5. Lake
five
Six Months Later
Couldn’t have fucking predicted the show in Wichita would go this well.
All tour we’ve opened for local bands with local fan bases.
Nobody outside Seattle knows my name in any real way. Not yet.
Our nights usually consist of playing to an indifferent room and hauling our gear through alleys slick with spilled beer and rainwater.
The four of us sleep piled together in the van or, if we’ve saved enough, in one dingy motel room where the carpet smells like mildew and the towels scrape our skin.
Tonight, though, a guy near the bar wore one of the shirts I sell at the merch table. When I stepped up to the mic, a woman pressed against the front rail and screamed my name loud enough to make Mason grin at me from behind the kit. A few people even sang along to the chorus of the last song.
It inspired me. By the time we finished, sweat cooled beneath my shirt and my fingers ached from the strings. A crowd formed by the backstage door to tell us how great we were.
I had to pretend not to hear it.
Can’t get too comfortable.
“Good set.” Evan glances up as he sets his bass in the case.
Coming from Evan Price, those two words are a parade.
He’s quiet unless something needs saying, which makes him the exact opposite of Mason Cole, who barrels into the dressing room behind us talking about a drum fill, a cracked cymbal stand, and the blonde at the bar who mouthed “call me” during our second song.
“Maybe she meant me” I twist the cap off a bottle of water.
Mason looks me over with great pity. “Brother, she absolutely did not.”
I laugh and drain half the bottle while the headliner’s crew starts shoving their cases past ours in the hall. Everything feels loud and cramped and alive. For a few minutes, I let myself enjoy it. The shit motels. The cheap food. The van. The tiny dressing rooms.
All of it.
A year ago, I would have done almost anything to be exactly here.
The door opens before Mason can start another story and the woman from the front rail steps inside like she owns the place.
She doesn’t hover in the doorway or pretend she took a wrong turn looking for the bathroom.
Dark hair skims her shoulders. Her black tank top clings to curves she clearly expects me to notice, and cutoff shorts show off long legs ending in scuffed, red knee-high cowboy boots.
She glances at Mason and Evan, dismisses them without being rude, then looks straight at me.
“You’re Lake.” She bites the tip of her finger.
I feign indifference. “Depends who’s asking.”
“Hmmm.” Her mouth curves. “Tessa.”
Mason claps once, loud enough to make Evan flinch. “Great meeting you, Tessa. Evan, we have very important band business at the bar.”
“Don’t be long.” Evan gives me one assessing look before picking up his bass. “We’ve got to get on the road.”
“Jesus, let the man have a little fun for once.” Mason pushes him into the hall.
The door closes behind them.
Tessa laughs and steps closer. “Your drummer’s a lot.”
“You caught him on a quiet night.” I hold my position.
“Good. I like loud.” She drags her gaze down my body with zero subtlety. “Your moves on stage got me a little worked up.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Only a little?”
“Don’t fish for compliments.” She hooks her finger through the hem of my shirt and tugs me toward her. “It makes pretty boys look needy.”
I should probably be offended. Instead, I laugh because she’s got my cock stirring.
For the first time in a while.
This is a good-time girl. Bawdy, direct, sure of what she wants. I’ve known plenty of women like her, especially in Seattle.
Newsflash. Women like musicians. They like guitars, sweaty shirts, stage lights, hands with calluses. They love the version of me who exists under a spotlight and don’t usually care much if I fuck ’em and leave ’em.
Until Neeley, I never minded.
I’m twenty-three and semi-good-looking. I’ve fucked in dressing rooms, bathrooms, borrowed apartments, the back seat of car I don’t own. Once in a laundry room while someone’s sheets were still tumbling in the dryer.
It’s never deep. It’s not supposed to be.
I’m too young for forever, and I sure as hell never offer it.
Then Neeley happened.
Fucking Neeley.
Tessa kisses me before I can get irritated with my own head. I kiss her back because she’s willing, beautiful, and here. Most importantly, she’s not a scrap of paper softening in my pocket from nine months of being touched when nobody’s looking.
Her hands slide beneath my shirt. Mine settle on her hips. The headliner crashes into their first song onstage, and the bass rattles through the cinderblock walls. Tessa laughs against my mouth when I back into the couch, then drops onto my lap as if we’ve done this a dozen times before.
“You know what I like?” She tugs my lower lip between her teeth.
“My personality?”
“Your hands.” She takes one and presses it against her waist. “Also, the way you look when you stop singing and let the guitar talk for you.”
Jesus. The words strike a familiar chord and I’m not going down this path to nowhere.
I kiss her again to shut them out.
For a minute, it works. Her tongue slides against mine. Her confident fingers move to my belt. She shifts off my lap and kneels between my knees, smiling up at me as she unbuckles the leather and opens my jeans. No coy bullshit.
She wants me, wants this, and every part of her body language tells me she has no regrets about making it clear.
My cock is rock hard before she wraps her fingers around me.
Thank Christ. This is what I need.
Mason is right. I’ve turned one night with a woman who gave me a fake name into some tragic masterpiece because I’ve spent too much time alone with a notebook and a bad attitude. The cure for overthinking is a gorgeous woman on her knees in a dressing room in Wichita.
Tessa hoovers my cock into her mouth.
The suction is intense. Heat punches through me. My hand grips the back of the couch, and for a few seconds my body takes over in the best possible way. She knows what she’s doing. Damn well. My hips begin to jerk before I can stop them.
Then my fucking brain catches up.
I stare at the top of her head, at the silver rings on her fingers spanning my hips. Then the peeling band sticker on the mirror behind her.
