Heartstrings (6 page)

C
al stood
in the parking lot, a warm spring wind tugging at his coat. The guitar case in his hand felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.

He stood beside the open driver’s door of Yanmei’s Forester. She slouched in the driver’s seat, sipping on a coffee. The meet-up they’d had for breakfast that morning had evolved from a friendly meal to an all-out pep talk on her part.

Cal was rarely one to second-guess himself and especially wasn’t one to talk about that second-guessing out loud. But then again, this wasn’t a normal decision.

“Relax,” Yanmei said. “You’ve totally got this.”

Cal grunted and shifted his boots on the asphalt.

“I feel like I’ve partially got this.”

“So get the rest of your grip later.”

Further down the parking lot, a pair of lengthy dark-gray buses loitered outside the hotel beside the white truck from the other night. People Cal didn’t recognize were hauling his old band’s baggage, packing away suitcases and stacks. It was still surreal to him, that level of success. The idea of having an
entourage
to do that stuff.

Cal wondered if he’d made a mistake, sharing the contents of Blake’s voicemail with her. Yanmei was a force of nature when she got an idea in her head. And she thought it would be a fantastic idea for Cal to join up with the Sinsationals for the remainder of their tour.

Her reasoning was sound. All of it. The financial side of things, the advertising it would provide for the bar. She insisted she’d be fine running things for a few weeks.

But she didn’t know just how complicated things were with Blake. Just how badly Cal had fucked up that relationship. The fact that Blake was going through some sort of an emotional crisis and purported to forgive him might not be relevant in a matter of days. Forgiveness wasn’t necessarily forever.

The guitar in his hand and the fact that he was standing in the lot at all were a testament to her powers of persuasion.

“What if I’m making a mistake?” he finally asked, somewhat embarrassed to hear the words come out of his mouth.

Yanmei pursed her lips sideways and took another sip from her coffee cup.

“You’re my boss, Calvin.” Her tone was kind, but firm.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It means I’ve followed a lot of decisions you’ve made. And every one of those could have been a mistake, too.”

Shit, she had a point.

Cal didn’t have a response ready for that one. And she could apparently tell, because she beamed a grin at him and reached out to give his forearm a squeeze.

“It’s too late to back down now,” she said. “Blake’s seen you.”

Cal snapped his head up. She was right: Blake was hurrying across the lot toward where they idled. He looked... damn, he looked so happy.

Cal took it in for a moment: the glimmer of sun on Blake’s hair, the hurried bounce in his step, the hint of a smile playing at his expressive mouth. If he squinted and denied with all his might, Cal could almost pretend the last few years had never happened, that the Blake bounding excitedly toward him was the Blake of his youth.

“Send me a postcard, okay?”

Yanmei let go of his arm and drew her legs up into the SUV. She yanked the door closed just as Blake arrived, effectively trapping Cal there.

Blake looked at Cal, then looked at her, and greeted them both as a unit. His smile grew a little hesitant and his waving hand fell a little lower.

“Take care of my bar,” Cal said, his tone warning. Yanmei snorted out a raucous laugh and drew a cross over her chest with one finger.

“Cross my heart, it’ll still be standing when you get back.”

She said her hello and goodbye to Blake in a single moment, and before Cal knew it, his last lifeline was pulling away down the road, disappearing into traffic.

Cal tried not to notice how the wind tousled the curls at the nape of Blake’s neck. He wished he could think of anything else. Some sort of greeting that didn’t verge too closely on “You look hot today, old friend!”

He settled for an awkward smile. He jostled the guitar in his hand.

“Looks like I’m doing it.”

Blake, much to Cal’s surprise, embraced him. It was quick and companionable, a hug of innocent enthusiasm. A friend hug. Cal couldn’t hug back thanks to the guitar, so he stood there and endured it. Up close, Blake smelled so refreshing, so clean. Like he’d just showered but hadn’t shaved. Like fresh linen. Christ, Cal’s brain could go on.

“Hell yeah you are!”

Grinning so hard that crows’ feet formed at the edges of his eyes, Blake released Cal from the quick hug and stooped down, picking up the backpack sitting neglected at his feet.

“This is all you packed?” he asked, a little incredulous.

Cal shifted his weight from side to side. He hated being put on the spot like this.

“I’ve never done this before, remember?”

Blake laughed, then steered Cal toward the buses. He approached them at a speed that was practically a jog. Which wasn’t unusual for Blake, who hurtled through life at light speed. Cal always wondered why he was like that. Was he just desperate to experience as much as he could? Afraid of missing out?

Either way, it was exhausting at times.

But right now, it was endearing. And encouraging. And Cal needed some encouragement, because he felt as though he was stepping off a cliff.

* * *

T
he buses
, it turned out, were more like luxury RVs than buses. Blake led Cal aboard one, and Cal was immediately floored by the fixtures. It had a polished wooden floor, for hell’s sake.

Two brown leather couches ran down each wall past the driver’s compartment, a small kitchen springing up where they terminated. The kitchen had a small fridge, a microwave, and, more ridiculously, its own television. The entire interior was done up in tasteful shades of brown and dark red, down to the throw pillows.

