“I did that on my iPod.” I marveled at how much work must’ve gone into the tapes. With iTunes, it was really easy to create playlists but with this, someone had obviously selected each tape, sat there while it played and listened.
This is better.
“I agree.” I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed my music until right then, how centered whatever he’d played had made me. When Mathias first put the music on in the van, it had calmed me. For weeks, my life had been silent, void of comfort, and there had been just rough conversation and fear. “I had some of these songs on my iPod.”
Bullshit.
“What? A girl can’t like Mötley Crüe?”
Not a girl like you.
“I’m hoping that’s some kind of compliment.”
It is.
“But honestly, I love their stuff. Especially their first album.” I used to search through iTunes to find songs I liked, lyrics that spoke to me.
Mathias put on “Home Sweet Home” and the opening piano notes gave me goose bumps. Because my home had never been that, but here, in this cold warehouse in the middle of a storm, I felt more at home than I ever had in my life. And because I didn’t know what that meant, I tried to bury any feeling.
My dad made these for my mom, he explained. He used to say that he’d courted her hard, and that she played hard to get, but in the end, she couldn’t resist.
“He chased her? She must’ve loved that. Every girl wants that.”
They do?
I stared into his dark eyes and almost lost myself again. “Yeah, they do,” I said softly and the corner of his lip quirked up a little as he typed, I’ll keep that in mind.
“So what finally made her give in?” I asked.
She was pretty reluctant. A good girl who was being chased by a wild bayou guy. In the end, she gave up a lot for him. She was a really talented artist—oils and some sculpture—and she was being courted by a lot of people in the art scene. They wanted her to study in Europe, and to live there, actually.
“Did she stop painting?”
Never. She sold a lot of art, but she didn’t do the art scene. A gallery show here and there, which added to her mystery because she didn’t show up in person. But Dad was always confident she’d be happiest in the bayou.
“So he made her these.”
Yeah. I was only able to save some of them. He made her a lot of tapes when they were dating and that’s the music Bish and I grew up on. Then he put them all together for her on her phone. But I liked the idea of a tape. I liked that you could hand someone something. It took time to make them.
I traced the plastic cassette cover, noting that the handwriting had faded a bit. “I can see that this took time.”
Every song has to mean something. Some you like, some she likes...
“It’s so different than a playlist. I know my parents didn’t make this.” I held out the tape to him. “Can we play this?”
He popped it in. He said it was the first one his father had ever made for his mom and as I sat and listened to the words, I pictured a courtship I’d never see. But I understood a lot more about Mathias, and his sentimentality. And I knew I could love him for it.
I also knew that, before this, I’d been fooling myself thinking I knew anything about love.
The music surrounded me, warm and comfortable in some ways, out of control in so many more. With Charlie, I’d been looking for escape. I’d thought Charlie understood me when really, he’d just been playing me.
Any other favorites in here?
I looked through the boxes, pointing out some of our other shared favorites. Who would’ve thought that a biker boy from the bayou and a Washington princess would have the same taste in anything.
Not only in music, but in each other, I reminded myself, thinking how I wore his scent on me like a warm sweater. He was lying there, staring up at the ceiling of the van, which had those fluorescent stars stuck to it, mimicking the nighttime sky I hadn’t seen a trace of since the Chaos. He looked deep in thought and I liked that he felt comfortable enough around me to do so.
There wasn’t any pretense with Mathias. That also made me feel less like I was on slippery ground. I’d gotten a foothold into this world—a small one, but one nonetheless.
I glanced around and spotted a guitar propped up next to me. I’d had a similar one when I’d been in boarding school and without thinking, I picked it up and my hands fit around it like they were meant to be there. I began to strum idly. It had been years since I’d done this, but as soon as my palm wound around the neck of the guitar, years of notes and chords came back to me. The warehouse echoed with the music and the storm mixed together, comforting me.
I was lost in the sounds, and when I finally looked up, Mathias was watching me with an odd look in his eyes and a half smile tugging his lips.
“Sorry. I should’ve asked,” I said sheepishly. He motioned that it was fine. And then he pointed to the guitar and motioned for me to play more. “Any special requests?”
He signed with one hand as he approached the van and dug into a box behind me. He pulled out a CD and showed me the cover and then pointed to the song. “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak.”
“I’ve never heard it before. Can you play it for me?”
He rolled his eyes, like he couldn’t believe I’d never heard a Def Leppard song, but he popped in a tape and let it blast through the speakers. As it did, I visualized the chords in my mind, pictured my fingers playing along the strings.
When the song finished, I began to strum along, and he nodded, typed, You have an ear for music.
I did. But in my family, music wasn’t done. It was fine to play the piano at formal dinners, on request, but beyond that...
Mathias took my chin in his hand and focused me. Then he signed and I said, “I’ll bet you’re telling me to stop thinking so much, right?”
He nodded, leaned in and brushed his lips against mine. I shivered, murmured, “That’s one way.”
He huffed a silent laugh, then moved along my neck, kissing and sucking until he was sitting behind me. He slid an arm behind mine, winding one hand around the guitar neck, the other on my waist. I wound my hand around his, my fingers on top. His cock pressed against me; his breath was warm on the back of my neck and suddenly, being cold wasn’t an issue. It didn’t help that I knew what his body looked like.
Communication was definitely not an issue. Not when I strummed and my fingers danced on his and we were playing. And he was playing me. I was his instrument and he was learning what made me sing.
Leave this one alone
Mathias
Nearly twenty-six hours after we’d first pulled in, the storm began to abate in earnest. Only then did Bish come up from underground. As Jessa remained in the van, listening to music. I met him closer to the room where Charlie was locked away. I’d checked on him fifteen minutes ago. He’s still out. I left him some water.
Bish nodded. “Caspar knows.”
And?
Bish shrugged, which meant Caspar hadn’t elaborated on anything. At least one storm had passed—it’d been wicked enough this time.
My imagination or are the storms getting worse?
“Not your imagination.” Bish glanced over at the windows, habit still after all these years. We’d look out, expecting to see light of some kind and were always met with blackness. Even when Defiance shone the artificial lights, you couldn’t see shit.