Behind the Strings (10 page)

24

Logan and I both started hidden in opposite corners. It was every man (and me) for themselves. I had never been quite good at this game, but I sure did love it. I tiptoed out of the corner with my back to the wall just as someone came around it. I started shooting, and shooting, and shooting, but I missed my targets every time. It was like that for the rest of the round. I found Logan a few times and he of course tried to kill me, and succeeded more than once. I found myself laughing the whole time. A far cry from the sleepless, worrisome night I’d woken up from.

When the time was up and the results were in, there were more people ranked before my name than after it. It was the opposite for Logan. I looked at him and shrugged, my admission of defeat.

“Next time, kid. You’ll get ‘em next time,” he said, patting me on the head. I punched him in the stomach and even at half-strength it probably hurt me more than it hurt him. “I know exactly where to go next.”

“Where?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, only smiled and said I’d have to wait and see. We returned our gear to the front desk and walked arm-in-arm to that old pickup. He put it in drive and away we went to whatever destination it was he had in mind.

We pulled up behind a line of cars parked on the side of the road. A crowd was gathered all down the sidewalk. I had never been on this side of Nashville before and had no idea what we were doing here. I must’ve been looking at Logan like he was crazy because the first thing he said to me once he put the truck in park was, “Trust me.”

“If you say so,” I said.

I slid out of the passenger seat and as we walked closer to the commotion, I was still confused. All I could see was the front of a vintage van that looked like it had been driven through someone’s front porch. With every step we took Logan would ask if I’d figured it out yet, but it took me until I saw the oversized hot dogs right smack dab in front of me to realize where we were.

“Are you ready to put Louie’s to the test?” he asked.

I read over the menu while we waited. So many of the options sounded worth trying, but I knew that neither of us could venture away from our traditional chili cheese dog. We ordered two of those and once I had mine in hand, Logan counted down.

“Okay, ready?’” he asked. “3…2…1…take a bite!”

And take a bite I did. One bigger than my mouth could really hold, but even as I struggled, I had to admit it was pretty damn good. I think Louie’s would have some serious competition should it ever come to good old Hamden.

I finally swallowed my first bite and as I took my second Logan began to laugh.

“I have something on my face, don’t I?” I asked.

He nodded, pulled a napkin from my grasp and folded it up. Slowly he reached it to my face and wiped the oversized glob of cheese from it.

“Didn’t even mess up your makeup,” he said.

I smiled as he tossed the napkin into the garbage and took the first bite of his dog. The place may have been different and we may not have been those kids anymore, but for a split second, as I watched him take that bite, I remembered just how good it was to be Celia and Logan back then and how it seemed to be even better to be us now.

That intimate moment between the two of us was short-lived. Right as Logan was about to take another bite he looked over my shoulder and groaned. I followed his gaze, but didn’t find what he was looking at.

“Here we go,” he said.

“What?”

“We’re being watched.”

I looked again over my shoulder. I saw a couple kids playing ring-around-the-rosie while their mothers chatted under a neon pink umbrella nearby. A few businessmen dressed in suits were busy on their cell phones. It wasn’t until the kids “
all fell down”
that I could see what Logan did.

That man was like a parasite: everywhere no one wanted him to be. Right in my direct gaze, I saw Hunter Jennings. He sat at one of the picnic tables across the way. His phone was elevated to eye level and it was pretty obvious what he was doing. I rolled my eyes and looked back at Logan, motioning for us to leave.

“Not yet,” he said.

There was a look in his eyes that I couldn’t quite make out, nor did I have time to try before he started walking in Hunter’s direction.

“Logan, where are you going?”

He didn’t answer. His pace quickened and even as I followed he grew further away from me. I didn’t hear his first words to Hunter, but I saw the surprise on his face when Logan placed his hand in front of the lens. He stood quiet long enough for me to catch up.

