Love Will (61 page)

I pause for a second. “Are you telling me you’re going home tomorrow?”

“I am. You guys are getting back on the road,” she says, exhaling a heavy breath as she moves against me.

I close my eyes, regretting the time we didn’t have together this past week and wishing we had more time tonight. I should just focus on the time we
do
have. “I love you.”

“I love you,” she says back to me.

The next morning, we’re bundled in coats as we say goodbye in the hotel parking lot. After we’d made it back in the early morning hours, we made love again. Neither of us have slept much in the past forty-eight hours, and both of us are feeling the effects of that. Plus, I don’t think our exposure to the frigid air last night was good for either of us. I think we’ve both caught colds.

“Promise me you’ll stop somewhere to sleep the second you get tired,” I tell her.

“I promise. And it will probably be soon. I don’t think I’ll make it far.”

“Just stay here,” I urge her. “I’ll book it now.”

She raises her brow, uncertain, but starts to smile. I kiss the exposed dimple. “You wouldn’t mind?”

“I would feel much better knowing you were rested before attempting to drive back to Minneapolis.”

“Okay,” she says.

“Guys?” I yell to the bus. “I’ll be right back!”

“We’re already late, Will!” Alex says.

“Five minutes, I promise.” We go inside to reserve the room one more night for her.

“I think I’ll go get some medicine.”

“Yeah, I’ll have them make a stop for me, too.”

“I’m sorry I got you sick.”

“
I
got
you
sick. It was
my
ideal date.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Fuck, no. It was the best immobile sex of my life,” I whisper in her ear before meeting her for a kiss. It’s an abbreviated one since neither of us can breathe out of our noses.

“It was… otherworldly,” she says coyly, biting her lip. “The setting, the man, the night… your love. Will, if I could spend every night like that, I would.”

“Well, I guess I need to find a way to make that happen.”

“Please do,” she says softly, kissing me once more after I give her the key card. “Be safe.”

“Of course. I’ll call you tonight when we get to Albuquerque.”

I’m the last one to board the bus–again.

“You look like hell, man,” Damon says.

“It’s just because I haven’t slept. I don’t feel that bad.”

“You guys were quiet…”

“You were probably in a deep sleep by the time we started making noise in the hotel room. We didn’t get in until three-thirty.” He raises his brows at me. “Clear skies. We were out in the middle of nowhere. When else would I have the chance to see the stars like this?”

“See the stars, my ass.” I shrug my shoulders and grin sheepishly. “I fucking know you too well.” 

“We did talk stars for awhile, for the record. You know how they excite me, though…” I joke with him. “It was the perfect night. Absolutely perfect.” 

“Wasn’t it cold?”

“Yeah, it got cold after awhile. We know how to keep each other warm. We learned that pretty quickly… basic human survival, Damon.”

“Do we need to stop?” Alex asks from the front passenger seat. I make eye contact with our driver, Elijah, in the rearview mirror and shake my head, knowing we have a gallon of orange juice in our fancy new fridge. 

“I’m good for now.”

“I’m sure we’ll pull over in Denver, anyway.”

“How’d it go with your dad, Will?” Peron asks.

“Not good… but not like I thought it would go, either. I met my sisters.”

“You have sisters?” Bradley asks.

“Half-sisters. They’re three and five, I think. Cute little things…” I remember the eyes of the youngest one. “Strange how much Harmon looked like Max, since he looks so much like Mom. I’m the one that looks like my father. I wish I had taken a picture of them.”

“What happened?” Tavo asks.

“My racist father threatened to chase Shea and me away with a water hose. That set the tone for a pretty bad meeting, honestly.”

“You should have taken me with you,” Damon says.

“Shit, you didn’t even want me to go!” 

“I didn’t know he was gonna be a dick to my girl.” I glare at him, giving him a chance to rethink his statement. “Your girl... Who I would help you defend, for you.”

“Right,” I say, laughing.

“I’m using ‘my girl’ in the colloquial sense.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I’m dying to know what happened!” Peron says, standing up and swiping my arm to get my attention. I tell them all the details as I remember them, getting looks of sympathy at the end of my story. “What do you think he was sorry for?”

“It felt like a bulk-apology. You know, everything rolled into one short little phrase that would never suffice for what he’s done to us.”

“It’s hard to close the door on that, though.” Peron’s thought process is so much like mine sometimes, it’s scary. I think that’s why we’re good writing partners, though. I nod my head. 

