Release (30 page)

In my hotel room, I’m tucked up in bed, but too
restless to sleep. It’s just after eleven, and Leona’s fast asleep. Dane and I
have spoken a few times today, so I’m not going to bother him. It’s Tuesday,
our second night apart.

Picking up my Mp3 player,
from the top of the bedside table, I scroll through my playlists and select my
mix of favorite tracks. I out the side light and close my eyes.

Forty minutes later, I’m
still awake. My mobile flashes brightly in the dark room. I pull my ear buds
out, grab the phone and race into the bathroom, answering the call the second
the door closes. “Hello?”

“Hey, you,” the loveliest,
sexiest, smoothest voice in the world says. If sex had a voice, it would sound
like Dane.

“Hey yourself, you okay?” I
sit up on the counter and lean back against the wall, crossing my legs.

“Yeah, I’m good. I didn’t
wake you, did I?”

“No, I was unsuccessfully
trying to sleep. Have been for the past hour.”

“Why didn’t you call me to
keep you company?”
I wanted to.

“I didn’t want to bug you.”

“I want you to bug me.”

“Be very careful what you
say,” I warn teasingly, but I’m mostly serious, because I would bug him until I
drive him crazy. The only time I don’t miss and crave Dane is when I’m
performing. Every single moment that exists outside of my performances belong
to him.

“So what are you up to? It’s
after midnight, you not tired?” I ask.

“A little, but I wanted to
bug you.” I guffaw and quickly cover my mouth with my hand. “What’s up with the
echo, are you in the bathroom?”

“I am. Leona’s sleeping. I
didn’t want to wake her.”

“Shit, I didn’t even think
of that.”

“It’s okay, my phone was on
silent. How did you know I’d be awake?” I ask, mildly curious.

“I didn’t think you would
be, I was gonna leave you a message. How was your show tonight?” I’m so glad I
couldn’t sleep.

“Brilliant, loved it. It
feels so good to be doing it again – I sort of wish we were here longer than a
week, but at least we have New York to look forward to. What did you get up to
after work? More smoking weed with Joe?”

“Nah, I went to
Elizabeth’s.”

“Did you? How is she?”

“She’s good. I fixed Ray’s
bike and took her for a ride. She looked like she was in her thirties again
with her scarf blowing in the wind. She brought
vintage chic
to my
riding experience. It was awesome.” I can hear him smiling and I have no idea
whose smile right now is the biggest, but mine is huge. I feel so proud of him.

“Wow, that’s so great.”

“I figured it was time. I
shouldn’t have left it so long in the first place. You know what this means,
right?”

“I do. I’m shitting myself
at the thought, but I’m up for it.”

“I’ll keep you safe, baby.”

“I know you will.”

“So why can’t you sleep?”
His tone is more serious, but not over-intrusive.

“I just can’t, not sure why.
I’ll get there eventually. I wish I could listen to music with you and dance
with you.” I’m shattered, so maybe not the dancing part. I am actually sleepy,
but I can’t seem to sleep.

“No reason why we can’t.
Make yourself comfortable.”

Sitting on this counter is
surprisingly quite comfy. For a short time we say nothing, but I can hear
movement down the line. He’s fiddling with the stereo.

“Close your eyes,
sweetheart,” Dane says with his voice softer, slower. Sensually hypnotic.
“Stand close to me like you always do. Press your cheek to my chest.”

I do as requested, and slide
my arms around his midsection. Suddenly I can feel Dane’s arms tight around me,
holding me close, his chin resting on the top of my head. He’s shirtless, in
only his jeans. I have only my bra and jeans on, so I can feel him
flesh-to-flesh. His body is strong, solid and warm. His skin is the softest
skin I’ve ever had the pleasure of feeling. With a deep inhale, I take in his
scent, his comfort. The safety he offers.

The sound of the needle
making contact with vinyl comes through the phone, followed by the rasp as the
record rotates. A saxophone starts to play. I hold my breath. The smooth sound
causes a shimmer to glide across my skin, goose bumps rise to the surface.
Slowly, I start to breathe.

