Behind the Strings (6 page)

14

“Trouble sleeping again?” Jaycie asked as I plopped my breakfast sandwich on my desk.

“On the contrary, I slept very well, actually. Once I got off the phone, at least.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t get too excited,” I said.

I told her about my conversation with Logan and that I was feeling much better about everything. It would still most likely take everything I had not to click on a headline should I see one while browsing the internet, but the less I read about our alleged relationship, the more I could find a sense of normality until it all blew over.

“Well, at least you two are apart for a while. Can you imagine what it will be like once you two are seen together again?” Jaycie said.

My eyes widened. I hadn’t even really thought of that. I took a few ferocious bites of my breakfast sandwich before I told Jaycie about Logan’s detour back to Nashville. Now I could only imagine what our trip to the hot dog stand would be like. I could see the headlines now:

“Logan Kent and secret lover relish their time together”

“Logan Kent red-hot for his new girlfriend”

I shook more creative phrases out of my head.

“Although you may get lucky. A few pretty high-profile celebrities just announced they were breaking up, so you may be replaced in the gossip department.”

“Good gosh, I hope so,” I said.

“In all seriousness, though,” Jacyie said, “how long have you known Logan?”

“My whole life. We’re literally like 12 hours apart in age.”

“And you’ve never once…you know?”

I could see her gesture in the chair and almost fell out of mine. I wish I had one of those super fun stories to tell her about how he was my first time or how we did it on a blanket in the middle of the cornfield underneath the stars after prom or something, but she was about to be disappointed. Apart from the night Logan moved out of Hamden, there had never been anything of that sort between the two of us. A few moments of his lips on mine was all there ever was.

“But why?” Jaycie whined. “He’s so good-looking.”

“It’s just never been that way and now it’s just complicated.”

“And you never think about it? Like ever?”

It was never much in detail, but there were definitely times after he left that I wondered what it would’ve been like to be with Logan. Whether it was a romantic one-time thing or a long-term love fest, I had thought about both during those weeks of crying. I’d wondered if I made the right decision not going with him and if maybe Logan was onto something, but even when I tried, I couldn’t actually see it. The white picket fence, the kids in the yard, it was never there for me. Maybe not never, but definitely not with Logan. Not at that point, anyway. I was still so young back then and had a lot of growing up to do. I still did.

“I kind of feel like maybe
you
have been doing some thinking about it,” I said.

“Well if we’re being honest, I would by no means object to a night of passion with a man who has an ass like that.”

I shuttered thinking about it. I’m not sure if it was the idea of Jaycie and Logan together or thinking about Logan naked and in a compromising position, but it kind of creeped me out.

For most of the day after that I had to kick myself when those thoughts popped into my head. Jaycie may have scarred me for at least the near future. I felt like now when he came home I would find myself judging everything Logan did as if he was making some kind of sexual gesture. I’d watch him squirt a ketchup bottle or reach down to tie his shoe or walk behind him and this conversation right here would come bubbling back up again.

Damn you, Jaycie, what have you done?

15

The first night Logan was home we ended up at dinner at my favorite burger joint. There was nothing in Nashville that could hold a candle to Burger Mayhem when it came to my appetite. When I showed up that Wednesday evening outside, Logan was already outside the restaurant waiting. Finally, he was learning. This time I wasn’t going to have to be stared at by restaurant-goers thinking I’d been stood up.

It started right then, as I knew it would. I didn’t see his broad shoulders the same anymore. When he hugged me I felt the muscles Jaycie so vividly described, the ones I had missed until then. I purposely made sure to walk in front of him up the stairs so I didn’t find myself staring at him from behind.

I could smell the island goodness of my Hawaiian-style burger as the waiter placed my dish in front me. The grilled pineapple sat perfectly on top of my burger that was drizzled in a sweet-and-sour dijonnaise sauce. Logan put a handful of fries in his mouth while I preferred to savor the beef first.

