A Rocker's Melody (Dust and Bones) (23 page)

“Just as well,” Blue said. “I’m probably better off by myself, anyway.” He regarded Dylan for a moment. “You got anyone serious in your life?”

Dylan didn’t know how to answer that. Prior to Melody, his answer would have been an unequivocal ‘no.’ Outside of the guys in the band, Dylan avoided attachments of any kind. What he had with Melody had changed that; all he seemed to want these days was to be as attached to her as possible. Yet calling them ‘serious’ implied a level of commitment that the two of them hadn’t discussed; a level of commitment he was
afraid
to discuss.

“It’s still new,” Dylan said. “But before her, no. Nothing serious.”

“Hmm,” Blue said neutrally. “You’re probably better off that way, too.” He reached for a pack of cigarettes on the table, his hand shaking slightly.
Detox shakes
, Dylan thought, recognizing the signs.

“When’s the last time you had a drink?’ Dylan asked.

“You can get the hell out of my house if you’re gonna start that twelve steps bullshit,” Blue said bluntly, his words muffled around the butt of a cigarette as he placed it between his lips and lit it.

“I won’t even trouble you with one step,” Dylan promised. “I was just curious.”

“Last night,” Blue grumbled. “Had a couple to help me sleep.”

Dylan vaguely remembered that excuse. Blue had told it to Dylan’s mother a hundred times.
Looking for work is stressful. I need a drink to help me sleep. To get through the day.
And Dylan had developed the same bad habits, the same lame excuses. When he was drinking, he didn’t feel any pain.

“So, how have you been? Enjoying the life of a rock star?” Blue asked.

“Well, as far as appearances are concerned, yeah, things are great. And yet there’s something missing.”

“You just realized that after so many years?”

Dylan nodded.

“Is that why you’re here? To find what’s missing?”

“I want to know why you left us,” Dylan said, cutting right to the chase. It was the question he most wanted answered, though it was the answer he was most afraid of hearing.

Blue shrugged. “I was a bad husband. A bad father. I didn’t mean to be, but sooner or later, I fucked everything up. Either because I’d been drinking or because I just didn’t have the head for it, I guess.”

Dylan swallowed. That was a far more honest and self-defeating answer than he’d expected. “I remember you were always looking for work,” he said slowly.

“Yeah.” Blue’s laugh was bitter this time. “I wanted to be a writer. A poet. I actually published a book of poems a long time ago. You can probably still find a copy in some shitty used book store. You know how it is. Always singing for your supper.”

His dad was a poet. Dylan didn’t know how to reconcile that vision of him with the gruff, distant man he remembered from his childhood. He didn’t know how to reconcile it with the lost, broken man in front of him now.

“Do you still write?” he asked.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Blue said. “My dreams are long dead and buried. I heard
your
writing, though. I was listening to the radio and you were singing about words and birds and songs.”

Their first hit. Blue had been aware of Dylan’s success almost from the beginning.

“I wrote to you, hoping…I don’t know what I hoped for. I needed money, I won’t bullshit either of us by saying I didn’t. I still do. But I was also hoping…well. Don’t suppose it matters now.”

Of course it matters. I’m here. I know it’s late, but you’re my goddamn father. It’s your job to be the bigger man
.

“How much do you need?” Dylan asked. Money was the one thing he had no problem getting his hands on.

His father looked at him for a moment. “I could use a few grand,” he said.

Dylan nodded slowly. “Sure. I could—”

“Ten,” Blue said, his eyes wide and eager. “Ten would help me out a lot.”

Something cold began to gnaw at the center of Dylan’s chest. It worked its way through his system as he reached for his checkbook.

With the money issue settled, it was time for the hard question, the answer he feared. Dylan found that he almost wanted that answer now. At least it would put him out of his misery.

“Why didn’t you come back?” he asked hoarsely. “Why was it so easy to stay away?”