More than aware of how we’d
move, keeping my eyes closed and connecting with what I’m hearing, that’s what
I do. Our bodies flow with the rhythm. The sax quiets. Moments like this are
when I can hear and feel Dane’s heartbeat. That’s why I press my cheek to his
chest. He starts to stroke my back with one hand. The fingers of his other hand
lace through my hair and gently close into a fist.

As the sound of the sax
picks up again, a lady starts to sing. So tender, yet poignant. A voice filled
with passion, I can feel it to my core. A voice that sings with the sax,
entwines with it. They become one.

Words about expressing love
through ways other than saying it; simple caring touches, the warmth of an
embrace, the emotions present within easy words, eye contact that says … “I
Love You”, and, of course, music.

A song between a man and a
woman who were so obviously deeply in love with each other.

Nathaniel and
Martha Sinclair.

My closed eyes sting with
tears. My throat tightens. Dane doesn’t need to speak to show that he’s still
with me, I know he’s here. We continue our slow dance.

The singing stops. The sax
continues alone. And starts to quiet.

“Can we do that again?” I
whisper before it ends completely.

Coming here like this isn’t totally rational, but
right now I don’t care much about being rational. The elevator doors start to
open. I go to walk out of the cab, conflicted, feeling like a weak-ass fool for
being here while also feeling justified in the choice I’ve made.

The sound of something
pounding and heavy, panicked breathing has me pausing and dragging my gaze up,
just in time to see Brooklyn charging past. I’m out of the elevator almost
quicker than I can register and collide with something – someone. I grab hold
of Leona before she hits the floor. A door slams shut. I look down the hall and
Brooklyn’s nowhere in sight. “What’s going on?” I ask Leona, as I start walking
in that direction.

“Stephan was just playing
and it went too far,” she rushes out.

I stop, unable to move with
the sudden feeling of fury pulsing through me. “What the fuck did he do to
her?”

Leona grasps my shirt at the
chest, through my open jacket, her eyes going wide. “No, no, no, it wasn’t like
that. He didn’t realize, he didn’t mean it.”

“Mean what–”

“Leona?” I hear, in a voice
I know belongs to Kayla.

Fuck this shit. I turn away
and keep moving. I stop outside room 201, which I know to be Brooklyn and
Leona’s, who’s now right beside me. “Do you have a key card?” I ask with more
aggression than intended.

After a hesitation, Leona
looks at Kayla. “Babe, I put it in your bag.”

Kayla looks up at me,
clutching the strap of her purse tighter. “You can’t go in there like that,
you’ll freak her out. You need to calm down first.”

I hold my hand out to her,
palm up. “I’ll calm down when I know why she’s such a mess.”

“You can’t go in there
angry.”

“Here’s the deal. You can
give me that card, or I can kick this door the fuck down. Either way, I’m
getting in there.”

Leona lightly taps her elbow
against Kayla’s arm. “You can give it to him, it’ll be fine.”

When I look at Leona, her
lips form a small, concerned smile. Kayla glances at her friend and then passes
me the key card. They link arms, turn and head back to wherever they came from.
It’s obvious which one of those two trusts me enough with Brooklyn. If I gave a
shit I’d try to reassure Kayla, but that’s not my priority right now.

 I unlock and slowly
open the door. The room is dark, but I enter and close the door behind me.

The sound of Brooklyn crying
paralyzes me.

I’ve heard Saffron cry so
many times I’ve lost count, mostly through grief and after all those nightmares
she had. It tore me apart every single time. When Elizabeth was mourning Ray,
she used to cry in what she thought was secret, unaware that I knew, and that
killed me. It’s felt pretty bad when close female friends have cried in my
presence.

When someone you love hurts,
I swear to God it hurts you more than any of your own personal pain does.

Keeping my voice low, so I
don’t startle her, I speak. “Baby?”