“Wow, you weren’t kidding. You sure have changed from the girl I once knew,” Logan said.

“I told ya” I said in between bites.

He laughed as I caught the pineapple that escaped my mouth.

“Pineapple on your burger. Dijoinnaise instead of ketchup. I’m seriously in awe.”

“Oh come on, I wasn’t
that
bad.”

“Not that bad? What about that time with the hash browns and maple syrup?” He asked.

I couldn’t believe he remembered that. Mama’s Sunday morning breakfasts always consisted of pancakes, hash browns and sausage. Logan attended at least one of them a month. One time, she poured the syrup onto my plate and it soaked into the bottom of my hash browns. I cried immediately and refused to eat anything in front of me. She finally gave up the “it won’t kill you” speech and just fixed me another plate.

“Wow, I forgot about that,” I said.

I was still like that when I first moved to Nashville. Before I fell in love with Soulful Grinds though, I hopped around to many different coffee houses and attended most of their songwriter nights. It was a great way for me to stay inspired by words and people with dreams. One night I met a guy named Brendan. He was a songwriter with a publishing deal who performed all over Nashville. The last song he sang was probably one of the most beautiful melodies I’d ever heard. As a hopeful journalist at that point, I went up and introduced myself to him and we started talking. He probably knew the moment I ordered my plain back coffee with a hint of nonfat milk that I wasn’t the adventurous kind. We met up several times after that and each time I proved that more and more.

He took me out to dinner one night at a fancy French restaurant. Apparently we had talked about that one night when he was testing me and my
traditional
ways and I had gone on about my love of French food. I felt awful at that point, since I was pretty sure most if not all of his paycheck was going toward this dinner, so I went along with it, not wanting to embarrass him (or myself, as a matter of fact). I couldn’t pronounce anything on the menu, but I ordered from it anyway like I was a connoisseur. When each course came to our table I stared at it for a terrified minute before taking a bite.

I will admit, even though I was utterly uncomfortable the entire night since I had no idea what I was putting in my mouth, I was proud of myself for stepping outside my comfort zone. The food was impeccable and Brendan and I had a great night of conversation.

Once I got home I did a little research on what I had ordered and my jaw dropped.

Grilled Octopus

Chicken-fried rabbit

My stomach began to churn at the thought of it. Never again would I lie about the type of food I liked to eat. Although I would never knowingly eat octopus and rabbit ever again, from that day I did start to venture a little more into bolder food choices. It was sort of an empowering moment for me. My ultimate reason for leaving Hamden was to find my way into a bigger world that had been shut away by a man who didn’t deserve that kind of power over me. Letting go of my rigid, inflexible taste of food choices was the first step of releasing the hold that he had on me.

“I’m very impressed,” Logan said, scooping another handful of French fries into his ketchup.

“That you should be. I even dip my French fries in my milkshakes sometimes.”

“Uh-uh, no way,” he said.

“Yup, not kidding. I’ll show you once we order dessert. The spiked milkshakes here are the best.”

I couldn’t believe in all his years Logan had never been here before. It felt kinda nice to introduce him to something new. Especially the spiked milkshakes. No matter how full you were at Burger Mayhem, you never left without ordering dessert. Logan and I got ours to go.

“Oh my god, this is so good,” he said, taking a sip. “Have you ever tried this one?”

I shook my head. When it came to the milkshakes, I never cheated on my chocolate Kahlua. I even felt guilty then as Logan tipped his straw toward me, but he was right. Salted caramel and bourbon was a heavenly match.

“Man, Jesse would love this. He’s a bourbon freak,” Logan said.

“Your musician friend, Jesse?” I asked. Logan nodded. “What’s his story?”

“The same as most of us, I imagine. He’s a pretty quiet dude, doesn’t say too much. Moved here from Austin, I know that.”

“He seems nice,” I said.

