A Bleu Streak Christmas

A
Bleu Streak Christmas

♫

T.I. LOWE

Copyright © 2015 by T.I. LOWE

All Scriptures taken from The Holy
Bible, New International Version
®
,
NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.
®
Used by permission. All rights reserved
worldwide.

Also by T.I.
LOWE

Lulu’s Café

Goodbyes and
Second Chances

Coming Home
Again

Julia’s
Journey

The Reversal

Chapter One

M
ave

The water pelts aggressively
against my knotted shoulders, as steam completely obscures me from the world.
Well, not really—just in the bathroom, but a guy can pretend, can’t he?
Practice was stellar and my hands hold the familiar, gratifying ache from
shredding my drums. Three hours of practice, yet it wasn’t nearly enough to
release the tension gnawing at me. Unease crawls along my skin, begging for
more, but that’s all I’m getting.

Scrubbing
my calloused hands over my jaw, I measure the severity of needing a shave. Only
minimal stubble presents itself, so I shrug that task off for another day.
Midnight is nearing, so I reluctantly shut the shower off. The crowd is meeting
at the dock to sing me and Max our birthday song. The idea of turning
thirty-five is totally dizzying and oddly unsatisfying, with my list of life
accomplishments seeming meager at best.

Sure,
I get to rock out in my favorite band and make bank by playing my drums. And,
yes, I’ve got a standup crowd I’m blessed to call family. There’s just the
nagging feeling I can’t shake that there should be more—like I’m missing out on
something epic.

Pushing
that depressing thought aside, I step out of the shower and feel around in the
thick steam-filled room for the towel rack. My crowd thought it would be funny
to lock me out of my bedroom with my private bath attached, so I have to use
the guest bath downstairs. I know I brought a dang towel with me, but somehow
it’s disappeared right along with the change of clothes I dropped on the
counter before climbing in the shower. Kicking around the floor, I’m not
surprised to find my pile of dirty clothes gone as well. Great. Dripping wet, I
scrounge around in the cabinet and only unearth a flipping washcloth.

You’ve
got to always—and I do mean always—stay on your toes around these jerks. Mischief
is the norm.

Cracking
the door open, I yell, “Hey! Bring me my stuff!” I say it real mean, too. Guess
it didn’t help my cause. A few beats pass with nothing, so I yell a few more
times in a nicer tone before giving up. It’s a lost cause thinking they would
actually relent and give me my blame clothes back. I slam the door shut and
beat it a few times with my head for good measure, hoping some idea will come
to me.

Doing
my best dog impression, I fling off as much water as possible—probably earning
a mild whiplash in the process. Luckily, I keep my hair fairly short nowadays,
so a few flicks with my hands helps to rid the drips. After blotting—can’t
believe I just used such a pansy word—with the small cloth, I use it to shield
my junk.

Taking
a deep breath, I brace the doorknob and prepare to make a run for it, only to
freeze after slinging the door wide-open.

“Surprise!”

The
edges of my vision blur a bit, as I take in the roomful of friends and family
members with their phones raised. The only option is to stand here and allow
them to get the goods as I hold on to that tiny square of cloth for dear life.
My Twitter and Instagram accounts are going to be blowing up right about now.

Standing
smugly right in front is my twin brother. He’s wearing that stupid grin and the
change of clothes I brought in the bathroom with me earlier.

“Nice
outfit.”

His
smile widens even more. “Yeah. They’re just my size.”

A
snort escapes me. “No, bro. They’re way too baggy for your scrawny body.”

While
we have our standoff, Jewels ushers everyone out. I give her a wink of approval,
and she blows me a kiss before she leaves, too. That Dillon is one lucky dude
to be able to call that sweet thang his wife.

Only
the band remains to taunt me—Dillon, Max, Logan, and Trace. Well, I’m not
taking this lying down. Heck, no! Tossing the damp cloth and popping Max in the
face with it, I do a cocky strut around. Spreading my arms wide to offer a
better view, ignoring their eye rolls, I rub it in a little more.

“You
got a long way to go before you can fill out my manly pants properly, little
guy.”