Her mouth stays hot. My body keeps reacting. The rest of me checks out.
One second I’m in the moment, and the next I’m standing outside the whole thing, watching myself accept an incredible blowjob I’m not able to fully enjoy.
I touch her shoulder. “Hey.”
She stops immediately and looks up. Her lipstick is smeared around puffy lips, and the sight should make me want to pull her back down.
It doesn’t.
“I’m sorry.” The words come out and I’m already hating myself for the apology.
Her expression changes in increments. Confusion first, then offense, then something sharper once she fits the pieces together. She releases me and sits back on her heels while I tuck myself into my jeans like a fucking idiot.
“Does she know you’re a cheater?” The words land flat between us.
I could lie. Say I’m tired. Blame whiskey, the show, the road, the shitty couch, anything. Instead, I stand there with my belt hanging open and no explanation worth insulting either of us with.
“I’m not.”
Tessa rises and smooths her tank top down over her stomach. For a second she studies me like a puzzle she has no interest in solving. Fair enough. I wouldn’t waste time on me either.
“No offense, Lake, but that’s bullshit.”
I nod. “Probably.”
She grabs her purse from the couch. At the door, she pauses long enough to look back. “Whoever she is, good luck to her. She’s gonna need it.”
The door clicks shut behind her.
I stare at it long enough for the headliner to launch into another song. Someone laughs in the hallway. My tingling cock finally gets the memo and gives up.
Goddammit.
A few minutes later, Mason opens the door without knocking because he’s never respected a boundary in his life. Or, he saw the girl leave in a huff. Evan stands behind him, bass case slung over one shoulder. One look at my face tells them enough.
Mason’s mouth twitches. “Please tell me you didn’t chase off the hot girl.”
“Get out.” I point to the door.
“Wow.” He steps inside instead. “You did.”
Evan shuts the door behind him and leans against it. “Still hung up on Neeley?”
Hearing her name from someone else’s mouth makes my skin tighten. I fasten my belt and grab my water bottle from the floor. The plastic crackles under my grip. “She has nothing to do with this.”
“Sure,” Mason snorts. “Miss Tessa walked out of here looking like she wanted to drown you in a toilet for no reason.”
I shrug. “She’ll live to find someone else to blow.”
“Will you?” Evan tilts his head.
I glare at him, but it lands nowhere. Mason drops onto the couch where Tessa had my cock in her mouth minutes ago, and gestures around the dressing room as if the evidence has personally offended him.
“Let me get this straight.” He furrows his brow. “A gorgeous woman follows you backstage, makes it incredibly clear she wants to suck your dick, and you what? Politely send her into the night because you’re still hung up on the mystery girl who ghosted you? Did she have a magic pussy or something?”
Evan winces. “Subtle.”
“No, seriously.” Mason leans forward. “You fucked a girl you knew her for one night. It should mean nothing.”
“I know.” My eyes squeeze shut at the memory.
“Then act like it.”
Simple advice. Solid advice. The kind of advice any normal guy would take without turning it into a goddamn existential crisis. I want to tell him he’s wrong, except he isn’t. The woman is burning a hole through me for no good reason.
Cal pounds on the door and opens it before anyone answers. “Load-out. Now. I’m not humping all the gear on my own because Lake forgot how groupies work.”
Mason points at him. “See? Even Bishop gets it.”
Cal looks between us and shakes his head. “Nope. Don’t care.”
He disappears back into the hallway.
“She screwed you over, man.” Evan pushes off the door. “You’ve gotta move the fuck on.”
Maybe.
Probably.
All my life, I’ve known the texture of being used, discarded, forgotten, passed from one place to the next. Neeley leaving should belong in the same pile. Except it doesn’t.
Every time I try to shove her there, some part of the night slips loose and refuses to stay put.
Her laugh when I called her trouble. Her fingers tracing the inside of my wrist. The way she looked through me.
Most of all, what she said to me after the show.
I dig how you embrace the silence.
“Lake.” Evan nudges me.
I blink and realize all three of them are waiting on me to answer a question I didn’t hear.
“Whatever.” I grab my guitar case. “Let’s load the van.”
Nobody pushes me after that. Smart men.
Three hours later, we’re somewhere between Wichita and whatever forgettable town comes next.
The highway stretches beyond the windshield while the van rattles over seams in the pavement.
Mason claimed an entire bench seat the second we pulled onto the interstate and now snores loud enough to qualify as a health hazard.
Evan isn’t much better. His head knocks softly against the window every time we hit a bump, headphones crooked around his neck.
Cal drives with his own headphones in, one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped around gas station coffee. Blue dashboard light cuts across his forearm. Beyond him, the road unspools into darkness.
I sit in the back by the gear with my notebook open on my knee.
The pages have been blank for weeks. Maybe months. I don’t know anymore.
My pen hovers above the paper while the van sways beneath me. Tessa’s perfume still clings to my shirt, sweet and unfamiliar. Beneath it, or maybe under my skin, another scent comes back. Expensive shampoo. Our mixed scent of the best sex of my life.
I slip a hand into my pocket. The paper is there, folded into the same small square. I don’t pull it out. I don’t need to. Nine months in my pocket has made the edges soft enough to recognize by touch.
A sane man would have thrown it away long ago.
I press the pen to the page before I can think myself out of it. The first words come out ugly. Too simple. Half a thought more than a lyric. I stare at them, waiting for the usual disgust to make me want to scratch them out.
Somehow, I kind of like what I’ve written.
The van keeps moving. Mason snores. Evan sleeps. Cal drives.
I read the words again.
They aren’t good.
Not yet.
For the first time in months, though, I may be onto something.