Chapter 11 Riot
Riot
Next week…
“I told you I’ve been practicing!” Jane stares up at me with a haughty grin, hands clasped tightly around the neck of her guitar.
“So you did.” I extend my fist toward her, and Jane bumps her knuckles against mine. “Good job, kid. I mean it.”
“Does this mean you’ll teach me how to play a Respite song? Pretty, pretty pleaseee?”
I chuckle under my breath. It’s true Jane has progressed a lot in the past couple of weeks, and I can tell she’s been working hard at home. She deserves a reward—even if it will piss her mother off to hear Jane playing a heavy metal song.
At that moment, my alarm goes off, signaling the end of Jane’s lesson.
My heart jumps to my throat, remembering that in a few minutes, Eloise will be walking through the door of the guitar shop.
This week, Jane’s mom had to switch her lesson to the hour just before Eloise.
Because of that, I haven’t had the time I normally need to prepare for her arrival.
I’m scattered, a tad unhinged, and I’m terrified I’ll do or say something to scare her away.
“Mr. Riot? You never answered…”
“Sorry, Jane.” I rub a hand over my face, exhausted and wound tight with anxiety all at once. “Yes, I’ll teach you the song. Next week, okay?”
“Eee! You’re the best!” she squeals, pumping her tiny fists in the air. “Next week is going to be so awesome!”
“What’s happening next week?”
Jane and I turn at the same time, drawn by that angelic voice that sends a bolt of lightning to my core. “Eloise… you’re here early.”
You look exquisite is what I really want to say. I don’t even though it’s true. She’s dressed in a pair of shorts that match the color of her worn black high-tops. Her Pink Floyd shirt is tied in a knot at the base of her sternum, exposing a small strip of skin on her abdomen.
“Am I?” she murmurs, worrying her bottom lip. “I could have sworn it was five thirty…”
“Well, yeah. But you’re usually around thirteen and a half minutes late.
So… it’s early for you… you know?” Silence descends over the three of us, and I curse myself for being so damn awkward around her.
With a steadying breath, I stand from my seat and gesture for Eloise to take my place.
“Sit, please. Jane’s mom should be here any minute, and then we’ll get started. Jane, this is Eloise. Eloise, Jane.”
Eloise turns her kind smile toward Jane as she lowers into the chair. “It’s nice to meet you, Jane. So what’s happening next week?”
Jane’s eyes light up at the question. “Mr. Riot is gonna teach me a Respite song!”
“Respite?” Her brows shoot up in surprise. “You like heavy metal music?”
“I love it. Especially Respite,” Jane emphasizes.
“When my dad was alive, me and him and mom used to drive around in his truck and listen to all their songs. She doesn’t listen to it anymore, though.
” Jane’s eyes turn sad, but in the next blink, her expression is replaced with her familiar gap-toothed grin.
“But now I’m gonna learn one! Isn’t that cool? ”
“Very cool,” Eloise says, her tone hiding the sheen of sympathy in her eyes. “I bet you’ve been practicing really hard.”
“Yep!” She nods, her head bobbing exaggeratedly. “Riot didn’t believe I knew all my barre chords, so I had to prove him wrong.”
Eloise shoots me a look out of the corner of her eye. “Did you now?”
“I did!” she leans toward Eloise, cupping a hand around her mouth in an attempt to shield her voice from my ears. “Is he always this moody?”
This time, Eloise bursts out laughing, the sound high and bright and one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. “I’m afraid he is, Jane.” Another look at me, and then, she says, “But I kind of like that about him.”
Jane giggles. “I knew you liked him back. I knew it.”
The blood drains from my face as Eloise makes a choked noise, her gaze flitting from Jane to me and back several times. Thankfully, Jane’s mom decides to show up at that moment, distracting everyone from the nine-year-old’s untimely comment.
“Jane! Time to go!”
Jane packs up her guitar and skips toward the front door, not bothering to look back as she calls out a loud, “Goodbye!”
When I’m sure I’m in control of my emotions, I turn to look at Eloise. But at the sight of her wide blue eyes and gentle flush, the lie shatters all around me.
“So…” Eloise clears her throat, the heat in her cheeks spreading outward to the edges of her face. “Jane is sweet.”
“She’s a good kid,” I agree. “Says the damnedest things, though.”
“I guess that’s kids for you…”
I nod, finding a sick kind of joy in her nervousness. Maybe—just maybe—she feels something for me, too. “Ready to get started?”
“Lead the way.”
.
