I let him pass and he hooks all his gear up. I watch as he straps on his guitar, and if you think that’s not sexy to watch, you’ve never seen Travis strap on a Les Paul. It’s totally sexual, the way he holds it, the way he adjusts the strap over his shoulders, twiddles the pegs, runs his hands over the strings, slaps them with his pick. Jesus, my mouth is hanging open as I watch him.
“What if I don’t want to put the band back together?” I say. “I thought we were just here to jam.”
“We’re doing whatever you want,” he says. “Whatever you say.”
“Whatever I say?” I lick my lips because now I’m thinking about Travis doing whatever I say, whatever it takes to get back on my good side, and there are all kinds of things that fall under that umbrella. Most of them sexual.
“So then,” he says, smiling at me. “What do you want to play?”
“Naked Twister.”
“Is that a new one?” He narrows his eyes and plays a chord, and then another, and then another, and I listen. It’s so somber and beautiful that I find myself playing, too, right along with him. Now we’re hitting our distortion pedals and cranking the sound all the way to the sky.
I look up into his face, and that confident, teasing side of me goes all soft again because of how looking at him makes me feel. He makes me want things I have no control over, namely him. He makes me feel things that are going to carry me to places I haven’t planned, haven’t packed for. Travis’s face softens as he sees me flailing inside. He stops strumming and mutes his strings with his hand.
“What is it?” he says.
“I don’t want to break up,” I say, my voice all shaky. Damn it.
He looks at me and takes a deep breath, lets out a heavy, regret-laden sigh.
“I’m so sorry, Emmy,” he says. “It was a huge, stupid mistake. I never should have quit the band. I didn’t want to, I just didn’t know what else to do.”
“That’s not what I mean,” I say.
I put my guitar on the stand, flip my amp to standby. He’s watching me, confused. Waiting for me to put this thing into words. This thing that, if I’m being real here, is absolutely terrifying me.
“What do you mean, then?” he asks.
“I mean I love you, too,” I say, and this amazing relieved feeling spreads out through me as I see the happy, relieved look reflected back on his face. His mouth falls open like he’s going to say something, but he hasn’t figured out what yet. It better not be “I know” à la Han Solo. I decide to keep talking just in case. “I do want to be your girlfriend, Travis, but I don’t want to break up. Like, ever.”
“Okay, then we won’t break up,” he says.
“How can you be so sure?”
He takes my hand, pulls me to him, and kisses me. I’m up against his Les Paul and the awkward sound of my shirt against the strings comes through the amp like a first grader practicing violin, but the feel of it is intense. Sexually. Now I’ve got both my hands into that thick crop of blond boy hair, and he wraps his arms around me as I’m kissing him and sorry now, Les Paul, you’re in my way here. I grab it by the neck and Travis unhooks the strap and takes it from me, puts it safely in the stand, and comes back.
“There’s only one thing I need to be sure of,” he says, taking my hands into his. “And now I am.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“You love me.” He can’t help himself from smiling as the words come out. All this happy in the band cave is putting a total cramp in my angsty rocker vibe, I think. Not sure if I can pull it off when I’m feeling so good. I’m going to have to convert Soft to a pop-and-jangle band like Yo La Tengo or something.
Travis leans down, wraps his arms around me and puts his lips to mine, soft and deep. Then he sweeps me right off my feet, carries me over to the couch in the corner of the basement, kicks a pile of Cole’s laundry to the floor and puts me down.
“I’ve never been carried by a guy before,” I say. “I have to admit that was awesome.”
“I know, right?” he says. “I’m going to start carrying you around more. It makes me feel manly.”
He stretches out next to me and as I slide my hands down to his jeans, I feel something in his pocket, and yes he’s glad to see me, but that’s not what it is. I put my hand in and pull out the band Sharpie.
“What’s this for?” I ask.
“You never know when you might need a Sharpie,” Travis explains. “It’s for emergency tagging, that’s all.”
“I see,” I say. Then as dramatically as I can manage, I pull the cap off with my teeth.
“And . . . what exactly are you planning to do with that?” he asks, suspicious.
“Take your shirt off,” I say. “And I’ll show you.”
He sits up with a curious look and then pulls his T-shirt off. I push him back down on his back and straddle him. I take a moment to appreciate him in all his half-naked pale glory, laying there with his hands behind his head as he gazes up at me.
“Is it okay?” I ask.
“Just not on my neck this time, please. I work tomorrow.”
“Any other hard limits?”
“Animals, canes, Stryper,” he says. “That’s about it.”
“Canes?”
“Never mind.”
