Night Shifts Black (8 page)

He moves toward me and
draws me in. Gentle at first, testing my reaction, and I immediately sense his
comfort with this situation. He’s done this before. Many times. There’s a huge
gap in experience and now a new fear sets in.

“What’s wrong?” he
asks, concern all over his face.

I look away, slightly
flustered. This isn’t the first time the thought of his accomplished past has crossed
my mind, but I hadn’t realized it would be so obvious that I was out of my
league.

“Nothing, it’s just…” I’m
not sure how to say something like that. I don’t want to insult him, but
suddenly I’m terrified of embarrassing myself more than anything else. I have
no clue what he’s expecting, but I doubt it’s what he’s about to get. “Look,
I’m not good at this. I mean…”

“Not good at what?”

I lean back and wave my
hands. “This. All of this.”

“Kissing? Meeting up
in hotel rooms? What?”

I shake my head. This
is going terribly. Maybe that’s good. Maybe he’ll change his mind about the
whole thing and I won’t have to be the strong one anymore. His grin isn’t
promising.

“You worry way too
much,” he laughs.

I bite my lip. “I just
thought you should know. I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

“Disappointed?”

“It’s just…”

I don’t get to
complete my sentence. This time the kiss isn’t gentle. It’s the one I’ve
wanted. The one I’ve been waiting for, dreaming about. The kind that takes your
breath away, explodes brain cells. His hands are in my hair, guiding me,
preventing any kind of instinctive hesitation. Not that I would have been able
to stop myself at this point, anyway. I’m not entirely sure what to do with my
own hands, and find myself gripping his t-shirt. I want it off him, to feel the
heat of his body against mine, but I’m not confident enough for that. I’m still
not sure about any of this. It doesn’t feel right. I’m here with him, but I’m
not entirely sure he’s here with me.

We move to the couch,
and I start to get more comfortable once I stop thinking. It’s my head, that
sprinting brain that revels in its ability to shoot itself in ten directions at
once, considering every fear, consequence, and insecurity, paralyzing me in a
constant daze of anxious numbness. It’s that brain I finally manage to turn
off, and I suspect Luke has had that effect on a lot of women in his life. The
thought should sober me, but instead I find the ache returning, inciting an
urgency that suddenly makes his t-shirt a barrier I can’t stand anymore. I grab
the hem, and he helps me pull it over his head.

Without his shirt, I
can now feel his body against me. Firm, solid, he’s stronger than I’d thought. I’m
not sure why I’m surprised. The tattoos run along his shoulders and down his
chest as well. If there had been any doubt about his past, there was none now.
He is beautiful. A tragic work-of-art.

I like this even more
and reciprocate by grasping the edge of my own sweater. He pauses, and I can
feel his eyes, sense his anticipation. He’s been waiting, too. Imagining what I
look like under the layers that have always separated us. I’m nervous again but
know I’ve invited this.

His fingers slide
along the contours of my waist, leaving a searing trail of heat under my skin. I
wait, not wanting to rush him, but nervous that the longer he waits, the longer
he’ll have to remember I’m not the supermodels he’s accustomed to. It’s not
fair, petty even, but my brain stopped playing fair a long time ago. After
another moment, I finally take his hands and lock them behind my back, closing
the gap between us. My lips find his again, and this time there’s no
hesitation. I want every inch of him, mind, body, and soul. He understands, and
I fall back on the cushions, pulling him with me.

His lips are on my neck
now, and I close my eyes, gasping as the fire ripping through me tears apart
the little that’s left of any hesitation. He locks his fingers with mine and
pushes my hands along the fabric, anchoring them above my head. This time it’s
his lips tracing my body, taking my breath away with each perfectly executed
kiss. He lets go to focus his grip elsewhere, and I run my hands along his
back, loving the way his muscles tense at every movement, and hint at the
explosive power that will be mine in a minute.

Our contact is
desperate now. A fervent magnetism that drives us into each other, connecting us
in a uniform motion, a single resolution. We aren’t able to get close enough.

“Are you ok? You’re
sure?” he asks. It’s a silly question, but I love that he asks. The way his
eyes search mine as he waits for the answer he already knows. I respond by
kissing him again, reaching for his jeans.

“Ellie,” he whispers.

I freeze. “Ellie?”

He does, too, and we
stare at each other. Our breathing is heavy. The silence is like a massive curtain
settling over us, pressing us into the couch, and suddenly his weight is more
than I can bear. He understands and moves away, his head buried in his hands.
It’s then that I hear it, the sobs. I know now he’s probably drunk, but realize
it’s the tears causing the drinking, not the other way around.

I close the distance
between us as my heart shatters and wrap my arms around him. He leans into my
shoulder, crying like the neighborhood bully after another beating from his
abusive father. They’re hard tears, unfamiliar, but completely wild as they
push through the fortress protecting his battered soul.

We sit like that for a
long time. The tears eventually subside into an embarrassed swat at his face,
and he rubs hard, as if punishing his eyes for putting on such a display. I
refuse to let him be embarrassed.