Despite all her progress last week, Eloise fumbles through her lesson.
Her fingers seem stiff, her movements unsure, and I can tell her mind is on something other than the task at hand.
And me…? I’m just as frazzled as she is, but for a different reason.
With every breath, her scent floods my senses, driving me mad and sending all the blood in my body to my groin.
Eventually, I can’t take it anymore, and I need to put some distance between us before I lose all control and do something I’ll regret. Like telling her how I feel about her.
“Why don’t we take a little break. You like black coffee, right?”
Eloise nods, not even bothering to disagree with my suggestion of a break. Strange. “Please. That would be great.”
After setting my guitar on the stand, I move to the break room, place a pod in the coffee machine, and listen to it whir and bubble as I wait for it to spit out some horrible brown sludge.
I lean back against the counter and rub a hand over my face, letting out a deep sigh as my thoughts turn to the beautiful woman waiting for me in the other room.
So far, I’ve been doing a good job of keeping my feelings in check, but it’s a slow torture, and I don’t know how much longer I can hold out.
But I need to. I’m bad for her. Too old, too reckless, too washed-up.
She doesn’t need someone like me in her life for anything more than guitar lessons.
I’d be lying if I said I don’t wish things were different, but what I want doesn’t matter.
She’s too good, too young, too perfect, too much of everything I’m not.
So I need to get my shit together, finish this lesson, then go home and drink myself into oblivion.
Satisfied with my plan, I grab Eloise’s coffee and head back into the practice room. But all of my carefully constructed resolve vanishes the moment I see what she has in her hands.
My palms go clammy as I stare at the little gold guitar pick, my throat drying, and a heavy pressure building behind my eyes. “Where did you find that?”
Eloise snaps her head up, a worried frown pinching her brows at my tone. “Find what?” A light bulb seems to go off as she looks back down at her hand, at the faded gold guitar pick between her fingers. “Oh, this. I saw it under that desk over there. Do you want it?”
Eloise stretches her hand out, and I reel back as if she were thrusting a snake at me.
Time slows as memories flood my mind, so powerful they make the room spin.
Rush’s crooked smile, holding up the engraved guitar pick I got him for his birthday like it was made of real gold.
He had used it for years until the fateful day we were practicing here at Hightide Records—back when the store was called Ocean’s Edge Records and under different ownership—and I asked Rush to lend his prized pick to me for an afternoon.
I thought I had lost it. I thought it was gone. Gone forever, just like Rush…
“Riot?” Eloise’s face comes back into focus, and I realize I've been standing here in a trance for God knows how long.
“Sorry,” I say. “I don't know where my head was at. But no, you keep it. You’ll put it to better use than I ever could.” My throat tightens painfully. “Now let's get back to the B flat…”
The rest of Eloise’s lesson goes badly. She’s just as distracted as she was before, and after the guitar pick situation, I’m a bit of a mess. I can’t concentrate—cycling between a fiery desire for Eloise and a hollow sensation of grief that confuses me as much as it pains.
Every time I glance at Eloise, I find her eyes locked somewhere off in the distance, unshed tears brimming and then fading with every other blink.
This lesson is going absolutely nowhere, and if something doesn’t change, it will have been for nothing. But what am I supposed to do?
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a gleaming triangle, and an idea begins to form. Is it ridiculous? Yes. Slightly embarrassing? Most definitely. But it also might just work.
I get out of my seat and retrieve the triangle, hiding it from Eloise until I’m sitting in front of her once more. “Do you trust me, Eloise?”
She gives me a funny look. “I… guess?”
Works for me. “Okay. I’m going to show you something, and the only rule is you’re not allowed to laugh.”
“Okay…”
I present the triangle to her, holding it aloft with one finger and letting it swing side to side. Eloise’s nose scrunches as she leans in, inspecting the small silver instrument. “Is it… a special triangle?”
I nod solemnly. “A very special triangle. This is the feelings triangle. Whoever holds it gets to share their feelings, and the person not holding it listens without judgment.”
Eloise tilts her head, refusing to reach for the triangle. “‘The feelings triangle’? That’s what we’re going with?”
“The triangle is no joking matter, Eloise. I’m surprised at your callous reaction.”
“I meant no offense, Master Riot.”
With her words, all the blood in my body rushes to my cock. I sit there for a moment, frozen, struggling to gain my bearings. The triangle. Right.
“Here. Take it,” I say, thrusting it toward her again. “I’ll do it after you. Promise.”
She holds the triangle to her chest, running a thin finger over the silver. “This is silly.”