“He’s a really great guy. I haven’t known him long, but he’s definitely one of the most talented musicians I’ve ever met. Passionate about the music, not about the fame. Why, you interested?”

I shook my head, but that might have been a lie. I was curious, at least. That night at Shotguns, Jesse definitely intrigued me. It might have been the way he hugged me, or maybe the way I caught him glancing my way, but the second Logan brought up his name I felt a twinge of excitement inside of me.

I watched as Logan took an indulgent sip of his shake and quickly change the subject.

“See, what would you do without me?” I asked. “You’d be missing out on something as amazing at that.”

He took another sip from his straw and switched hands to wrap his arm around me.

“I would surely be missing out on something amazing, all right.”

I felt his lips press against the top of my head. He pulled me in tighter as we walked. I wrapped my arm behind his back to steady myself as I leaned into him.

“You’re my best friend, you know that?” I asked.

He laughed, “You know, Celia, I’m actually quite aware. I promise, you don’t have to keep reminding me.”

I gave him a gentle slap across his stomach. With every step we took, I wondered where it was that we were going. Two kids from the middle of nowhere, Tennessee, torn apart by the one thing we loved and brought back together because of it. Music was our life and now we were in the city that held the heart of it all. He was mine again in the way I had been longing for so long and I was his. My hope was that it would be enough for both of us.

16

With a towel still wrapped around my head, I pulled out the last frozen dinner I had and plopped myself onto the barstool that sat under the island in my kitchen. I had never really gotten the hang of the whole cooking thing upon my move to Nashville. I tried for a while, but always found myself with more leftovers than I could manage, so I gave up. Frozen everything, cereal, and granola bars were staples in this house. It seemed like a classy choice for the night ahead of me.

It was finally Friday and it was going to be a fun one. I had been invited to a party for a friend of mine, Kat Moore. It was an invite-only party for industry executives and I felt pretty special to be on the guest list. Kat had recently signed a publishing deal and wanted to celebrate. I met her at the same songwriter night where I met Brendan. We’d kept in touch since then and I was so excited to see her again. This was the perfect event for my next blog feature about the tidal wave of women in country music that was happening lately.

One frozen dinner and a few twirls of the curling iron later, I was all dressed and on my way to the cocktail party. Logan and I hadn’t made any set plans after our burger date, so when I walked into the quaint bar down at the end of Nashville’s famous Printer’s Alley, my cheeks flushed when he caught my eye.

He proudly wore one of those long-sleeved button-ups that I remembered fondly. He filled it out much better than he used to. His hair matched the neatness of his appearance and the smile he gave me from across the room completed it. I threw him a gentle wave before I pranced over to the bar where I found Kat amongst of group of execs.

“Celia, you made it!” she said as I squeezed behind the curtain.

“Of course I did. I wouldn’t have missed it.”

I handed my camera to her manager as Kat set herself beside me for a picture. We both smiled, then squinted, blinded by the flash. From what I could see through the stars in my eyes it looked to be a good one. Perfect to include beside my blog post. I asked Kat and her manager a few questions and said my goodbyes just before she was pulled away for another interview.

“Well, don’t you look stunning tonight?” I head a familiar voice say from behind me.

I turned to see Logan, as expected, looking even more handsome up close, but he had not come alone. The voice I recognized was Jesse’s. His hair still flowed freely, but his face was freshly shaven and I couldn’t help but smile at his neatly ironed attire. He cleaned up well in black dress pants. My mind quickly wandered to the buttons on his shirt and what it was I would find underneath them. Again, I could feel my heart start to race with him in front of me. Thankfully the heaviness of each beat jerked me back into realty.

“You okay?” Logan asked.

Fumbling, I said, “Yes, I’m fine. Why?”

“I don’t know, seemed like you left us for a minute.”

“Oh no, not at all. I’m here, right here, surrounded by all of these people, in a completely public place.”

