"What are we doing here?" Rain whispered as if she expected someone to catch us sneaking around the house.
I silently led her through the living room to the veranda. Had it been possible to order the desired weather to set a mood, I would have ordered exactly this type of night. There was a warm breeze blowing off the gulf and the humidity was relatively low. I stretched out on the chaise lounge at the corner of the deck and pulled Rain onto my lap.
"Well, you wanted to go into your cave and forget about the world for a while, so I'm giving you a cave to hide in." I tried to pull her head down to my shoulder, but she jerked back so she was looking at me.
"You can't afford a place like this." She was right, I couldn't, but she also didn't know about my dad. I would have told her if it wasn't a topic I didn't like to visit, especially when I was supposed to be enjoying a private, romantic evening with my woman.
"Don't worry about that. Just relax and enjoy yourself." She had finally relaxed enough to rest her head on my chest. I brushed the hair away from her face before running my hand along the soft contours of her body.
"And Jon's cool with this? I mean, he made it pretty clear we needed to get back to Portland as quick as possible, so we can cram in work before we leave again. I really don't need him getting pissy with me again." I hated the way she was constantly worrying about what Jon thought. Sometimes, it felt like I was in a three-way relationship with her and Jon for as often as his name came up in the decisions that only concerned the two of us.
"Yeah, Jon's all good. That's what we were talking about earlier. He and Travis are going to take our hotel room for the night, and then they'll come down sometime tomorrow late afternoon."
"But what about—"
"No, no thinking. Just let go and enjoy yourself. You've been a beast lately, taking on everything that life throws at you. You deserve this." I had never seen a woman so hell-bent on finding reasons to get out of a free vacation in a home one-step below a mansion. I pushed away the thought that maybe she was pulling away from me, from us.
"But—"
"I said no." I did the only thing I could think of to keep her from protesting anymore. I pulled her body over mine, turning her so our chests pressed together and I kissed her. It wasn't a long kiss, but it was hard enough to get my point across. We had better things to do than talk.
As much as I was dying to get Rain upstairs and make love to her, it felt right lying on the lounge chair with her, listening to the sounds of the night. She kept rambling for a while, trying to get me to tell her how I could afford to rent a house like this, and I kept trying to change the subject. There would be time to tell her that it really was no problem, but I didn't want my dad or the shitty parts of my childhood to cloud such a special night.
I stared into the distance for a long time, trying to figure out how I wound up where I was. With my arms wrapped around the only woman I wanted in my life and being in a band on the verge of hitting the big leagues, I really didn't have anything that could upset me. I looked down at Rain, fully intending to kiss her and saw she was just as lost in thought as I had been.
"Hey, Moo, what's going on?" I cringed when I let her nickname pass my lips, certain I had just killed our night. I couldn't explain why I said it; it just seemed right.
"Why'd you call me that?" She wasn't screaming, so that was something. Instead, she looked sad and surprised at hearing the name only her family called her.
"Don't know, guess it just came out. You're not gonna castrate me or anything, are you?"
She laughed, and I knew we were okay. "Not this time. I'm not sure what's more shocking, that you called me Moo or that I'm
not
pissed at you for it."
I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared. Seeing Rain contemplative wasn't normal. Seeing her bottle her emotions when they hit, sure, that was Rain, but this was different. The only thing I could think of that could be bothering her was that she was having regrets about deciding to get together.
"So, are you going to tell me what you're thinking, or do I need to drag it out of you?" I needed to keep the mood light, for myself as much as for her. I started wiggling my fingers against her sides, right above the spot I knew would have her writhing above me.
The words that came from her mouth when she finally relaxed weren't the ones I had prepared to hear. "I'm worried about my dad. I think there's something he's not telling us."
