A Lush Rhapsody: A Rhapsody Novel (17 page)

“I don’t know. But I’ll back you one hundred percent, no matter what you decide.” He shifts to face me, touching my hair as I swivel my head to look him in the eyes. “I panicked last night, but short stack—” His voice is rough and it works its way down deep inside of me. “—I woke up this morning and I realized that I’d rather endure whatever they have to dish out than lose this time with you.”

His brow furrows, and I hear his breath hitch as he struggles to express himself. “If you decide that we need to end it I’ll do it and I won’t bother you again. But that’s not what I want.” He moves and puts his body in front of mine again, not pressing against me, but mere inches away, his hands on either side of my head against the wall. “I’m kind of crazy about you, Tully. I don’t care if we only have a few weeks, I want every second of that. I want to be with you as much as I can, however I can.”

I take a deep breath and realize immediately that I’ve made a mistake, because I can smell him. His warm skin. Sandlewood and his clean cotton t-shirt. It puts a terrible ache in my chest just left of center. The scent reminds me of being in his bed, the beaches of Malibu outside the windows. His mouth and hands roaming all over my body. Watching him make me breakfast in the mornings, his head between my thighs as the soft, warm water from his shower pulsed around me.

In the months since I started playing for Lush I’ve come to care about them a great deal. They’re hardworking, and tolerant, and considerate. They’ve welcomed me, they’ve respected me. And I crave that. Their approval, their attention. I know that I’m needy that way, but never once have they acted like it was a burden. And I’m smart enough to realize that my desire for their approval stems from the problems I’ve had with my own family all these years. But those same family troubles also taught me something—I can’t be someone I’m not.

I tried when I was growing up. I wished to be different, I prayed to be different, I worked to be different. But I play music, I love hard, and I don’t always have a great deal of patience. No matter what I tried when I was younger, I’m still Tully. That’s why I know that I can’t pretend with my new band either. And if they reject me like my family has, then that’s the cross I’ll have to bear.

I take his face in my hands, looking into his sad, worried eyes. “I want to be with you too. We have so little time, I don’t want to miss out on any of it. That’s why I have to tell them.”

The furrow in between his brows grows deeper. “Oh, short stack.” He sighs. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Yeah,” I tell him as I kiss him softly on the lips. “I do.”

“Are you sure?” He rubs his thumb across my bottom lip, his eyes drifting between my mouth and my eyes.

“No, but that doesn’t matter, it’s what I have to do.”

“Okay then. We’ll do it together.”

Before I know what’s happening he’s taken my hand and is leading me out of the broom closet. He takes me right to the Lush dressing room and knocks sharply on the door before leading us in. I’m too stunned to be of much use, but when we walk in and I see the looks on Joss and Mike’s faces as they look from Blaze to me and then down to our linked hands, I’m jolted into action.

“Hi, um, can I…can
we
, talk to you guys for a minute?”

Joss clears his throat uncomfortably, and I hear Mike mutter, “Fuck, I’m not going to like this.”

Colin is looking at me from under his brows and I think I see disapprobation in his eyes. The accusation that I lied to him last night. I try to focus on the rest of the guys. I’m going to need to apologize to Colin, but I’ve got to get through this first.

“I haven’t been completely honest with you the last couple of weeks—”

“Obviously,” Mike grits out as he gives Blaze the evil eye. I squeeze Blaze’s hand to remind him that getting into it with Mike wouldn’t serve our purpose here. To his credit, he keeps it in check.

“I’ve been…” I pause, realizing that I don’t have a word for what Blaze and I have been doing. It’s more than fucking, but he’s hardly my boyfriend.

“Dating me,” Blaze interjects, seeming to be much clearer on the whole thing than I am. “Tully and I have been dating since San Diego and she doesn’t want to keep it from you anymore. But before you say anything you need to know that it was all my idea. She told me to get lost and I pursued her.” He gazes down at me, concern and warmth all over his beautiful features. “I’m really fucking lucky that she eventually agreed to have anything to do with me—” Joss’s eyebrow raises so high I’m afraid it might lift off of his face. “—but she didn’t want to keep it from you guys anymore, and I agree.”

Joss looks at me, leaving Blaze’s words hanging in the air between us all. “Tully?” he asks quietly. “What’s going on?”

I swallow, tears suddenly rising in my throat. The guilt is overwhelming. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I kept it from you. I thought it was just going to be this one-time thing, but um—” I look up into Blaze’s blue eyes and he grounds me, the feel of his thumb stroking my knuckles, his warm, strong body aligned with mine from shoulder to hip, the look of—something—in his eyes as he gazes at me. It all keeps me from flying apart into tiny pieces. “We know that it’s impossible to keep seeing each other after the tour, but we want to be able to spend the rest of the tour together. I need you guys to know. I don’t need you to approve, but I’d like it so much if you could all bury the hatchet.” I look each of the five guys in the room in the eyes. “For me.”