It was a bus with
throw pillows.
Cal was having trouble taking it all in.

“You want that guitar stored down below?”

Cal glanced down the steps, where a roadie offered up a hand to him. He shook his head.

“Nah, gonna get some practice in.” Because Lord knew, he needed it.

“You, me, and the girls will be on this bus,” Blake explained. “Rhett, Carlo, and Jake are on the other one, along with Palmer and Patty.”

Cal’s face must have been blank enough to convey his lack of understanding, because Blake explained further.

“The managers you spoke to? Paul and Patricia Palmer. Those two.”

“Right. Of course.”

Cal tried to listen as Blake ran through their upcoming schedule, leading him further into the bus. The dazzling sensation never quite went away. Cal wondered how much of it was their luxurious accommodations and how much of it was simply being this close to Blake again.

T
he buses started rolling
toward Salt Lake City not long after Blake and Cal boarded. Blake took his time to show Cal all the bells and whistles before crashing on the unoccupied sofa in the front. Lily was curled up with a book on the other sofa. Erica, a notoriously late sleeper, had stumbled out of the hotel and straight into her bunk. Blake imagined they’d see her in a few hours.

“There’s snacks and stuff in the fridge and the pantry,” Blake said as Cal wandered back into the living area, minus his backpack and guitar.

“This thing has a pantry?”

“Yeah, that little handle by the fridge? Sliding wall pantry. It’s amazing.”

“No doubt.” Cal sank down onto the far end of Blake’s sofa. “But I just ate. Thanks though.”

It was cute, Cal being this star struck by all the luxury. Blake supposed if he was used to working in The Garage all day, the coach must feel like a different planet. The bar wasn’t quite a dump, but it looked even more worn-in than it had back when Cal’s father had run it.

Suddenly, Lily laughed.

“What?” Blake and Cal asked in unison.

Lily tilted her book down, a smile dimpling her freckled cheeks.

“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just... it sure is something to look up and see
you
on this bus, Cal.”

Cal let out a short laugh. It sounded amused, but Blake could tell there was a hint of bashfulness to it. One of the things about knowing Cal for so long was picking up on the little things he
didn’t
say or do that conveyed so much about how he was feeling. His body language, his different laughs.

Right now, with his shoulders tense and his back a little straighter than usual, Cal looked uncomfortable. But he probably didn’t appear uncomfortable to anyone but Blake.

“It’s weird to me, too.” Cal shot her a lopsided grin.

“I’m sure I’ll get used to it,” Lily fired back. “Traveling with Cal’s gotta be easier than traveling with Rhett.”

At that, Cal glanced over to Blake, eyebrows raising.

Blake didn’t want to get into all that, not now. So naturally, he changed the subject.

“You said it had been a while since you played much, Cal. Up for a bit of practice?”

Cal sat up just slightly. It was a subtle change, but Blake could sense the shift in his body language, from cautious to excited.

“Yeah, I probably need it.” Cal’s brow wrinkled. “We won’t wake Erica, though?”

“Erica will wake up under two circumstances: when Erica feels like waking up or when someone crashes the bus.”

Lily nodded along with Blake’s words in confirmation.

“Well all right.”

* * *

B
lake was used
to picking banjo on a rolling bus, but Cal took a few minutes to warm to it. He kept shifting his guitar on his lap, frowning down at it as if it had wronged him somehow. Privately, Blake enjoyed this a great deal.

After a rummage in the back, he’d found a spare set list, which he and Cal were now running through, marking down which songs Cal knew and which ones he didn’t. He knew about a third of the material, which was promising.

“Only issue I see is this,” Cal said. “I know the
lead guitar
parts. You have a new lead guitarist.”

“Yeah,” Blake said. “But he kind of does his own thing. He plays very different from how you used to, sort of takes the songs in his own direction.”

Blake wondered if his irritation shone through. Privately, he felt as though Rhett had hijacked the band’s sound and made it into something a little too mass-produced for Blake’s taste. But then again, those songs sold.

“So just play lead on the songs I know?”

“Exactly. Lead with some variation. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

“And the rest of these songs, do they have an actual rhythm guitar part?”

“Nope.”

Blake laughed, mostly because of the look of sheer dismay on Cal’s face.

He couldn’t believe Cal was worried. Unless Cal had sustained a brain injury or something in the last few years, he was a master at improvising on the guitar. Half the shows they’d played together back in the day had random “songs” on the set list that were just glorified jam sessions or extended reprises of their own work. Cal had played a few shows at the Celtic Festival with no prior training in Celtic music, just to see if he could.

Blake pursed his lips together, watching Cal work over the set list and fuss with his guitar.

The Cal that could be coaxed into silly, risky shit had to be down in there, somewhere. A few years working in a bar wouldn’t have changed that. Even his father’s fight with cancer wouldn’t have changed that.