“It’s not my decision alone to make. I’ll talk to Max when I get home... I figure, whatever happens, it’ll be years before anything’s settled. With me going back to school and my brother getting ready for his senior year and college–I hope–we’ll both be too busy to deal with his mess. The only things I care to keep tabs on for now are those girls. I want to make sure they’re not being tainted by his narrow-mindedness. They’ll have opportunities beyond Divide that they should know about when they’re older, so I want to keep in touch with them. I want to keep the lines of communication open, so I have to figure out how to make that happen without having to get the asshole too involved.”

“That sounds pretty challenging.”

“Yeah. Challenging. Not impossible. I may just have to bend a little.”

“Flexibility’s not your strong suit,” Tavo informs me.

I laugh at his observation. “I can change.”

“He’s made significant changes,” Damon says, sticking up for me. Peron nods.

“Thanks, guys. Peron, you feel like writing?”

“Is this one for your contract?”

“You mean the one I haven’t signed? No. This one’s fair game.”

“Then sure, man… about anything but love.”

“It’s your lucky day. I’ve been seeing toxic images since I left that mobile home yesterday. We’re writing about
him
. I swore to myself I’d never memorialize him in a song, but I’ve got to get this out of my head and onto paper.”

“Let’s do it.”

“Can I have it?” Damon asks.

“Let’s see if you like it after,” Peron says. “Then we’ll talk money.”

I nod and bump fists with him, liking the beginning of his negotiation tactics, even if he’s talking out of his ass to my best friend.

“Bitches,” Damon mumbles under his breath, sitting down in between us with a pencil and pad of paper to write down whatever we tell him to.

By the time we get to Albuquerque, not only is the song written, but we have two parts for lead guitar, a solid bass line, and Tavo’s frantically unloading his kit into the hotel ballroom, which happens to be vacant tonight, thankfully.

Alex is on the phone with the label, confident that they’ll want to include the song on Damon’s upcoming album, even though the song list was already finalized. He said that there had been talk that they needed another song in a minor key to round things out, and this one was above and beyond what they’d hoped for.

We’re all tuning our instruments, more excited to play than to eat, even though none of us have had a real meal all day. We’re functioning off Cheez-Its, Oreos, sodas and beer at this point, fueled by how much we all like this song about a person we all can agree we
do not
like.

“Guys, are we ready?” Alex shouts out to us, pointing his phone in our direction. Damon does his trademark peace-sign to the camera, greeting the executives who are watching us.

“Ready?” Damon turns around and asks us. I look at Bradley to make sure he feels good about his part, and he nods at me.

“Yeah.”

“Tavo may be a little rusty. It’s his first time on the kit–”

“Fuck you! I’ve got this!” he yells.

“Scratch that,” Damon says. “We’re all ready. This is
Oleander Petals
.”

I start in with a strong guitar lick, and Bradley joins me two eight-counts in. The bass line picks up one later, followed quickly by Tavo before everything silences to a hush as Damon starts in on the first verse.

Strong hands never cradled me

Or helped me fix my tie

A deep voice never comforted

The little one who cried

The dim bulbs that need changing

Were always out of reach

Can a boy grow to his worth

When no one’s there to teach?

Oleander petals on her pillow

Words of love professed with venom’d tongue

Mom’s cheeks caressed, still rosy from your backhand

The air you breathed was CO in her lung

“dad” was always just a noun

I never deemed it proper

And when Mom called you other things

You made sure to stop her

Was it the drugs and alcohol

That fucked with your mindset

Made you name me after you

To help you not forget?

Oleander petals on her pillow

Words of love professed with venom’d tongue

Mom’s cheeks caressed, still rosy from your backhand

The air you breathed was CO in her lung

Mistook me for a quiet child

Thought I’d never say a word

Now I’ve come to see the man

And make sure that I’m heard

How can I look just like you

And still think who the hell

Is this person standing next to me

His frame, a soulless shell?

Without this father in my life

I never learned to brawl

Or how to hate for differences

In anything at all

I fell in love with someone

You would certainly oppose

But she and I will start a life

That’s nothing like you chose

Oleander petals on her pillow

Words of love professed with venom’d tongue

Mom’s cheeks caressed, still rosy from your backhand

The air you breathed was CO in her lung

As the song begins to wind down, Alex takes his phone out into the hallway. We finish it out for ourselves, giving Tavo a chance to experiment with his instrument. Damon begins the applause first, and we all join in, pretty pleased with the outcome of our day’s work. The lyrics were all mine; the music, mine and Peron’s, but I’ve never felt more supported by the band than I was today.