“You know, buddy, if you’re going to invade someone’s privacy, the least you can do is get my good side. This is not my best angle.” He traced his profile of his left side with his finger as Hunter slid his phone softly on his lap. “Go ahead, I’m ready now. Come on, take it.”

“Listen, pal, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hunter said unconvincingly.

Logan raised his voice a few decibels, “Don’t you have anything better to do than follow me around today?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Hunter said, “I’m out enjoying the sunshine.” As a reporter I could’ve guessed he’d be fast on his feet with some kind of excuse, but Logan didn’t buy it.

“I’m gonna tell you right now, if any of this ends up on that damn soap opera of yours…”

“Is that a threat, Mr. Kent?” Hunter said tauntingly.

By that point more and more people were following his voice and it only took a minute for a few of them to realize who he was. I cut in before it got any worse. “Logan, let’s go,” I said, grabbing his arm, “it’s not worth it.”

He looked around at those staring back at him and reverted. He shook his head in frustration before he placed his hand around my shoulders, waved at the onlookers and began to walk away.

“If you’re looking for a story, you’re not going to find one here. Got it?”

Hunter nodded and then stood up to leave. Logan watched him until he was no longer in our sights. Then he smiled politely at the few people who were still looking in our direction because he pulled me into him and walked toward the car.

25

I felt bad that Logan’s day of celebration had ended on a sour note. Since he was staying in town for a bit to do some songwriting, later that week I thought it would be the perfect time to take Jaycie up on a trivia night. It would help all of us let loose and have some fun. I told Logan to invite some of his friends to meet up with us at our favorite trivia spot downtown. That was pretty much a guarantee that Jesse would be there, so I overly prepared myself both mentally and physically. I put on a pair of jeans that were just the right kind of tight and spruced up my normal barely-there look with a little eyeliner and pink lip gloss.

A little before eight, I stepped out of a cab with Jaycie and onto the streets of my lively city and through the doors of one of its many bars for a night of pop culture, beer, and in typical Nashville style, live music. I noticed Logan sitting at a table across the room, leaning in closely to the girl standing next to him.

“Hey, you,” I said, leaning my forearm on Logan’s shoulder. I smiled at the both of them as they halted their conversation to look at me.

“Hey,” Logan said, “Celia, this is my friend Finn.”

“Very nice to meet you, Finn,” I said, “This is my friend Jaycie.

Jaycie gave a wave to Finn and stretched her hand out to Logan. I watched the smile on her face grow once his hand touched her. It was hard not to laugh after the conversation the two of us had about his ass, but I felt I played it off well. I covered my mouth and pretended to cough until I regained my composure.

“The infamous Logan,” Jaycie said, still holding tightly to his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“All good things, I hope,” he said.

“Oh, of course. Good from every angle.”

I jerked my head at that comment and went back into fake coughing mode. Once Jaycie was able to release her grasp from Logan we settled into a couple of stools at the table. I watched Finn intently as she whispered into Logan’s ear. She’d laugh every time he would respond and pat his shoulder as a way to pull herself in closer.

“Is that ridiculous laugh necessary?” Jaycie whispered curtly, rolling her eyes, when Finn stepped away for a minute.

I shrugged. “Oh she’s harmless,” I said.

It was clear Finn had gotten under Jaycie’s skin, but I had no reason at that point to judge her laugh. No reason not to like her. Not until Jesse came strolling in with a couple of friends did I start to share Jaycie’s sentiments. Finn noticed him before the rest of us. A shriek pierced my ears as she ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. I watched her kiss his cheek and nuzzle her head against his shoulder.

When she finally let go of him, they walked towards the table. I could see the stain of red on his cheek where her lips once were. I cringed at the sight of it. My body tensed up and out of the corner of my eye I could see Jaycie eyeing me.

“Harmless, huh?” she said.

It was my turn to roll my eyes. She had now moved from Logan closer to Jesse and I didn’t one bit like her intentions for either of them.

