Love Will (18 page)

“How’s Peron holding up?”

“Still devastated. I don’t know what kind of woman thinks it’s okay to break up via text. And then she disconnected that number yesterday. Now he can’t communicate with Brooke at all.”

“That’s evil.”

“Yeah. We’re just trying to get him through the next few weeks, and then we’re putting him on a plane to New York for a couple days while we write in LA. He’s of no use to us like this. He needs some closure.”

“He’s your writing buddy, though, right?”

“I seem to be doing okay on my own right now.”

“Yeah? Feeling inspired?”

“I am.”

“Good for you. How are you sleeping?”

“Still not doing well in that department,” I admit. “But I don’t feel tired.”

“I guess that’s something.”

“Hey, I’m supposed to get some recipes for Livvy to try for Edie’s food from the restaurant owner. She’s made baby food in the past for her friends. I’ll email them to you as soon as I get them, okay?”

“Sure, yeah. She’ll appreciate any help she can get. She’s resigned to buying organic jarred food right now, but I know she’s not happy with that.”

“Well, I hope these work.”

“Thanks. Look, Max doesn’t have much time for lunch, so I need to cut this short.”

“Yeah, man. You guys have fun. I’ll talk to you later.”

Someone knocks on our hotel room door. When I don’t hear anyone else making the effort to answer it, I leave the bedroom to get it, glaring at my three bandmates who are all staring at the television.

“Are you deaf?”

“Figured you’d get it,” Tavo says.

I open the door for Ben. “Hey, come in.”

“What are those assholes doing?” He observes them all in their pajamas, sprawled out on the unmade sofa bed and cot.

“Getting caught up on their
stories
, apparently.”

“Dudes!” he yells. Damon looks over at us, but he’s the only one. It’s good enough for Ben. “I got a tow truck for the bus and found a garage to take a look at her. We should be back on the road the day after tomorrow. Hope you’re not too comfy here.”

“Is Lola gone?” Peron asks.

“Not yet. She has a ticket for a flight this evening. Should be enough time for the roads to clear up for a cab to get to us.”

“Give Will your room,” he says. “He needs to write, and he can’t get anything done here.”

“What?” Ben asks.

“I can’t listen to him play. Don’t want to hear him.”

“That’s not gonna be a problem or anything,” I say sarcastically.

“Give it to him,” Damon says.

“Fine,” Ben says.

“It’s fine, really. I’m going back out today. I can write there.”

“No, really. I’ll leave the key at the front desk after Lola leaves this afternoon. Where are you going?”

“Nowhere,” I repeat the same location I’ve told everyone for the past two days. “And thanks for respecting my privacy. In fact, I’ve gotta go.”

“You need your guitar, don’t you?” Ben asks.

“I left it there yesterday.”

“You
what
?”

“It was snowing again last night.”

“He got back kinda late,” Tavo says. “There’s gotta be a chick.”

“Again. Privacy. Thanks.”

“Wait a minute,” Ben says, trying to stop me.

“Let him go,” Damon urges him.

I
love
having Damon on my side.

My heart stops when I see the restaurant. The OPEN sign isn’t lit.
Why isn’t her place open?
It’s almost noon. I wanted to see her. My priceless guitar is there. My brother’s book is there.

When I try the handle, my fears are confirmed. The door’s locked. I peer inside. It’s dark.

Fuck
.

The first time I knock on the door, it’s how any rational, sane person would do it, but by the third time, I’m pounding on the door with desperation. Just as I’m regretting not getting her number, I realize I could look up the number for Mrs. Livingston’s Kitchen.

I step back a few paces on the wet sidewalk, looking up at the sign as I wait for someone to answer. On the seventh ring, I hear the door unlock.

“Come in,” Shea says, bundled up in a thick blanket with a black and white striped knitted cap on her head and those suede and wool boots that I despise on her feet. I start to breathe again.

“What’s going on?” I ask her.

“The day the rest of the city starts to get power, mine goes out.”

“Oh, shit, really?”

“Yeah.”

“Was it like this when you came in?”

“It went out around three this morning. My apartment’s right next door, between the restaurant and the vitamin shop,” she explains.

“Oh. I didn’t realize that…” But I guess I kind of figured she lived close by. “So you’ve been without heat for nine hours?”

She nods. “It’s much warmer in my apartment. There’s only one external wall.”

“Is that where you were just now?”

“Yeah.”

“Listen, we can go back to my hotel. I mean, you’ll have to deal with Peron, Damon and Tavo, but–”

“Do you want to come to my apartment? Really, it’s not bad. I have a fireplace.”

“Uhhh…”
Yes, I want to go back to your place
.

“Your guitar’s there,” she says, as if she needs to sweeten the deal.

I smile at her, then nod. “Yeah, I do.”

“I’m gonna grab some things out of the fridge that are going to go bad. Why don’t you get some drinks and just come down the hallway on your right, past the sink.”

“I’ll be there in just a minute.”

My first stop is to her bookshelf, where my book is nowhere to be found. The only thing I can think of is that the old man from yesterday took it, and I just didn’t notice. I’m crushed, and I don’t know how I’ll break the news to Jon. I’ll just have to be honest with him, and hope he can appreciate the thought that someone, somewhere will benefit from all the awesomely insightful and incredibly geeky things we doodled throughout the pages of that omnibus.

I almost forget the drinks on the way to Shea’s apartment. I get four different things, so she can have a choice today.

It’s still cold in her apartment, except for the living room where the fireplace is. My guitar is across the room from it, not too close, but not too far. Probably the best place for it, all things considered.