I nod in mock understanding, and yeah, no, this is still not quite right. So I pull a bandana out of Cole’s laundry pile (it’s clean, people) and blindfold him with it, and wow, now there’s a hard-on if ever I felt one.
“I want to surprise you,” I say.
“You already have and I heartily approve,” he says, shifting under me.
Before I lean down to draw on him, I just look at that smile, those lips curved in salutation as if to happiness itself, and then I have to lower my own down to greet them in a light, soft kiss. He tries to kiss me harder, but I pull away and start to draw.
“That tickles,” he says.
“I know,” I say. “Now don’t move or you’ll mess up my art.”
He laughs and I get to work, drawing a large, ornate cartoon heart right over his, incorporating the nipple and everything, complete with angel wings and a halo like some terrible tattoo somebody might get while drunk down the shore. If I were better at drawing, I’d probably find a way to work a guitar in there, too, but I am about as good with a Sharpie as I am at Taekwondo, which is to say not at all. I finish it off with my own name in bubble letters inside the heart, complete with an apostrophe and an
s
on the end. That’s right, I’ve defiled his beautiful porcelain pec with a winged Sharpie heart that says
Emmylou’s
across it. Don’t even care, because I own that heart. It’s mine. I should have drawn it on his T-shirt,
too, so everyone in the world will know it. He won’t really be able see it, though, so when I’m done I pull him, shirtless and blindfolded, off the couch and lead him to the mirror. When I have him standing there, I remove the blindfold, and he laughs when he sees my creation.
“What, no unicorn?” he says.
“You said no animals.”
“Where’s the rainbow?” he asks.
“How can you draw a rainbow in black and white?”
“You could have at least worked a thunderbolt in here somewhere.”
“I still can if you really need one,” I say.
“Nah, that’s okay,” he says, taking the Sharpie from my hand. “Because now it’s my turn.”
That’s all he needs to say and I’m a puddle of anything, whatever the hell he wants as he eyes me like that, wielding that permanent marker like a sex toy. He kisses me at the corner of my mouth and glides his tongue just inside.
“Take your shirt off, Emmy,” he whispers in my ear.
I pause, just for a moment, because I’m pretty sure we are going to do it in the band cave. In the
band cave
. I can’t really think of a more perfect place to have reconciliation sex, but while doing it in the band cave is not exactly like doing it in your parents’ bed, it’s not exactly not like it, either.
“The beat brothers won’t be back for a while,” Travis says. “They promised.”
I pull my shirt off over my head and he kisses me as he unhooks my bra and pulls it from my shoulders. He takes a step back and looks at me and I try not to watch in the mirror because that feels sort of kinky, but that’s exactly why I can’t stop myself, of course. I’m still watching us as he lowers his lips to my neck, my shoulder, and then he stops, turns me so my chest is pressed up against the mirror, so cold on my skin, as he puts the pen to my back and begins to draw.
I never thought of Sharpie tattoos as foreplay, but trust me, when Travis gives them they are. I’m staring at the reflection of our gear in the mirror, and this is insane, but it feels like dear old Gretsch and Les are totally watching us from their stands like a couple of voyeuristic doppelgängers. Travis works for a while on me, every now and then kissing the back of my neck, or the curve of my shoulder, or just under my shoulder blade, just to keep it interesting, just to make sure my nipples are nice and awake as he presses me against the cold glass. When he’s finally done he spins me around to see his creation in the mirror.
Over my right shoulder is a monochrome rainbow coming through a puffy cloud with a lightning bolt. Beneath it, a unicorn plays a Les Paul on top of a big rig and I have no idea but Travis must have spent his entire college career doodling ’70s T-shirt stoner art instead of taking notes. It looks so awesome I tell him I’m going to get it permanently right there.
“Read it,” he says.
“It’s backwards,” I complain.
“You’d make a terrible detective,” he says, which is true. “Concentrate.”
I squint my eyes at the mirror and make it out, his handwriting curving around the design, enclosing it:
Stay loud so I don’t lose you.
I will follow the sound of you anywhere. – T
I’m all teary as he kisses me now, softly, then not so soft. He runs his hands down over my ass and picks me up again, all manly and sexy, so I wrap my legs around him and kiss him as he carries me back to the band couch. That’s where we do it, red-hot reconciliation sex, right there in the band cave, all afternoon, right in front of our guitars, our amps, and Joey’s drum kit and everything.
And we don’t even notice when the beat brothers come home and then have to go right back out again because of how loud I’m calling his name.
Loud Is How I Love You
by Stars on the Floor
Way back when, first day of school
My kindergarten teacher left the room
So I stepped up to fill the leadership vacuum
And told the class what to do
I came home shaken, but not deterred
A long angry note pinned to my favorite shirt
said “this little girl is two hands worth of handful—
bossy and brazen, a little dictator.
