In Your Honor (24 page)

Through his drunken stupor, he thought he
saw her coming towards him from across the bar. That was always the
problem, he'd drink to forget and then all he could see was her. He
wondered if it would be like this for the rest of his life... what
a lonely thought.

***

Lucy stopped in the doorway of the dive bar
and watched Blake for a few minutes. He hadn't seen her yet, he
probably couldn't from the way he was peering into his empty
pitcher of beer. She sighed, a familiar heaviness settling across
her shoulders.

Kendra was across the street and Lucy waved
to her as she stepped fully inside the building. They'd been
searching for Blake for the better part of an hour and she just
knew, in her heart, that he'd be in a place like this. It wasn't
the first time that Lucy had had to carry Blake out of a bar. But
she had really believed that the last time had truly been the last
time.

Kendra pushed through the door and stood
next to her, her eyes immediately drawn to the dark-haired rocker
alone in his corner booth, a black beanie pulled down low on his
forehead. His white t-shirt made the stubble on his face even
darker and more pronounced.

“
Thank God,” Kendra breathed in
relief. Lucy felt sorry for the poor girl, she had been nearly out
of her mind with worry. Whether it was for Blake or her own job,
she didn't know. But Lucy understood her relief, she was feeling
something similar. But Blake did that, didn't he? He'd get everyone
in a twitter over his issues and then they'd be so happy he was
okay, they'd forget to kick his ass, and the cycle would repeat
itself.

“
We should have brought one of the
guys with us,” Kendra muttered, and Lucy shook her head. “He's
obviously drunk, we're gonna need help,” Kendra continued in
explanation.

“
I got it,” Lucy responded quietly.
“Call Carl, tell him where to pick us up.”

“
But I thought—” Kendra protested,
confused.

“
Just do it,” Lucy said softly, not
looking at the younger girl. Her insides were a complete mess as
she surveyed her beautiful tattooed past. She set her shoulders and
braced her heart for the unknown. Who knew what had set him off
this time? It could have been anything, and Lucy wasn't sure she
wanted to know.

As she approached the table, Blake looked up
at her, his eyes glassy and bloodshot. They were sad, a pale sea
foam green, nearly translucent. She slid into the booth beside him
and took the empty pitcher from his hands, sliding it to the center
of the table.

“
Lucky,” he slurred, confused by her
presence. “You came?”

“
Kendra couldn't find you, she was
really worried,” Lucy explained gently.

His face twisted as he listened to her
words. His eyes grew cloudy as he sought for clarity in his drunken
state. No matter where he was or who he was with, Blake was always
the most undecipherable and enigmatic person in the room—except for
those eyes. He normally kept them hidden behind dark glasses or
half-closed eyelids. The color reflected so much of his inner
turmoil, reacting and changing as quickly as an electrical storm.
She used to get so lost in their complexity.

“
Kendra was worried,” he repeated,
looking for all intents and purposes like a disappointed child. His
face flashed with belligerence and he smirked at her.

***

“
Kendra is my girlfriend.” He smiled,
proud of his lie. If she thought she was going to toy with him just
because he was drunk, she was mistaken. He was still in charge of
his thoughts, not her. But damn, if she wasn't gorgeous right
now.

He saw Kendra coming in the door at that
moment and started waving her over.

“
Kendra! Come and give me a kiss,
love!” He grinned at his assistant. She looked angry. Uh-oh, she
might not play along.

“
I know that Kendra's not your
girlfriend,” Lucy sighed. She looked so disappointed in him. He
hated that look on her face.

“
No, we're in love. She's carryin' my
child.” He tried to signal to Kendra to cooperate but she was
ignoring him, which was probably for the best because he couldn't
tell if he was winking or blinking.

“
Blake, that's how rumors get
started,” Lucy reprimanded him, unaffected by his words.

