Daph can fight her own battles, I suspect—but I am and it feels right.
Maybe that’s part of the package.
No, if I need a reminder of the price of love, then I should visit my mom. It’s a sound plan and a better way to spend the day than hanging around, waiting for Daph to come back.
Mom’ll probably let me do some laundry, and I have to believe there’s something better to eat in her fridge than the sandwich I just inhaled.
It’s time I visited her, too.