"What do you want to do?" I had no clue what I was supposed to say to that. Part of me wondered how she would know, seeing as she hadn't seen him for so long before her mom died, but I knew that would come across as cruel. I couldn't tell her it was probably nothing because I knew she wasn't a fan of feeling as if her opinions were insignificant. I kissed the crown of her head and let my lips rest there, waiting for her to go on.
"Is Jon going to throw a shit fit if I say I want to go see Dad before we hit the road again? I can't shake this feeling, and it'll kill me if anything happens and I didn't at least try to reach out to him."
I swear, if I hear his name again, if I have to keep listening to her putting Jon's feelings above her own, I'm going to lose my fucking mind.
"I'll call him, but I don't think he'll have a problem with it. If you want, we'll grab one of the cars and head out whenever you're ready." It wasn't ideal, but it made more sense to take one of the cars sitting in the garage than ride the bike. Rain could take a turn at driving when I got tired if we were in a car. On the bike, we would have no choice but to stop at a hotel.
"Grab one of the cars?" Rain's head lifted off my chest, and she gave me a confused stare.
"Yeah, there's an Audi Q7 and a Challenger out in the garage. We can leave tonight if you want."
"And we could take cars that don't belong to us on a cross-country trip because..."
"Because they're my dad's, and I can use whatever I want when I'm down here. Call it his way of making up for lost time."
So much for not bringing him up tonight.
I had hoped that would be enough of an explanation for now, but Rain pressed me for the full story. I gave it to her with as few details as possible, so we could get back to what was important, like figuring out how to get her home for a while and getting back here so we could get some work done.
In the end, Rain suggested that we fly so we wouldn't waste any time. After figuring out that we would have a minimum of thirty hours on the road between the drive up and back, I agreed that would be the best decision and offered to look for flights leaving in the morning.
Within minutes of deciding to make an unexpected, quick trip to see her dad, I felt Rain's body relaxing on top of me. I couldn't blame her; the crash following the end of any tour was particularly hard. Tonight, it was the combination of knowing we had made it through our first
big
tour and knowing there were no more crazy days where work consumed every minute.
I glanced at my watch and saw that it was nearly four in the morning. I needed to call Jon and let him know about this latest development since chances were high that we wouldn't be here by the time they arrived. I shifted Rain to my side and slowly got up from the chair.
"Yeah?" Jon was either incredibly drunk or he had already fallen asleep when I called. Quite possibly a combination of the two.
"Hey, your lazy ass punk out already?"
"If you'd called about three minutes later I'd have been asleep. What's up? Shouldn't you be fucking that girl's brains out about now?" I heard Travis and a few other people laughing in the background and knew the party was just winding down. I just hoped they hadn't done any damage to the room since the charges were on my personal card.
"She's already out like a light." They didn't need to know the sordid details regarding what we had or hadn't done. "Look, something came up. We're going to fly out in the morning, head up to see her Pops. She's worried that something's wrong with him, and it's really freaking her ass out."
"Jesus, Colt. We have three fucking weeks to cram in what we had planned to spend two months doing. There's no way you two can just run the fuck off because her guilty conscience is getting the best of her." Hearing him go off like that told me he had had enough alcohol for the both of us and probably some for Rain, too. Jon was normally one of Rain's biggest supporters, so it pissed me off to hear him downplaying what she was going through.
"Look, if this is what she needs to do, we owe it to her." I really hoped Rain was still sound asleep because she needed this time with her family. While I understood what he was saying, there was no way in Hell I was going to be the one to tell Rain that the band couldn't afford for her to go see her dad. "Jon, she's been through hell, and she swears something's not right with her dad. You saw how tore up she was when we came back from the funeral. Do you want to think about what it'll do to her, what it'll do to
us,
if something is wrong and we were pricks to her?"
I heard Jon's hand slap against something, probably either a wall or countertop. "Fuck! What do you expect me to do, man? I just don't see how it's going to work. The whole fucking point of us staying in Florida was to maximize the time we had to get some work done. Now, you're telling me that you're gonna go hold her hand while she runs home. Tell me how we're supposed to get tracks down with half the band all the fucking way up there."
