The Stillness Of You (19 page)

Travis Barlett,
the guitarist in Spleen.

Travis Barlett,
the guy I’d been fucking on and off ever since I’d given him my
virginity when I was fifteen.

Shit.

He and I
had been a lethal combination back in the day and I didn’t want him
anywhere near Ben. He was bad news and no doubt was still living in
the place I never wanted to visit again.

“
Hey,” I
said frostily, not wanting to give him any ideas. “I’m surprised
they let you in here. I thought you were banned after they caught
you pissing in the fountain.”

He shrugged, a
huge grin on his face. “My dad owns half of this dump so they can’t
really keep me out.”

Right. Of
course.

He leaned
closer and I had to tilt my head in an effort to avoid connecting
with his mouth.
“You’re
looking good for someone who pulled a fucking boner and nearly did
herself in. What the hell was up with that?”

He
grabbed my wrist and though I tried to yank away from him I
couldn’t. He was too big and too strong and his thumb rolled my
skin as his grin widened.

“
Damn,
Georgia, I’m glad you didn’t check out. That would have been a
fucking shame you know?”

I scowled
until he let me go. “What do you care, Travis?”

“I care because
you’re probably the best piece of ass I’ve ever had and it would be
a shame if I couldn’t dip my finger into your honey pot now and
again.”

“
Really?
And that’s why I caught you screwing Rachel Nagel behind the stage
after your show the last time we were together?”

Just
thinking of that night pissed me off. I’d left the club, ended up
wasted, high, and in bed with two guys I’d never met
before.

He tried to
swoop in for a kiss but I sidestepped and glared at him.

“Don’t get your
panties in a knot. It’s not like we were ever exclusive and
besides, you fucked around on me all the time.”

I hated that he
was right.

I sighed and
shrugged. “Whatever, Travis. I gotta run.”

He nodded
toward the dining room. “Is that Ben Lancaster you’re
with?”

My stomach
flipped and the food I’d ingested earlier settled like a lump of
stone.

“
What’s
it to you?” I asked, more harshly than I’d intended. But there was
fear inside me. Fear that my old world was about to collide with my
new one and there was no way in hell I wanted Travis and Ben to
meet.

He
grinned because he knew what was going on in my head, and I
envisioned my fist meeting his nose.

“Maybe I want
his autograph?”

“Maybe you’re
full of shit,” I muttered and turned away from him.

I took a
step but paused when I heard him chuckle. “And maybe you’re full of
stupid. I know all about Lancaster and he’s way out of your league,
King. Besides, deep down you’re a nasty girl, so when you get tired
of that vanilla shit you know where to find me.”

I marched
across the dining room and waited by the table, tapping my foot
while Ben looked after the bill. Cherry and Jason had already left
and it was just the two of us. I refused to look over my shoulder
but I can’t lie, I was terrified that Travis was going to stroll
over like he owned the place—which he did—and get in my
face.

I was
terrified that Ben would glimpse a little of what the old me had
been like because I was pretty damn sure the old me would have sent
him running the day we’d met. And even though I knew how this
little story was going to end, I wasn’t ready to give him up. Not
yet anyway.

“
Ready?”
Ben’s hands ran along the back of my neck and I nodded.

“
Let’s
get out of here.” I tugged on his hand.

“In a hurry?”
he teased.

“What?” I was
leading him through the dining room like we were marching to class
and I groaned inwardly at the weird look he tossed my way. But he
didn’t say anything else and we made it back to his truck without
any Travis sightings.

It wasn’t until
we cleared the parking lot that I relaxed and I leaned back in my
seat. I stared ahead, afraid to look in his direction—afraid he’d
sense my fear.

I pulled
gloss out of my purse and rolled it through my fingers, chewing on
my bottom lip as I pondered how Travis had managed to spread his
toxicity onto me in a short little conversation. And then I
wondered how I’d ever endured him before.

What the hell
had I been thinking?

“
So,” Ben
said slowly, his eyes on the road as we pulled out of the parking
lot. “Who was that guy back there?”

Shit. Fuck. And
piss.

“Just a guy,” I
answered carefully.

Ben
fiddled with the cd player until the Foo’s were thumping and then
said casually. “He looked like more than just a guy to
me.”

Ben’s tone was
light but I got that he was interested. I got that maybe he was a
little concerned or even jealous. I’m sure Travis and I looked
intense while we were ‘chatting’ and Travis might be an asshole of
the highest order, but the guy had charisma, looks, and fake charm
coming out of his butt like shards of sunshine.

I
couldn’t lie to Ben—that had never been my thing—but I could leave
out a few details. Like the fuck buddy aspect of our relationship
or the fact that Travis and I used to do lines together like we
were running a race, and that vodka & Redbull was our drink of
choice.

“I’ve known
Travis for a long time and we dated for a while, but it was never
serious.”

I chanced a
peek at Ben, but he was looking ahead.

“Okay,” he said
softly. “For a moment I thought that maybe Matt was trying to be
the good guy you know?”

Okay
.

“
What do
you mean?” I asked moving closer to him, wanting to touch him and I
swear if he wasn’t driving right now I would have crawled onto his
lap and kissed him until his head spun.
Until my head spun. Until we were naked and his
hot skin warmed up my cold flesh.

He shrugged. “I
thought that maybe the guy was this mysterious Seamus you don’t
seem to want to talk about.”

He turned to me
for a second, his eyes glittery—electric—and then he looked out at
the road again. I felt him touch me somewhere deep inside.

“
No,” I
murmured, unbuckling my seatbelt so I could inch closer. The band
across my chest tightened. “He’s so not, Seamus. Travis is a mess.
He’s just someone I used to know.”

I paused,
a rush of adrenaline running through me and before I could stop
myself, words fell from my lips. Words I didn’t mean to say. Words
that could change everything.

