Chasing Kane (6 page)

CJ: Hello?

Frankie: So?

CJ: Just thought you might want to clear your calendar ;)

Frankie: For …

CJ: Come on …

Frankie: Don’t start your shit, CJ. You made it *really* clear how you felt about me when you left

CJ: I’m sorry

I took a break from reading his private texts to glance once more at my cousin—a man who, to my prior knowledge, had only ever apologized for anything under sarcastic circumstances. His back was turned to me. I couldn’t tell if he was asleep, but his phone was still teetering at the foot of his bed, so I turned back to the text that wasn’t meant for my eyes. See what happens when you get involved with women?

Frankie: For what? For being yourself? You spent a long time warning me about who you might become. Guess you finally proved us both right.

CJ: There’s a lot here you don’t understand, Frankie.

Frankie: Exactly. Three years in a committed relationship with you and there’s shit under the surface I still don’t know. Fuck me for being pissed about it. I deserve better. I deserve someone who’s going to man-up when shit gets rough.

CJ: Don’t start THIS SHIT with me, Frankie. You knew I was fucked up and that I changed when I was with you. Because I love you. Then I’m honest about how I’m feeling when YOU KNOW it’s hard for me, and that’s a problem? You told me you loved me as I am.

CJ using the word love? No wonder he looked homicidal during this exchange—poor kid had never been in love so far as I know.

Frankie: I do love you, CJ. Probably always will. Lucky for me, I don’t believe that there’s just one love for everyone, and I need to find someone who I love and who can give me what I want and need out of this life. It’s too short to wait on a guy to be faithful to me between tours and until he gets bored.

CJ: I was faithful to you the whole time, Frankie! Why don’t you trust me!

Frankie: Because when someone has to ask after three YEARS “where we stand,” it makes me wonder where they thought we stood before.

CJ: Whatever. Fucking whatever.

I guessed this is where CJ discarded his phone, or close to it, because this is where the screenshot stopped.

Me:
Well that was intense. And personal. Do you guys share everything?

I knew they did.

Georgia:
Yes. When we want to have someone with some sense weigh in on something … :-p

Me:
I love you. Napping now.

Georgia:
Don’t tell CJ I showed you.

Me:
Wouldn’t dream of it.

What I did dream of, though, was much better. Georgia, our bed, and a family in the works. I always loved the beginnings of tours when all I could think of was my wife and the future before us before it turned into desperate missing her and doing all I could to keep my mind
off
of it.

***

“Hot as
balls
out here,” CJ droned as we finished setting up the stage for the night’s show.

I nodded, scratching some sweat away from my chin as Yardley came up beside us with a devious grin on her face. Dressed in a tight denim mini skirt and a snug tank top that prominently displayed her breasts, I prayed CJ would keep his comments to himself, if not his eyes. This look was uncharacteristic for our manager, but not all together outlandish. She’d been relaxing more on tour with us, only slipping into her more professional attire for certain venues and crowds.

“You,” she said, pointing to me.

“Yeah?” I pulled one of Georgia’s bandanas from my back pocket to swipe across my forehead. She had a dozen, so I knew she wouldn’t miss one while I was on the road. I needed her with me more than she needed the red fabric anyway.

Reaching behind her, Yardley produced a disposable razor from her back pocket, wielding it in front of my face.

I shrugged. “Don’t know what you expect me to do with that.”

“You’ve gotta clean up the facial situation. Just a little,” she pleaded.

I laughed. “Says who?”

“Me.”

“Why?” I challenged.

“Because you’re one five o’clock shadow away from Hermitville, and that’s not really the image we’ve got painted for you.

“Come on!” I stroked the edges of my jaw playfully. “It’s hip, isn’t it? CJ, what’d you call it? Lumbersexual?”

At this, Yardley laughed. “Nice try. You need about seventy-five pounds on you for lumberjack status. CJ? With a little facial hair
he
could pull off that label.”

“You callin’ me fat?” CJ asked, his accent thick as he feigned offense.

Yardley shot him a challenging glance. “Never. You’re not. All brawn.”

He flexed his arms, wriggling an eyebrow like it was a drunken caterpillar. “You know it.”

“Anyway,” I pulled the conversation back to the topic at hand. “I’m not using that. I’ll get an electric razor and trim it. It’s not all coming off.”