T
he band
and I have blocked out the day of travel to hang out together. No one else is allowed on the bus with us, and we’ve been messing around with some new material. As we approach a stop for lunch, though, things have deteriorated into one of our free-for-alls. A voice inside my head complains that these moments are a waste when we should be practicing, but another part of me remembers how crucial it was for my football teams to have these times—just spontaneous bonding. It makes for a better team, and as much as it goes against my natural inclinations I know that we need these moments too.

As we pull into the parking lot of some restaurant in the downtown of whatever inland city we’re passing through, Dez is rapping. “They call me the Blaze, cause the way I playz, I’ll get the raise, and go on for days. I call you loser, cause you a hoozier, you’ll get the short end and go on to nothin’.”

I’m picking out whatever notes I can on my guitar to back him up while Carson taps out the beat on his knees and Garrett sings the worst doo wop background vocals I’ve ever had the misfortune of hearing. Topher has taken to videoing the whole thing to post on our social media accounts.

None of us notices when the bus stops and the doors open.

“When I metcha’ mama, down in Alabama, I knew fo’ sho’, she was a—”

“Don’t you dare go there,” Tully admonishes from the doorway of the bus.

Dez’s mouth snaps shut and the rest of us stop our nonsense and turn around.

“Really?” She stands, hand on hip, one eyebrow raised looking at us like we’re a bunch of naughty schoolboys, and we act accordingly. It’s been like this ever since we brokered a truce with her band. Yes, we actually have permission from her four bandmates to date. I’m not sure which town on the tour I left my balls in, but obviously I need to find them again. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to quit fucking Tully long enough to take care of that.

“Hey babe!” I say as I jump up with a ridiculously big smile on my face.

“He started it,” Dez shouts, pointing to Topher.

“No way, man, I’m just the film crew.”

Garrett throws his hands in the air. “Don’t look at me. I’m still drunk from last night.”

Carson scratches his head. “Uh, should I put some pants on or something?”

I glare at him. “Yeah, man, now’s a good time for pants.” He shuffles off to the back of the bus, his boxers drooping off his bony hips, his bed head hair sticking up every which way.

I step to Tully and give her a warm kiss on the cheek then my best “don’t shoot me” grin. “What brings you by, gorgeous?”

Her eyes narrow for a moment as she looks around at the rest of the guys who are now copying my patented grin.

She rolls her eyes and looks back at me. “They’re bringing in lunch from a couple of the downtown restaurants. I wondered if you wanted to eat at the little park with me? Get off the buses for a bit.”

I know the guys are going to give me shit for this the rest of the way to San Francisco, but fuck yes I want to have lunch with Tully. And let’s face it, they’ll only be giving me shit because they wish it was them.

“Sure thing, babe.” I hear Garrett snort, and Topher snickers. I glare at the two of them as I grab my wallet off the seat I was in and escort Tully outside.

“They’re going to tease you about this the rest of the day, aren’t they?” she asks as we make our way to the long picnic tables the crew has set up piled with box lunches from the adjacent restaurants.

I grab two boxes from the stack and she asks if I want soda or water. “Just water,” I answer, “and how did you know they’ll hassle me?”

“Three older brothers. Remember?”

We walk across the street to the small pocket park and sit down at the concrete picnic table. I give her one of the lunches and she hands me a bottled water then she pops the top on her orange soda. The girl loves orange soda. And I have to admit that tasting it on her when I kiss her isn’t half bad.

Our lunches appear to be some sort of Asian fusion thing—vegetables, rice, spring rolls, but most importantly beef, so I’m good with it. I see Tully look at the chopsticks with disdain and toss them to the side before she grabs the plastic fork and digs in.

“So tell me about your brothers,” I say between bites. “I know things aren’t good—was it something in particular or you’ve never gotten along?”

She stares past me, seeming to see something in the distance that’s apparent only to her.

“It started when I was in elementary school. Until then I was such a baby they hardly noticed me. But sometime around third grade I was taking piano lessons, and I started to get pretty decent at it. I was being asked to play in recitals with older kids, some local competitions, stuff like that.”

I can’t help but smile, thinking about a tiny Tully pounding away on a big piano.

“It was like the more I played the more they hassled me. They started teasing me, then it became this thing where they would do anything they could to interrupt my practices, avoid my recitals. They’d call me weird and talk about how only losers liked music. From there it sort of spiraled into everything I did—everything I was. I’ve never been good enough, never been the
right
kind of person. Never done the
right
things. Never had the
right
friends.”

“So they were jealous.”

“No! Definitely not.” She snort laughs and I raise an eyebrow at her.

“Really?” I ask, skepticism dripping from my lips.