This little girl is two hands worth of handful,
rein her in now or you’ll be sorry later.”
But what if I was born this way?
What if I don’t want to change?
Some years go by, I join the girls’ choir
But I feel the need to kick it up higher
The choir director, he doesn’t agree
So he kindly imparts this guidance to me.
“Don’t you know little girls all sing like angels
With soft pretty voices and white wings and halos
You can’t go on singing your own melody
Louder than everyone, in your own key!”
What do I do? I start my own band.
Where I can be as loud as I am
But then you show up with your Les Paul in hand
And everything changes from what I’d planned
I fall so hard for you, I’m so afraid
I can’t stop pushing you far, far away
I’m a little dictator, so bossy and brazen
When will you pack up and head for the pavement?
But you stay there standing as I fall apart
I take your thunderbolt right to my heart
You catch me falling like stars to the floor
You don’t turn me down, no, you turn me up more
and say
Loud is how I love you
Loud is how I know you’re there
Stay loud so I don’t lose you
I will follow the sound of you anywhere
Keep reading for a special excerpt from the next Hub City romance,
STAY UNTIL WE BREAK
coming soon from InterMix.
Sonia
Thursday, August 10, 1995
Nyabingi Dance Hall, Morgantown, WV
w/Atilla Stigmata
Stars on the Floor Tour—Day 1
I don’t know if everyone has that special someone they masturbate to, but I do and it’s Cole McCormack, the bass player for my best friend’s band, Stars on the Floor. The only problem with having Cole McCormack as your chronic masturbation fantasy is that he’s everybody’s chronic masturbation fantasy—and he knows it.
But how could he not? He’s a strapping, ruddy-skinned, dark-haired Irish boy from north Jersey with eyes that shimmer like Jamesons over ice and nimble lips with a reputation all their own. So I can only conclude that the reason he’s kissing
me
right now is because we aren’t home in New Brunswick, where on any given night Cole has his pick of make-out partners. We’re in West Virginia, and Soft has just wrapped their first show of this tour.
It’s not you, it’s the road
, I keep telling myself as he has me up against the side of the van, his lips pressed to my own as his enormous, beautiful bass-playing hands hold me in place. Even as I’m kissing him back with all the sexual gusto I’ve got in me, I tell myself it doesn’t mean anything. Cole isn’t into me like this—if he was, he’s had every chance to show me before now and he never has. Not once in the three years that we’ve been friends. Not even at his birthday party last month when I got drunk, crawled into his lap and flat-out asked him to make out with me. If he was interested, that would have been a good time to let me know, right? But instead he pried me off of him, carried me to his room and put me to bed. Alone. And the next day when I woke up in his bed, still alone and fully clothed with a raging hangover, he acted like it never even happened.
It must be something about the road.
I’m sure it’s a mistake to let him kiss me at all, but he caught me off guard, the way he reached for my arm and said, “Sonia, wait a second,” like he was going to ask me for change for a ten. But he didn’t ask me for change, oh no. He spun me around to face him and when I was all confused and said, “Do you need change or something?” he laughed.
“No,” he said. “I just want to check something.”
“What?” I squinted at him, clueless, the light over the back door of the club casting a fuzzy halo around his head.
He bent down and brushed his lips against mine, so gently at first I wasn’t sure he meant to do it. But when I wrapped my arms around him and opened my mouth against his and he backed me up against the van, it was pretty clear then what was happening between us, even if I still can’t believe it. Now I feel like he’s going to break
me
with his tongue, or at least any semblance of modesty or resistance I might harbor against this demonic indie-rocker boy charm of his. His hand reaches into my hair, stroking just softly enough to render me useless. Then he pulls his face from mine and smiles.
“I’ve been wondering all day what flavor lip gloss you’ve got on.”
“Dr Pepper,” I say, before my brain starts to work again.
“Lip Smackers?” He laughs. “Really?”
“My mom always puts a ton of them in my stocking at Christmas,” I try to explain but really, what’s the point now? He already knows my taste in cosmetics hasn’t changed since the seventh grade.
“I like it.”
“You do?”
“Well, let me double check,” he says and then he licks his bottom lip before he kisses me again. I feel the tip of his tongue soft against mine, taste the sweetness of his breath as he kisses me deeper. Then he moves his lips, all warm and soft over to my ear and kisses me there until I can’t speak. “Hey, do you want to get in the van for a minute?”