She sighed. “Fine. But tight to the face, Regan. Please.”

“Why does Ronnie get to keep his beard?” I asked of the lead guitarist of, and Nessa’s co-lead singer in, The Brewers who had a beard he could probably tie an elastic around.

“Because that’s just … Ronnie. It’s all very him.”

I nodded. “I see. Would you talk to a woman like this? Nip this, tuck that, dye this, have that?”

Yardley tossed her blond hair back, thick from the heat as she laughed, open mouthed and facing the sky before giving me any attention. “Oh, Regan,” she started, recovering from laughter. “Sweet, sweet Regan. If you only knew half the things women were asked to do in the name of image and business deals. Bet you’ve never been asked to sleep with anyone to help close a deal,” she said in dark seriousness.

CJ stood, suddenly interested, sliding between the two of us. “No one’s fuckin’ asked
me
that. What’s a guy gotta
do
to get laid around here!” He held his hands out to his sides, half playing and half something I barely recognized before turning and marching up the stairs to our bus.

“Fine,” I conceded, not wanting to get into a conversation with Yardley about who has ever been asked to sleep with whom. “I’ll go right now.”

“Thanks. You’re good people, Regan. The label is lucky to have you.” She walked by me and onto the stage, checking the work we’d all just completed. By far one of the most involved, hands-on managers I’ve ever read about or come across.

“What was that about?” Nessa’s warm rasp of a voice came from behind me.

She sounded like she grew up singing in old-time jazz bars. The kind filled with cigarette smoke and martinis. It wasn’t dry and unattractive, rather it was as unique as her style. I turned to face her, always surprised by her appearance. She donned a long, fitted black and white striped sleeveless dress, hot pink combat boots, and a light, flowery pink scarf around her neck that allowed just the shadow of her black pearl necklace to peek through. Her jet-black hair and as-striking blue streak in the front made her a complicated puzzle to figure out, especially when she got behind the mic and belted out the raw, bluegrass-come-pop sound her band executed with perfection.

I scratched at my face. “Hermit’s gotta go.”

She chuckled, playfully reaching up and twirling the hair at the end of my chin in her fingers. “Thank
God
.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, feeling something like blush rising through my face. “Don’t like it?”

“It’s fine, but I prefer you with it a little … less. The hair, though? Never cut that. Go down fighting for that!” Her hand shook over my head, messing up my already disastrous hair before she bounded the stairs to the stage.

“Good luck tonight,” I said, turning for my bus.

She slung a guitar over her shoulder. “You too. You’re playing with us, right?”

I nodded. “We’re on before you, though, I think. So I’ll be warmed up.”

Nessa looked down at her guitar, which she’d only recently learned to play. “Regan,” she said playfully, “I have a feeling you were born warmed up.”

I blushed fully this time at her compliment. “I could say the same for you. Don’t over think it up there. Rest that voice of yours until then.”

Once on our bus, I shut the door behind me to keep the heat out since the AC was on for the time being. I waded through the front, where members of The Shakes were napping. They were a full-on bluegrass band, only recently signed to GSE. They were as wide-eyed on stage as the newbies they were, and they partied a little longer than the rest of us. Well, them and CJ. I trusted that by the time we hit Montana they’d settle into a routine and not party every night like it was their last. At least most of them would. Their own drummer and CJ were clearly cut from the same mold, and had only one operating level: On.

My eyes worked over the soft mounds of her succulent chest when I looked up to find her face and those startling mismatched eyes. Staring right back at me.

“You lost?” Nessa asked, pointing behind me as I leaned against her bus. “I think your bus is back there.”

I shook my head. “I’m not lost,” is all I said, creating a silence I’ve learned can be more inviting than uncomfortable under the right conditions.

I sensed she could handle the way I was looking at her—undressing her quite slowly with my eyes and enjoying every damn second of it.

She blinked a few times, crossing her arms and leaning against the bus, too, facing me. She swallowed once before speaking.

Come on. Almost there …

“You did a hell of a job tonight,” she started, tucking the electric blue piece of hair behind her ear.