Logan said nothing, nodded slowly and pursed his lips as he digested that last sentence. I said it more to remind myself than anything. I needed to get a grip on whatever impure thoughts tried to weasel their way into my head. I knew better than that, and blamed it solely on the lack of action I’d been getting lately. Jaycie was always throwing jokes my way about how I “just needed to get laid” on days my attitude was more frantic than usual. Even if she were right, right now was not the ideal time to be yearning for anything.

“I didn’t know either of you two knew Kat,” I said.

Logan looked over at Jesse, who shook his head toward the ground. Clearly there was something I was missing. The two of them laughed softly to each other before letting me in.

“Good old Jesse here used to date her,” Logan said.

“Oh,” I said. “Well, I can see why. She’s a really great girl.”

I tried my best not to sound the least bit jealous, but I could feel it inside of me. I didn’t know why, but I cared. I looked over at Kat right as she threw her head back laughing. She was deep in conversation. Her natural auburn hair fell off her shoulders to reveal her glowing skin. I cringed at the fact that I was secretly comparing myself to her as if there was a need to do so.

“Great girl, she is,” Jesse said, “just not a one-man kind of great girl.”

“No way,” I said. I leaned in further toward him as he began to whisper.

“Not kidding, but there’s no hard feelings. We weren’t serious or anything. She wasn’t really my type anyway,” Jesse said. I let out of soft sigh of relief and joined in with the laughter to mask my thankfulness that there was and most likely would never be a Kat and Jesse. I looked over at him and smiled trying to picture what his type entailed. “Well, I hate to cut this short, but unfortunately I’ve gotta call it a night,” Jesse said. “It was great seeing you again, Celia.”

I watched him walk away before I checked my watch and turned to Logan. It seemed quite early to call it a night, but in this town, sometimes that means it’s really only getting started. According to Logan, Jesse was playing with a friend at a gig outside town tonight. He stopped by quickly to congratulate Kat before he headed out.

It wasn’t long before we were interrupted by a young girl who asked Logan if she could get a picture of him with his date. Knowing how much the rumors were starting to take their toll on me, Logan went to object, but the poor girl seemed so nervous, I didn’t want to let her down.

“No, no, it’s okay,” I said.

He slowly placed his hand around my waist and pulled me in. I tried my best to convince the camera that I was happy to be in the shot, but I’m not sure how convincing I was. The girl looked down at her camera with a strange look on her face.

“Okay, then,” she said, “that’ll have to do.”

Logan and I both looked at each other as she walked away and laughed. One picture was plenty for me, but as the night went on, I felt more and more eyes focus in on us. I could hear the whispers and see the fingers pointing in our direction. Sometimes I would play along, grabbing his arm when I’d laugh or pulling him close to me when I’d talk just to see their reactions. Other times I would look around at the obscene number of people clicking away at me and pull back in fright. In a short time I felt like Logan and I had become pawns in their little game. That we were no longer people, but objects and dollar signs to up their paychecks.

I excused myself to grab a drink from the bar and on my way back I watched as Logan chatted with a couple of people I didn’t know. Both were extremely well-dressed gentleman. I stood and watched for a little, enjoying my peace from the heavy staring until Logan spotted me and waved me over. He introduced the men as two of his label executives by the names of Rick and Tom.

“What a lovely girl you have here,” Rick said.

Logan laughed before he responded with, “We’re just friends.”

“That’s too bad,” Tom said, chuckling. “In that case, I wish I were about a decade younger so I could take her out.”

My cheeks flushed as I thanked him for the compliment and we went back to talking about the industry. It was all going well until my dumb self asked Tom how long he’d been with the label. It seemed that country music, though it had grown on him, wasn’t his first choice in genre and he’d had quite a list of impressive bands under his belt when he lived out in L.A., one of them being the one and only Black Horizons.

“You might have been too little to remember them, but man, were they good. I wonder where they are now,” Tom said.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I said.

