Sidewalk Flower (22 page)

“That’s not how it works.
 
I think you know that much.”
“Fine, I might love you.
 
Are you happy
now?”
 
She lashed out, trying to hurt him
with her words, to keep him safely headed in the right direction, away from
her.

His elbows locked and she felt the Jeep
lurch in their speed.
 
“Shit Trista,
what’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“I don’t have a fucking clue.”
 

Lucky exited at the next rest stop and
parked.
 
She was sure he’d have changed
his mind by now about her sanity.
 
Unsure
of how to approach him with this thought in mind, she sat there in silence,
pulling in long breaths of the nighttime Mojave
desert
.
 
The dry air smelled like nothing at all until
Lucky walked over to her side of the Jeep and waited by the door.
 
Through the open window came his wholesome,
manly goodness.
 
His cleanliness was
something she craved.
 

“I’m sorry.”
 
She forced herself to look at him through the
open window frame.
 
She wiped at her
tears and felt more disappointed in herself than she ever had before.
 

“Hey, I didn’t mean to scare you.
 
You don’t have to say anything back to me,
and if you don’t feel the same, it’s okay, too.
 
I just wanted you to know.
 
That’s
all.”
 
He was tender now, not angry like
she’d thought he would be.

She opened her door and stood up to face
him.

“If I tell you that I love you, Lucky,
what will you expect from me?” she asked, desperate to lay her hand over his
but afraid to tarnish him.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She sniffed and saw him hesitate to raise
his hand in her direction.
 
“What if love
doesn’t change anything?
 
Even if you
stayed longer than three days, I’d still have to leave in two weeks and
wouldn’t see you again for who knows how long.”

“Loving someone doesn’t mean quitting who
you are or becoming someone else.”

“Well, that’s too bad.
 
Because I was hoping that someday love would
take me away from all this.”
 
The truth
had never poured out so freely in all her life.

“Trista, I’m so confused right now.
 
And there’s so much I still wanted to talk to
you about.
 
I wish…”

“You wish you’d never said you love me,
right?”
 

“No, I wish you’d just accept it and let
everything else fall where it will.”

But she knew why that was a bad
idea.
 
It leaves too much up to chance
, she thought as she tugged a finger
through some tangled curls.

In her world, a place he would have to
learn to maneuver if he was intent on being with her and not changing her,
people rarely operated on anything other than what was good for them.
 
Lucky wouldn’t be very popular if he tried to
wedge her out of her commitment to the band.
 
How would that conversation go?

Jaxon, I’m
leaving.
 
I quit my job and I’m moving to
Tennessee with Lucky.
 
I know we’re in
the middle of a tour but you’re on your own now.
 
It’s best if we don’t have any contact for a
while.
 
I know it’s not fair but it has
to be this way.
 
I can’t keep living for
you, for the guys.
 
I owe you my life,
for taking me in and giving me all these wonderful chances to do so many
amazing things.
 
But I’m done.
 
Don’t I deserve that?

Lucky grasped both her hands in his and
brought them back as far as they would go, clasping them behind his waist.
 
The action lifted her out of her seat.
 

“You ever
notice how
there aren’t
any sidewalks back home?
 
You know, to go for walks.
 
There’s just grass and then the curb.”
 
He held her at the bend of her elbows.

“That’s a strange thing to say, but yes,
it’s true, isn’t it?
 
What makes you
bring that up?”
 
She was usually the one
to say odd things, off topic and out of nowhere.
 

Lucky stared up at the endless sky so she
followed suit.
 
The stars twinkled,
burning a red haze and some a pale blue.
 

“I just thought it would be nice to talk
about something we have in common.”

His offer was way more than what she
deserved, considering how erratic she’d behaved the past couple hours.
 
The fact he could even stand to have her in
his sight was a miracle.
  
Or a testament of his feelings for her.

“I like how people don’t look down on
mobile homes.
 
Gramma keeps hers so
nice.
 
Her lawn never has a single weed
in it and she’s always got friends coming over and their kids offering to help
out.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much the norm in Tennessee.
 
I bet you’ve hitched a ride somewhere.”
 
He scooched closer to her,
almost rubbing shoulders.

“Oh heck yeah, I used to get rides from
Gramma’s down to the skating rink all the time.”

“Yeah, well where I live it was more like
hopping on the back of some guy’s truck and hoping I made it all the way to the
lake without falling off the tail gate.”

She answered eagerly to keep the
connection alive.
 
“Oh,
the pot holes!”

“Yeah, they’re no joke, assuming you’ve
got paved roads.”
 
He whistled loudly at
that.

“Where exactly do you live?”

“It’s pretty backwoods.
 
You’ve probably heard of Shelbyville, right?”

“Yes, that’s not so bad.
 
They’ve got something with the walking horse,
right?”

“Yep, that’s it.
 
Well, I live east of there, off the
Duck.”
 

“The Duck, huh?”
 
She paused because he had to believe her next
words.
 
