Tyler doesn’t know he’s already won our argument so he fires another shot, and this one’s a fatal blow. “Or is kissing just an item to check off your foreplay list?”
“Enough.” I push away from Tyler and stand. I’m all out of words and all out of tears. “I’ve heard enough. I’m going home.”
I rush to the bathroom where I strip off Tyler’s shirt and pull on my soiled skirt and top. I stuff my feet in my shoes and pick up my bag from the kitchen bar.
Tyler waits for me at the door, his phone in his hand, a war of emotions on his face as if I rejected him. “I didn’t want our night to end like this,” he says quietly.
Our night. I don’t respond. I let him open the door and I walk down the stairs, his soft tread echoing behind me. We get to the bottom landing and he shoves the stubborn lock open.
“I called you a cab. It should be here soon.” Tyler takes my hand and turns it palm-up before I can pull away. He drops a fortune cookie inside.
I close my fingers over the cookie. “Thank you.” My eyes won’t leave the floor.
There’s nothing more he can say and he finally releases me, opening the door into the cool night. I hear the distant crackle of fireworks, but even the ones that burn bright eventually become ash.
THIRTEEN
“What are you doing Wednesday?” Beryl’s voice is far too chipper for a Monday morning but it lifts some of the funk that’s settled on me.
It’s not pretty. After I filed my Indie Day story Friday—including a few lines about Tyler’s guest appearance—I hightailed it out of my newsroom and into my pajamas, with a bottle of Absolut and a remote control to keep me company.
When Neil came home late that night I was wicked drunk and crying over Sweet Home Alabama. The chick flick, not the song. Neil announced that I had six days to move out because his roommate Violet is coming home on Thursday.
More tears. More shots. More of the hopelessness that pooled like lead in my gut.
“Stella?” Beryl’s voice pulls me back to the present.
“Nothing yet. You want to come with me to yoga?” That’s my escape, a few times a week, when I can just breathe and move my body and things feel like they fall in order.
Instead of doing yoga this weekend, I was running all over Manhattan after Craigslist ads for shared housing, each of them too good to be true.
I am so screwed on Thursday. But on Wednesday? I’m wide open.
“I thought you might want to come to a last-minute show for Tattoo Thief,” Beryl says, and my breath catches at the band’s name. Images of Tyler invade my brain: working the bass on stage, his tapered fingers reaching across the fretboard to hit the chords, his arms glowing with sweat under the stage lights.
Considering that homeless trumps he loves me not, Tyler isn’t even at the top of my list of Things That Suck.
I’ve paused too long before answering so Beryl continues. “It’s just a small gig they picked up at Rockwood Music Hall. They’re going to play ‘Wilderness’ and do a bunch of their older stuff acoustic. What do you think?”
I hesitate. I don’t want to face Tyler again, especially after his latest rejection. He’ll probably think I’m stalking him. But Heath’s breathing down my neck for another story and my relationship with Beryl is so fragile that I don’t feel like I can say no.
“Sure. Thanks for inviting me.” I could take off as soon as the set’s over to avoid Tyler.
“Great.” I hear relief in Beryl’s voice. Maybe she’s as nervous about inviting me as I am about accepting. “Stella? Did something happen with you and Tyler?”
“What did you hear?” Instantly, I’m on alert.
“Tyler didn’t say anything except he ran into you at the Indie Day concert. But he was funny about it, like there was more to the story. What happened?”
I shake my head. There’s no good way to tell her, especially after she’d warned me not to hurt him. But I didn’t hurt him—he hurt me with each rejection. “Let’s talk about it later. I got knocked down and Tyler helped me up, but then things got weird. But I promise I won’t make it weird at the show.”
Beryl pauses and I can tell she’s debating whether to press me for more. Instead, she promises to leave a ticket for me at will-call.
I arrive at the club a few minutes before show time and my ticket makes the beefy guy at the door do a second take. He points me to a corridor and I find Beryl in a handful of seats tucked behind the stage curtains.
“You’re just in time. I was worried you wouldn’t come.”
I give Beryl a side-hug and sit, relating the subway snafu that delayed me. I recognize Dave’s girlfriend, Kristina, but she either doesn’t see me or ignores me.
Three heavily made-up girls with boobs spilling over their low-cut tops fill the other chairs. Compared to their getups, I look like I could teach Sunday school.
I incline my head slightly toward them, giving Beryl a questioning look. She shakes her head. Now is not the time.
The music shifts and the backstage lights dim. The members of Tattoo Thief take their places in center stage behind the closed curtains and I’m relieved to be out of Tyler’s sightline. He fingers his instrument, fine-tunes a string, and shoves his hands in his hair to push it off his forehead.
When the curtains part and light floods the stage, the busty girls next to me squeal and shriek and the crowd roars, everyone eager for a close-up view of one of the hottest bands in America.
They are smoldering—raw, sex-charged and intense. I lose myself in Tyler’s performance as the cords of his neck tense and he leans into the microphone. Gavin’s up front as usual, his hips swiveling and his posture loose as he coaxes reactions from the crowd.
Jayce is nearest Gavin and his eyes flick back to where we’re sitting, prompting more squeals from the girls near me. They must be with him. Dave and Tyler bring up the rear, controlling each song with careful syncopation, a driving rhythm I feel through my whole body.
I follow Tyler through each transition, in awe of the power of his body and the way he moves. His instrument is a part of him, and as I watch, I imagine his fingers on me. He could be holding my neck the way he holds the neck of his bass, grasping my hair, pulling my face back for a kiss.
I spring from my chair as soon as the performance ends, my body aching with need. Beryl senses my urge to escape and I follow her through the dim backstage corridor to a green room where the roar of the crowd finally recedes. I scan the room for drinks but all I see is an ice bucket with bottles of water and beer.
No hard liquor. Damn.
Beryl twists the top off a water bottle and offers it to me, but I grab a beer, slamming it on the side of a dressing table with my fist to pop the top. I tip it up and glug it down, feeling cold liquid rush down my throat.
It’s not enough to get my buzz back, but it’s a start.
“Wasn’t that amazing?” Beryl gushes, kicking off her flats (Flats! Where are the sexy shoes I helped her buy?) and tucking her feet beneath her on the couch.
I leave my platform Mary Jane heels on and park my butt on the other end of the couch, offering a noncommittal nod. I’m afraid I’ll betray how deeply Tyler rocked me. “Uh, yeah, it was good.”
“Seriously? That’s all you thought of it? They did an acoustic set and you’ve got the best seat in the house, and all you can say is good?” Beryl narrows her eyes at me. “Something’s up. Spill it, sister.”