Stay Until We Break (7 page)

When the shaking stops, he cradles me in his arms, and if he didn’t, I’m pretty sure I’d just melt and drip off the seat from how my body feels. I rest there, nestle my head against his chest, try to breathe as I listen to his heart pound and then gradually slow to a steady, hypnotic rhythm.

I’m not expecting to feel tears in my eyes at this point, and I feel so good right now I don’t know how to explain them. Maybe they’re happy tears, but regardless, I don’t want him to see because I don’t want him to think I’m some kind of freak who cries when she comes. But I’ve never come quite like that, and never with someone I’ve wanted so much, because there is no one I’ve ever wanted this much. A breeze picks up and I start to tremble. His arms tighten around me.

“You okay?” he asks softly into my hair. I can feel his lips on the top of my head as he kisses me there.

“Oh God yeah, I’m great. But I don’t think I’m high anymore.” I sniff and hope he thinks it’s allergies.

“Me, either,” he says.

He sweeps a lock of hair out of my face, and no one in my life has ever looked at me the way he’s looking at me now. He moves his thumb across my cheek and I realize he’s brushing my tears away and that’s the look on his face. I smile because I desperately want him to know I’m okay. This is all so much better than okay.

“How about you?” I say.

“What about me?”

“Can I, you know?” I glance down in the general direction of his crotch, and damn, I really wish I still had some of that nice buzz on so I wouldn’t feel so fucking awkward.

He looks down, and when he realizes what I’m trying to say, he kisses me sweetly on the lips. “Sunshine, if you were to touch me right now, I’d ruin that dress of yours in about ten seconds flat.”

“That’s okay,” I say. “I have other dresses.”

He exhales, pulls me closer, and sort of laughs, but I can’t quite figure this out. Since when do you hook up with a guy and he doesn’t want you to get him off?

“Cole?”

He runs his finger along my tattoo. It’s on the inside of my left forearm, a small birdcage with an open door, with a tiny bird flying away from it.

“Tell me about this one,” he says.

“Oh,” I say, resting my head against his shoulder. “It’s kind of a long story.”

“I’ve got nowhere to be,” he says with a smile that breaks me.

Maybe it’s the fact that I’m coming down off my buzz, and down from that exquisite orgasm, or that his arms are wrapped around me, but I start talking. And I say a lot more than I ever have to anyone about it. Not everything, but a lot. I tell him how my mother planned for me to be a professional cellist, and how I started on the violin at four years old and then spent all my time outside of school going to lessons, camps, orchestra, and every afternoon after school practicing, all the way through high school.

“You play the cello?” he asks. “Really?”

“Not anymore,” I say.

“Why not?”

I was getting to that. See, I was good on the cello. Really good. I’ll be the first to admit that my music obsession started because of how much I love playing an instrument. As long as I was in lessons, or at orchestra rehearsals, or just practicing in my room, I was happy. But, put me in front of an audience? Hork central. My mother, who never missed an opportunity to tell me how she gave up her lifelong dream of being a concert violinist so she could marry my father and stay home with me, insisted that I play anyway. I can’t count how many therapists and doctors I got dragged to, just so I could get over my fear and get on a stage. I learned how to deep breathe and that Benadryl can stop a panic attack, but I still never got over my stage fright. Still, I was trying to be a good daughter. To make them happy. So, as expected, I applied to Juilliard—and I got in, too.

“But you didn’t go? Seriously?”

“Yup. My parents almost disowned me. Think my mom is still on the fence.”

“Holy shit,” he says. “I never knew that.”

“Yeah,” I say. “You know, what was she going to say at the club when all her friends’ kids were off to Vassar and Brown? That after they wasted all that money sending me to Princeton Day School, I ended up at Rutgers? A state school? The shame!”

Now I feel like an asshole, because Cole didn’t even go to college. Even if he’d wanted to go, his family couldn’t afford it. There’s not a thing Cole has that he didn’t work for himself.

But just when I’m sure he’s judging me and deciding I’m a spoiled, rich brat, he hugs me tighter.

“It’s not easy to go against your folks on something big like that,” Cole says. “You’ve got guts, Sunshine.”

I exhale.

“After I got to Rutgers, Emmylou and I took a trip to New Hope and I got this tattoo to remind myself to live my own life, not just live up to someone else’s expectations. I’m never going back inside that cage.”

Cole is quiet and his eyes are glassy as he looks at me.

“That probably sounds really dumb,” I say.

“No way, not at all,” he says. “If you have the freedom to follow your dreams, that’s exactly what you should do.”