“Maybe you could show me
sometime.”

“Trista, you don’t have to say that.
 
I’m a big boy.”

She couldn’t help but crack a smile.
 
“Yes you are, and I thought you loved me.”

Lucky’s jaw dropped.
 
“And I thought you didn’t care for me saying
that very much.”

“Never trust a menstruating woman,
hun.
 
We don’t always make sense.”
 
She dropped her hands so that they slid down
his hips and thighs.

“Uh, we’d better get back on the
road.
 
How much further do we have to
go?”

“About an hour.”
 
Man, she wished they weren’t so close.

Chapter
Fourteen

Trista flipped off the Beamer that had
just cut in front of her but stopped short of shouting for him to kiss her
ass.
 
She’d spent too much time away from
the overpopulated Southern California freeway system and needed to count to ten
then reintegrate herself.
 
That’s when
someone honked and sent her teeth to grinding.
 
Settle girl.

Thirty minutes and five questionable hand
gestures later and none of that road rage seemed to matter.
 
Not when she glanced over to see Lucky’s eyes
light up and mirror the midnight blue of the Pacific Ocean lapping so close to
them.
 
If they hadn’t wasted so much time
during the night’s earlier rest-stop drama, she would have pulled over and
gifted him with a nice long seaside walk.
 
Maybe another apology or two.
 
And definitely a pep talk.
 
However it was late, dark and cold.

She pulled into the familiar dusty white
stucco building with its soft, rounded edges and several business store fronts,
some with signs but most without.
 
She
inserted her key into door 87-B, dimly lit by the familiar black wrought-iron
porch light and yellow bulb.

“Welcome to our studio,” she said to
Lucky as he followed closely behind.
 

She closed the door and locked it once
they were inside.
 
Lucky stood close to
her in the small entryway while she did a quick once over of the place.
 
All the shiny black deco looked in order.
 
Ben had done a great job in her absence.
 
Nothing screamed that somewhere beyond this
small ordinary room would be anything of significance.
 
Certainly not the hub for a musical dynasty
such as the one Sin Pointe had created over the last twenty years.
 

“Is this your desk?” Lucky asked,
breaking the silence.
 

“One of them.
 
I share that one with Ben.
 
He’s my partner in crime.
 
Hopefully he still resides among the
living.
 
They tend to bury him with work
whenever I’m gone.
 
Which
is why I only leave once a year.
”
 
She squinted at the monitor which displayed a current project she knew
had to do with the band’s website.
 
“You
may actually get to meet Ben; it looks like he must be lurking around
somewhere.”

“That’s cool.
 
Is Jaxon here?”
   

Ben’s white Mini-Cooper had been the only
other car parked out front.
 
“No, I
wanted to have a couple minutes with you before I call to let him know we made
it.”

Just then a toilet flushed down the small
corridor to the right and out sauntered Ben—smiling and very much alive.
 
She’d missed his big green eyes and smile
that stretched a few inches across his tired but youthful face.
 
The striped vest he wore over a long-sleeved
tattered white t-shirt and zippered black skate pants didn’t give him a very
official look but she greeted him with a warm hug and made a proud
introduction.

“Ben, this is Lucky, Jaxon’s cousin from
Tennessee.”

“Hey man, what’s up?
 
Nice to meet you.”
 
Ben extended a long, lean arm
with black leather-band
bracelets bunched at the wrist.

“You too.
 
Not a whole lot yet.
 
So you work here with Trista?” Lucky asked.

“Oh yeah, work.
 
More like work my frickin’ brain into
numbness.
Nah, just kiddin’.
 
But dude,” Ben turned back to her, “I’m so
hella-frickin’ happy you are back.”

“It’s good to see you, too.
 
So hey, the backrooms, are they all
clear?
 
I want to give Lucky the tour.”

Sin Pointe was the exclusive user of the
studio but they’d occasionally allow friends in to work on projects.
 

“Just us tonight.
 
Hey, I’ve really tried to keep your desk in
somewhat working order but don’t stroke out when you see it.
 
Promise?”
 
Ben looked overly apologetic with his big
eyes and exaggerated arched brows.
 
What
in the world would she find when she made her way to the private room of her
actual desk?
 
She reminded herself it
wasn’t his fault and she loved him like a goofy little oddball brother.

“Promise.”
 
She held up her pinky, bent to look like a
small hook and then turned to lead Lucky down the hall to her office door.

She flicked on a switch and uttered a
quiet curse under her breath.

“So this is my home away from home.
 
Sorry it’s such a mess.”

Her desk had spawned five spanking new
piles.
 
The first was at least pretty to
look at with its colorful stack of CD jewel cases topped by a sticky note with
her name scribbled on it.
 
The three
middle piles were plain old loose papers.
 
The last tickled her heart. It was the collection of fabric samples
she’d left with Ben.

Other than the “ugh” inspiring middle
piles, she decided her office was not in that bad of shape.
 
So what was it that had her feeling so
overwhelmed?