I usually was quite tolerant of most of the girls who hung around Logan even if I didn’t like then, but I knew what heartbreak looked like for him, and it wasn’t something I wanted him to go through again if I could help it. And right now, she screamed “heartbreak.”

Back in 7
th
grade he “went steady” with a girl named Jacqueline. Ninety percent of the time I wanted to punch her in the face. Their relationship consisted of him carrying her books to every one of her classes, standing in line for her lunch, and holding her backpack all the way home. Then there was Katherine, freshman homecoming queen and aspiring model. She made sure Logan always knew how lucky he was to be dating her.

And I certainly couldn’t forget Lyla. She transferred to Hamden from Florida midway through our junior year. They didn’t last even a few months because her insecurities about my relationship with Logan drove her to the loony bin. She expected him to be with her 24/7, and the times he couldn’t she was convinced it was because he was cheating on her with me. That got old real fast.

That was the last real girlfriend that I remember. He liked a girl named Hannah our senior year, but they were never really together. She was a very quiet brunette who transferred from the private school up the road. I’m still not sure what made her join us in her final year of high school, I couldn’t imagine starting over so late. Logan sat behind her in physics and economics and I would watch him smile every time she’d answer a question from the teacher. It took a couple months of me nagging him before he finally asked her to hang out. She came to a bonfire down by the lake and kept close to Logan most of the night. Once he pulled out his guitar I sat down on the rock next to her and listened.

We all hung out plenty of other times like that over the course of the school year, but right before senior prom we showed up to school one day to find Hannah’s seat empty. It stayed that way for the rest of the year. No one ever found out why, and for a small town like Hamden that was unusual; everybody knew everything about everyone. After school that day Logan went by her house, but it was empty with only a “For Sale” sign in the front lawn. He was devastated. I felt so bad for him. That night was one of the “toes hanging off the docks until the sun comes up” kind of nights. It was the one time I could recall I was able to be there for him the way he had always been for me. I just sat there next to him, head on his shoulder, my hand in his, and watched the ripples of the lake as the breeze blew.

The ripples of the lake disappeared as a hand fell on my shoulder. I shook myself back into reality a saw that Jesse had taken a seat next to me. Finn was now sandwiched between the other guys who had come in with Jesse.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m fine thanks.”

“You look beautiful tonight,” he said.

“Thank you.” In my mind I as grinning from ear to ear, but I didn’t let my face show it.

He leaned in, about to say something else, when the music cut off and a loud bell sounded. Trivia was about to start and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Our table was split into two teams and both were immersed in heavy conversation when the first question came over the loud speaker.

Name the celebrity couple who came under fire for referring to the end of their marriage as conscious uncoupling?

I heard “J-Lo” and “Jennifer Garner” being thrown around in the other group, but Jaycie and I slapped a big high-five over our heads for our 100% certainty of Gwyneth Paltrow and her rocker ex, Chris Martin.

“How could you possibly know that?” Jesse asked.

“We’re journalists,” Jaycie said, “it’s our job to know that.”

I nodded in Jesse’s direction. He winked at me and caught me a bit off-guard by sweeping his fingers across my cheek and brushing a fallen strand of hair behind my ears.

I couldn’t help but smile as I felt his fingertips on my skin. I looked into his eyes. The darkness of his hair and the way it once again fell over them made him so hard to resist.

I pulled myself together for the next question. Jesse’s fingertips moved down to graze my leg underneath the table. He slid his hand further around my thigh until it rested comfortably. My head was screaming at me to get it off, push it away, and show him who was boss, but my heart melted into millions of tiny little puddles as it raced at the feeling of his skin upon me.

There were two or three more questions I made it through before I couldn’t handle it anymore. His hand, where it rested, was now gently massaging up and down my thigh. My head couldn’t take it, nor could my heart. If I sat there any longer some part of me was going to burst, and to be honest, the slow strokes of his hand were close enough to my inner thigh that it was possible it would be more than just my heart.

“I’m sorry, would you excuse me for a second?” I said, putting my feet on the floor.