Instead of pulling
away, I loop my arm through his and lean against him, gripping his hand in
mine. I’m not looking at him anymore, instead staring at our reflections in the
giant screen hanging on the wall across from us. I’m not letting him go. I’m
not letting him face Ellie’s ghost alone.

After another long
pause, I can feel him start to relax. I run my fingers along his arm, partly
out of my own fascination, but mostly to remind him I’m here, and he’s alive. I
don’t need to see his face to know he’s left me to go to that other place
again.

“Her name was Elena,”
he says finally, his voice still trembling a bit as it cuts through the
silence.

I don’t respond. It’s
my turn to listen. But it quickly becomes clear that name is all I’m going to
get. Ellie is Elena. End of story.

I’m not surprised by
the stingy gift, just disappointed. I want more than anything to be his anchor,
but he doesn’t seem prepared to come into shore yet. I wonder if he’ll ever be.

“That’s a beautiful
name.”

“She was a beautiful
person.”

I nod. “I’m sorry,
Luke. Really.” I’m completely sincere but I can tell by his expression that my
words don’t mean anything to him. In fact, I suddenly sense that I understand
even less about his story than I thought.

“I am, too,” he says
quietly. He shakes his head. “But nothing personal, right?” he snickers,
pulling away and pushing himself up from the couch. I understand his joke, a
ridiculous comment to make while we are both half-naked in a hotel room. He
doesn’t elaborate and moves back to the bar, draining his glass and refilling
it. I instinctively want to stop him, knowing he’s doing himself no favors by
hiding in expensive liquor, but it’s not my place. I will accomplish nothing by
turning myself into the enemy. I have no choice but to accept him as he is at this
moment.

I reach for my sweater
and pull it back over my head. He watches me quietly, and I wonder about the
darkness I see suddenly seep into his features. I hold my breath when he looks
away.

“Callie, about what
just happened, I’m sorry. About all of it. I shouldn’t have asked you to come
here. I shouldn’t have…I just…” he doesn’t finish.

“No one can do life completely
alone. We’re not supposed to.”

He looks at me then.
I’m close, I can tell.

I get up and join him
at the bar. It’s my turn to remove the glass from his hand. I place it firmly
on the table and drop the remote in his hand instead.

“I’m free the rest of
the day. Let’s watch a movie.”

The light returns to
his eyes as a slow smile spreads over his lips.

“Really? You’re sure?”

I nod. “One hundred
percent.”

“Comedy, ok?”

I almost laugh. “Definitely.”

Day
Ten - Fifteen.

Room 403 becomes our new Jemma’s Café, and
breakfast club becomes more of a brunch room service. Luke is careful to keep
his distance when I visit, and we both understand more and more about what
happened when I first came to his room. How the vacuum created by two empty
souls sucked them into each other in a moment of mutual weakness. We don’t regret
the connection, just understand what it was and that it doesn’t have an impact
on the present.

We spend our days as
friends now. Watching movies, chatting about safe topics, and drinking. Lots of
drinking. Well, by Luke anyway. I try not to say anything as I watch him fill
his glass over and over again. I’m actually amazed he functions as well as he
does, given the amount of alcohol that’s probably in his bloodstream at any
given moment. I know it will be my business at some point in our friendship,
but we need each other right now, and I can’t bring myself to alienate him
quite yet.

“Here,” he says after
about a week of my visits. “You might as well just have this. It’s not like I
have anything here worth stealing anyway,” he adds with a smile.

I roll my eyes, but my
heart nearly stops when I peak inside the small, card-shaped envelope to see a
key to his room. I stare up at him in shock.

“Are you serious?”

He shrugs. “I feel bad
that you had to wait so long yesterday before I heard you knocking. Now I don’t
have to roll out of bed to let you in.”

I laugh. “I see. So
this isn’t so much a statement about our friendship, but about your laziness.”

He grins. “Basically.”

“Business Suit Lady
would lose her mind if she knew you did this.”

“Business Suit Lady?”

“Yeah, the Guardian of
the Lobby who gives me a death stare every time I soil these grounds with my
commonness.”

Luke laughs and drops
beside me on the couch.

“You’re talking about
Mara Jacobson. Yeah, she’s a piece-of-work.”

“She’s something
alright.”

I pull my legs up
under me and lean back against the armrest to face him. “Really, though. Thank
you. I promise I won’t abuse the privilege. You tell me when you don’t want me
to come and I won’t.”

Luke waves his hand.
“Nah, you’d be invited to all my wild parties anyway.”

“Oh? What about the
ones I want to host here?”

“Will there be
pancakes and toast?”

“Absolutely. And all
the orange marmalade you can handle.”

“Whoa. Let’s not get
crazy now.”

I laugh and study him
for a moment. “Luke, tell me what it’s like being a rock star.”

He glances at me
before laughing.
 
I think maybe it’s
an uncomfortable laugh, but he doesn’t seem overly surprised by the question.

“What do you want to
know?”

“I don’t know.
Anything. It’s not every day a girl gets to hang out with one on his couch.”

“Ah, I see,” he
replies, suspiciously. “So I was right all along. This whole thing was an
elaborate ploy of a psychotic fangirl.”

