Pleasure in the Rain (7 page)

I see that I’ve failed when he stands up, and without letting go of my hand, pulls me up in front of him. He says my name the way I’ve heard him say it in my dreams all these months that we’ve been apart. A song I associate only with my feelings for him. I let it play through me, feeling every note deep in the center of my heart.

I try my hardest to keep the wall around me in place. But when it starts to crumble, there’s absolutely nothing I can do to stop its fall. I guess he knows it’s happening even as I do because he’s right there to catch me. I all but collapse into him, a soft cry of defeat slipping from my throat. Holden gathers me up and into him, as if I am some rare, precious find that he thought lost to him forever.

He strokes my hair with one hand and says, “Shh, baby, don’t cry.”

I don’t know how to stop. It seems as if this is all I do when I’m alone. It’s only in staying busy, putting myself in a room of people involved in normal everyday things like recording demos that I function in a way that even remotely resembles normal.

It feels so good though to stop pretending, stop trying to act like I’m on the road to putting it all behind me because here in Holden’s arms I realize how far from that I am. I want to melt into him, lose myself in the comfort I feel here.

He leans back, brushes his hand across my cheek. I look up at him and, although the light in the room is dim at best, I see that his love for me still exists. It’s there in his eyes like the shine of a star I thought too far away to actually see.

“CeCe,” he says, “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” I say, and with the release of the words, I feel the impact of their truth and how utterly lonely I’ve felt. Even though we’ve been living in the same apartment, we might as well have been hundreds of miles apart. That’s no one’s fault but my own.

He runs his hand through my hair and anchors it at the back of my neck, his thumb making a soft circle of comfort. “What can I do?” he asks. “How can I help?”

I shake my head. “How do I answer that when I don’t even know what’s wrong with me? I get up every day thinking this will be the day when I’m my old self again, when I want to do the things I used to do, that maybe I’ll actually laugh at something. And then it doesn’t happen. I go to bed thinking okay, maybe tomorrow. I’ll feel better tomorrow. Life will seem normal again tomorrow. But it never does.”

“Maybe you’re asking too much of yourself too soon,” he says. “CeCe, we were all victims and, I don’t know, I’ve done a little reading about things like this and ways to put it behind you to a point where it’s okay to let yourself feel safe again.”

“I don’t feel safe,” I say quickly. “And I don’t think I ever will. Do you?” I add.

He looks off somewhere behind me, and it’s several moments before he answers.

“I’ve been having some crazy dreams, stuff that doesn’t really make sense once I wake up and try to figure out what it was all about. My heart is racing. I’m sweating as if I’ve just run ten miles. I guess that’s my subconscious telling me that I haven’t totally put it behind me, but maybe that’s how my brain is trying to process it. I don’t know.”

“If Thomas is having trouble dealing with it,” I say, “he won’t admit as much to me.”

“Each of us is different,” Holden says. “People have to come to terms with things in different ways.”

He slowly pulls me back to him and wraps me up in his arms again. I close my eyes and breathe in his scent. It feels so good to be held like this by him. I wish that we never had to move past this thought, this moment, that we could simply infuse each other with love and caring until we were both completely strong again, no nightmares, no panic attacks, no sadness.

When he pulls away to look down at me, I know he’s going to kiss me. I want him to with every cell in my body. My need for him is as basic and elemental as the need for food, air, water.

I don’t stop him, and his kiss has forgotten none of its hunger. It’s a powerful thing, the knowledge that I have in me the ability to feed that hunger, but then he is the only one who can do the same for me. I will myself to shut off the nagging fear in my mind and simply become lost in everything Holden makes me feel. I just want to remember what this felt like when I didn’t see it through the lens of guilt, and it was just so clear to me that we had been lucky enough to find something special in each other.

I loop my hands around his neck and take what he is giving. I undo the first three buttons of his shirt and slip my hands inside, just to feel the warmth of his skin. It seeps through my palms, up my arms and along my shoulders to drop down into the core of me.

“CeCe,” he says. “Dear God, I have missed you so much.”

“And I’ve missed you,” I say.