“Everybody has that freedom,” I say. “Sometimes you just don’t see it. I didn’t—not until it was almost too late. I’m sure you’ve got pressure on you to stop this band nonsense and get a ‘real’ job, but here you are, taking a chance and making your dreams happen.”

He looks so serious as he listens to me. I feel bad now, like I killed the moment or something.

“Right?” I say.

But instead of answering, he kisses me, and now I’m not thinking about anything like that. Just him. Just him and this perfect, moonlit night. He pulls away and gives me a huge smile.

“Hey, guess what?” he says.

“What?”

“I just remembered I’ve got a king-sized Snickers and a pack of peanut M&M’s hidden in the cooler.”

He reaches under the bench, pulls the cooler out, and digs down to pull out a perfectly unmelted Snickers bar. He hands it right to me, and if I wasn’t worried about falling completely in love him before, well . . . I am now.

Cole

In the morning, I’m the first one up. That’s because nobody in this room was asleep before five a.m., or in my case, closer to seven. I’ve slept less than three hours, not nearly enough to get me through the day, but I wake up anyway because Sonia is in my arms, her back to me, her head tucked up under my chin. She smells like fresh air even first thing in the morning, and Goddamn if that isn’t something I could get used to.

She sighs in her sleep and it’s so nice, but also torture as I try to contain the urge to roll her onto her back and wake her up slow and sweet with my mouth. If things were different, I’d start kissing her forehead and just work my way down until those soft, blue eyes glanced open, and then if she was up for it, I’d just keep going, going down until I was having her for breakfast.

If this was a room with only the two of us in it, that’s exactly what I’d do. But unfortunately, Emmy and Trap are just across the room, passed out on top of their sleeping bags, arms and legs all tangled together. Shen and Jeremy are nowhere to be found, and I still don’t know where Joey is.

All I want is to hold her while she sleeps, but I worry about things getting even more intense with her. I know what’s up, I know she’s into me and I’m definitely into her, but I also know all the things she still doesn’t know about me—and that’s most of the important shit. So what do I do, pretend there’s a future here for us? Sure, I’d like that, but it’s not realistic. The best I’m hoping for now is a fantastic time with her while it lasts. But I’ve got to prepare myself for the inevitable, because when she knows the whole story of where I come from and where I’m headed, she’ll feel different. They always do.

She settles back into me, her breath steady and deep, and then I remember she has no panties on—they’re still in my pocket. Best souvenir I’ll get this entire trip, or on any trip ever. There’s literally nothing between her bare ass and my hands except her skirt and my manners, and fuck, I have no idea how my hard-on doesn’t wake her up. If she rolls over and puts her hand on my dick one more time, just one more, I’m going to fall apart right in her hand, swear to God.

I pull her skirt down to her knees to make sure she’s well covered before taking myself and my boner for a walk. I have to or I really won’t be able to keep my hands off her ass. I’m still groggy as hell when I walk into what I assume is the bathroom, but when I open the door I find plastic Jenny half deflated on a chair and Joey, plastic Debbie, and Little Lauren Hutton—who is bare-ass naked and drooling on Joey’s chest—on top of the bed. Damn, son. Damn.

I close the door behind me and open the next door carefully, like I might find a den of poisonous snakes behind it, but luckily it’s the bathroom this time. I hardly get the door closed before my dick is in my hand and Sonia’s panties are in the other. I finger them like a sex-starved pervert, think about her with her mouth open before I shotgunned her that hit last night. I think about how she’d look with those sexy Dr Pepper lips wrapped around my cock. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I pump harder and think about the sound of her voice, all shy and breathless when she said, “I do want you to fuck me.” I replay that over and over in my head. I think about how she called my name when I made her come last night. And as I come into a handful of tissues and get the first bit of relief since she climbed into the van last Wednesday, I think of the tears in her eyes and the way she trembled when I held her in my arms after.

And I then I go right back out to where she’s still sleeping, put my arms around her, and hold her close until I fall back to sleep.

I am so fucked. So deeply and so thoroughly fucked.

***

“Look, I’m sure she just had somewhere to be. It’s Monday morning, you know?” I hear Emmylou talking as I open my eyes. The smell of bacon and freshly brewed coffee is so strong and so delicious I have no idea where I am at first. Smells like I woke up at the diner.

“She didn’t say she had anywhere to go this morning,” Joey says, sounding dejected as hell. Now I’m awake.

“Who?” I say. “What happened?”

“Good morning, Romeo,” Emmylou says. “Joey has a missing persons situation on his hands.”