It’s my turn to laugh.
“Yeah right. A fangirl who had no clue who you were.”

He grins, but studies
me with that intensity that makes me want to climb inside his head.

“It’s different than
what people think, I guess.”

“Different how?”

He shrugs. “They think
it’s all glamour and supermodels and drugs.”

“It’s not?”

He stretches and
closes his eyes for a moment before staring at the far wall again. “Maybe it is
at the end, I don’t know. Not in the beginning.”

“You mean when you
were first starting out.”

He nods. “Then it’s
all late nights, smelly vans, cheap hotels, and constant fear that your gear
will get stolen.”

“So no supermodels is
what you’re saying.”

He lets out a snort.
“No. You aim for the hot bartender, if you’re lucky.”

“And were you?”

He shrugs.
“Sometimes.”

He quiets, and I can
tell I’m getting into dangerous territory again. He’s determined not to let me,
so he continues. “It’s not an easy life. I’ve seen more people give it up than
stick it out. You have no roots, no home, just night after night of setup and
teardown. Lukewarm catered food, pizza, and cheap beer.”

“Did you ever have
your gear stolen?”

He grunts. “Yeah. We
were parked at this cheap motel outside of Austin. We took the van to get
something to eat, but left our trailer. It was locked but they still got in and
took two guitars, a pedal board, and pretty much all of Casey’s stuff.
Thankfully, they left the in-ear system and most of the rest of the equipment.
They obviously only took the stuff they recognized. Amateur thieves, I guess.”

I laugh. “You lucked
out then.”

“Yeah. We could barely
afford our gas at the time, let alone replacing all our equipment. Believe it
or not, I was more upset about losing my pedal board than the guitars. I had my
best one in my room. Those were backups I’d tune to different keys when we played
‘Sanctimonious’ and ‘Argyle.’”

“Argyle? Like the
sweater?”

“Like the only thing a
kid sees as his father is beating him.”

I swallow. “Oh.”

He grins at my
expression. “Still think we’re a boy band?”

I shrug. “I don’t
know. The old ladies really love you.”

“No, the old ladies
want to make me vegetable soup and teach me Pinochle to keep me off the
streets.”

“Well, it’s no wonder
with your ripped jeans and frayed t-shirts!”

He instinctively
glances at his shirt. “It’s not frayed. It’s worn. There’s a big difference.”

“Wow. I’m surprised in
a place like this they can’t afford better laundry service.”

He laughs and shrugs.
“You’re very critical of my wardrobe. You would prefer me in polo shirts and
khakis, I guess?”

I scrunch my nose,
almost horrified at the thought. I can’t think of a more ill-suited look for
him. “I see your point. Although, I’m dying to know what your tattoos would
look like with a pink polo shirt.”

“Pink, even? Wow. You
have the strangest fantasies.”

“What, fantasies about
rock stars in pink polo shirts? You’ve never encountered worse? Come on.”

He grins and shrugs with
a mischievous expression. “Not until I got famous,” he comments cryptically.

“That’s not fair! Come
on, Luke! Give me something!” I cry, instinctively leaning toward him in my
earnestness.

He laughs.

“At least tell me the
weirdest gifts you’ve gotten from fans. That has to be safe, right?”

He squints and bites
his lip, as if deep in thought. “Weirdest gifts, huh? Let’s see.” I wait, not
about to interrupt him. “Ok, once a fan gave me a calendar she made of
shirtless pictures of myself.”

I burst out laughing,
and he returns my amusement. “Of yourself? Why in the world would you ever want
that?”

He shakes his head in
disbelief. “I have no idea. The guys just about died when she presented it to
me at the autograph table. She waited in line for over two hours for that.”

“Wow. That’s devotion
right there. I’m going to guess it didn’t have the intended effect on your
heart.”

“Unless she was trying
to get me to double my security for the rest of the night, no.” He gave me a
sly look. “What about you?”

I glance back,
startled. “What about me what?”

“What’s the worst gift
you ever got?”

I laugh. “I can’t top
that, believe me.”

“That’s ok. You must
have gotten something you hated at some point in your life.”

I think about his
question and wonder if my face resembles his a moment ago. “Hmm…well, one time
I got a stuffed cabbage.”

His brows knit in
confusion. “A stuffed cabbage? You mean a stuffed toy shaped like a cabbage or
an actual cabbage.”

I chuckle. “Does it
really matter, given those options?”

He laughs. “I suppose
not. Still, I have to know now.”

I grin. “An actual
cabbage. Well, cabbage leaves stuffed with some kind of meat.”

“Was it good?”

“I didn’t eat it!” I
laugh.

“Why not? Maybe it was
good.”

“I had no idea where
it came from or who made it. It was a door prize at some school event.”

“They gave away a
stuffed cabbage?”

I shrug. “Yes.
Apparently.”

He lets out his
breath. “What kind of school did you go to? You weren’t kidding about Sheltertown,
were you.”

“Shelteron.”

“Whatever.”

I shake my head in
amusement and lean back against the cushions. After a long silence, I finally
glance at him again. “You don’t happen to still have the calendar do you?” I
ask.

He glances at me in
exasperation, and I laugh.