Chapter Twenty-Eight
NICKY
Nicky padded back into the bedroom and quietly made his way to the closet using the flashlight on his phone, but on its lowest setting so he wouldn’t disturb Lucy.
He stowed his acoustic guitar, the Moleskine notebook, and pencil back in their places, feeling a sense of accomplishment; one he’d been missing for more than a year.
Something good was brewing in the chicken-scratched notes he’d been making.
He knew it like he knew the crackle under his skin and the restless churning of ideas in the back of his mind.
They were familiar old friends, allies in the process.
They made it impossible for him to stop, and difficult to sleep.
He shrugged off the hotel bathrobe, leaving it in a perfect white pile on the floor, and slid his naked body back under the covers with Lucy. He slowly moved closer to her until her heat warmed the chill of his calf and he could feel her breathing on his shoulder.
She stirred, rolling on her back and opening her eyes with a flicker of her lashes.
‘What time is it?’ she asked groggily.
‘About three,’ Nicky replied.
‘In the morning?’
‘Yep.’
‘Ugh,’ Lucy groaned, rolling back over and tucking herself into Nicky’s body, resting her head on his shoulder. She threw her leg over his as he curled his arm around her body and settled a hand on her hip. ‘My sleep schedule is fucked,’ she complained.
‘You get used to it after a while,’ Nicky said. ‘Eventually you find a balance that’s a little less vampire-ish.’
Nicky felt her chuckle in his forearm. ‘My students will love that. Sorry, you can’t go to the bars tonight, guys, class is at midnight.’
Her talk of work was like ice on his skin.
It burned, and made him want to jump. To scream.
But after their conversation about ‘The Breathing Room’ he was beginning to understand that his disappearance when they were kids, and the bullshit with the song that came after, were wounds that ran deep.
He and the song had both had long, lingering effects on her life.
Could be that because it had all happened when she was so young, they’d done something essential – fundamental – to the way she viewed men and relationships.
The way she trusted and dealt with things.
The guilt was like a weight he couldn’t lift.
He didn’t know how to move it. To change what happened.
To fix it. The exhaustion he felt made it worse.
And she was in his arms. He didn’t want to waste that time thinking and feeling guilty. That could wait.
‘Why don’t you go back to sleep and I’ll wake you up at some normal hour?’
‘Do you even know what a normal hour is?’
He teased, ‘Eleven-forty-five?’
She laughed, then he felt her sigh. ‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘Anything,’ he replied.
‘It seems like you’re alone a lot. Don’t hang out with the guys from the band all the time. That just because I’m here or—’
‘The band’s been together a long time. After all these years we’ve figured out what works for us, so that we don’t end up exploding and taking the whole thing down with us.
’ Nicky searched for the right words. Sleep deprivation and songwriting had made his thoughts slow and sticky.
‘We’re basically in each other’s pockets for months on end.
Soon, we’ll be together for a solid year.
In the off times we go our separate ways.
Like we store up the solitude, time with family, so that when we come back together, we can enjoy it.
But we also know we have time away to look forward to when we inevitably start annoying the shit out of each other. ’
Nicky’s mind drifted, imagining the possibility of storing up time with Lucy. Of holding on to thoughts of her when they were apart. Would it be enough?
‘It sounds sort of … lonely,’ she whispered.
‘Sometimes, it is.’
Months in an empty house. Kids grown. A lot of the time, it is.
‘Everyone always calls you Nick,’ she said with a drowsy slur.
Nicky liked her like this. All dozy and unguarded.
She asked, ‘Should I call you Nick now?’
‘No, Lou,’ he said, rubbing a hand over her hair. ‘You should always call me Nicky.’
Lucy hummed sleepily, then asked, ‘What does it feel like to get on a stage and just expose yourself out there for everyone to see night after night?’
‘I never rocked a cock-sock if that’s what you’re getting at, Rollins. It’s a dangerous game to try and out-crazy Kiedis and Flea.’
Lucy playfully pinched his side. ‘I’m being serious.’
Nicky cataloged the faint shadows on the ceiling. ‘It’s both the most terrifying and most amazing thing I’ve ever done.’ Well, it was almost true.
‘What’s the biggest crowd you’ve ever played?’
‘Wembley. Eighty-nine thousand, one hundred and forty-three.’
‘Holy shit,’ she gasped. ‘Eighty-nine thousand people ?’
‘Yeah,’ he replied, practically able to feel the vibration of the stage even as he lay there in the dark.
‘What did that feel like?’
‘Beforehand, for weeks, it felt like this elephant sitting on my chest. Like when you’re trying not to cry and your throat is closing up?
’ He felt her nod her understanding, so continued, ‘I kept thinking, “what the fuck is wrong with me? There’s no way I’ll be able to sing like this.
” But then, when I was there … when they were all there … ’
Lucy raised up on her elbow, looked down at him. She placed her hand on his chest, right over his heart. He put his free hand on top of hers, to keep it there.
He went on, ‘Ninety-thousand people who know your songs. Who just wanted to see you in person. To breathe the same air and hear those words right from your mouth. They wanted to see you so bad that they shelled out the money they worked hard for and got dressed up and got a babysitter. They took cabs and the tube and showed up. For my dumb band, and my goofy-ass songs. I was in awe of it, honestly. Humbled.’
‘Was it different than playing a smaller show?’
‘I don’t know how to describe it, Lou. It was like being plugged into magic. Humanity. And joy. And fucking love , as corny as it sounds, just everywhere. All around you. Inside you. Filling you up. It was one of the most amazing moments of my life.’
But not even half as amazing as this. You and me alone. Touching in the dark.
She moaned dreamily, put her head back on his shoulder. ‘That’s powerful stuff. That feeling.’
‘You have no idea,’ he replied, all thoughts of London gone. But maybe someday you will.
Nicky turned his body toward hers, kissed her forehead, then her cheek.
‘Still tired?’ he asked to her neck.
‘Not really. You?’
Nicky pushed his hips forward so she could feel exactly how awake he was.
She laughed, then squealed, ‘I’m not even cleaned up from last time.’
‘Doesn’t bother me,’ Nicky replied, taking one of her gorgeous breasts in his hand and rolling his thumb over the peak. He felt it pebble and stiffen at his touch.
‘Who knew you were so dirty?’ she teased, pushing her thigh into his rapidly filling cock.
‘Me,’ he replied matter-of-factly. ‘ I knew.’
Nicky dragged his fingers from Lucy’s breast, right down her body to the sweet spot between her legs.
He kissed her as he slowly worked her clit with his thumb.
‘Mmmm,’ he said against her lips. ‘Cum, nature’s lube.’
Lucy’s sputtered laugh erupted like fireworks. ‘Wow, took a left at dirty and headed straight for disgusting.’
Nicky laughed along with her, his lips on hers.
Then he dipped a single finger inside her, gathering the wetness there and swirling it over her clit with gentle pressure.
Her head fell back on a moan. ‘Nicky,’ she whispered.
‘I love it when you say my name like that,’ Nicky confessed.
‘Keep that up and I’ll scream it again.’
‘Deal.’