I can’t seem to form a coherent response so I nod, probably a little too enthusiastically by the way he laughs. His lips are full and red as they twist into a smile full of trouble. I want to grab him by that thick, dark hair of his and ride his adorable face like a rodeo star. Maybe we can have a hot, torrid tour fling. I think I might be willing to do that, even if it all ends when we get home with my heart in tattered shreds.
Cole takes my hand and leads me around to the side door and pops it open. We’re about to climb in when I hear Emmylou calling, “Sunny, are you back here?”
Emmylou Kelley is my best friend and the front girl for Stars on the Floor, the band otherwise known as Soft. (Yes, it should technically be “S.o.t.F.” but when you try to say “Sotf” it sounds weird and since Soft are loud as hell, it’s nice and ironic.) Emmy is the one who recruited me as tour manager for this road circus, and here it is, our first night out and she’s already cock-blocking me. I let out a frustrated sigh as Cole lets go of my hand and glares in the general direction of the club.
“The boss lady calls,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. “Back to work.”
Then you know what he does? He fixes my hair, tucks a few loose strands behind my ear and smiles, and it sounds small but is somehow the sweetest thing any boy has ever done to me. Even sweeter than those Tic-Tac kisses of his. I’m here thinking,
Sure, I’ll get pregnant for you. How many babies do you want? You’re Irish Catholic, so probably like twelve, right? No problem
.
“Other than loading out, my work is done for the night,” he says, then hops into his seat, always shotgun in the van. I pull some fives and ones off a roll of bills and then hand him the roll. He drops it into the band lockbox, hidden beneath the center console of Steady Beth (which most rational humans would simply call “the van,” but not Soft; they’re superstitious and their van has a name. An identity.)
“Cole, how much did you have to drink?” I ask him.
“Nothing. Why?”
“Because you kissed me,” I say. “You’ve never kissed me before.”
“Why—are
you
drunk?” he asks.
“Me? No, of course not. I’m the tour manager—I have to stay sober.”
“Yeah, well last time you tried to kiss me you were so drunk you couldn’t walk,” he says. “Remember?”
I try not to scowl at the reminder of that night and how dumb I still feel about it.
“Yeah, but you kissed
me
this time
.
”
“And you definitely kissed me back.”
“Well,” I say. “I’m not drunk.”
“Neither am I.”
“Sonia!” Emmy calls again, and now she’s walking across the parking lot. Damn it. “Where are you?”
“Coming!” I call back. Cole smiles at me and I still wonder if he’s drunk. Or if I am. Because I’m in such disbelief that this is happening.
“Don’t go anywhere,” I tell him.
“I’ll be here,” he says.
Reluctantly, I leave him there, my head fuzzy and warm and buzzing as I cross the parking lot to the club’s back door. There, under a full August moon my bossy BFF is waiting, literally tapping her foot.
“Where’s Cole?” she asks. “Have you seen him?”
“He’s in the van,” I say.
“You really shouldn’t wander around outside of clubs like this without one of us.”
“Like you are, right now?” I point out.
“I’m serious,” she says. “You’re fierce but you’re tiny and these places are full of creeps.”
“I’ve hung out in clubs before, thanks.”
“You’ve hung out in clubs at home, where everybody knows you and looks out for you and this is not the same thing. Trust me. This is the road.”
“Listen to you, ‘the road.’ Sheesh, Emmy. This is your first night of your first tour!”
“It’s not my first time on the road,” she says. “We’ve played lots of out of town shows, and I never go out in the parking lot without one of the guys—”
“And I came out here with Cole so why the hell am I getting a lecture? Seriously.”
“What were you doing out here with Cole anyway?” she asks and one thing’s for certain, I’m not about to tell her I was just making out with him.
“Here’s the change for the merchandise table,” I say, digging the wad of bills out of my dress pocket. Emmy eyes me and lowers her voice.
“You’re keeping two hundred bucks in singles and fives in your dress?”
“No,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I put the bulk of it in the lockbox.”
“Oh okay,” she says. “Good.”
“You’re really pissing me off, you know that?” I say.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m just nervous. First night out and all.”
I’m very familiar with Emmy’s mouth when she’s nervous, she’s like a manic on four espressos. I’m just not used to being the object of her neurotic doubt. I control the urge to tell her to take the roll of bills and choke on it.
“You know I love you, right?” she says, at just the right moment.
“Please don’t make me suffocate you in your sleep on our first night on tour,” I say. “We’ve got twenty shows left to do.”
She laughs and wraps her arm around my shoulders as we walk back into the club, and I feel less like murdering her now. A little. But I’m still so frustrated that I’m not in the back of Steady Beth with Cole’s hands up my dress that I can’t safely say I don’t want to murder someone.