“Your mother was better off without me,” Blue mumbled. “Hell, you know how it is. I’ve seen how you live, exactly the way I lived before I met your mother. I thought she was my salvation, but it turns out I was just
her
damnation. Men like us? We hurt women. Don’t mean to, don’t want to. But they end up hurt anyway. I hurt your mother over and over, ‘til I realized it was up to me to put a stop to it. There’s two kinds of women in this world: the kind who leave you...and the kind who drown trying to save you. If you’re smart, you realize that and get out before it’s too late. The reality is that you’re just like me, Dylan. And people like us are better as lifetime bachelors. No attachments, no emotions, no big problems. Otherwise, you’ll end up in misery with miserable kids, just like your mother and I.” He stood up from the table. “Fuck. I need a drink.”

He wandered off, shuffling around, trying to find a bottle that still had something left in it. Dylan remained where he was, staring at the empty chair his father had just deserted.

That was the answer he had been dreading, because his father was right. About all of it. Dylan had had it wrong this whole time. He was terrified that Melody would leave, but she had sworn time and again that she wouldn’t, and she always kept her promises.

No, Melody would hold onto him, his dead weight pulling her under until it was too late, just as Dylan’s mother had held onto his father. The fear he’d had for weeks was suddenly a living, breathing thing in the room.

He heard the crunch of tires in the driveway. She was back. And he knew what he had to do.

Melody
was
his salvation, because for the first time in his life, he was going to do the right thing.

Melody was acting like a coward. It was bad enough that she’d fled the house earlier, leaving Dylan alone with the father he hadn’t seen in over two decades. It had taken her all of ten minutes to drive the short distance to the small grocery store and purchase eggs, bread, milk, and a pound of bacon, but she had stalled, driving slowly around the small town to delay her return.

She was
still
stalling, hiding in the car now as it idled in the driveway. She was gripped by an icy fear she couldn’t explain. One thing was abundantly clear: coming here had been a horrible mistake.

Blue wasn’t sorry. Or he wasn’t sorry
enough
. He was lost. When she looked into his eyes, Melody didn’t see the sort of complicated angst she often glimpsed in Dylan’s. Dylan had his faults, but his heart was bigger than he knew. He’d given it fully to his sister, to little Emma, to his brothers in the band. He had the propensity for selfish behavior, but he was not inherently selfish. Blue, on the other hand, was. Melody had known it within thirty seconds of meeting the man.

She didn’t want to go back inside. She dreaded what she would find there.

Stop dicking around, Hopkins. Time to face the music before the milk spoils.

Her inner voice had always sounded a lot like her dad. That was the relationship she wanted for Dylan—that had been the closure she’d wanted him to find. She knew now that it had been a naïve hope, and that no closure would come from Blue. Melody pulled out her phone and texted her own father.

I love you so much, dad. Please be nicer to Dylan. He needs it. Never tell him I said so.

She shut her phone off as soon as she had sent it, because that was the kind of text message that would make Craig Hopkins call immediately to check up on his little girl. The last time they’d spoken had been after Emma’s death. He had been shaken by the news, sending condolences along, and explaining to Melody that the only reason he had yelled at her about her involvement with Dylan was because she would always be nine years old to her father.

Melody had understood the sentiment, a little. It was a love thing, but it was mostly a parental-love thing. Perhaps she would understand better if she ever had children of her own.

Finally, knowing that there was no more use delaying—they were sure to have noticed she had returned by now—Melody gathered the groceries and got out of the car. She was halfway up the drive when the door of the house opened and Dylan walked out slowly. The expression on his face was unreadable.

“Hey,” she said.

“Let’s head into town,” he suggested. “I saw a bar when we were driving in. Let’s…let’s go see if it’s any good.”

She cocked her head to the side. “I’m sorry?”

“Maybe we can get something to eat, too.”

“But...I bought groceries,” she said, holding up the bag in her hand.

Dylan took the bag and hung it on the knob of the front door. Then he grabbed her hand and tugged her toward the car.

“You’re freaking me out a little,” she warned him.

He let go of her hand and looked at her. He was wearing the most vulnerable expression she had ever seen on his face. “I can’t be here anymore,” he whispered.

“Okay. Then we’ll go,” she agreed at once, without thinking.

Melody got in the driver’s seat again. Dylan didn’t even fight her on it. Normally she would have appreciated that, because he really was a terrible driver, but right now it made her nervous. His silence terrified her.