He pulls my t-shirt from the back of my jeans and slides his hands around my waist. We kiss until I can’t think for wanting him. He drops onto one knee and lifts the side of my shirt, his gaze finding the three-inch scar just above my belt. He stares at it and then leans in and presses his lips to it with gentle care. I clasp the back of his head with my hand and wonder why I haven’t allowed myself the comfort only he can give me.

We stay like this for a long time, absorbing one another.

When he stands, he looks down into my eyes and rubs his thumb across my cheek. He leans in and kisses me as if I am priceless to him. I finish unbuttoning his shirt and start to slide it from his shoulders when Hank Junior whines, jumps down off the couch and trots to the door.

I start to pull away to see what has his attention, but Holden won’t let me. He’s kissing me again, and I’m lost to anything but following his lead.

“Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

I step back from Holden as if I have just been shocked by an electric current. He and I both stare at Thomas who is standing in the doorway with a girl under each arm, one blonde, one brunette, both in short tight skirts, one in stilettos and the other wearing cowboy boots.

“Looks like you finally got your act together,” Thomas says, each of the words slurred at the end. The girl in the stilettos takes a wobbly step forward, pointing at me.

“You’re CeCe MacKenzie. Oh my gosh, I love your voice.” Her gaze sways to Holden with astonished recognition. “And you’re Holden. I just read about you two in
Star Struck
.” Her expression goes from delight to stricken sadness.

“It’s so awful, what happened with you two. You had like this perfect love and then you,” she says, looking at me, “being so broken up about Beck Philips that you blame yourself.”

Holden steps in front of me, making a physical shield between the girl and me. I can’t see her now but I hear her say, “Does this mean you two are back together? Oh my gosh, that’s so cool! Misty, that means we witnessed it firsthand.”

“Seriously, Thomas?”
Holden says.

I step out from behind Holden just as Thomas reels the two girls back into his own unsteady embrace.

“You’ve been drinking,” Holden says.

“Hey, I am legal, you know,” Thomas says with an amused laugh. “Last time I checked, anyway.”

“Well, you might be legal,” Holden agrees, “but you’re drunk.”

“So?”

He stares hard at us both for a long moment. “You two think you’re the only ones around here trying to figure out all this crap. Well you’re not, and these two young ladies have graciously offered to make me feel better.” He starts corralling them toward the hallway that leads to the bedroom. “And I’ve decided to let them.”

Holden follows him, grabbing the back of Thomas’s shirt. “Hold up there, buddy.”

His response is as instantaneous as it is unexpected. He turns around swinging, his balled up fist connecting with the center of Holden’s abdomen. I hear the air leave Holden’s lungs in a single whoosh. Thomas staggers backwards, both girls falling away from him like drunken tinker toys.

“Damn, Holden. I didn’t mean-” Thomas starts to apologize.

But Holden is a torpedo barreling toward him, head down. He connects with Thomas, shoulder to stomach, and they both go down in the hallway. I scream for them to stop while Thomas’s Barbie dolls stare at the two of them fighting, like they’ve been given VIP seats at a prizefight.

I run at them, trying to wedge myself in between their shoulders, screaming for them to stop, but my efforts are all but laughable. They’re rolling back and forth on the floor. Hank and Patsy, aroused from their sleep, are standing next to them, barking out fearful yelps.

“Stop it! You’re going to kill each other!”

When it’s clear that my words are having no effect, I run to the kitchen, grab a plastic pitcher from the counter and fill it with cold water. The tap is so slow I’m about to scream by the time it gets to the top. I head to the living room as fast as I can go without sloshing out all of the water and then aim the contents at their heads. The water has the desired effect. They roll apart, yelling.

“What the heck, CeCe?” Thomas throws out.

“You two acting like toddlers,” I say. “That’s what.”

Holden and Thomas sit breathing hard and glaring at each other.

“Do I have to get another pitcher?”

“No!" they erupt in unison.

The Barbie dolls are giggling now. I actually hear one of them whisper, “Do you think we can sell this to
Star Struck
?”