***
The Nyabingi Dance Hall in Morgantown is only a six hour drive from our home in New Brunswick, New Jersey, but right now it feels like a lifetime away. Sure, it looks similar to the Melody, the Budapest, the Court Tavern. But when I look around and see no one I know outside of Emmylou, her boyfriend/guitarist and Steady Beth’s designated driver, Travis Blackwell, who is manning the merchandise table for me with their cannoli of a drummer, Joey Santini, I know this isn’t Hub City. The patrons don’t look all that different in their flannel and combat boots and leather in August. Maybe more beards. I’m from Jersey so their sneers don’t throw me. But this isn’t Jersey and I don’t know what’s behind that attitude. I bristle as I field stares from guys I don’t know. It’s probably because I’m the only one here in a dress with blue hair and tattoos.
I untie my sweater from my waist and put it on, even though it’s 1000 degrees in here, and march over to the merchandise table to give Travis and Joey the roll of bills. There’s a line for the Soft 7” single,
Loud is How I Love You
b/w
Steady Beth
, and I’m not surprised by the way the crowd crushed the stage during their set. Soft is the best thing going in New Brunswick right now and if they weren’t in the ever-looming shadow of New York City, they’d probably already have a good deal with a decent indie label by now. That’s why we’re on the road for a few weeks—to see if we can outrun the shadow and get a little recognition.
Listen to me,
we.
But I can’t help but feel like I’m in the band now. I’ve been working their merchandise table for two years, pretty much ever since they started playing out. I help load gear, hang flyers, hang out at rehearsals, and when they’re doing their Soft thing, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. That’s what happens when you’re music-obsessed and your best friend fronts the best band in town. Whenever they play, that’s where I want to be. Usually, standing right in front of
Cole, staring at his hands as they stroke and thump that vintage P-bass like it’s a part of him.
Emmy drags me to the bathroom with her, and it’s skanky like every rock club bathroom I’ve ever been in (but nothing will freak me out the way the CBGB bathroom in New York City freaks me out because that experience is more like immersive horror theater than anything else). She’s talking my ear off about how once we graduate in the spring, this is what we’ll be doing, probably for several years before we ever break.
“Get used to it, Sunny,” she says. “It’s not glamorous but you know, it beats being stuck in Highland Park.”
“Sure,” I say, but my aspirations are less the sleeping-on-other-people’s-couches variety and more the apartment-on-the-Lower-East-Side, working-for-David-Geffen variety. I don’t tell her that, because Emmy is insanely protective of her Soft family, and I don’t want to rock her boat on our first night. I mean, the band just survived a near-death experience this spring with Travis quitting, and that only lasted a few weeks. Now it seems like Emmy’s already got me managing her band for the rest of my career.
I look out the bathroom door to see Travis and his blond, swoopy hair leaning against the wall of the club where a couple of girls have him cornered, and he’s smiling that killer Blackwell smile. Emmy sticks her head out and her grip on my arm tells me maybe she’d forgotten we weren’t at home, where everybody and their second cousins know Emmy and Travis are the hot ticket and no girl goes near Travis unless she truly wants to talk about guitar gear. Travis looks up, his eyes are immediately drawn to Emmy, and that smile turns to starlight the minute he sees her.
“It’s not necessarily a bad thing for girls to think he’s single, right?” Emmy says, relaxing. “Does more for our image.”
“Are you high?” I say. “Didn’t you want to murder one of your best friends for trying to hook up with Trap before you two were even an official couple?”
“I think ‘murder’ is a tad strong,” she says. “Maim, maybe.”
This is the moment when Cole walks back inside the bar. He sees me standing there gabbing with Emmy and shoots me a look. Is he actually annoyed I haven’t come back yet?
Emmy goes to him and takes him by the arm, and nods in the direction of Travis. Without even hesitating, Cole goes to rescue Travis from the two women who are talking his ear off. He says something adorable to one of them, I can’t hear it but I know it’s adorable by the look on her face, and I know what a merciless flirt Cole can be—I just got McCormacked myself behind the van. The girl laughs, openmouthed, tossing her hair behind her and Cole snakes his arm around her shoulders. He says something else in her ear that makes her bite her lip and then he glances in my direction, catches me staring at him and raises an eyebrow. Being the consummate dork I am around cute guys, I stare blankly back in his direction.
All of this innuendo is too much for me without a drink, so I walk off to the bar to wait for the club manager so we can get paid. I sit there, nursing the same lousy tap beer until way past last call, waiting as Soft load the gear into the back of Steady Beth just so I can avoid Cole, simply because I have no idea what to make of him. After everyone has cleared out of the club and I still haven’t seen the manager, Cole walks back in and comes right up to me.