I have no earthly idea where I’m going. I just know I need to get away from those two before I bawl like a three-year old. I’m walking so fast that Hank Junior has to trot to keep up with me. He keeps looking back at the truck and then up at me as if he’s wondering what in the world I’m doing. I wouldn’t know how to begin to answer him. I don’t have a thing to my name except for him. Should I find a pay phone, call Mama right now and ask her to buy me a bus ticket home? Could I even take Hank Junior with me on a bus?
I cross the main road in front of the Bluebird. There’s a parking garage there. Maybe we can camp out for the night and see how things look in the morning, although short of me finding a winning lottery ticket in my pocket, I don’t know how it could look any better.
The garage is nearly empty, a few cars parked along the other side that opens through to a Whole Foods. My stomach does a low rumble, and I know Hank Junior has to be hungry as well.
I head for a corner and lean against the wall, sliding down onto the cold concrete. Hank Junior looks at me as if he isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do. I pat the spot next to me, and loyal friend that he is, he curls up with me, his head on my knee.
That’s when the tears start up for real. They gush from me like a geyser, and I just let them pour out, helpless to stop them even if I wanted to.
Hank Junior anxiously licks them from my cheek, and I rub his side, his sweetness making me drop my head to my knees and cry harder.
I guess it’s my own sobbing that keeps me from hearing the truck until it stops right in front of us.
“This your plan?”
I jerk my head up to see Holden looking down at me with resignation on his face, like he’s finally given in to the idea that they are stuck with me.
“For this minute, it is,” I shoot back.
“Sleeping in a parking garage?”
“Does it look like I’m sleeping?”
“It looks like you’re crying.”
“Since when is that illegal?”
“Get in the truck, CeCe.”
“No,” I say. “I’ll be fine.”
“Oh, you’ve been doing a great job of proving that,” he throws out.
“I didn’t ask you to rescue me!”
“And I sure as heck didn’t volunteer for the job,” he says, opening the door and swinging out.
I pop to my feet, the concrete scratching at my back through my thin cotton shirt.
“Are you coming with us or not?”
“I don’t need your charity, Holden!”
He leans in like a football player aiming a tackle and hefts me over his shoulder. I start kicking and wriggling, but he tightens his hold like I’m a sack of grain. Hank Junior stands there looking up at us, wagging his tail.
I’d like to think Holden is being chivalrous or some such thing. The truth is he’s mad and altogether tired of me messing up his plans.
“When you two get finished with the foreplay, hop on in, and we’ll go get some sleep,” Thomas tosses out the open door.
Holden walks to the truck with me still slung over his shoulder. “Get in, boy,” he says to Hank Junior who hops in like he’s in the middle of a raging ocean, and Holden just threw him a buoy.
Holden tilts forward and drops me in beside Hank Junior. Fury has me sputtering some not so ladylike protests. My skirt is up around my waist for the second time today, and I kick and struggle to sit up and pull it down.
Thomas laughs and shakes his head. “You two are right entertaining.”
Clearly, neither of us finds his assessment amusing.
Holden climbs in and slams the door. “Can we go now?”
Thomas peels out of the parking garage and turns right, gunning it. “I’m starving,” he says. “Next stop, food.”
He swings into a McDonald’s, pulling up at the drive-through lane. At the window, he places his order, two big Macs, two fries, a large Coke, then looks at me and says, “What do you want?”
“I’m fine, thanks,” I say.
Holden rolls his eyes. “Would you quit pretending like you have any other choice but to accept our help right now?”
“Seriously, CeCe,” Thomas says.
The pride trying to raise a flag inside me wilts. “Unsweetened iced tea. Mushroom and Swiss burger, please. With no meat.”
“No meat?” Thomas repeats, as if I’d just made the request in Mandarin.
“You mean like a cheese sandwich?” Holden says.
“Just no meat,” I answer.
Both guys look at each other and shake their heads. Thomas calls out Holden’s order, which is a duplicate of his own, adding, “We’ll take two plain burgers and a water, too.”
He pats Hank Junior on the head, and then to me, “I’m assuming our buddy here is not a vegetarian?”
“No,” I say. “And thank you.”
“You’re entirely welcome,” Thomas says, pulling forward.
We get the food and tear into the bags as if none of us has eaten in days. I open up Hank Junior’s, force him to wait a few moments until it cools, then take pity on his drooling and let him have it.
Thomas drives while he eats, and it isn’t until my stomach is full that I think to ask, “Where are we going?”
“We’ve got an apartment over by Vanderbilt,” Holden says. “Don’t have any furniture yet, but at least we have a floor to sleep on.”
I don’t even bother to object. A place to sleep right now sounds so good I melt at the thought of it, fatigue pulling at every bone, every muscle.
Thomas parks the truck on the street, and they grab their suitcases from the back. Holden hands me my guitar case, before reaching for his own. I follow them up the walk, stopping in a grassy spot to let Hank Junior do his business. They wait for us at the main door, before we climb a set of stairs to the third floor.
Holden pulls out a key and opens up the apartment, flicking on a light. The living room and kitchen aren’t huge, but the place is neat and clean, the walls a newly painted beige.
“We’ve got two bedrooms. Holden and I will bunk up,” Thomas says. “You and Hank Junior take the other one.”
“I’ll be happy to sleep out here,” I say.
“We’re good.” Holden’s words are short and abrupt. He heads down the hallway and disappears inside one of the rooms.
I look at Thomas and say, “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You don’t need to,” Thomas says. “Go get some sleep.”