It looked like the energy from that ball at that museum we went to in fourth grade. The kind that sent electricity through the whole class as we held hands, causing our hair to frizz up with the residual static. I’d be lying if I said my hair wasn’t standing a little on end as I stared, watching confidence flow off her. Nessa didn’t fidget with her fingers or spend time studying her shoelaces. Eye contact was her game, and lucky for me, it was a game I’d mastered long ago.

“Thanks,” I said, straddling the line between confident and cocky. Between being humble and a horse’s ass, as my dad always said. Too bad he wouldn’t know humility if it kicked him in the teeth.

Which I wish it would.

“What does CJ stand for, anyway?” her head leaned slightly to the side, eyes narrowing as she weaseled her way into my head.

“Not without a drink first,
Vanessa
,” I teased, winging a guess at her given name.

A smirk slowly peeled one side of her mouth upward. “Not really a big challenge you overcame, there. I’m not weird about my name like you seem to be.”

“Who’s weird?” I took a deep breath, shrugging it off. Frankie and I had had a similar conversation three years ago when she first asked me what CJ stood for. So, I did now what I did then. I reached for my wallet, handing Nessa my license. “See? No periods. Just CJ,” I assured before shoving it back in my jeans.

She nodded, skeptically, the way Frankie had off and on for the first few months of our relationship. I knew Nessa would eventually drop it. They all did. Even Frankie, though it took her longer than most.

You drop it, Kane. Frankie wants nothing to do with you … just like you knew would happen.

“But, Nessa’s a name all by itself, so I took a chance there,” I continued.

“It is?”

I nodded. “It’s a Gaelic name, actually. Nessa was the mother of the King of Ulster. His name was Conor. She was wildly powerful
and
beautiful, and really looked out for her son.”

“Oh yeah?” Nessa eyed me with almost comical suspicion.

I put my hand to my chest. “I’m dead serious. She tricked her second husband, King Fergus, into giving up the throne and kingdom to his stepson for a year. But, during that year, Conor was such a wise and awesome ruler, that the people chose
him
to be their permanent king.” I smiled proudly.

“Wow, you and Regan really dig into your Irish history, huh?”

“That,” I admitted, “and I take a minute to Google interesting names when I hear them on the off chance that they fit into my culture. Got lucky with Nessa, I guess. Not a bad namesake. I’ve got nothing on Vanessa, though. Sorry.” That earned me a hearty laugh from Nessa.

“So, does your C stand for Conor, by any chance?”

I laughed. “Hardly the king type.”

Looking around, desperate to change the subject, I noticed the usual division amongst members of our tour. Some headed to their busses, phones in hand, talking to loved ones no doubt. The rest of us? We were just bored, itching for trouble. To my deep, bubbling pleasure, Nessa was still leaning against her bus, seemingly assessing the two different cultures. Deciding which she’d assimilate with for the night.

Taking my chances, I nodded my head to the crowd flowing away from our own RV-like park in the middle of the desert. “Come get a drink with us.”

Me. I wanted to say
me
, but I’d learned a lot over the years, and was far ahead of the testosterone filled hook-up attempts of my earlier youth.

She sighed, heavy as if I’d asked how a dying relative was hanging in there. “I don’t know …” Her eyes were cautious, no doubt scanning my face for signs of delinquency. Assessing her own ability to maintain whatever composure she thought she was maintaining around me.

I shrugged, dredging from the depths of the barrel the last of my tricks. “I heard some of the guys say they were going to some bar called Rocky Springs. Join us if you want, but …” I paused, forcing her eyes up to mine. “Don’t come alone, okay? New city, weirdos, all that.”

She laughed, her face glowing with the creamy fluorescence of the last of the stage lights left lit. “How big brother of you.”

I grinned, throwing a wink before turning on my heels. “Not any big brother your parents would want you hanging around.” I walked away, my heart alive in my chest with the intoxicating sensation of fresh flirtation.

One, two, three, four … shoot, five, six. Did I misjudge her? Seven, eight …

Finally, it came.

“CJ, wait up.” Her voice sounded nonchalant in the few seconds it took her to catch up to me.

I kept walking, saying nothing but allowing her to fall in step next to me, her long, muscular legs making easy work of keeping up. I’d been so entranced by her eyes, I’d failed to notice until now that she’d changed from her stage wear into shredded, tight-as-sin jean shorts with a white T-shirt stretched impossibly across a black-lace bra. She kept the pink combat boots, though. I liked that.