“
Carl said the bus will be here in
fifteen minutes.” Kendra, as demure as she usually represented
herself, was actually glaring at Lucy. Full on daggers with fire
and venom. Blake was impressed, as much as he could be in his
state.

“
Good, ask that old boy if he wants to
have a drink with me.” Blake giggled and both girls frowned at him
so he covered his mouth, pretending to be ashamed.

He wasn't.

***

“
You know this is your fault.” Kendra
said quietly. Lucy's eyebrows went up slightly at the unexpected
accusation.

“
How in the world...?” Lucy was
shaking her head slowly, confused at the smaller girl's change of
attitude towards her. She'd seen Kendra switch like this on her
before, the night Shane came to visit her backstage.

“
Kendra, I don't think you know what
you're saying. We can talk about all of this later.” She slowly
exhaled the words, suddenly feeling all the fatigue that was now
catching up with her. She didn't feel like getting blamed for one
of Blake's idiotic decisions yet again. It wasn't fair and she
wasn't going to do it anymore.

“
This would never have had happened if
you had just stayed home where you belonged.” Kendra's voice was
shaky as she tried to keep from trembling, whether from anger or
timidity, Lucy didn't know. She understood that Kendra was probably
coming from a place of anxiety. She was nervous about her job, and
she was nervous about her friend, Blake. Who, at the moment, was
trying to wave the bartender over for another refill. Like Lucy
wasn't sitting right there.

Lucy understood a little of what Kendra was
feeling. But she was too tired to be empathetic. And she didn't
have it in her to be Kendra's emotional trash can.

“
How is this my fault?” Lucy began to
raise her voice, causing Kendra's face to flush with new-found
defiance. “He's a grown man! I have nothing to do with
this!”

“
Oh please, we didn't have any
problems this whole tour until you showed up and messed with his
head!” Kendra's tiny body was shaking with rage and Lucy rolled her
eyes at the absurdity.

“
Just because you're his secret little
friend doesn't mean you know anything about me or what's between
Blake and me. I'm glad he was an angel for the first seven days you
knew him. But this,” she waved with one hand to Blake, who was
watching them curiously, “this is who he is, sweetie. This would
have happened whether or not I had been here.” She hated how her
drawl got thicker when she got upset.

“
Are you kidding?” Kendra's eyes
narrowed and she crossed her skinny arms over her chest. “We
all
know what you're
doing to him! You're too self-involved to see it.”

“
Girls, girls, girls,
don't fight over me,” Blake interrupted from his corner, a dumb
look on his face. “Let me buy you both a drink.”

“
Shut up, Blake.” Lucy
glared at him.

“
Don't you talk to him
that way!” Kendra snapped at her.

This was unbelievable. Lucy was not going to
get into a cat fight in a bar with a girl who was only as big
around as her left leg. She slid out of the booth and quickly
gabbed the younger girl by her arm, steered her toward the door,
and out onto the sidewalk. Kendra squirmed and wriggled, but she
didn't have the upper body strength to get away.

“
You need to get a grip
and listen to me!” Lucy's voice was low and threatening and Kendra
suddenly shrank back, some of her fire going out.

“
If you were really his
friend, than you'd see what he's doing to himself. You can't enable
him like this! He's a man with a real problem and pretending that
it's someone else's fault will never help him!” Lucy steeled
herself to avoid revealing her own insecurities in the matter.
Kendra had no way of knowing what she was defending, but her
accusation that it was Lucy's fault still burned inside her. Isn't
that what she had always been afraid of?

The buses pulled to a stop in the middle of
the street and Carl barreled out. Lucy turned Kendra in Carl's
direction.

“
Blake's gonna ride with
me.” She pointed at Kendra. “You keep her off my bus.”

Carl must have seen something in Lucy's
expression because he simply nodded and gestured for Kendra to get
back on the crew bus.

“
You need help with
Blake?” Carl asked as Lucy headed back inside the bar.