"It's just a few days. We're going to fly up late tomorrow morning, make sure her dad's okay, give her some time with him without the added pressure of her brothers, and we'll be back."
Jon growled, another sure sign he'd had way too much to drink. The background noise faded, and I knew he had gone into the bedroom. "Colton, it's not that simple. So you're gone for three days. You need to understand—"
I was sick of listening to him. Yes, the band was important. We had all worked long and hard to get where we were, but that didn't mean we had to give up everything. Hell, Rain had put one hundred percent of herself into the band from the minute she joined us, now she would never get back the time she lost with her mom, and she was terrified the same would happen with her dad.
"No,
you need to understand,
" I cut him off. "This is happening whether you like it or not. We weren't even going to be doing shit during the time we'll be gone. These would have been travel days, remember that..." It was a good thing Jon was over an hour away from me because, had we been in the same room, chances were high I would have tried to break his jaw.
"Right and you were all over making sure we didn't lose those days. We need every single minute we can get to make this happen."
"I get that—" We were getting nowhere fast with this conversation. I focused on making sure I took care of Rain, and Jon focused on ensuring we were making the right moves for the group.
"Do you want this or not, Colt? Are you really willing to throw the past decade into the shitter over a woman? Is she worth that to you?"
I couldn't believe what he was saying. I prayed like hell that he was so drunk he didn't remember this talk in the morning because, if he did and he didn't start kissing her ass every chance he got, he was going to look awfully funny with his jaw wired shut for the summer.
"Don't give me that bullshit, Jon—"
I jerked up from my position leaning on the piano when the veranda door slammed. I knew things were about to get really ugly when I saw the murderous look on Rain's face as she stormed across the room.
"Put it on speaker! You're both going to listen to me, and I don't want to say this twice." She was pacing around the room screaming. I held up my finger trying to get her to wait while I got Jon to shut up and realize I wasn't the only person who would be hearing his drunken tirade. As soon as Jon stopped to catch his breath, I interrupted him. "Hang on, now Rain's awake, and she's pissed too. Why not get Trav out of bed, and we can all go at it." I activated speakerphone and set the handset on top of the baby grand. "You there, Jon?"
"Yeah," he mumbled. He was quickly fading. It would be a miracle if he didn't pass out by the time Rain finished with whatever she had to say.
"Jon, you know I love and respect you. You took a chance on me when you didn't have to, and I know you caught shit for letting a chick in the band." She glared at me the entire time, even though she directed her words at Jon. Even pissed off, the girl was sexy enough to make me want to strip her naked and lay her out on top of the piano. "Seriously, I'll never be able to thank you enough for that, but right now, I need to go home and see my dad. There was too much shit going on when we were there before, and I need some alone time with him. Plus, I can't shake the feeling there's something he's not telling me. You guys wouldn't have noticed it, but he didn't look good. He wasn't himself."
"Look, Rain, I get that. And I don't want to be a dick..." Jon slurred. "It's just...this summer gig is going to be
huge
for us, but it means we're giving up our recording time. With the fall and winter tour coming up, we need the new material."
"So start working on it while I'm gone. I haven't been involved in writing anything so far, why start now?" With their initial tantrums out of the way, Jon and Rain were actually having a relatively civil conversation.
"Right, but if lover boy is chasing after you, that leaves us screwed. Travis is good at what he does, but I need Colton there to get the riffs where they need to be."
"So he'll stay here." I started shaking my head. No way in Hell was I going to allow her to deal with her family drama alone again. She'd had to do it for a few hours when her mom died, and I had vowed that would be the last time she would be alone.
Honestly, I didn't hear anything after that. Once again, she was letting Jon and the band dictate what happened in our relationship. I actually wondered at that moment whether or not there was any hope for us. If she didn't get it through her head that the band was her job and this was her
life,
it was a lost cause.