“Where’s Sunny?” I look around and she’s not here. Emmy’s and Trap’s sleeping bags are rolled up and in a pile with Joey’s and Sonia’s next to the door.

“No, not her,” Emmy answers. “Juliet is in the shower.”

“What time is it?”

“Eleven,” Emmy says. “And we need to get moving if we’re going to be in Lexington in time for soundcheck. We’ve got a six-hour drive ahead of us.”

Joey drops down onto the couch with a big, heavy sigh and looks like someone just told him he can’t get a puppy for his birthday. “I guess she wasn’t feeling it,” he says.

“Wait, are you talking about Little Lauren Hutton?” I say.

“Her name is Meg,” he says. “She’s from Virginia Beach. She’s going into her last year at UVA in the premed program. She wants to be a horse doctor.”

“Wow,” I say. “Sounds like you really got to know her.”

“I did,” he says. “Except I didn’t get to know her number, which is the important part. When I woke up she was gone. No note or anything. Just gone.”

“Aw, beefcake. She lives seven hours from you. Did you think you were going marry her?” Emmy says.

“Well obviously not,” Joey says. “But it’d be nice to stay in touch. Especially since we, you know . . .”

“So, it’s your first road casualty,” I say. “Hey, look, it happens.”

“Maybe to you, but I’m not the fuck-’em-and-forget-’em type,” he snaps.

“Nice,” I say. “Thanks so much for that.” I know he’s upset but I really don’t appreciate the slight, especially since he says it just as Sonia walks into the room, drying her hair with a towel. She looks gorgeous, of course, all fresh and clean in her yellow sundress and bare feet. I think I’ve got her entire wardrobe for this trip memorized now, and they’re all dresses and Doc Martens plus a scandalous pair of sleeping shorts and a tank top, and she’s minus one pair of panties right now. I also can’t take my eyes off her tattoo as she towels her hair, now that I know the story behind it. I can’t help smiling in spite of how aggravated I feel. But when Sonia hears Joey’s wiseass remark about me, she looks up and throws the Sunshine face his way.

“Well, I didn’t fuck him,” she says. “So maybe he’ll remember me.”

Whoa. What the fresh hell is that? Emmy’s mouth drops open and the fact that nothing comes out of it means you know that was a totally fucked up thing for Sonia to say. I’m staring right at her, feeling like she just sucker punched me, but she avoids looking at me as she puts her yellow bag back into her backpack. So many things I could say at this moment, not the least of which is to remind her that the only reason she
didn’t
fuck me last night is because I wouldn’t let her.

“Maybe I’ll remember you? Are you serious?” I get up, grab fresh clothes and my toothbrush from my backpack. She sort of shrugs but she doesn’t say anything else. “You know what—don’t even answer that.”

“Hey,” Joey says. “I’m the one who got summarily dumped after what I thought was one hell of a time last night.”

“You used protection, right?” Sunny says.

“He’d better have,” Emmylou says. “We don’t want you leaving a trail of pregnant girls behind you like breadcrumbs to find your way back home, Joseph.”

“You’re hilarious,” he says. “And of course I used protection. Think I want chlamydia?”

“Can we not talk about who’s got chlamydia before a guy has his first cup of coffee?” Travis says as he walks back into the room, holding a steaming mug. “Or ever?”

***

We pull ourselves together, bid a fond farewell to Chimp Cringle and the Crypt Whores, and pile into Steady Beth. For the six-hour drive to Lexington, Sonia spends the better part of it going over her list of radio stations while I ignore the shit out of her. Or pretend to, because it’s not like I can help hearing her talk. She thinks if she spends time calling all these radio stations, it will actually make a difference in whether we chart in
CMJ
. But the reality is, it’s August, we just barely got our singles out at the beginning of the month, and we don’t have the coin for proper promo. Girl is dreaming.

I used to dream like that, too.

But as Katelyn McCormack always said to me, “Dreams are a luxury only the blessed and the damned can afford. You’ve never been the former and you don’t want to be the latter, so you better get yourself a job. Dream for your children, Cole. That’s the best either of us can do now.”

***

Monday, August 14, 1995

Wrocklage, Lexington, KY

With Crown the Robin and Thrash Lane

Soft Tour—Day 5

The Wrocklage is a nice-sized room right in the heart of downtown Lexington, Kentucky. It’s a long room with a high ceiling, and at seven p.m. on a Monday night it feels like the inside of an abandoned cave. I set Emmy’s Twin down on top of her cabinet on the stage. Joey is whistling as he sets up his kit, a lot more chipper than he was this morning. I look over and see Sonia carrying my bass into the bar.