The crying stops. I think
she whispered my name. Silence now and nothing more, I don’t even think she’s
breathing.

“I’m gonna turn on the
light, if that’s okay.”

My eyes have adjusted to the
dark, so I can see enough to know where the switch is. I reach out, press and
illuminate the room.

When I look to my left, Brooklyn
is in the corner, sitting on the floor with her knees hugged tightly to her
chest and her forehead pressed down between her knees. Her hair, caught up in a
bun, is soaked and the tank top and skinny jeans she’s wearing also look wet,
as well as her arms and feet.

Slowly, I approach and kneel
down in front of her. I murmur her name, though all I want to do is take her in
my arms and hold her so tight it’d probably hurt. I want to protect her from
even a second of pain, emotional or physical. I want to undo whatever it was
that led to this. “Tell me what happened, sweetheart.”

She starts sobbing again,
and without even contemplating it, I’m sitting back on my heels with Brooklyn
on my lap and in my arms. Her hands grasping my shirt, she turns her face to
me, breathing deeply. The wetness from her clothes seeps through mine, to my
skin, and the change from warm to cool with her breaths glides across my chest.

“You’re safe, baby. You’re
safe,” I whisper.

I let her cry, and try to
soothe with gentle words.

“Are you ready to tell me
what happened?” I ask when she goes silent and still.

Her head moves from
side-to-side. I want to know, I want to know more than anything, but fuck me if
ever there was a time I need patience it’s now. The only thing helping that,
beyond the fact that I can’t leave her like this to go find out, is that she
doesn’t appear to be harmed physically. It’s only a marginal help, but it’s
enough to stop me hunting down Stephan to find out what the fuck he did.

“Can we get you out of these
wet clothes, at least? You’re getting cold.”

“Okay,” I only just hear her
say as she speaks into my shirt.

Cradling her in my arms, I
rise up from the floor and head for the bathroom.

For the first time, since I
got here, I catch a glimpse of Brooklyn’s face when she turns to see where
we’re going. Clinging to me desperately, she turns into me again. “Not in
there, please, not in there.”

I stop, my heart starting to
sprint from her sudden panic. “Brooklyn, tell me what’s wrong? What did Stephan
do to you? If you can’t tell me, I’ll go ask him.”

“No, don’t do that. It
wasn’t his fault, he was just playing.”

I clamp down on my mounting
frustration, because I am so fucking close to pissed again; not at Brooklyn,
it’s the lack of understanding how things ended up here. Sighing, I let my head
fall back and I take a moment.

Keeping my voice low and as
calm as I can make it, I say my next words. “I need you to give me something.”
I carry her over to one of the double beds, I guess it to be hers from the pink
sweater on it, and lay down with her, us both on our sides. Brooklyn presses
her face to my chest. I know she’s hiding from me. I’ve come to find it cute
when she does this, but not on this occasion.

“Are you going to answer
me,” I ask, directly into her ear, keeping my voice super low.

Her damp clothes are cold,
so I pull the right side of the comforter over us and tighten my hold.

She sniffs and clears her
throat. “A group of us went into Stephan and Andrew’s room after eating. We
were just supposed to have a couple of drinks and call it a night, but Liz,
Stephan and Andrew got in the Jacuzzi together. I sat on the toilet. Then Leona
went with Kayla to her room for her camera, and Stephan tried to persuade me to
get in. I’d already said no, but he obviously didn’t take me seriously. I said
no again and before I realized what he was doing, he was out of the tub,
picking me up and … then he …” She starts sobbing again, and I’m even more
confused and a hell of a lot more concerned.

“So I know why you’re wet,
but why has it distressed you like this?”

“It’s my stupid fault. I
panicked. They probably all think I’m an idiot now.”

“Fuck what they think.
Stephan shouldn’t have put you in the Jacuzzi if you already said no. Why did
you freak out?”

 “I can’t do this Dane.
I’m sorry, I just can’t. It’s bad enough that you’ve seen me cry.”