The
guys bark out in laughter as Dillon tosses me a pair of boxers. “Put that puny
ego away, Mave. None of us wants to see your junk.”

Dillon
and these guys are my brothers. We’ve earned our right to harass one another,
so I let his comment slide.

“Then
y’all shouldn’t be stealing my clothes,” I grouch out alone with a chuckle,
turning around to give them a full moon view, while I shove the boxers on.
“Just wanted to make sure you girls got your fill of what a real man looks
like.”

More
laughter.

And
for the record, there’s nothing puny about me anymore. I’m the first to admit,
I have a problem with addiction. It near about killed me. That wakeup call
landed me in rehab and cured my taste for drugs. Nowadays, I focus my addictive
behavior for my betterment, which includes weight training. Since going this
route, I’ve managed to pack on fifty pounds of lean muscle—a far cry from the
twig I use to resemble. Max is also trying to put weight on now, so everyone
will stop referring to him as the scrawny twin. That’s hilarious to me. He can
still out-eat me, though.

Speaking
of eating…

“Let’s
go. I’m ready for cake,” I say as I finish dressing and shoving on some boots.

•♫•♫•♫•

The lake twinkles with glowing colors—red,
blue, orange, yellow, and green—giving this October night an early Christmas
vibe. It’s one of those pitch-black nights with nothing to take away from the
luminosity, and I just bet it would be a spectacular sight from a plane.

“Fore!”

We all watch Trace’s green ball land
way outside the glowing floating ring in the midst of the lake. The little
glowing ball looks lonely way over there by itself. Yeah, not teaming with him
for the celebrity golf tournament coming up next spring—duly noted.

“Trace, you can’t hit for crap, dude.”
Tate grabs the club out of his hand and positions his glow-in-the-dark golf
ball on the dock. “I land this shot in the ring, and then we’ve got to talk
some business.”

I watch from my lawn chair while
shoving in a big bite of caramel birthday cake. Max sits beside me, devouring
his dark chocolate cake. Jewels was a sweetheart. She gave us each our own cake
and divvied cupcakes out to the rest. Now it’s a race to see who can polish off
the quarter sheet cake first. I’m over halfway through mine already, but I
notice Wormy is only a few bites away from done.

It’s rolling close to three in the
morning, so all that remains is the band, our two managers, Tate and Ben, and
our assistant, Blake. Everyone is propped up in their own chair on the dock,
just hanging. Nights like this are hands down my favorite, with performing on
stage a close second. My spoon taps out a beat on the cake board absently with
these thoughts.

With a swift whack, Tate’s orange ball
lands perfectly in the middle of the ring, as he predicted. I’ll keep him in
mind for a teammate.

“This is a cool gift, Dillon,” Logan
drawls out as he takes Tate’s position at the end of the dock.

The dude can pluck a bass string like
nobody’s business. Too bad he has no golf skills. His ball lands nowhere near
the glowing ring—marking Logan off the golf buddy list.

Nothing much has changed over the
years, except the toys are much better and don’t come secondhand anymore.

“Yeah, dude. Thanks for the golf
stuff,” I say to Dillon, who’s balancing his blue golf ball on the end of his
six iron.

He chin-jerks with a grin. “No problem.
We can’t lose the tournament this year. The whole crowd of us looked like
idiots last year.”

“Ah. A gift with an ulterior motive,”
Max says around a mouthful of cake. He has yet to hit one ball. He’s too
consumed with consuming his cake. Looks like I will be forking over a hundred
bucks to him.

“Straight up,” Dillon agrees. Dude has
a competitive streak to go along with all of his other streaks—mischievous
streak, funny streak, talented streak, bossy streak, but never a mean streak.
We used to call him Saint Bleu. The man is solid and I’m not talking about his too-tall
stature. He makes the rest of us look like dwarves, even though we all linger
around the six foot mark.

Dillon takes his turn and lands the
ball in the ring. “All right, looks like there’s more green balls outside the
circle than not, so Trace gets to go round up all the balls.”

