Boy in a Band (A Morgan Mallory story) (42 page)

“I didn’t mean to freak you out
,” he said, climbing in next to me.

“I wasn’t expecting it is all.”

“We’ve been doing this dance a long time, and maybe it’s time to see if it can work,” he said.

I looked into his eyes and knew what he was saying was coming from his heart
. He pulled me to him holding me, caressing me, and I let my body mold into his. I wanted him near me and yet my head was filled with disjointed thoughts. We talked, and held one another, and made love slowly. We stayed in bed until the last minute before we needed to shower and check out. Like our very first time together I felt like the bed was our private island.

“We still have some time
,” he said as we drove out of the hotel parking lot.

             
“Can you take me to Vasona Park?” I asked, thinking of all the good memories and the many birthdays I'd spent there as a child.

             
“You got it,” he said smiling, turning up the music.

It was the Stones
. I knew which song was coming. “
Childhood living is easy to do, the things you wanted I bought them for you, graceless lady you know who I am, you know I can’t let you slide through my hands, wild horses couldn’t drag me away”
played from the speakers
.
The flood of memories was crushing as the song played out.

We
walked to a grassy knoll and hung out, watching the kids play in the playground. I lay between his legs, my back against him. Another good memory.

             
“You want kids?” he asked pensively.

             
“Someday, yeah.”

We’
d never talked like this. Not about any real possibility of a future together. I wondered how long he had been thinking about it. He didn’t bring up his question from earlier, and I was relieved. He asked if I could come back in two weeks; he would buy my ticket. I said I would.

             
“Think about it,” he said when he kissed me goodbye at the airport.

             
His blue eyes twinkled when he smiled.

Chapter 47

He
was all I thought about on the plane ride home. I was still stunned.
Could it work? Could we?
Here was what I had always wanted,
us
. Instead of shouting
yes
at the top of my lungs, I needed time to think about it.
Morgan, what is wrong with you?
I kept asking myself. Over the next two weeks, I went through the motions at school. I was half focused, missing him, wanting to get back. We talked on the phone several times.

“I did a little shopping today
,” I said.

             
“What kind of shopping?”

             
“Victoria's Secret shopping.”

             
“Lucky me, I can’t wait to see you, Morgan,” he said, with a sexy edge in his voice.

              He took me back to the Hyatt.

             
“Mathew, Jack’s is fine. The Hyatt’s got to be expensive,” I said, feeling guilty he was paying.

             
“I’m making good money, kid. It’s okay. I want to spend it on you,” he said, taking the luggage from the trunk.

             
While he checked in, standing in the lobby, I pictured myself in the teal dress, waiting, not know what to do my hands.
Would that girl have moved back to San Jose?
When Mathew motioned his head toward the elevators I followed. He kissed me as we rode up. The elevator stopped and he pulled away, different floor I noticed.

             
“Oh, my god,” I said when he opened the door to the room—it was a suite.

             
“Not a word,” he said.

             
He set the suitcases down and flopped down on the couch. He grinned at me with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

             
“Take off your clothes, I want to see,” he said.

             
“Not so fast, Mathew,” I laughed.

             
He slid his arm out along the back on the couch getting comfortable.

“Morgan
, take off your clothes, now.”

             
“You’re like a little kid,” I said, feeling the butterflies rise up.

             
He smiled. I pulled my shirt off and wiggled out of my jeans. I did a slow turnaround and faced him in my lacy pink-and-blue bra-and-panty set.

             
“Very nice,” he said.

             
He pushed himself from the couch coming to me. His expression one of want. This time I let him lead the way. The lingerie didn’t stay on long.

              “Hungry?” he asked, running his fingers through my hair.

             
“Um, how could I be hungry after that,” I asked, snuggled against him in bed.

“For food
, silly.”

             
“Yeah, food, we need that, don’t we,” I murmured, not wanting to move away from him.

             
We walked to a quaint Italian restaurant for dinner. It had green and white awnings over the front windows and plush red velvet booths inside with dark wooden tables. The walls were painted green and had numerous photos of beautiful landscape, I presumed to be Italy. It smelled delicious, of red sauce and bread, and I realized I was hungry.  He ordered a bottle of red wine, and the waiter poured two glasses.

             
“Drinking again?”

              “Now and then,” he answered.

             
“Walking, no driving,” I said, scolding.

              We got more sociable that weekend: clubbing and hooking up with friends, and the band.

             
“Hit?” he asked as we sat in the parking lot, ready to go into a club.

             
He had a vial of cocaine in his hand. I liked cocaine, but I never bought it. When it was offered I usually was game. It was everywhere in the clubbing scene, in Park City it had been blatant. There were those, like me, that could do it socially and then those that became fanatical about it. I assumed Mathew had just gotten this because I was in town.

             
“Sure. You’re not doing this much, are you?” I asked.

             
I had grown out of the heavy partying scene, and I assumed he had too, especially after his accident, but now I wondered. I thought back to my times with the band, and worried that they still might be going full throttle.

             
“Only special occasions,” he said, handing it to me.

             
His words only reassured me a little. I took the small spoon and hit both nostrils. He did the same and put the vial in his pocket.

             
“Ready to do some dancing,” he asked, kissing me.

             
“Oh, yeah.”

             
The place was packed. People jammed so tight you could hardly move around, and loud; the talking, the laughter, the music. I drank too much wine; he didn’t drink at all. We snuck off to the bathroom several times to do more blow. We got sweaty on the dance floor. Mathew knew several people and he talk, shouted, with them. We left before the band quit, but it was still pretty late.

             
“That was so much fun,” I said, stumbling and laughing as he helped me into the elevator at the Hyatt.