“
Nope.” She ground her
teeth together. Kendra's accusations still rang in Lucy's head and
she approached Blake with more fire than before. She was not going
to be the excuse for his bad behavior anymore.

“
It's time to go.” She put
her hands on her hips and waited for him to crawl out of the
booth.

“
Yes, ma'am.” He nodded
weakly as he struggled to stand.

“
You know the drill,” she
said as she positioned herself by his side. She pulled her hair
over one shoulder as he draped his arm across her. She wrapped an
arm around his waist and used the other on his chest to keep him
steady.

***

Blake did indeed know the drill. He was
ashamed of how many times she'd had to carry him home. As much as
he had tried over the past couple of weeks, he hadn't really
changed at all.

And she knew that now.

He staggered against her and marveled at the
strength she possessed. He shouldn't be surprised, she'd always
been a lot stronger than she looked. In more ways than one.

Blake didn't question why they were heading
to the red bus, or why Carl wasn't yelling at him. He knew it was
Lucy. It was always Lucy. She was always the one to show up and
save him from himself. God bless her.

He waved bashfully at the silent onlookers
in the main lounge as Lucy muscled him to the back lounge.
Collapsing onto the large couch, he rolled onto his back, closing
his eyes. He could hear her leaving instructions and gathering
supplies as he drifted in and out of awareness.

She reentered the back lounge and shut the
door behind her. He peeked one eye open and saw her frowning down
at him, hands on her hips, lips compressed into a hard line.

“
You're pretty.” He smiled
when her angry face cracked a bit of a smile.

“
What the hell are you
doing?” She dropped her hands to her sides and pushed him up into a
sitting position, taking a seat beside him.

“
I was planning on coming
right back,” he protested, knowing it was pointless.

“
I almost had to kick
Kendra's ass. Why are you draggin' her into our
business?”

“
Your accent gets a lot
thicker when you're mad,” he pointed out, and then laughed as she
punched him in the shoulder.

“
How drunk are you?” She
squinted at him.

“
Not as drunk as I wanted
to be.” He waggled his eyebrows up and down.

“
You always were a happy
drunk at least.” She sighed and pulled the trash can closer,
setting it next to him.

“
Remember that time you
dressed up as my mom and tried to get me out of
detention?”

She snickered from beside him. “What in the
world made you think of that?”

“
I was just going through
some of my best memories. You're in nearly all of them.” He smiled
his drunken smile and she bit her bottom lip. How he wished he
could kiss her. Even just one more time. But one more was never
enough.

“
I have no idea what I was
thinking. Like a thirteen-year-old was going to pass for an adult.”
Her dark eyes had lost their look of dismay as she thought
back.

“
How about when we both
got the flu and my mama wouldn't let you leave the house for a
week?” he kept going. One more last walk down Memory Lane. A chance
for him to remind her of the good times and make the bad seem less
awful.

“
We crawled into that room
under the stairs and wrote out our wills. I was certain we weren't
going to make it.” She laughed. “I wonder why your mom always
accused us of being overly dramatic.”

“
Remember that time we got
kicked out of Red's and we had to walk home?” He leaned his
spinning head back and closed his eyes.

“
Yeah,” she said, her
voice quiet, and he felt her shift on the couch to face him better.
“You took off your shoes and wanted me to carry you, ya big girl.
But we only made it as far as Thompson's field.”

“
We fell asleep under the
stars... I woke up with you in my arms... that was when I knew it.”
He sighed at the memory. Not really sure if she was still
listening.

“
Knew what?” she prompted
him gently.

He peeked one eye open and looked at her
perfect face. The face that had brought him his greatest joy and
his deepest heartache. He couldn't tell her everything. Not like
this.

“
That you would always be
my best friend,” he answered carefully.

The hush that followed was serene and he
relaxed again into the sofa. He didn't need a response, he didn't
want one either. He just liked having her nearby. She brought
clarity to his thoughts and peace to his otherwise aggressive and
discontent nature.