We laugh as Trace grumbles. He hops on
the Jet Ski, manning a dip net, and goes to retrieve the glowing balls illuminating
the lake’s surface. I snag a pic before he makes to the bounty for my media
pages and caption it—
I’m dreaming of a
Bleu Streak Christmas
.

“What a tease,” Max says as he peeps
over.

“Yeah, and they will eat it up.” Sure
enough, they do. My phone is already flashing with notifications blazing in.

The crowd is pushing the chairs to form
a loosely based circle, so I guess we’ve reached the business portion of the
night—or morning. Ben grabs a chunk of my cake as I place it back in the box.
Yes, I’m throwing in the towel. Three-fourths of a cake is enough. My pulse is
hammering away in the side of my neck from the sugar rush. I’m so wired there’s
no doubt sleep will remain elusive until probably tomorrow night around this
time.

Tate hands out the concert agenda once
Trace makes it back. I’m pretty stoked. We’ve only done a minimum of tours in
the last few years with some of the crowd popping out kids and needing to raise
them. I’m good with that, but I’m looking forward to hitting the road. There’s
a surplus of creative energy I gotta get burned off. I’ve taken up writing and
composing songs, so that’s helped. But nothing compares to performing them in
front of live audiences, where fans take a part of you and make it their own.

“The children will be out of school on
the fifteenth of December. We fly out that night to California. Concerts start
the following night and conclude on the third of January. We have close to
three weeks to pull off thirteen shows.” Ben looks up from the paper.

“Is that all?” Logan asks with sarcasm
thickly laced in his words. We all chuckle.

“Actually, no. There are a few
interviews and some charity events mixed in there. Nothing you guys can’t
handle,” Tate pipes in.

“And Jillian has a new assistant in
mind to help you guys out during the tour,” Ben says. He’s the only one who
calls Jillian by her given name. She’s Jewels to the rest of us. We have a hit
song with her name in the title, so yeah, she’s Jewels to all of us and not
just Dillon.

“Both tour buses are being serviced and
will join us in Louisiana for the last leg of the tour,” Blake says. “I’ve even
got the guy to custom fit blue Christmas lights along the top.” That grin shows
off how proud he is of himself on that detail. The kids will like it, for sure.

“Back to the new assistant. Who is he?”
I ask no one in particular.

“A
she
and her name is Elizabeth,” Tate answers.

“Hot dang! We’ve never had a lady
assistant before. Is she a birthday gift, too?” Max asks all excited, like he
doesn’t already have a steady girlfriend.

“I’m sure Mona would love to hear you
say that.” I huff.

“Doesn’t hurt to keep my options open. Seriously,
though, not for me, grouch, but for you!” Max barks out in laughter with the
other guys joining in.

“Why me?” My brows pinch severely, not
liking this.

“We worry you’re auditioning for the
part of the Grinch for our tour, dude,” Logan pipes in. “Maybe a hot mama will
chill you out.”

“No hot mama for Mave or any of the
rest of you. This is a serious job she’s needed for. Remember our side agenda?”
Dillon gives us pointed looks.

“That’s the
main
agenda,” Trace says and we all agree.

Christmas isn’t about taking advantage
of the season to cash in. Not for us, anyway. It’s about much more than
that—way beyond.

Blake leans in toward me and whispers,
“I got dibs.”

I shrug my shoulder, because I really
don’t care. I’m hitting the road to do some important giving back and to rock
out. There’s no room for female drama in there anywhere. That’s for dang sure.

Women, according to my history with
them, are nothing but trouble. All they’ve cared about are the status and
material possessions my fame can give them. Most of them have been delusional
enough to think they actually deserve it simply for keeping me company. Nope.
Not worth it. Don’t dare get heated with one of those plastic chicks, because
you gonna find yourself dealing with a melted inconvenient mess. Babes can
flake out in a blink of an eye. I think it’s because they’re hungry, but I’ll be
danged if I can’t get most of them to eat more than a leaf of lettuce. They
start mouthing off and I just want to cram a cookie in those whiny mouths. What
in the heck happened to real, wholesome belles? Ones that have actual curves, and
sturdy enough not to break on contact.