Shea has spread out a blanket on the floor in front of her fireplace, with bowls and silverware and a few cooking supplies.

“I assume you came hungry.”

“I mean… I haven’t eaten, but I don’t have to eat
now
.”

“I was waiting for you.”

“Then, yes, I’m starving.”

“I hadn’t planned on serving leftovers, but…”

“If you tell me they’re from last night, I’m quite okay with that.”

“We’ll just call it enchilada casserole. I think they’ll reheat over a fire better that way.”

“Fine with me.”

She adds a few logs to the fire, setting them in strategically, and then nestles the cast-iron skillet on top of them.

“Looks like you’ve done this before.”

“This isn’t my first winter in Minneapolis.”

“I’m very lucky to have run into you.”

“Yeah, you are,” she says, looking up at me. She holds my gaze, and I lean in to kiss her, accepting her obvious invitation. We meet awkwardly, but the way she makes up for it seems purposeful as her mouth captures my bottom lip gently before working its way up to cover my mouth fully. Her hands are on my cheeks, her thumbs tracing my earlobes.

“Mmmm,” I moan lightly, grinning as we break away. “I just remembered. I had dreams of doing that again last night. This was better than my dream, though.”

“You’re good with the lines,” she says to me.

“Absolute truth. We were in the bathroom on the bus, though. Which is why this was better… because that bathroom’s kinda gross. I mean, we keep it clean, but to think of what goes on in that shower, I just…”

She squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head. “I didn’t need that. Although visualizing Damon naked… not so bad… but–”

“Wait, what?”

“Just kidding… but he’s not bad looking… you know that, right?”

“Sure, but I don’t want to hear that… from you…”

She tugs at the collar of my shirt until we’re kissing again. I relax into her. I can’t even remember a time when I felt like this. The blanket falls from her shoulders, and instead of moving it back up, I wrap my arms around her and pull her into my chest to keep her warm. Fuck, I know I’m borderline burning up right now.

“Hot,” she breathes.

“I know it is,” I agree, moving my lips to her neck.

“Sizzling,” she says as she grips my shirt, but pushes me away.

“Huh?”

“The food. It’s sizzling. I think it’s ready.”

“Oh! Yeah!” I laugh and let her go, trailing my fingertips up and down her calf as she leans into the fireplace with a potholder to retrieve the dish.

“That smell. It smells just like the best night of my life.” She doesn’t turn around. In fact, she freezes after setting down the skillet. I’m a little shocked at the words when they come out, but there’s honesty behind them. I could apologize. I could try to explain them away. Or I could let them settle over the room and allow them to exist as the little truth bombs that they are, exploding in the electrified atmosphere around us, stealing the air that neither of us is brave enough to inhale at this moment.

I finally make the first move, serving the casserole into the bowls in front of each of us. “Drink?” I offer, showing her the selection. She picks up a Sprite. I take a root beer and sit back down, trying to get to that relaxed state again.

“You make me feel special, Will,” she says to me before she takes a bite. She looks troubled. I’m not sure why this makes her sad. “How many women have you been with?”

I look away from her. I always knew this question would come up someday with a girl that might actually mean something to me, but I never knew how I’d feel or how I’d react. Now I know. I feel sick, and I’ve never wanted to lie about something more than I do right in this very moment.

My appetite suddenly gone, I set it aside and fold my hands into my lap. I watch her as I answer. “None that left an impression. None that mattered.”

“Again with the lines…”

“Shea…”

“How many?”

“
Countless
is a good number,” I answer honestly, feeling more shame than I’ve ever felt. I can’t even look at her anymore.

“Ballpark?”

“Really, I’m a numbers guy, and I’ve lost count. I can’t even venture a guess. This has been my life for years. I’m not proud of it. But those weren’t lines…”

“Let’s say you got something… an STD, and you had to tell people.”

“I’d probably have to go public about it, I don’t know. But look. I go to the clinic all the time. They know me there. I’m the poster child for safe sex.”

Shea rolls her eyes at me. “No, maybe someone who doesn’t have sex is the poster child for safe sex.”

“No,” I argue, “no, no, that’s the poster child for abstinence. I know that kid, and he’s a great kid, but the poster child for safe sex actually has to have sex, and that’s me. I was tested before I left. I’ve been tested once since we hit the road, and that was just an extra precautionary thing… there was this one girl and nothing
really
happened.”

“I don’t want to hear about the girls,” she says. “I really don’t want to know about your past.”

“You asked.”

“I just wanted a number.”

“And I can’t give you that. It might be the one thing I can’t give you.” She’s silent. “Well, that and a disease… ‘cause I’m clean… because I’m careful… and I get tested,” I tell her, trying to lighten the mood.

She finally looks over at me and laughs a little, even though she was trying not to. “Give me your bowl.”

“You’re taking it back? Are you kicking me out?”

“I’m heating it back up.”

“Thank you, Shea.” I watch her add a little water to the skillet and put it back on the logs. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

“Honestly, I didn’t really want to know the answer to that one. I’m not sure why I asked. I knew I wouldn’t like the answer no matter what it was.”

“You were wanting my answer to make you feel like you’d been singled out. You just said you felt special, and now you don’t.”

“Yeah,” she says softly, looking me in the eye.

“This may make you think less of me, but I probably spoke to you more in the first half hour that I met you than I’d spoken to any of the others in all the time I knew them. You know more details about my life than any of them ever did. And I know more about yours. I would never dream of going back to their places… that kind of relieves me of my control, and I like to be the one in control. No one’s ever cooked for me… nor would I want them to. I’ve never wanted to see any of them the next day, or the one after that.