“Seamus is my
therapist.”

I held my
breath, everything inside me tight and wound up like a spring about
to burst. I swear those pieces inside me—the ones held together by
duct tape and lithium—were beginning to move, to jar against each
other like the plates beneath the continents. Shifting. Displacing.
Breaking.

It was a
weird sensation and I hated it. I hated the stress and fear in my
throat. I hated the pills at home in my drawer.

I hated
my illness. I hated that it was unpredictable.

And I really
hated that my mom had been sick just like I was and she’d ended up
at the bottom of a lake, taking my father and his restored Aston
Martin along for the ride.

But most
of all, right here in this moment, I hated that the differences
between us weren’t visible. That the thing that was wrong with me
was like a sick joke because on the outside I looked all fresh and
shiny, like a new penny. But on the inside, without those pills
that I disliked more than I could articulate, I was as much of a
mess as Travis was, if not more so.

And now
we were here. Arrived at some kind of half-truth, some small
glimpse into the real me and I’d probably blown it.

Seamus is my therapist
.

If that wasn’t
a line that would send a guy running for the hills I don’t know
what was.

“Therapist,” he
said softly, his right arm snaking around my shoulders and pulling
me into his side. “I hope he’s a hell of a lot uglier than that guy
back there.”

The
breath in my lungs expelled and I was limp. I was done.

“
He’s
bald,” I offered quietly melting into his side. “And he’s got
really bad teeth.”

Ben
rubbed my wrist, his warm fingers warm and gentle. “Good,” he
murmured kissing the top of my head. “I can live with an old,
balding, bad toothed, Seamus.”

And with those
words, Ben Lancaster fused the parts in me that were broken. I knew
that it was a temporary fix. That those pieces would continue to
shift and move and diminish, but for now it was enough.

For now I could
pretend that things were going to be just fine.

Ben

I hung up the
phone and strode outside onto the deck. It was close to five in the
afternoon and the guys were finishing up the last bit of
landscaping around the pool.

They’d
worked like dogs for two weeks around the property, but had to wait
for the old concrete monster to be removed and the new fibre glass
pool installed, before they could finish up back here. The place
was starting to look great and fuck if I could believe it was
mine.

Holy
shit. I felt kinda grown up.

“Mr. Lancaster,
what do you think?”

“
It’s
Ben,” I said shaking my head. I hated being called Mr. Lancaster.
Christ, that was my dad’s name and I wasn’t ready for that kind of
shit yet. I wasn’t even twenty-five.

Mike, the
owner of the landscaping company I’d hired, Green Thumb, was a good
guy. He reminded me a lot of one of my old coaches, back when I was
still playing junior hockey in Canada. He was a rough looking,
no-bullshit, Italian with a temper and a hard work ethic. He wasn’t
cheap either, but as I glanced around the small paradise he’d
created in my back yard, the guy was worth it.

“It looks
great.”

He nodded.
“We’re just cleaning up and will be out of here in a few minutes
and then you can,” he winked. “Have some time with your girl.”

My girl
.

I nodded
but didn’t reply.

At the
moment I didn’t know what Georgia was. Something had shifted and
changed the night we’d come back from golf. On that ride home,
she’d shared a chunk of what was inside her. A small chunk. A crumb
really.

But
she
had
shared it
and we’d come back to my place and spent the entire night together.
And if I thought our first night was incredible, it was nothing
compared to that night. I thought having her, being inside her was
enough, but the connection we’d achieved heightened everything and
fuck me, but I thought I was falling in love with this
girl.

The shit thing
was that was the last night she’d spent with me. She came every
day, spent her time in her barn painting, with frequent sex breaks,
but she refused to spend the night again.

She’d
told me that it was because we were moving a little too fast and
she preferred going back to Matt’s. And I got that. Hell, I wrote
the book on that shit.

But it
didn’t mean I liked it. I hated waking up alone. I wanted her there
with me. So what did that make me? Pathetic? Hopeful?

What did
that make Georgia? Was she a fuck buddy? Was she my
girlfriend?

I rubbed the
stubble on my chin, my dick already getting hard at the thought of
her, but it was tempered by the knowledge that even though she’d
given up something personal—Seamus—she had shut it down the next
day.

I was no closer
to knowing what made her tick or why she was seeing a therapist
than before, and it was starting to piss me off.

“We’re done,
Mr…ah, Ben.”

Distracted, I
nodded. “Okay, Mike, send me the final invoice and I’ll get it
looked after.”

“
So.”
Mike shoved a pencil behind his ear. “I gotta admit I wasn’t happy
when the Flyers traded McKinskey, Reynolds, and a future draft
pick, to bring you out here.”

“
Yeah?”
That got my attention.

Mike was
serious, but then most hockey guys were.

“
McKinskey was a popular son-of-a-bitch you know?
He had future Captain written
all over him. He had some legs on him too, but his hands needed
work. I see that now. You’ve got soft hands, good stick handling
hands and speed to match. But a lot of folks including myself
thought you were just too damn young to fill McKinskey’s
shoes.”

I didn’t
say anything. Mostly because it was nothing I hadn’t heard before.
I’d always been the youngest. Always been the fastest, the most
accurate. I could nail the top shelf, hit any corner more
consistently than any guy I knew.

So, I got
what he was saying. I also got that he was wrong and he knew it. I
was gonna do more than fill McKinskey’s shoes. I was going take
them all the way to Lord Stanley this year.

Mike held out
his hand and I shook it.

“
I’m
impressed,” he said with a wink.

“Thanks, I’ll
do my best to deliver.”

He yelled out
to his guys and then I was alone.

I thought
of the phone call earlier and moved toward the trees, my thoughts
not so easy anymore.