Walking Heartbreak (24 page)

NADIA

The next hours gallop past.
Besides making sure I’m with him wherever he goes, Bo doesn’t pay much attention to me. I’m behind him, fingers laced with his as we run through the hallways of the Melville Center basement on our way to pick up spare cables, new guitar picks, peruse deli trays, and grab beer.

I haven’t seen him drink on the trip, but as the afternoon turns dusky outside the small windows, he flips open more than a few Budweisers and knocks them back in large swallows. We find a room at the end of a corridor where the door handle gives and we can go in. His cell buzzes. It’s Troll asking if everything is okay, if he’s ready for the set, and I text back because Bo doesn’t care to reply.

Yes, we’re in Room A24. He’s got his acoustic guitar. Nadia.

OK, I’ll get him in 30
,
Troll answers.

“You want to hear what I think about you going home?” Bo asks, gaze hazy as he peers out from under his bangs.

“Okay,” I say because I don’t have a choice.

He doesn’t tell me. He plays it. It’s sad and quiet and growing louder and into more. The thuds of his knuckles are there again, vibrating hard against the wood. Soon, the melody is a short, intense loop that speeds up, speeds up, until it screams his inability to stop me.

I tear up. The song is flamenco passion and hard-rock fury, and when he finishes, his eyes turn cool as a snowy mountainside, concealing the intensity he just let me see.

“That’s all,” he murmurs. I throw myself at him. He saves his guitar, setting it down last minute before I jump him.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I say. “One day I’ll—”

“Don’t forget me,” he whispers, mouth against my neck.

“Never. No way,” I whisper back.

“I can’t stand to think about you being with him. Please… I’m selfish.”

God, Bo is pleading with me. He’s hurting, and it’s my fault. Doesn’t he see that
I
am the walking heartbreak?

I wish I could take Bo’s pain away. Soon. Maybe soon, I can. But now…? If I did, I’m not sure I would survive. I have to give Bo something though. Something to ease his pain so he can do his job. There are thousands of people out there in the audience, most of them coming for Luminessence. This is another chance for Clown Irruption to make an impact.

“When are you back in Los Angeles?” I ask.

“In a week.”

“That’s not long. And I won’t be with Jude that way. The way you and I are.” It’s the first promise I’ve ever given him.

Cautious hope lives in Bo’s gaze when he draws back to study my expression. Then he squeezes me, like I am his and he is mine to keep. “Are you saying you won’t sleep with your husband? That you’ll be waiting for me in L.A.?”

“Yes.” My voice is sure. I’m light with short-lived bliss over the relief I see in his eyes, until my admission has me staring down the barrel of a nineteen-month-old reality, one I spend most waking hours trying to forget. That Jude and I will never make love again is just the tip of the iceberg.

I flush my mind of thoughts. I’m starting to master it. Whenever I keep them clean and organized, facing another day isn’t the worst thing in the world.

Bo’s arms scissor my back as he folds me in, tightening around me like he doesn’t want to let go. I’m straddling him, toes on the floor and hands raked into a hold at the back of his head. We’re still in this position, with Bo’s lips on my temple, when Troll opens the door.

“Ten minutes and we’re on.” The tour manager jerks his thumb behind him. “Let’s rock, lovebirds.”

The stage is huge with a wall of spots lined up behind the band. Video screens blast out colors and clips of their faces, their hands playing their instruments. Troy’s drumsticks whirl in the air and land safely in his grip before he plunges back in. The audience starts out listening, soaking in the light show and the sound. When Emil sheds his shirt on the second song, grabs the front of his jeans and thrusts hard, the crowd cheers wildly and the scattered cries for Luminessence fade and die.

Bo turns to me, feet locked in place. He winks once, sexy as heck, and that flutter in my chest turns into a
bah-boom, bah-boom
, joining Troy’s beat and loving it all.

Right now, this is it. It’s me not being me, not living the life I’ve made for myself in L.A., and I’m allowing it to happen without guilt. In a few hours, I’ll be leaving. Who knows what the future will bring then.

Moments to live for. Moments to soak in. Seize the day, they say. I am, I am! When Ebele, the girl Elias likes, takes her confident place next to me in song three, I shake her hand, smile wider than I have in ages, and sway my body to the song.

I laugh when Elias turns to us, half kneeling in the air with his bass on his thighs. It’s his not-so-subtle
Hello!
to this new crush in his life. Right now, right now, all is good, and when Bo’s voice echoes back from all corners of the arena, “Do you want to hear
Fuck You
?”
I shout out my
Yes!
with the audience too.

Ebele whoops at my side, lifting her arms above her head and shaking her hips. She’s shameless, beautiful, full of life and color—she’s exactly what I feel inside tonight.

I cherish this instant. Cherish Bo when he steps off stage and lowers his guitar to hug me tight. His sweat covers me as he rubs against my body and sucks me into a kiss. “I want to leave—now. Let’s go to the hotel. I need you,” he pants, from the exertion, from lust, or from the audience roaring for more behind him.

“I think you have to do an encore,” I say, breathless from his uber-presence rupturing the last inch of my personal space.

“I. Don’t. Care. I need every second left with you.”

Troll’s already heading over, a hand in the air and swiping at the stage. “Bo. Get your ass out there
now
. I’m not your babysitter, okay? You’ll get to your precious hotel soon enough.”

Bo does listen, rolling his eyes lightly, a small smirk lifting his lips. He grabs my hand, but I know what he wants and I’m not going there. I slip away, hide behind Troy who covers me, while Bo bounces to the side, playful, not giving up so easily.