“I got pictures on my phone,” the other one says.

“Out!”

I don’t even recognize my own voice, but I am charging the two like a mother lion protecting her cubs. They stare at me as if I have just hurled something at them in Greek, and they have no idea what I’ve said.

“Leave! Now. Go, out, and don’t come back!”

Both girls right their miniskirts, looking immensely hurt. In another phase of my life, I would have felt guilty. In this current one, I merely feel justified. The one in stilettos yanks at the knob, saying over her shoulder in a pitiful voice, “But we don’t have a car. How will we get home?”

“I’ll call you a cab,” I say. “Just wait out front.”

“Well, all right then,” she says, miffed. I slam the door behind them and then turn to look at Holden and Thomas, who are still sitting on the floor dragging air into their lungs. Patsy is licking Thomas’s cheek. Hank Junior licks Holden’s. I want to tell them not to waste their sympathy because any suffering Holden and Thomas are enduring, they fully deserve.

I walk in the kitchen and call a taxi, then go outside the apartment and stand at the railing until I see it pull up. I watch the two girls get inside. When I go back in, Holden and Thomas look a little less enraged at one another, their expressions mirroring something closer to shame when they both look up at me.

“CeCe,” they both start at the same time.

But I stop them, holding up a hand and saying, “Y’all work it out, I’m going to bed. Come on, Hank.” He gets up and trots after me. Patsy follows, too. I close the door behind us and turn the lock.

♪

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Holden

Thomas drops onto the floor, one arm over his eyes. He groans and says, “Where’d you learn to punch like that, man?”

I lean back against the couch, wincing with the movement.

“Probably from you.
You’re the only friend I have who picks fights.”

He removes his arm from his eyes and glares at me. “Me? You’re the one who started it.”

“So you think I should have just let you go on and have your drunken therapy session with those two-”

“Those two what?”
Thomas interrupts.

“
Ladies
you would regret spending time with tomorrow,” I say in an attempt at diplomacy.

“You’re a jerk, you know that?” he says.

“Yeah, and if we hadn’t brought you to your senses, they’d probably have a picture of you hanging naked from a light fixture in tomorrow evening’s
Star Struck
.”

“Maybe we could use it for the new album cover,” he says with a sarcastic grin.

“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” I say.

We sit there, not saying anything until I finally ask, “So why’d you go out and get wasted tonight?”

Thomas shrugs. “I didn’t plan it.”

“Well, it’s not your typical game plan.”

“Nope.”

“Is it about going in the studio tomorrow?”

He doesn’t answer for a good bit, and when he does his voice is far off, like something he’s been thinking about for a while.

“I don’t know. I guess I’m wondering whether I bought my own ‘we need to rise above this’ speech.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just whether we deserve for anything good to be happening to us.”

“You want me to repeat what you said to me?”

“Hell, no.”

“We can cancel it.”

“Yeah, if we wanna get sued by the label.”

“With everything that’s happened, you really think they’d do that?” I ask.

“I really think they would,” he says. “Money’s money. We were an investment that hasn’t paid off yet.”

“We can make a crappy record, and they’d be kicking us off the label.”

“We could, but what’s that gonna prove other than we can suck if we want to?”

“Nothing,” I say.

We’re quiet for a bit, and then he asks, “Do you think we’re wrong to do it?”

“I think right now it feels like we are, but I don’t really think we can trust our perspective as evidenced by your choice in company tonight,” I say with a half-smile.

“Speaking of company,” Thomas says, “What the heck was that we walked in on?”

“I have no idea.”

“She’s a mess, isn’t she?”

“Yeah,” I agree.

“Do you think she’ll go through with it tomorrow?”

I shake my head, “I really don’t know. I think it could go either way.”

“We’ve got good songs.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

“CeCe said anything to you about them?” I ask, hearing the uncertainty in my own question.

Thomas shakes his head. “Why?”

“She’s just not owning them.”

“Yeah,” Thomas agrees.

“You sure the songs don’t suck?”

“No, man.
They rock,” he says.

“Are we just wasting everybody’s time by going in the studio tomorrow?”