Authors: Carol Pavliska
This was not a good time to get turned on. It was a freaking weird and disastrous time to get turned on. But it was happening all the same.
Cleo shifted her weight, and the guitar slid off Julian’s lap, landing on the floor with a heavy thud. It broke the spell, and he yanked his head up, startled.
“Cleo?” he rasped.
“Hello,” she said stupidly. “Are you okay?”
He let go and straightened himself up. His eyes flitted about the room before finally settling back on hers. “Oh, fuck. I’m so sorry.”
He ran his hands over his face and through his hair, leaving it sticking out in all directions. “How long was that?” he asked.
“How long was what?”
“How long was…this?” He pointed at himself. “I mean, has it just been a few minutes, then?”
“Yes. I, um, interrupted you while you were playing.”
He stood shakily, held out his hand, and pulled her up. She waited for an explanation. And an apology would be nice, too. But all he said was, “I really need to play right now. Would you excuse me?”
“Are you serious?”
“Quite.” He retrieved his amp from the other side of the room where he’d kicked it, plugged himself back in, and began to play.
This was total, unadulterated bullshit. Was she supposed to act as if nothing had happened? Because she could. She
would
do that. She’d go strictly professional on his ass. If he wanted to talk to her, he could email her. In fact, she’d email him. That’s how she’d tell him about Cory Maxwell. She’d send a professional correspondence about the Dead Ringer party, and he could go, or not, and it wasn’t any concern of hers.
She stomped down the stairs to the studio foyer to compose a message for His Crazy Highness.
Subject: Dead Ringer Release Party
Dear Julian,
I spoke briefly with Cory Maxwell. He requested your address in order to send you an invitation to a release party in Los Angeles. You can expect the invitation within a couple of weeks.
Cleo Compton
She hit the send key and tapped her fingers on the desk. A few seconds later, she composed a second message.
Subject: Cory Maxwell
Dear Julian,
I am also invited to attend the release party. I might see you there.
Cleo Compton
She hit the send key. It was satisfying, but not satisfying enough. The occasion called for one more.
Subject: Cancellation of Dinner
Dear Julian,
I am just letting you know that I will be unavailable tomorrow evening for dinner, on account of you being an asshole.
Cleo Compton
She officiously hit send. It felt wonderful, warm and delicious and generally delightful…for about a minute.
So much for her foray into professionalism. She began typing away, attempting to gain access to his account so she could delete the last message. She’d been in it before— what was his password?
Major Strat? Minor Strut?
She wasted twenty minutes trying variations of those words, typing them in uppercase, lowercase, and every way in between. No luck. Just as she’d typed STUPIDDUMBASS, the front door buzzed.
Dang. She was supposed to have an early dinner with Josh. With all the excitement of the afternoon, not to mention the recent scene from
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
, she’d completely forgotten.
She buzzed him in. A wave of humid heat poured through the door with him, but Josh looked cool and crisp. He always did.
“Hey, there,” she said, trying not to act surprised. He pulled her out from behind the desk and delivered a kiss. It was chaste, but the look in his eyes was anything but.
She’d given in after the Strut and Putt Gala. It had been a wonderful night; Josh was entertaining, attentive, and looked mighty handsome in a tux. They’d gone back to his place after the party, a nice cottage in Alamo Heights, and skinny-dipped in the rock pool. Later, there’d been candles, flowers, and satin sheets. It was over-the-top romantic, and the sex should have been good. Josh had done all the right things. But in the end, it just hadn’t worked. Not for her, anyway.
She’d considered ending it tonight. But now she wasn’t so sure. Did she want to throw away the possibility of a mature relationship because she couldn’t let go of a teenage-style obsession with what was shaping up to be a seriously loony musician? Josh might not set her heart on fire, but he hadn’t kicked an amp at her, either. And he was
real
.
Maybe passion didn’t have to wash over you like a rhythm-driven bass beat. Maybe it could sneak up on you, like a pretty background melody.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked.
“Absolutely.” She grabbed her purse and off she went, her body in one direction and her traitorous heart in another.