I find the bedroom, wave Hank Junior inside and close the door. There’s a bathroom that connects. I turn on the faucet and splash my face with water, leaning in to drink some, then rinse and spit since I don’t have a toothbrush. I’ve brought in Hank Junior’s McDonald’s cup. I fill it with water and set it inside the bedroom, up against a wall. He saunters over and takes a couple laps, then flops down beside it, lowers his head on his paws and closes his eyes.
I make use of the toilet and flip off the light, lying down beside him on the floor and using his soft side as a pillow.
There are no curtains in the room, and a streetlight throws a beam across the middle of the floor. I try to turn off my brain, make all the what-if’s and how-will-I’s stop their relentless pecking, at least until morning, when I can address them with something resembling clear thinking.
I attempt sleep for an hour or more, but it’s no use. My brain just won’t turn off. I get up and leave the room, closing the door softly behind me to keep from waking up Hank Junior.
I walk through the living room and open the sliding glass door that leads onto a small deck. Holden is leaning on the railing, staring at the dark street below.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t realize you were out here.”
He looks over his shoulder at me, and I can see his hair is damp from a shower. “You can’t sleep either?” he asks, his voice even now, without the threads of irritation and aggravation I’d heard in it earlier.
“No. Even though I’m pooped.”
“I’m not a big sleeper,” he says. “Plus Thomas snores.”
“You can take the room I’m in,” I say. “Really.”
He shakes his head. “We were roommates in college. If I’m in sleep mode, I don’t even hear him.”
I step closer to the railing, folding my arms across my chest. “How long have you two known each other?”
“We met freshman year.”
“Football?”
“Yeah.”
“When did you start the music thing?”
“Both of us for as long as we can remember. Together, pretty much right after we met.”
I nod and say, “Y’all are quite a match.”
“Thanks. We kinda get each other.”
“Not the easiest thing to come by.”
“This what you’ve always wanted to do?”
“Yeah. I loved watching Uncle Dobie with his band. He told me one time that the way to know if music was going to be your life was to decide whether or not you were willing to give everything else up for it. He never got married or had a family.”
“You think it’s gotta be like that?” he asks, looking at me.
“I think dreams can have a high price tag or everyone would be going after them.”
“Guess that’s true.”
“What did you leave behind to come here?” I ask.
“Why do you think I left something behind?”
“What’s her name?”
He throws a glance at the street and then turns to me. “Sarah.”
“Ah. Why didn’t she come with you?”
“She likes predictability. Security. About the only thing I can predict is that I will write another song. Even if the one I just wrote sucks. Even if I don’t think anybody’s ever gonna wanna hear it. I don’t know how not to write another one.”
I absorb each word, recognizing the truth of them as my own. “Sometimes, I wish I knew how to unplug that need inside of me. How to reprogram myself to want to do something that wouldn’t make my Mama so unhappy with my choices. That wouldn’t force me to walk so far out on a ledge I’m terrified of falling off of.”
He keeps his gaze on the street below us, and I have the feeling he’s forcing himself not to look at me. I wonder if I’ve said too much, revealed enough vulnerability that I’ve made him uncomfortable.
But then he does look at me, his eyes locking onto mine, and I feel like he’s drawing something up and out of me, a longing I’ve never felt before and am not even sure I could put a name to if asked. All I know is I can’t make myself look away. Even though he just told me there’s someone in his life. Even though every nerve ending is screaming at me to back up and go inside.
A car rolls by, its headlights throwing a shadow over us, and for a moment I see something in his face that I know as surely as I know my own name, I am in no way ready for. I sense that all I have to do to find out is place my hand on his chest, splay my fingers wide so that each tip absorbs the beat of his heart. In this moment, I want to do that as much as I have ever wanted to do anything. I close my eyes and imagine myself doing it or maybe I close them to stop myself from doing it.
“CeCe,” he says.
My name is a protest, uttered to me or to himself, I don’t know.
I let myself look at him then, and I feel the tug between us, as if an invisible cord now connects my heart to his. The stereo beat drums in my ears, and my pulse picks up its rhythm. I feel it in my wrists, my neck, the backs of my knees. My breathing has shortened, and I wilt forward like all the air has been let out of my bones.
His hands latch onto my shoulders, and he dips his head in, his mouth hovering over mine. I can smell the lemony scent of whatever soap he showered with. I tilt my head back, inviting him, imploring him.
When he steps away, I blink my eyes wide open and press a hand to my mouth.
“CeCe,” he says, my name sounding ragged and torn. I haven’t imagined that he wanted to kiss me. I can hear it in his voice, what it cost him to stop himself.
“What?” I manage, the question not really needing an answer.
“When the sun comes up, we’ll wish we hadn’t. You’re gonna need a place to stay until you get things together. I’m okay with that. But this would just complicate everything.”
He’s right. I know it. “You always have this much common sense?” I ask.
“No,” he says.
“Not sure I should be flattered by that.”
“I can be stupid if you really want me to be.” There’s teasing in his voice, but something else, too. I could make him change his mind if I wanted to. I can hear that. Common sense is now raining down on me, and I take a step backwards.
“Think I’ll try to get some sleep,” I say.
His phone rings. He pulls it from his pocket, glances at the screen, then at me. “Goodnight then.”
I step inside the apartment, close the door behind me, wondering if it’s Sarah who’s calling him in the middle of the night.
I start to walk toward the bedroom, then stop for a second, listening to the way his voice has changed. There’s tenderness in it, longing, and I realize he must miss her.
I’m suddenly grateful for whatever bolt of logic kept us from following through on instinct just now. Holden might have moved to Nashville without Sarah, but he hasn’t left her behind. Those are two very different things.