             
“I’m glad,” he said, wrapping his arms around me.

When we got to the room
, he made himself a Jack-and-Coke from the mini bar.

“Anything
?” he asked.

             
“Any more coke?” I asked, knowing I didn’t need anything more to drink.

             
He handed me the vial. I tapped out lines onto a mirror he’d pulled from his suitcase and snorted two lines. When I stood up he looked at me and took a sip of his drink.

“Strip off your clothes,” he said.

“You strip off your clothes,” I giggled.

He grinned at me.
I stared at him challenging him with my eyes.

“Are you going to take off your clothes?” he asked.

“No. I want you to take them off.”

I could feel that I swaying just a bit, my head light from the wine and coke. I watched as he set his drink down on the table and then lurched across the room at me, tackling me onto the bed. I let out a laughing scream as he rolled on top of me. We had wild sex late into the night, on the bed, over the chair, on the floor. Mathew was amazing; he could do it over and over. I figured the cocaine had a little something to do with it. We got in the bathtub at one point to relax and made love again. I was sore and a lot more sober when we finally lay in each other’s arms under the covers.

             
“Yes, I’ve thought about it,” I answered when he asked.

             
“Well?”

             
“Mathew, you need to give me time. I’m thinking
yes
, but it scares the shit out of me. I don’t know this Mathew.”

             
“Yes, you do,” he said.

              “I don’t,” I protested. “The boy in the band that I knew was self-centered, especially when it came to me.”

He looked into my eyes.

“This boy,” I stroked his face “is new to me.”

              “Let’s try to get some sleep,” he said annoyed.

             
Me hesitation confused me, but didn’t. I wasn’t sure I believed him, in him.

             
“I don’t know how you can support the two of us… There are so many things,” I went on. “When I am with you, I want it more than you know, but I have doubts.”

             
“Don’t,” he said.

             
“I’m trying.”

              For the remainder of the school year, I went to see Mathew every other weekend. My lingerie collection was getting expensive, and Mathew was growing increasingly frustrated with me not giving him an answer. We were spending more weekends at Jack’s, and the more we were around other people, the more my doubts would resurface. Cocaine was usually around, and he was “social drinking”. We planned for me to come back for a week right after school ended, and I knew I had to make a decision. He told me he expected it.

Mathew
arranged to use Bobby’s grandparents' place at the beach for five nights, the Hyatt the last two. The first two days we were alone at the beach house were fabulous. We cooked together, took walks on the beach, romped in the sun, rode beach cruisers around town, and spent a lot of time in bed. We built fires on the beach, and he played his guitar for me. When I watched him, I imagined it always like this. I tried to imagine us apartment hunting.

             
“I invited a few friends to stop by tonight,” he said while we showered.

             
We’d spent the day at the beach. It had been hot and we were clammy and sticky. It felt good to get the sand and the sunscreen off.

             
“That okay?”

             
“Sure,” I answered, rinsing my hair.

             
I was disappointed. I liked having him to myself. I remembered when we were kids I had felt that way too. A few friends turned into a party, and Mathew flirted openly with several of the girls that night. I watched him work the scene. It took me back in time to other parties we had been to, parties that hadn’t turned out so well. It was different though now, now we were a couple. I’d never had the right before to feel jealous, so I’d gotten mad or even. It surprised me to feel it now.

             
“I was talking to them, Morgan,” he defended.

             
“More like flirting,” I said, pouring us coffee the next morning. “Mathew, for god’s sake, you’re a chick magnet and you know it. That’s okay with me, but it’s not when you work it. If we can ever make it, you have to be committed.”

             
“Committed? Look who’s talking, who’s the one not committing here?” he asked angrily, which ended the conversation.

I had no comeback for him
. The last night at the beach, we took a long walk. The sun was low in the sky, the light reflecting off the water in beautiful shades of red and orange. We walked in silence, listening to the ocean, me bending down to pick up rocks and sea glass as I spotted them. He got ahead of me several times as I dallied, and I would hurry to catch up to him. I could see his blond hair blowing in the breeze; he had grown it back out. Not like the band-long, just to his shoulders. I liked it. He reached his hand out for me as I approached, and he laced his fingers in mine.

“Let’s head back
,” he said.

We walked with the water lapping at our feet, waves
coming in and then retreating. I tried to dissect my indecision to be with him. At that moment, I couldn’t find any. I wanted to make the right decision because it was a major decision, a life altering, adult decision, whether we worked out or not. We left the next day for the Hyatt.

             
“I need to make a stop on the way,” Mathew said.

             
“What for?” I asked.

             
“I need to pick up a package from this guy,” he said.

             
Once we were back in San Jose, he drove to an apartment complex and he parked in front. The buildings were a tan stucco color with carports that ran down the sides in the parking lot. The landscaping looked like it needed a good trimming and the building themselves were a bit tired looking.

             
“Wait here. I’ll just be a minute.”

“
Okay, leave the radio on,” I said.

             
He turned the key part way and the radio came back on. I watched him walk to the back of the complex and then go right until I couldn’t see him anymore. I hummed with the radio, looking forward to the room at the Hyatt and suddenly not happy about having to go home. He was back pretty quickly with what looked like a small box. He put it in the trunk.

              “Next stop, the Hyatt,” he said.

             
That night we stayed in the room and watched movies, old movies. We’d picked up some wine and each had a glass as we snuggled on the couch. It seemed so couplish, another thing that was still foreign to me. He checked the clock a couple of times and at eight he made a phone call. His conversation was low and the TV didn’t allow me to hear any of it. He said that Bob was coming by real quick.

              “Not a party?” I asked disappointed.