Keeping her in my hold, I
shift my upper body back enough so that she can’t hide from me. I’m surprised
when Brooklyn tilts her head up to meet my gaze, but it kills me that there are
tears pooling in her eyes, which are already red and puffy and way too
troubled. She seems determined not to let her tears escape.

“There’s nothing wrong with
crying, baby. You’ve done a lot of stuff with me and in front of me that takes
more guts than crying does.”

She shakes her head. “It’s
not the same. We were equal then, and those were all good things. Great
things.”

“We’re not only supposed to
do great things together. Sometimes shit happens and we deal with that together,
too. You shouldn’t try to hide your emotions from me, Brooklyn. We’re never
anything but equal, no matter what.”

Her brows slowly draw
together, her gaze lowering to my chin. “I feel like I’m failing myself if I
give in. I already have tonight. I feel … like I’m being weak. I feel too
vulnerable, especially in front of ...”

With my forefinger, I raise
her chin until she looks at me properly, so she’ll know I mean what I’m about
to say. “Crying in front of someone who loves you doesn’t make you vulnerable.”

Her eyelids lower, closing,
with a tear escaping and rolling across the bridge of her nose. I catch it with
the tip of my finger. “I’ve wanted to say that to you so many times,” she says.

“I’ve said it to you so many
times. You just didn’t know it.”

Though her eyes stay closed,
her lips slowly curve. Shifting in close to me, Brooklyn buries her face
against my chest again.

“Are you hiding from me?” I
ask, lightly, hoping she isn’t – not if it’s a reaction to her need to feel
less vulnerable, more equal.

“No. I just want to be near
you,” she says, her voice muted from the closeness of us.

For a little while, we lay,
silently. I still want to understand what her problem is, I need to, but she’s
not so distressed right now, and I don’t want to take her back there.

How much do we not know
about each other?

Suddenly, Brooklyn giggles.
“Take the ‘c’ out of dance and you have Dane.” She chuckles again.

“Oh, shit, no, you did not
just do that?”

She laughs harder and leans
back, turning her gaze up to mine. “I did. Have you never realized that
before?”

“No. How the hell did you?”
Of course I’ve noticed it, but I’d prefer to tease her about it, especially now
that she’s so relaxed.

“I was thinking about you.
Then I was thinking I want to dance with you. Then it just popped into my head.
I can’t believe it’s taken me all this time.”

“Wow, what a discovery?”

“Are you mocking me, Dane?”

“Uh-uh, no, that’s some
discovery you’ve made.” Her expression says she knows I’m teasing. “Well,
considering
you
are dance and
I
am Dane, we must be a perfect
match, and, Brooklyn Scott, you sure do put the ‘c’ in my dance.”

Yes, I’m playing, but she
damn well is my perfect match. With the exception of some fucked up shit we’ve
both got going on. But then, even that seems to work together in the most
inappropriately right way.

“Oh, shit, no,
you
did not just do that?” she says.

“I sure did.”

She laughs again. “I did
notice before, but decided not to say it so I wouldn’t sound stupid. I think
it’s cool, though.”

“Me too. Get your butt up
and get some dry clothes on, then I’m taking you to my room down the hall. I
need to get Leona’s key card back to her.”

“Not that I don’t want you
here or anything, but why are you? You’re four days early.”

Because I’m a weak-ass fool
who wasn’t satisfied with a simple phone call.

“I wanted to see you.”

“What about work?”

“I’ll be at the shop by noon
tomorrow, so it’s all good.”

“Noon? That means you have
to leave early in the morning. Did you fly here?”

“Yes, I did. I’m guessing
your cell’s still in that other room. Do you wanna use mine to call, or text,
Leona so you can tell her where you’ll be, and so she can get in here?”

“Gosh, I didn’t think about
my phone. Yeah, I will.”

Minutes later, Brooklyn’s in
dry clothes and we’re heading out the door.