“What? Now? We’re in the middle of a game,” Jaycie said.

“I’ll be right back; I need some air.” I turned around and fumbled the stool out of my way.

The back patio was pretty empty at that point in the night. There were a few stragglers standing around smoking cigarettes, but based on the screams that echoed through the open doors, most of the crowd was focused on trivia. My weight fell heavily upon the railing. The breeze was calming against the warmth of my skin. It had a cool, gentle touch to it. I almost thought that’s what it was that set firmly on my bare shoulder for a minute until I heard a voice behind me.

“You okay?” Jesse asked.

His lips grazed my ear and I began to shiver.

“No, Jesse, I’m not okay.” I said, pulling his hand from me. “I told you I can’t do this.”

“I don’t know why you’re fighting this so hard,” he said. “I see it when you look at me. I know you want this too.”

My eyes were now facing him. “Jesse, you don’t want me.”

“Yes I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“And why not?” He asked.

“I’ve had a lot of disappointment in my life. I’m tired of being let down. I’m tired of trying to hold on to people who will never give me what I need. I’m happy with my life the way it is. And then you come around and you do something to me I can’t explain. You bring up this feeling inside me that I thought I had buried.”

I let him step closer and rub his hand on my cheek. A chill rushed through me as he moved his body again toward mine.

“Do you know how badly I want to kiss you right now?”

I turned my head away from him even though I wanted the same thing. I had wanted to kiss him again the second we stopped outside my car that night. I wanted to kiss him at Logan’s party and I wanted to kiss him right now, but I resisted

“You don’t want to kiss me,” I said.

“And why do you say that?”

“Because if you did you would’ve done it already.”

I saw the dimple creep up as he smiled. He stepped closer to me and slid his hand around to the back of my neck. Slowly he leaned in. I closed my eyes and waited until his lips met mine. Each time he started to pull away he would come back stronger and firmer than before. My hands fell to his chest and I was so distracted by the sensation flowing through me that my mind went blank.

When we finally came up for air, a puff of stale smoke brought me back to the bar scene I’d forgotten we were in the middle of. Jesse’s forehead leaned against mine, and even as I inhaled the toxic fumes I couldn’t help but smile.

“Just give me one chance,” he said.

“Oh, Jesse, I make everything so complicated.”

“My whole life is complicated. I’m a musician.”

“That right there,” I said, “is what I’m afraid of. I write about people like you every day. You even said yourself, it’s a world like no other.”

“I’ll tell you what, look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want me to kiss you again and I’ll go away.”

I thought about it long and hard. I had fought my entire life to keep people like Jesse away from me. I couldn’t rationalize why he of all people was making it so difficult. As much as my head wanted to say it, my heart was winning this time. I wanted Jesse to keep kissing me the way he just did and the way I felt when he touched me; I didn’t want it to go away. Right as I was about to answer I heard Logan call out to us from the doorway.

“Everything all right out here?” he asked.

I looked over at his inquisitive eyes. I didn’t know how long he had been standing there or what he saw, but this was the second time he had found us immersed in a conversation like this. I could only imagine what he was thinking. I glanced back over at Jesse before I stepped passed him and started to walk inside.

“I got a little light-headed,” I said as I met Logan in the doorway.

He put his hand on the small of my back. “Want me to take you home?”

“Oh no, I’m feeling much better now. I think I just needed some air.”

“I had to make a phone call,” Jesse said persuasively. “I found Celia out here so I thought I’d keep her company once I was done.”

The three of us all walked back to the table, Jesse a couple steps behind. With Logan coming out before I had a chance to answer, I thought Jesse would be reminded of his insecurities. I felt as if our conversation had turned in the other direction. I knew the night Logan had called when I was with Jesse that my relationship with Logan was a blurred line to him. One he first hesitated about crossing. And now, after he had fought so hard to get me to make a decision, one that was in his favor, I was afraid that now he was going to be the one to walk away.