Logan squeezed my shoulder and tried to change the subject, but it didn’t work. Apparently Rick was very up on the current state of the Black Horizons and updated us on them all. Actually, all of them but one.

“Shoot, I’m missing someone,” Rick said.

He and Tom thought long and hard, counting on their hands each member who had come in and out of the band over the years. First they thought they were missing a drummer. Then they thought maybe it was a lead guitarist, but they went through them again and got them all.

“Jack,” I said. “You forgot Jack Coleman.”

“Yes!” Rick said. “Wow, how did you know that? You a fan?”

“Lucky guess.”

Suddenly I felt a pit in my stomach. I didn’t think of my father often, but when I did nothing good was usually associated with it. If they knew where he was now, I didn’t want to know. Before anyone could actually answer though, a sudden flash of lights came surging toward us. I turned around to see a few photographers pointing their cameras in our direction. When I looked back at Logan he had become a blur through my vision. All I could see was bright spots with every blink. Suddenly, I felt nauseous. I excused myself in the politest way possible and stumbled my way to the bathroom.

I leaned against the sink and stared at my shimmering eyes for some time in the mirror as new girls would come and go from the stalls. I hated how the mention of my father’s name could ruin everything. Nights like this were supposed to be for celebration, but just the sound of his name brought me back to that little girl who would run after him, yelling his name as he kept walking. I’d watch the bus drive away and would scream his name until I was sure he wasn’t coming back. Eventually I stopped running, but it never stopped hurting.

And now I felt like I had so much more to run from. Usually I was the one chasing stories, but now I was becoming one.

“Celia, you in here?” I saw Logan’s head peek through the door.

“I’m coming.”

I wiped away a stray tear and gathered my purse before meeting Logan in the hallway.

“You ready to go home?” he asked.

I nodded. He let me lead the way and we both waved goodbye to those we knew on our way out. Logan was nice enough to escort me to my car. We walked past row after row of flashy cars in the parking garage as I pressed the button on my keychain, listening for my car to sound.

“Okay, I could’ve sworn I parked it on this level,” I said.

“You mean like that time you could’ve sworn you saw a mouse in the kitchen?”

“That was an honest mistake. Anybody from my angle would’ve thought it was a mouse.”

I slapped him for bringing that up. Gosh, I think I was maybe sixteen. Logan was on his way over for pizza and a movie on a Friday night and he walked in to find me screaming on top of the kitchen table pointing underneath the sink. He had absolutely no idea what I was trying to tell him, but he followed my finger and leaned down to pick up a lonely gray sock. Of course, he didn’t tell me it was a sock until after he covered it with his hands and threw it at me. I stumbled backwards and my foot slipped off the back of the table, but thankfully the cushion of the nearby couch caught my fall.

“I could’ve gotten seriously hurt that night, by the way.”

“Ah, but you didn’t,” he said. “And I don’t think you parked on this side of the lot, either.”

He was right. I was completely turned around. We had to walk around a couple more levels before I saw my flashing headlights.

“You alright?” he asked, rubbing both my arms with his fingertips.

“You know me, I always am.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and he pulled me close. When we let go our cheeks brushed against each other. His hands were still on my waist and he looked deep into my eyes. He leaned into me and I didn’t stop his lips from touching mine.

Instantly I knew this kiss happened for all the wrong reasons. My heart was hurting, I was angry and frustrated. I just wanted to forget my problems, and I used Logan to do it. I pulled away, cursing my own selfishness.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, staring down at our feet. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

I kissed him softly on his cheek before falling into the driver’s seat. He smiled as he placed his fingertips on the window. Even with the glass between us, I did the same. I could tell he was disappointed, but he understood. As I looked up at him through the window I saw my friend, my confidant, my most loyal companion. I saw the boy who had always looked at me the way he was doing right then, as the girl who hung the stars. The girl who could do no wrong and the girl he would spend his whole life waiting for.