Pieces of You (Shattered Hearts) (10 page)

I grab my phone off the nightstand and check to see if there are any new messages. I scroll through the nine new texts I’ve received, but none of them are from Claire. I stare at the text I sent her last night and shake my head.

Me:
Tasha gave me some new info. Come to my jam session on Saturday, I’ll fill you in. I want to apologize for being the world’s biggest douchebag.

I sit up in bed and my head immediately starts pounding to the beat of my heart. It’s the same beat I’ve used to write a million songs about Claire, and this is where it’s gotten me. I should just fucking quit already. I could get used to playing local clubs to pay the bills. I’d even get a regular job if that’s what it took to get Claire back.

I sling my legs over the side of the bed and the first thing I want to do is text her. I went more than twelve months without sending her a single text and now it’s the first and last thing I want to do every day. It’s funny that when the one person you live for is ripped out of your life you can still find a way to convince yourself it’s for the best and that you will eventually get over it.

What a joke.

Xander, my manager, set up the show we played last night in D.C. as part of this surprise tour we’ve been on for the past five weeks and I’m starting to get really fucking annoyed. Last night’s show on the mall was insane and way more packed than I expected. I don’t remember how or when I got back to the hotel room, but I do remember feeling like my life, not just my vision, was spinning out of control.

I stand up and make my way to the restroom, but Jake calls my name before I make it there.

“What?” I call back.

“I have to go first. I’m gonna puke.”

He tumbles off the bed and rushes past me into the bathroom. I barely catch a glimpse of his dark scruffy hair and man-beard before he slams the door closed behind him. The door doesn’t do a good job of drowning out the sounds of his retching.

“God, what a fuckin’ lightweight.” Rachel’s voice is raspy. She’s probably parched as hell from whatever the fuck we did last night.

I haven’t lost time from too much alcohol in a long time. It’s a scary feeling, not knowing what—or who—you did the night before. It appears as if I didn’t do anything or anyone I’d regret, but I have enough regrets accumulated from all the things I have and haven’t done this past year. Waking up next to Tristan today can’t erase all the shit that’s happened since I left Claire.

I take a seat at the desk in the hotel room and grab the pen and pad of paper bearing the hotel logo. It’s a habit. Anytime I see a pen and paper I have to write something, lyrics or notes, or nonsense. I write what comes to mind and I’ve come up with the beginnings of some good songs that way. I pull the cap off the pen with my teeth, press the pen to the paper, and write.

Dear Claire,

Remember the time you caught me changing in my bedroom before we got together? Remember that embarrassment? That longing? I feel it every fucking day. Leaving you was the stupidest mistake I’ve
ever made.

I tear the sheet of paper off the pad and I’m about to crumple it up when Rachel snatches it out of my hand.

“Don’t fuck with me right now. I’ve got the mother of all hangovers.”

She ignores me as she reads the note to herself then hands it back to me. “You’re an idiot. You can write a fucking song and a note, but you can’t actually
do
anything.”

“Of course I can’t do anything. She has a fucking boyfriend.”

“Do you expect her to just magically want to get back together with you? Earth to Chris, girls
want
to be pursued. Playing hard to get only works in new relationships. You’ve known Claire too long for those games to work on her.”

I roll my eyes as I lean back in the desk chair. “You don’t understand. Claire thinks she’s in love with this guy. If I try to, as you say,
pursue
her, she’ll think I’m trying to fuck things up for her.”

Rachel shakes her head as she leans against the dresser and pulls her hair up into a ponytail. “You’re right. I don’t fucking understand. How could she throw that away? You guys were perfect for each other. Give me her new number and I’ll talk some sense into her.”

“Hell no. I don’t need you fucking things up any more.”

“Hey, she used to be my friend. Don’t be selfish. Give me her fucking number.”

Jake finally comes out of the bathroom and I can smell the vomit on him as he passes between Rachel and me on his way to the bed. Rachel scrunches up her face in disgust and I wait for her to make a snide comment.

“Ever heard of toothpaste?” she says as Jake pulls the comforter over himself.

“I’ve got your toothpaste right here,” he mutters, and I’m positive he’s grabbing his dick under the covers.

Rachel rolls her eyes then turns back to me. She’s not going to let this go.

“Give me her number. I want to take her to lunch when we get back.”

“I’m not giving you her number. If she wanted you to have her number she would have told me to give it to you.”

“Whatever, Chris. I’m going to look her up in the directory and you’re going to be kissing my feet when she comes crawling back to you.”

I crumple up the note before I toss it into the waste bin. “She’s changed.”

“You’ve both changed,” she says as she walks toward the bathroom door. “But I’ll bet you Jake’s drum set that she’s just waiting for you to make your move. Trust me when I say that Claire worshipped you.”

I sigh as I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees. “Well, she’s really fucking pissed at me right now. Besides, she just wants to move on. I have to let her do that or I won’t be able to forgive myself if I mess things up for her again.”

My phone vibrates and my stomach flips inside me. Taking a deep breath, I try to drown the hope that it’s her. I pull the phone out of my pocket and smile when I see the text message.

Claire:
Are you seriously trying to bribe me to go see your jam session?

“Is that her?” Rachel asks, but I ignore her as I type my response.

Me:
I want to apologize properly and I can’t do that in a text message.