Chapter Eight
Julian woke to a buzzing sound. Was it external? Or was it the internal buzzing he often heard in his head? He lay still, waiting for his consciousness to settle back into its usual, upright position.
Soon, he knew three things. He was lying on the couch in his loft, the dusty light beam coming in through the west window indicated it was late afternoon, and the buzzing was his phone. External, then. Good.
He ignored the phone. What had he been doing before zoning out? His guitar leaned up against the armrest of the couch, so he’d been playing. Cleo had come in and…bloody hell. He’d scared the shit out of her before going completely mental, as he was prone to do. Jesus, he needed to apologize, but how?
Sorry, I failed to mention I’m a freak.
His mouth was dry, so he hauled himself off the couch. As he grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge, it all came crashing back. The cause of his synesthesia episode was Mitch fucking Landrum. He was dating Addie.
With shaking hands, he lifted the bottle to his lips. The colors were starting to blend. Even though it was silent in the loft, his thoughts were noisy, and that was enough. A soft buzzing sound that
wasn’t
his phone began to settle in. He’d better pull it together, or he was on his way out again. He breathed deeply and concentrated on emptying his mind. A therapist had shown him how to do it—he focused on eliminating one color at a time until he had a blissfully blank slate.
The brain buzz dissipated, replaced by the buzz of a text. It was Travis Moore, bassist for Big Spigot, an alternative band out of Austin.
C
AN U PLAY WITH US 2NITE?
P
ETER IS IN THE HOSPITAL & A PRODUCER IS COMING 2 THE SET.
Julian rubbed his hand across his face. He didn’t relish the idea of facing Cleo anytime soon, so playing would be a nice escape. He texted back: W
HERE?
W
HAT TIME?
W
HAT’S WRONG WITH
P
ETER?
He looked out the window. Cleo’s car was in the lot, but it was too quiet. She’d probably gone out with the lawyer. He knocked on the door to her flat, and when she didn’t answer, he went on in. It was technically his place, so why not?
The room was empty. A few plates rested on the table, dirty, of course, and a second look confirmed they were his. A box in the corner, marked
dishes
, sat unopened. He shook his head. A pile of clean laundry covered the love seat—he could practically hear it wrinkling. A lacy pink bra rested on top. He held it up, enjoying the accompanying mental image of Cleo’s ample breasts. Maybe there was a pair of matching panties to go with it. He dropped the bra and stuck a finger back into the mess. Bingo! A pink thong. Snooping was great fun.
He headed to the bed, which was an unmade mass of crinkled sheets. He brushed popcorn kernels aside before sitting. There was a slight indention in the pillow, and he leaned over and touched his face to it. A tangerine scent filled his senses, and orange bubbles popped at the edges of his peripheral vision. A sense of peace and calm enveloped him as the last echo of the buzzing completely disappeared.
Still smelling sweet citrus, he sat up and pulled the pillow onto his lap. A stack of paperbacks perched precariously on the nightstand, along with Cleo’s glasses, four empty tumblers he didn’t dare look into, and some balled-up dirty tissues. The open drawer called to him, and he eased it out a little farther. A brush and comb, an orthodontic appliance of some sort covered in lint, and a few photographs were all he could see.
His phone buzzed, and he jumped. It was Travis again.
A
PPENDICITIS. LAZY FUCKER REFUSES 2 PLAY.
W
E NEED U @
S
TUBB’S @ 9.
If he left in the next few minutes, he could make it. A photo caught his eye as he went to close the drawer. He could only see half of it, but it was Cleo’s face. He pulled it out. “Bloody hell,” he whispered.
The photo, cut to fit in a frame, was of Cleo and a cocky-looking Lou Michaels. And it wasn’t a fan photo, either. They were on a beach somewhere, looking downright cozy. If it weren’t for a car door slamming and snapping him out of his stunned stupor, he might have stared at the photo until his hair turned gray. He dropped it back in the drawer and scampered out of the flat. He’d just made it into his kitchen when Cleo came barging through the door. The wrong door, of course.