She cocks her head at me as if this possibility has never occurred to her.

“Short stack. You don’t see it?”

“See what?” She pops a rice ball in her mouth and my dick twitches at the sight of her plump lips closing around it.

I clear my throat, trying to keep my mind focused. Not always an easy task around her. “Your brothers started having problems with you as soon as you got good at something?”

“Yeah, because they have no respect for music or musicians.”

I shake my head. I know about that. But that’s not what this sounds like to me. “And what
do
they respect?” I ask, not that I give a shit. If the other two are like James, anything they respect is certain to be something I’d avoid at all costs.

“The family,” she says, her voice sharp. “Being a good Irish Catholic girl. Getting married, having kids, falling in line.”

“But James isn’t married, right? Wasn’t he at the concert in San Diego because he was trying to get his girlfriend back?”

“My sister’s the only one who’s married.”

I close up the box with the trash from my lunch. “And they go to church every Sunday?”

She laughs. “On Christmas, Easter and Good Friday, and only then because my mom forces them to.”

I nod. Just as I thought. “They have any kids?”

She looks at me like I’m three kinds of dense. “I repeat, they’re not married.”

“Well, it’s happened without that before,” I chide.

“Not in the O’Roark family.”

Tully doesn’t even realize that she’s just proven my point. Her problems with her brothers aren’t because she violates their values. It’s because she’s gorgeous and talented and twice the person they’ll ever be and they can’t stand it.

“Doesn’t sound like all those things are actually so important to your brothers,” I observe.

She stares at me for a moment, then starts shaking her head. “How have I never seen that?”

“You’re in the middle of it. They’ve been feeding you the Kool-Aid so long you don’t see what’s in front of you anymore.”

“So you really think they’re jealous?” she asks, looking downright awestruck.

“I do.”

“Huh.” She pauses, watching me carefully. “They’re also alcoholics. Or at least James is. My father probably is, although he’s not as bad as James. Keith and Lou just drink too much.”

I nod and look at her carefully. “Does it scare you?” I ask. Her brow wrinkles in question and I want to smooth it out with my tongue, but I settle for my thumb.

“Does my addiction scare you?” I ask more pointedly. “I’d get it if it did. You’ve been dealing with substance abuse in your own family for years. My old man’s a heavy drinker at the very least. I come from that place too, and I sure as hell never thought I’d end up just like him.”

Her eyes grow soft and she reaches out to touch my hand with hers. “I’ve never met your father, but I can tell you anyway that you’re nothing like him. You would never throw your teenage son out of the house because he didn’t want the same things for his life that you did. You would never abuse someone who was weaker than you, or try to control them so completely. You’re a good guy, Blaze. You might have gotten his DNA, but you’re not him.”

I swallow the guilt that sticks in my throat. God, I don’t deserve her. But at this point I’d do nearly anything to keep her. It’ll take me awhile to process all that she’s said, but I know enough to realize that every bit of it was a gift I haven’t earned. I lean across the table and kiss her gently on the mouth. “You’re so beautiful, short stack.”

She smiles and blushes. It slays me.

“Just never forget, families are strange beasts.”

She huffs a little. “You’re not kidding. You should see the crazy shit in Lush’s family.”

I immediately go on alert, every nerve in my body getting a little jolt of electricity. My mind flashes to images of standing onstsage at the Super Bowl.

“Yeah?” I ask as casually as possible, reaching over and grabbing a piece of edamame from her plate.

She slaps my hand but laughs. “Yeah, there’s some sort of weird secret about Mike’s mom, and there was a whole year in there where they were split up that no one ever talks about.”

My heart beats harder inside my chest. I can feel it, something that matters here. “Why?”

She has a little shiver. “I don’t know, but I get a really weird vibe about it all. It’s like ‘the year that shall not be named’.” She chuckles.

“So you think they’re not as squeaky clean as they seem?” I ask, as we both stand and I throw her trash away, taking her hand to help her climb over a low chain that separates the picnic area from the sidewalk.

“I don’t know. As much as most rumors are based on something true, I can’t in a million years imagine that there would be anything really terrible there. We all know about Walsh’s drinking already, and they’re genuinely nice guys. Well, except for Mike, but you know.” She shrugs.

I nod. “Appearances can be deceiving.” Guilt twists inside of me and I have to look away from her for a moment.

“Maybe.” She sounds sad, and as much as I want to dig more to get the information, I don’t like hearing that disappointment in her so I switch tack.

“Hey, I saw an ice cream parlor a block or two down when we were driving in. Want me to buy you a sundae?”

Her frown disappears and she grabs my face and plants a quick smack on my lips. They tingle afterwards like I’ve been shocked.

“That sounds so perfect,” she answers. “Sometimes I think you’re too good to be true.”

Yes, appearances can truly be deceiving.