Cal could do it. Blake had absolute faith in him. At least as a musician. Hell, he was paying Cal out of his own royalties for coming on the tour, just so the rest of the band didn’t get their panties in a twist. That was endorsement enough, wasn’t it?

“I’ve got an idea,” Lily said from her couch, sitting up and leaving her book draped on the cushions. “If there’s any songs you aren’t sure about, I can show you the sheet music for my parts. You can work something out around those. It might be easier than using a tab or something.”

Cal paused, guitar in his lap. When he spoke up, his voice was quieter than before.

“Great idea. That’s real sweet of you.”

It was great to see them working together. Blake hadn’t been sure how the others had felt about him inviting Cal along for a few shows. Apart from the fact that nobody had outright vetoed it. Lily and Carlo had been the ones he’d worried most about, given that they’d been there for the initial breakup.

And what an explosive breakup it was.

But Lily was a pragmatic type. She’d simply shrugged and said that if Blake could forgive Cal, she could too. Because it was Blake who’d suffered the most from it.

Blake watched in silence, a small smile working up his mouth, as Lily and Cal settled down with the fiddle score. Watching Cal pore over the sheet music tweaked something inside Blake that he’d been trying to ignore. Some small trigger of fondness. The intense concentration Cal always put into his craft was endearing and captivating in a way that Blake couldn’t quite pinpoint.

Cal took things so slowly, so methodically. Cal always proceeded with care. It was a trait Blake both admired and envied. That tendency toward caution and thinking things through was also why Blake was so surprised and grateful Cal had agreed to come on tour at all.

Right now, it triggered a powerful desire in him. He wanted to reach out, take Cal by the jaw, and coax him into a slow kiss, a kiss that would explore their last few years of absence, a kiss to test the waters...

But it wasn’t practical. Not now. And there was still that unspoken division between them, that rift that had yawned open wide when Cal quit the band and severed all contact.

So Blake just sat there and appreciated the moment for what it was: working on music again with an old friend. Still a wholesome, warming thing.

They stayed that way for over an hour, until the bus rolled to a stop for lunch.

* * *

T
hey stopped
at an exit that had a collection of fast-food joints all clustered around a couple of truck stops. Everyone filtered off to their preferred restaurants, Blake and Cal opting for Chipotle.

“I’m glad you don’t have a private chef living on the bus with you,” Cal said as they walked back into the parking lot, burrito bowls in hand. “That would have been too much.”

“Nah, he only travels with me when I travel internationally,” Blake said with a wink.

Just hearing Cal’s voice put him in a good mood. That hint of leftover Texas twang, the low roughness of it, the way he mumbled just a bit whenever he wasn’t sure about something.

Smiling to himself, Blake didn’t notice the altercation taking place at the buses until they were just about back. An angry shout tore through his daydreamy mood. The smile slid right off his face.

“Get out!” Erica was growling at someone from inside the bus. A second later, Rhett stumbled down the steps, the apparent victim of a shove.

“What the fuck’s your problem?” Rhett yelled back at her, nearly toppling over. He caught himself and dusted off his jeans, growling in through the bus door.

“You know exactly what my problem is! You want me to share it with the class?”

Blake and Cal came to a stop a way back from the door, giving Rhett some space. He didn’t pay them much mind.

Shit, had Erica caught him going through her stuff again? Blake still wasn’t sure how to handle that, other than praying every night that Rhett’s parents would force him to go to rehab or something. He came from a well-off family and their son was a rock star, surely together they could manage a stint at a clinic somewhere.

“You’re fucking crazy!” Rhett hollered at Erica. He turned, catching sight of Blake and Cal, and started.

“Everything all right?” Blake asked. He knew it wasn’t, but he was curious as to what Rhett would say. As far as he knew, nobody but he and Erica knew Rhett was probably stealing her medication.

“I left something on this bus,” Rhett said, rolling his eyes. “Crazy bitch thinks I was going through her shit while she was sleeping.”

Blake bit his tongue, unsure whether to confront Rhett about what he knew. A moment’s thought led him to the conclusion that he shouldn’t. Erica should be the one to bring it up. On her own terms. If she didn’t, for whatever reason, Blake didn’t want to shove the entire band down a drama spiral that there was no coming back from.

“Maybe you just startled her,” Blake said, though the words didn’t have a lot of heart to them. He wished he had it in him to just crack Rhett one across the face, let him know just how much he was ruining things for everyone else. But he had to be diplomatic. So he kept his mouth shut.

“Uh huh.” Rhett’s voice was flat. “Anyhow, you and your pity hire can quit gawking. Show’s over.”

At that, Blake stiffened. Did he just call Cal a pity hire? What did that even mean? And why the fuck did he even care? When Rhett turned to stalk off back toward the other bus, Blake started after him.

To his surprise, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Let him go,” Cal said. “Dunno what his problem is, but this isn’t a fight you want to have in a truck-stop parking lot holding a burrito bowl.”

Blake let his shoulders fall. Cal was right.

“Well,” Blake said as they climbed back into the bus. “That’s Rhett. I guess you two have met now.”