His door.
Which was a good thing or she’d have busted him sitting on her bed.
He froze.
“Hi,” she said. “I was out with Josh.” She tapped her cowboy boot and folded her arms across her T-shirt—a puppy wearing pink earmuffs—in a
so there
manner.
“Sorry,” he said. “That couldn’t have been fun.”
“It was awesome, actually.” She looked closely at him and knitted her brows together. “Is that my pillow?”
Shit. He was holding her stupid pillow. “Um, no. I think it’s mine.” He winced at the Wonder Woman pillowcase covering it.
Her smug expression changed to concern. “You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?” She hustled him toward the couch. “You’re disoriented. Lie down while I get you some water.”
How was he ever going to get out of here now?
She handed him a glass and placed her palm against his head. “Are you going to tell me what happened earlier?”
A bead of sweat broke out at his hairline as he passed her the pillow. “Nothing happened. I wasn’t smelling anything.”
Fuck.
“I mean doing anything.”
The smelling thing was new. Tangerines. He smelled them right
now
.
Cleo motioned for him to scoot farther onto the couch so she could sit. Then she leaned over and planted her warm lips firmly where her hand had been. A flash of cleavage caught his attention. He closed his eyes and swallowed a groan when she pulled away, leaving a feathery whisper where her lips had been.
“You don’t feel feverish, but you’re sure as heck acting that way,” she said, resting her hand on his bare chest and setting his flesh on fire. “Do you want to tell me why you freaked out earlier?”
“Oh, that.” This was it. He cleared his throat. “I have some sensory integration issues—more like disorders. I’m extremely disordered, you see.”
She didn’t laugh. “And that makes you scream and kick amps across the room?” Her brows dived into a chastising frown. She wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily.
“When I get really exhausted or become upset, I don’t do such a good job of handling all the colors.”
“What colors?” She brought the glass of water up to his lips and made him take a sip.
This was the bit people thought sounded cool, and therefore, the bit they misunderstood the most. “I have synesthesia. I see sounds. Sometimes feelings and sensations, too, but mostly sounds.”
The other synesthetes he’d met—many of them musicians, oddly enough—didn’t experience the depth of dimension he did. Most associated a certain color with a specific musical note, perhaps. But for Julian, silent things often had colors, too. Certain words, whether spoken or written, had colors. Names and people had colors. Cleo, for example, was orange, like a juicy tangerine. Addie was royal blue. They didn’t actually appear to
be
those colors, of course. But they were those colors, nonetheless. Every so often he could actually taste and smell words. Or, as he’d found out with Cleo’s pillow, people. He didn’t go into that with her, though; he’d revealed enough already.
“Can you see these colors with your eyes?” she asked. “Or is it in your head?”
Common question. A horn honked on the street, and he made a point of following the maroon streak shooting across the room with his eyes. “Did you hear that car honk?”
“Did you just look at it?”
“Yeah. Usually, I ignore things like that. But in answer to your question, if my eyes had been shut, I still would have seen it. So I see things with my eyes and with my mind. Supposedly I’m hallucinating.”
“Wow. You see all the solid objects in the world and the things the rest of us only hear. That’s a lot to see.”
“Too much sometimes. I constantly work at keeping the colors separated or they blend into a brown sludge. Then I can’t see anything. Or breathe, for that matter. It’s awful. And stupid. Sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?”
“Because I kicked the amp across the room. I could have hurt you.”
She mindlessly drummed her fingers on his chest before saying, “I don’t understand what the guitarus interruptus reaction has to do with your colors blending together or not blending together.”
He grinned at her invented terminology. “When everything bleeds together, I can sometimes sort it all out with a guitar. When I play, the colors go back where they belong. That’s what I was doing when you walked in.”
“And if the guitar doesn’t work? Then what?”
“I retreat.”
“Retreat where?” Her fingers had stopped their nervous rhythm on his chest and smoldered there like sizzling-hot coals. Could she feel his heart pounding?