“You don’t have to do that,” I say when she sets it down in front of me.

“Gear needs to be loaded, doesn’t it?” she says. “My arms aren’t broken.”

It’s the most we’ve said to each other since this morning. I’m still pissed and, honestly, confused, and I’m not some guy who doesn’t know which way’s up. Normally I’d just walk from this whole thing, but fuck me, I want to know what’s up with her. I want to understand
why
she’s being a bitch. That’s what pisses me off. It’s also what reels me in like an underfed trout from a stocked pond. No wonder they say that about curiosity and dead cats.

And she looks so good right now, her dark hair all loose around her shoulders. That cat’s-eye eyeliner makes her look a little sinister and even more fuckable than usual. How do girls even do that in a moving vehicle? I can’t stop looking at her neck, especially that curve right there where it meets her shoulder. I look up and she’s staring at me.

“What’s your problem?” she asks.

“I don’t have a problem,” I say, caught off guard. “No problem here.”

“You haven’t said a word to me all day and now you’re staring at me,” she says. “Like you’ve got a problem.”

I exhale audibly and walk back out to the van to get more gear. Off in the distance I hear a rattling exhaust and some kind of engine knock headed our way, and there’s only one shitcan that combo of noises belongs to—the Ram van that the one and only Crown the Robin tour in. Crown are our friends from Jersey City. They helped us set up half of this tour at the last minute by adding us to a bunch of their bills, and to basically cut to the chase, they’re fucking nuts. But it’s usually the good kind of nuts. Elliot is the front guy—Crown’s Emmylou. Only crazier. Then there’s Anton, their lead guitarist, Vincent, the drummer, and Miles, their bassist. Every time they come to play New Brunswick they stay at our place, even though they can easily make it home in forty-five minutes. Last time, Joey and I stupidly fell asleep while they were still awake and woke up to all the furniture in the house rearranged like we’d had an overnight infestation of drunken Boy Scouts. But I’m looking forward to seeing those crazy bastards and hearing how their tour has been going. It’ll be a swell distraction from this perpetual headfuck I’m trying to manage with Sonia.

“Oh, so now you’re just walking away?” she says, trailing behind me.

I spin around, and I guess she wasn’t expecting that so she backs up against the wall, surprised.

“Are you trying to pick a fight with me, Sunny?”

“Maybe?”

“Why?”

“Well . . .” she says. “At least now you’re talking to me. Like a grown-up.”

Holy shit, if this girl keeps goading me I’m likely to fuck her in the gear alcove before the night’s over. I bite my tongue, though.

“After last night, you could at least look me in the eye today,” she says.

“I can look you in the eye,” I say, and I give her a slow once-over from head to toe until her face turns pink. “I can look at a lot more of you than that.”

She turns from pink to red and opens her mouth to reply but then shuts it again. Now I can’t help thinking about getting with her in the van last night and smiling like a dick.

“What?” she demands. “What are you grinning at?”

“Nothing. Not a thing.”

I step off the curb, towards Steady Beth, where Emmylou is sitting on the tailgate, her legs dangling, and Trap is waiting for me to help him unload his cabinet. But then I turn back around and start to say, “Ya know, if you wanted to talk to me, all you had to say was . . .” but then I hear Travis and Emmy scream at the same time as Sonia, “Cole!”

I look up in time to see the Ram van careening towards me and I leap back onto the sidewalk, taking Sonia with me and knocking her back against the brick wall of the club, practically smothering her as I push her out of the way. The van screeches to a stop in the parking space right where I’ve just jumped out of its path. My ears start to ring but I can still hear thumping bass coming from the van when Elliot cuts the engine.

I look down at the top of Sonia’s head, her face pressed into my chest, and she’s perfectly stiff. Poor girl probably can’t even breathe. I take a step back and her face is all white and a little sick looking.

“Are you all right?” I ask.

“Holy shit,” she says, her voice trembling. Her arms go tight around me and she’s shaking like a leaf.

“Sunny, are you okay?” I put my arms around her and rub her back to try to calm her down.

“Just freaked out,” she says. “Are you all right? You’re the one who almost got turned into roadkill.”

Other than mild concern that my heart is going to explode from the adrenaline, I guess I am. Or maybe my heart is going to explode just from the way she looks at me, like she was so scared something was going to happen to me and she’s so damn glad it didn’t. She exhales, rests her head on my shoulder, and I hold her in my arms for just a minute, just long enough that it feels normal and undoes all my best intentions to stay the hell away from her until I can sort my shit out.