Claire:
I don’t want to hear your apologies. Just tell me what Tasha told you.

Me:
I can’t. It’s too important.

Claire:
You’re an asshole.

Me:
I know, but I’m trying really hard to change that.

Claire:
I don’t want to see Tristan.

Me:
He never sticks around after the shows. You know that.

The thirty-eight minutes she makes me wait for her response are pure torture.

Claire:
When and where is the jam session?

Chapter Twelve

Chris

“I
’M TELLING YOU, THAT’S NOT
my mic. That’s Jake’s. Mine is the 5200. Please get my mic.”

The new crewmember keeps mixing up my mic with Jake’s. This is the third time he’s done it this week and I’m about to lose my shit. Xander had the brilliant idea of hiring local sound and backline crews we’ve never worked with for this Home Sweet Home tour, to support the local economy, but I don’t need this kind of stress right now. I just want this tour over with.

I’m nervous as hell. Not only am I going to be jamming with the legendary Neil Hardaway, but Claire will be out there watching me. My palms are sweating and I haven’t even tuned up.

Keith brings the correct mic this time and I slide it into the mic stand. I sit down on my stool and rest Lucille, my Gibson SG electric guitar, in my lap. I only use the stool for acoustic sets, but I’m feeling a little unsteady on my feet today. Keith hands me the amp cable and I plug in.

I brush my fingers lightly over the strings and the sound echoes through the empty club. Nothing in this world is more soothing to me than holding a guitar in my hands, except being inside Claire or even lying next to her. The worst part of being apart from her this past year was the knowledge that I probably never would have gotten where I am if we’d stayed together. My songwriting improved by a million percent after we broke up. There really is nothing more inspiring to an artist than a shattered heart.

By the time I’m done tuning the guitar, Jake and Tristan are on stage and ready for a warm-up. We’re not performing any of my songs today. The studio put too hard of a pop spin on most of the songs on the
Relentless
album. Neil Hardaway is a local blues legend. He can’t play that shit. He actually called me himself last night, and I nearly pissed my pants, to tell me what we would be playing. We rehearsed last night in his home studio and I swear I had an out-of-body experience, as if I were watching someone else living their dream.

“Firefly,” I say over my shoulder and I immediately hear the clack of Jake’s drumsticks behind me and the shuffle of Tristan’s feet to my left as they prepare.

“Firefly” is one of the many songs I wrote about Claire where I changed a lot of the details so she wouldn’t know it was about her. This song is about a girl I call Firefly who writes me love notes and leaves them in random places for me to find. Of course, in the end, she leaves a note that’s not a love note at all. Claire used to send me random texts with random words—anagrams. I had to rearrange the letters to figure out what she was trying to tell me. It was one of our favorite games. She always tried to use the longest words to make it difficult for me to guess. The last text she sent me after we broke up was a one-word text, but it wasn’t an anagram: Sorry.

When we finish warming up, Neil Hardaway strolls in looking like a fucking pimp. He’s got more soul than any white man I’ve ever met. And, man, is he white! I don’t think Neil Hardaway’s face has seen a ray of sunshine in fifteen years. He’s wearing a midnight blue suit with a thin black tie, sunglasses, and black newsboy cap. I hope I’m that cool when I’m fifty-seven years old.

“What’s up, brother?” he says in that smooth, soulful twang. “You ready to turn these girls inside out?”

We shake hands then I nod at Keith for him to take my stool off the stage. Neil laughs, a raspy laugh, as another crewmember races up the steps onto the stage and hands him his guitar: a baby blue ES-345.

“Them girls waiting outside are about ready to tear the doors off this mother,” Neil continues.

I’m a little star struck, though not as bad as I was when I first met him yesterday. “Not interested,” I mutter as I pull a fresh pick out of my pocket and rub it between my fingertips to warm the plastic.

I’m not interested
tonight
, not when one of those girls waiting outside could possibly be Claire. I told her to come through the rear entrance, but she insisted on not getting special treatment. She probably doesn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about us, afraid it will get back to surfer boy.

“Chris?”

Keith is looking at me weird as if he’s been trying to get my attention.

“What’s up?”

“There’s a girl out back asking for you.”

I can’t help but smile as I toss the pick to Keith and he catches it in one hand. “Take me to her.”

I set Lucille down before we cross the empty space designated for general admission ticket holders then past the bar. He takes me through an adjacent lounge with a few pool tables and then through a corridor with some restrooms. At the end of the corridor, we arrive at an exit door and I push it open slowly in case she’s standing on the other side.

The cool night air blasts me in the face and I get a strong whiff of garbage and cotton candy. Claire is leaning with her back against the back wall of the club with her eyes closed. We haven’t had any long conversations since we got back in touch last month, but she did mention to me that she started meditating after we broke up. The way she dismissed me when I asked her about it made me think it wasn’t something she liked to talk about.

“Hey.”

She opens her eyes and turns to me. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail and the light of the streetlamps paints an angelic glow over her skin.

She flashes me a tight smile. “Hey. Is it okay that I came back here? The sidewalk was packed out front and I started panicking that Joanie was gonna show up.”

“You can do whatever you want. No one here is going to mess with you. Come on.” I hold the door open for her and try not to be too obvious that I’m breathing in her scent as she passes me. “And Joanie’s not welcome here, so you don’t have to worry about her.”