“Turn left here,” he said, indicating the main road they’d taken on their way to his father’s house. She remembered the little shack of a bar they’d passed. It had looked like somewhere bikers went to hang out.

“So...what happened back there while I was gone?” she asked quietly.

He let out a bitter laugh, a mirthless, unsteady warble. “I learned something I already knew,” he answered cryptically.

A feeling of unease simmered in her belly. “That sounds ominous,” she said, a poor attempt at humor.

Dylan didn’t respond. The sharp cut of his jaw taunted her with a day’s worth of stubble. She wanted him to look at her, to talk to her, to tell her what had gone so terribly wrong, so that she could begin to make it right. But he didn’t. He stared straight ahead, ignoring her comment, and seemingly, her presence.

Soon enough, they reached the bar. Melody pulled the rental car up onto the strip of dirt that served as a parking area. True to her memory, it was little more than a shack in the middle of nowhere. A flickering neon sign proclaimed the establishment was “OPE”; she figured that meant the two of them were welcome, give or take an “N.”

Again, she started to speak, but Dylan had already thrown his door open. He jumped out before she’d even brought the car to a full stop. She threw it into park, shut off the ignition and hurried after him, now genuinely worried about his mental state.

Inside it was dark, poorly lit. There were only a few older men and women seated at the bar, but that wasn’t surprising, as it was before noon on a Thursday. Her eyes adjusted quickly to the gloom, and she spotted Dylan at the end of the bar, tossing back a shot of amber liquid. The sight caused her heart to clench. He wasn’t an alcoholic—not really—but his behavior while drunk left much to be desired. He became unstable when he’d had even a little too much, and she couldn’t help but begin to feel panic rising within her. He signaled the bartender for another, and had downed it by the time she reached his side.

“Dylan, what happened?” she whispered, placing her hand on his forearm.

He shook his head and moved to the ancient looking jukebox in the corner. He started flipping through songs. Melody wasn’t sure he even knew what he was looking for; he was just going through the motions to have something to do, something to distract himself. He dug around in his pocket and pulled out a handful of change. He plugged whatever he had into the coin slot and hit a few buttons.

The music started playing right away. Bob Dylan. She recognized it as one of her favorites:
Shelter From the Storm.
Dylan’s back was tense, his white T-shirt pulled taut against his shoulder blades. Melody reached out and tentatively laid her hand between them comfortingly. He shuddered beneath her touch. She wanted so desperately to help him, to shelter him from the storm that was brewing inside him, to keep him safe from whatever it was they’d found in this small, dusty town in Oklahoma.

He turned toward her and cupped her cheeks in his hands. She saw something dark and dangerous stir in his eyes. Her emotions were all over the place; her desire to help him was now warring with her instinct to protect herself. Whatever he was going through, he was on the edge of self-destruction, and Melody knew she was going to get caught in the crossover.

She opened her mouth, still struggling to find the right words to take away the pain he was obviously feeling, but his mouth stopped whatever words she’d have given him as it smothered hers. He leaned into her, his kisses long and wet and drugging. She fisted her fingers in his hair, and held on tightly as he backed her into a very dark corner of the bar. His hands were greedy and possessive as he clutched at her back through the thin cotton of her shirt. It obviously wasn’t enough for him. He slid his hands beneath the fabric to roughly caress her bare skin. She moaned against his lips as his tongue wound its way around hers.

Then his hands dropped down and began working on the button of her jeans. She froze, the lusty haze clearing slightly.

“No, Dylan, we can’t,” she whispered, though her voice didn’t sound very convincing, even to her own ears. “We’re not alone,” she added for both their sakes.

“I need you,” he growled. “I need to stop thinking about…everything but you.”

He pulled her by the waist further down the back hall, until he found an alcove that was suitably hidden from the rest of the bar. Obviously if someone walked by they would be seen, but that didn’t seem like such a huge risk anymore; his mouth was hot against her neck, and his fingers had finally gotten her jeans undone. His hand plunged beneath the waist of her underwear to play with her clit.

“Oh God,” she moaned quietly. He swallowed that sound, too, nibbling gently at her mouth as his fingers stroked and circled in
just
the right way.