13. Jaxon
Chapter 13
Jaxon
I sleep like shit again. My shoulders ache terribly and it’s a cold reminder of why I’m on this tour.
This couch is really doing me in, but being in a separate room from Sadie helps hide all my rehab essentials. Compression bands, ice packs, pain-relief meds. Those fucking muscle relaxers I know will put me out. I’m afraid of them, to be honest, so instead of taking them, I get moving.
When my five-o’clock alarm rings out, I grab a water bottle from the fridge, sling my workout bag over my shoulder, and quietly escape to the hotel gym. I don’t usually workout this early but I can’t stop thinking about Sadie. The sound of my name on her lips. Her laugh when I hooked our legs together. Wide doe eyes, hazel and caramel, melting before me.
Because of me? That’s only in my dreams.
I need to burn off this energy.
I slide a rubber forty-five pound plate onto each side of the barbell. In the mirror, I watch myself duck under the bar and wrap my hands shoulders-width apart on it before bracing my back to lift it off the rack.
It sucks to keep this injury to myself. I don’t know who I could trust with it. It’s partly why I secretly want to train Sadie. She’s my back-up after all. I don’t want to think of the circumstances where she might be needed, but it will mean I’m not in the picture.
I’m reminded by the pull in my neck that this might be my last tour. I don’t usually bring myself to think about it. My parents. My younger brothers. My fraternity brothers. What will they think of me if all this is over? Music is all I know. I’ve lived and breathed it since I learned to read and write. If anything, the only person who could understand me would be Sadie. She’s the only one I know who’s played violin as long as I have.
I balance the barbell on the tops of my shoulders, watching it shift left and right before I find my center of balance. The red plates spin on the ends and somehow my brain connects it with Sadie’s hair. Bright as fire and molten.
Just lift light. It’ll be fine. I try to convince myself, ignoring all warning bells to go to the jacuzzi instead or get a massage.
I inhale and exhale deeply as the bar digs in at the top of my spine. At the first squat, I start the count in my head. Twelve reps to warm-up. I left my headphones in the room in my rush to get out, so I have no music to drown out my thoughts. I let them run instead and use the exertion of lifting to push it out of my mind.
It goes straight to Sadie.
I want to push her, challenge her, like she does with me. She wants this solo, but she needs to believe that she deserves it. That’s what I want to train her on. She knows the technique, but being a soloist is more than just that and I have a feeling she’s spent a lot of her life feeling like she was second best.
Second best to me, I bet.
I don’t miss the ways she’ll glance over at me during rehearsal. Hazel eyes sliding to her right, her shoulder leaning in, slender legs open with her back foot always pointed towards me. Selfishly, I think she’s playing for me, but I know she’s only emulating my cues and technique.
What she doesn’t know is I’m doing the same. She’s always in my periphery, at the edge of my mind, thoughts always pulling to her and her light. Her usual sharp edge feels less blunt these days, almost as if it’s formed into a key unlocking parts of me I thought were lost. In that moment, a pang hits my chest, whether for her or from the weights I squat, but I know what’s true.
It’s been six years since that first kiss on the porch of my frat house. Six years since I craved for someone. Six years since I ran.
I rack the bar, exhaling sharply when the weight is off my shoulders. I grab ten pound weights to rack and clip on each side. I freeze when a woman passes behind me toward the treadmill. My mind instantly seeks for her. The woman is blonde, yet I see red anyway. I shake my head out of it, repeat my routine, balancing the bar on my shoulders and try to wrangle my thoughts.
My mind drifts to her soft hand wrapping over mine in our handshake, sealing the deal that I would help her for the solos, warm against my skin that was cold partly from the wind but also because the pain in my wrist numbed the feeling of my fingers again. I’m on the fast track to carpal tunnel syndrome, Mason always tells me, but I don’t let it stop me from playing music. I can’t.
I lose count of my reps, pausing at the top before I say “fuck it” and rack the bar again. I untuck my head and lean my hands into the barbell, yet all I see in my mind is that oversized sweater over her slender body. For all I care, she can keep it.
A wave rushes over me, so strong it feels like it might crush my chest at how much I’m starting to feel towards her. I don’t even know what it is. Want? Lust? Her voice in my ear? Her hand wrapped over my cock? I’ll even settle just for her eyes on me.
I can’t be thinking that, though. This tour has barely begun and I need to stay focused.
Her career. My career. We’re here as professionals and it needs to stay that way .
I stack another ten pounds on the ends of the barbell. I hold my breath until I lift it off the rack, back-stepping carefully until I have the space to squat.
It’s been a while since I’ve had sex. My lifestyle doesn’t cater for relationships and there hasn’t been anyone I’ve cared about to try and make it work. There hasn’t been anyone I’ve cared about, period.
I can’t even remember the last time I even let my thoughts run the way they do with Sadie. She’s distracting. Devastating. Dreamy.
She’s everything I need to stay away from, yet everything that makes my body sing.
I rack the bar again, the heavier weight leaving an ache in my shoulders, but the burn feels so good. As good as the way she looked at me, soft and endearing, when I told her she shouldn’t be anything but herself when she’s around me. It’s true. Why waste time pleasing others?
I push off the bar to sit on a bench and sip on water while I take a one-minute break. If I do another set, Mason would kill me for not recovering properly in between. Make it two-minutes then.
The blonde woman walks behind me again and I can’t help but notice my disappointment that it’s not Sadie. I’m so used to having her around. A part of me feels empty not being able to feel her near.
Training her for the solos is one thing, but training her to believe in herself? That’s a whole other challenge. Maybe it’s because of all my years of being alone. Maybe it’s to redeem what I’d done in the past, the secret I’m keeping of what happened after I left that night. Or maybe it’s because she lights up a fire in my chest that I’ve missed.
I see it now, though. The spark, the fire, the light, she is. She’s beautiful in more ways than just how artfully she plays music or the emotion she pours in every musical phrase or beat. She’s as much a lark as that favorite piece she plays.
I don’t know a day I won’t be mesmerized by her.
I stand up from the bench and set my gallon water bottle down. I replace the tens on each side of the barbell for yellow twenty-five pound plates. My brain connects it to the gold flecks I sometimes see in her eyes, and I breathe deeply with her smile in mind before ducking to rack it on my shoulders.
My phone rings. It’s out of sight on the bench to my right and I crane a little to see who it might be. But I’m carrying a hundred and eighty-five pounds on my shoulders that it’s impossible. When I go to rack the weight, my forearm does an odd twitch and my hand slips slightly. I miss the rack on one side and the world is tipping down sideways—with a hundred and eighty-five pounds tipping with me.
My wrist hyper extends backwards, the bar digs into my bicep, and my shoulder pulls at the odd angle to save the weight from crashing to the floor. While I get it back on the rack, the moment of release isn’t one of relief.
“Fuck!” I shout.
White hot pain lances up from my wrist, forearms, shoulders, and up to my neck. Needle sharp and stinging. I feel the blood rush to the injured areas, and I curse more for fucking up with a concert coming soon. I massage my injured arm tenderly with my other hand, but it’s not going to be enough.
I’m not going to be able to play like this. I need to rehab immediately, but it’s a weekend with no rehearsals, which means… Sadie’s in the hotel room. I’m about to let out my biggest secret, and I’m not sure I’m ready.