My head starts to sway on the bed and my body without command pushes in to the play of his tongue and fingers. He nips on my thigh and lifts his head.
“Do you want me to let you sleep?” he whispers.
I stare down at him. “You better not.”
His mouth closes over me. I arch my back and melt into the expert flow of his tongue and fingers and breaths. I come apart quickly against his face, and I’m still pulsing and panting when he enters me. He moves in me, deep and hard and fast. He doesn’t hold back, he pounds until he comes, and he collapses against me.
“You are never too tired for sex if I kiss you there first. It works the same way with me, Chrissie. Maybe you should try it again someday.”
“Someday,” I promise softly.
He’s laughing as I fall asleep.
~~~
I swat at tickling on my cheek and open my eyes to a room filled with painful light.
Neil’s face closes in on me. He kisses my hair.
“I’m having breakfast with Ernie. I should be back in a couple hours.”
I try to focus my eyes on the clock. “Jeez, it’s only ten a.m. What kind of manager gets you out of bed this early the day after a concert?”
“A manager catching a plane to the east coast in three hours.” He kisses me on the lips this time. “I ordered you an omelet and some coffee. Eat. Dress. Pack. I want to take off as soon as I get back. I don’t want go to La Jolla with Nate. Think about where you want to go. I’m horny as hell. Take me away someplace where we can be alone and in bed for two days.”
“We could just stay here. Not move for three days. How does that sound?”
He makes a maybe kind of face. Then his expression changes, sweetly serious. “I want to do something you want to do. Figure out what you want and I’m all yours.”
Hmmm, possibilities. I snuggle deeper into the blankets. The door closes. I try to go back to sleep and I can’t.
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. Figure out what I want. My mind is a blank. More travel doesn’t sound appealing. We could just drive to Santa Barbara early. That would be nice. Yep, I’d like that.
Reluctantly, I toss aside the blankets and get up. I take a fast shower, pull on a sundress, and am just putting on the finishing touches of my makeup when there is a knock on the door.
Breakfast. I hurry to unbolt and let in room service.
“Omelet and coffee?” the guy asks, reading off the ticket.
“Yep. Put it over there on the table by the window, please.”
He sets down my tray, lifts off the metal cover, and places the LA Times beside my plate. I smile as I sign the ticket and show him from the room.
I drop down into the chair, grab a fork and pick at my meal as I open the paper. Thank you, Neil, for remembering the newspaper. I’ve almost got Michelle’s scrapbook complete. The guys were incredible last night. There has got to be photos somewhere in the Times today. I start flipping through pages. Flip. Flip. Flip. Ah, Delmo. I study the photo for a while—what a ham. Why does he like to look so mean?—and then I scan the rest of the page.
Ah, us. Even better. The caption makes me smile. I go to my black case and pull out the small canvas zip bag with my scissors and paste. I neatly cut the photo from the paper, trim it, and then secure it on the last page. Done. Ten months on tour. History complete.
I finish my breakfast, and start packing up. Clothes. Check. Toiletries from bathroom. Check. Neil can deal with his junk here. I see the scrapbook on the table and put it back in the duffel. I grab my scissors and paste, and as I start to tuck them away, I note the edge of a news clipping saved from last week.
I still haven’t written about this in my journal. I couldn’t do it. Not when it happened. I take my notebook from the black bag and reach for a pen.
I pull out the news clipping from the canvas bag and stare at it. I still get misty-eyed when I read the story headline Kurt Cobain Dead Twenty-Seven. I print today’s date on the top of a page and start to write:
It is strange how someone’s life can touch your own from a distance. I didn’t know Kurt well. We crossed paths in Seattle, nothing more, but he was the subject of the silly bet Neil and I made the first night we met. It sure rattled the guys, in that way the sudden unexpected loss of someone like yourself can only stir.
I’ll never forget how Neil looked when he got back to the hotel after learning of Kurt’s death. Sad, confused, angry and overwhelmed.
We sat for a long time silent, and then Neil said, “I love you, Chrissie. More than you know. Sometimes you are all that gets me through. Don’t let me fuck up everything we have.”
There was something in his voice I’ll never forget. I don’t know what it was, but I’ve never heard Neil sound that way before.
I was alone when I opened the paper to find the write-up on Kurt’s death. Too many lockboxes inside me broke open at once. My brother. My mother. Then Alan.
I looked at the headline—twenty-seven—and my memories dragged me back to New York and Alan in the parking garage, and Alan’s voice whispered through my memory: “The great ones die at twenty-seven. Hendrix. Joplin. If we are both around after we’re twenty-seven, we’ll both know what we are.”
I reached for my mobile phone and Alan’s number on the card that I still carry for some reason. I stared at the phone for an hour. Something in me wanted to talk to Alan that day.
The news made me think of him. Our crazy spring. Us in the parking garage. And I felt ashamed about the way I spoke to him the last time we talked. The mean little girl in me, kicking him away because I was afraid. I regretted not talking to him. I regretted how I felt that day. I still wonder why he called, what he wanted.
I stared at the phone, wanting to call. We are connected. No matter how we ended, there are parts of me only Alan will understand. And there are parts of Alan only I will understand. But I didn’t call. Too much had happened. He hurt me. I hurt him. We both hurt each other too much the last time. It was better for us both that I didn’t call. It would have only unsealed old wounds.
But a part of me still regrets not calling Alan that day.
I hear a key against the lock, slap shut my journal and tuck it away in the bottom of my duffel. Nope, this journal is now a private journal. I don’t want Neil to see that last entry. It wouldn’t piss him off, he would want to talk to me and understand it, but I’m not ready to do that. Not yet. Someday.
Neil crosses the room, kisses me lightly on the cheek, and then sinks down to sit on the bed. His expression and posture says everything. He is not happy after his meeting with Ernie Levine.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
Neil runs a hand through his hair. “We were going to take some time together, figure out what we’re doing, and Ernie booked me for a show taping next week in New York. A bunch of other bullshit publicity things for the next month that I don’t want to do. And when I’m done, studio.”
I make a pout. “No big deal. We’ve got a week to kick back and do nothing. I’m not angry. Why are you?”
He gives me the stare. “You agreed to discuss the possibility of getting married.”
I laugh. The way he says that makes me sound ridiculous. I make a face. “What? A week is not enough time to finish a discussion on the possibility?”
I give him a silly smile and reluctantly he laughs.
“No. With you, Chrissie, there is no such thing as enough time to discuss anything.”