“I’ve
had
it for the day. Please, make my life easy for once,” Troll sighs, grabs the back of Bo’s shirt like he’s taller than him, and hauls him up front himself.

Playful Bo. God, playful Bo is beautiful. Feelings inside of me mix and demand to burst free and be honest. Of course I don’t let them, but the softness they create within me, the gentle tug to say more,
do
more, is unequivocal.

Bo raises his arms in a
fine-you-win
gesture out there. Troll blows his cheeks full of air and lets it out fast, exhausted by the crazy boy. Me, I can’t take my eyes off Bo when he starts strumming his instrument.

“Ladies!” Emil bellows, and two thirds of the audience squeals a loud
Whoooo!
in response. “Ladies!” he bellows again, louder.

“Yeeeeeees!” the audience cheers back.

“
LADIES!
” Emil’s microphone retorts his voice and throws it back in a squealing feedback that lingers on for seconds after Emil stops. I swing to see Troll’s reaction, expecting him to be upset. He isn’t. His eyes are hard on the band, jaws tense in approval and waiting for Emil’s next move.

“
YEEEEESSS!
” The crowd is so loud, it’s a wall of sound coming back at me. Ebele laughs, and it’s contagious and I laugh with her, hard, and I don’t even hear my own voice over the noise surrounding us.

“You ready for a completely new song?” Emil yells.

What?

“
YEEEESSSSSS!
”

They start, and I instantly recognize it. It’s what Bo played in that dark corner of the stage in Deepsilver when I arrived. The melody has evolved. It’s more polished. There are still no vocals except for a few “she came” and “she’s here,” moaned out by Emil in his signature
I’m-making-love-to-your-ears
fashion.

My face is a cooked lobster.
Thank the Lord Bo doesn’t write books
, I suddenly think; song lyrics are revealing enough.

Thankfully, the stage bathes us in red light, softening the impact of my reaction. Ebele leans in. “Is this song about you too?”

I turn, and I’m struck by the openness in her expression. Elias is attracted to the opposite of himself, I’ve noticed—culture, skin color—but in addition, there’s a lack of judgment and of jadedness in Ebele’s expression. Has Elias noticed that in her too?

I’m used to downplaying and hiding, but Ebele makes it easy to be honest. “Yeah. I came out to see him,” I reply, smiling a little.

“Your boyfriend is a sweet man,” she says close to my ear so I can hear her. I need to tell her he’s not my boyfriend. Some other time.

BO

She absorbs my vehemence,
my fury—my
love
. Yes, right now that’s what it is. I admit it as I crush our hands against the tiled walls of the shower and take her with my mouth and my cock.

Her gaze had my back on stage, her belief in all that I do ever-present. Through my guitar solos, the backup vocals to songs I’ve made for her, for Ingela, or for life; whatever I did up there, she was with me in approval and a gentle pride that sat in her eyes. I know because I turned often.

She’s my muse, my beauty, my other person. The woman I want around on the toughest day, during nights like these where the show is over and I let the fans slobber on me. Even then she had my back, a slender arm around my waist from behind while rabid girls attacked with CDs and T-shirts, navels to sign and butt cracks with Clown Irruption tattoos. Not once did she waver. Not once did it scare her off.

I can’t stand that she’s leaving.

So I take her hard against the bathroom wall, and it’s not the way I’d planned to be with her tonight. I’m upset with myself, but I can’t handle these emotions. The looming loss of someone who’s never been yours is a crazy, crazy thing.

Her depths are smooth. She braves my frustration, my violence—my
love
.

Love does not last, mine less than anyone’s. It’s fickle, a cat, a woman, not something I’ll bank on or profess to.

I plead with her. Wow, yes, I plead.

“Please wait for me.”

“Yes,” she replies, and I hope she understands.

My movements become spasmodic. She lifts one knee, embracing me with her leg, and I heave the other up so it’s her against the wall, ruled by me. I keep her from falling, and she trusts me. It’s beautiful when she contracts around me in slow tremors too.

“Don’t worry. It’s just us here. No one can hear you,” I murmur, and she rewards me with a whimper as everything becomes too much for her to bear.

“Darling, I—” I cut myself off in time. Yes, I love her but that’s now. Tomorrow I’ll return to
me
. Shit’s complicated, and I don’t want to think about it. Her life. My missing love muscle. Or what if my heart’s just weird and skittish? Anyway.

I lower her to the floor and drink lukewarm water from her lips. We’re under the shower, breathing hard, and I’ve slid out of her and wish I hadn’t.

“It’s wrong,” I hum to her.

“What?” she puffs into my mouth.

“To be outside of you.”

A small breath hitches from her. It’s a cute laugh. Everything is cute with her.

“I’m obsessed,” I say. Carry her wet from the shower and dump her on our bed. She laughs softly as I lick her boobs free of droplets, grab an old hand towel from the floor, and start drying her off.

“I’m obsessed with you. It hurts. I still want more every time.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, but her eyes shine. There’s love in there, hidden. It’s of the kind that rages beneath the sternum of my own chest, of the kind I don’t allow out, except as an obsession.

Obsessions I can live with.

Obsession is music. Stage. Guitar. Melodies. Lyrics.

Adding another obsession is fine.

“You’re my latest obsession,” I tell her, kissing along her hairline, down past her ear and to her neck. I suck on her collarbone, and she’s content, her body a subtle wave beneath me on the bed.