Imaginary Grace (32 page)

Chapter 46

Tanner

I
walked off the stage high as a kite and headed straight for the back room. When I walked in the other guys started clapping and moved in for the high-five.

“Tanner, awesome finish,” Cole said as he slapped my back.

We all agreed that this had been our best show yet. The energy of the crowd had been fuckin’ electric—I was still on a high from it and I knew the other guys were too. Word must have been spreading about us, ‘cause the place was packed. I heard they were even turning people away at the door!

Cole had one of the waitresses bring in beers for all of us, and I downed my first one as soon as the bottle hit my lips. I pulled off my sweaty t-shirt and went to the tiny bathroom at the back of the room to change. I splashed some cold water on my face, then raked my fingers through my hair to get it out of my face.

When I walked back into the room, the guys were sitting around the table. I spun a chair around and straddled it as Cole held up his bottle. “Here’s to a slew of shows like this one!”

“Yeah!” we all shouted in unison, clanking our beers together.

This was about the time of the night when I’d strut out to the bar to claim my pick of any one of a number of hot, willing girls; now the idea just seemed depressing. I smiled, putting the bottle to my lips as I thought about Grace waiting at home for me. I didn’t want to bail on the guys so soon after the show, so I figured I’d hang for a respectable amount of time and then slip out.

Just then the waitress came in with a round of shots for everyone. “Hey Tanner,” she said, “you got a bunch of fans waiting out in the hallway. What should I tell them?”

“Oooh, Tanner,” one of the guys mocked me in a high-pitched voice. The others joined in, making me laugh.

The waitress was standing there with her hand on her hip, waiting for a reply. But before I could answer, Cole piped up with, “Tell them he’s taken.” Then he looked at me and added, chuckling, “Better be careful. Your girlfriend’s here.”

“My
girlfriend?
” I said. “What are you talking about?”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Your buddy Scott’s out there with a girl who he says is with you.”

I assumed that he was confused and was referring to Amber, since she’d claimed we were together more than once. “She’s full of shit if she says she’s with me,” I said, shaking my head with a look of amusement on my face.

“Hey,” Cole said, “all I know is that Scott introduced me to a nice-looking girl and said she’s with you. I think her name was…uh…Grace. Yeah, her name was Grace.”

Grace?
I froze at the mention of her name. “Did you say
Grace?
”

“Yeah, why?” Cole asked.

“What did she look like?” I don’t know why I asked. I knew it had to be her.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It was dark. I guess she was like medium height, long brown hair. That’s all I remember.”

Shit.
It was her. Why the fuck would Scott bring her here?

Just then the door opened up a crack, and Scott stuck his head in the room. “Hey, T, I need to talk to you.” He shot me one of those you-might-not-like-what-I’m-gonna-tell-you looks.

I jumped up and moved quickly to the door, pulling him into the room. “Scott, what the fuck, man? What’s Grace doing here?”

“Yeah, I can explain--”

I cut him off. “Yeah, explain!”

“First of all, don’t be snapping at me. I did you a solid, if you remember.” I tried to interrupt again but he put his hand up. “Hold up a minute. We were at the party and
Gary
was taking all the girls downstairs to play Blackwell. I tried to go, but he blocked me and basically told me to get lost. He had his boys there and I didn’t, so there was no way I was starting with him. The next best thing was to convince Grace to leave with me, which she wasn’t too keen on, so that’s when I suggested we come here.” He smiled. “She liked that idea.”

I thought about what he said and realized that it had probably been his only option. I softened my stance a bit and gestured for him to go on.

“It wasn’t until we got here that I found out you never told her you’re in the band. What’s up with that?” Scott started laughing. “Man, you should have seen the look on her face when she saw you up there and then…
then
when you started singing…oh man, it was fucking priceless.” He continued laughing and shaking his head as he made his way across the room to grab himself a beer.

“Wait a minute,” I said as I swung toward him. “Where is she now?”

He popped open the beer and drained half in one gulp. “I left her at the bar with Mickey and Dean so I could give you a heads-up. So when do you think you’ll be making an appearance? ‘Cause I want a front row seat when you do. Oh, and I wouldn’t wait too long. Dean can be pretty charming when he wants to be.” Scott turned back around and started talking to the guys, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

But there was nothing to think about. I had to go out there and talk to her, and I had to do it now. I took a long sip from my beer, then put it down on the edge of the desk in the corner of the room and slipped out the door. I was under enough pressure without having Scott gawking at me while I talked to Grace. Fortunately, my fans had given up waiting for me.

In fact, the whole place was starting to clear out. I glanced at the clock and saw it was past last call. I slowly walked down the long hallway to the edge of the dance floor, and when I looked across the room I saw Grace at the far end of the bar, talking to Mickey and Dean.

Her back was to me, so I was able to make my way over without her noticing. As I approached, Dean and Mick both looked up. “Hey, rock star,” Dean teased as I coolly slipped my arm around Grace.

“Great show, man!” Mickey said as he high-fived me.

“Yeah, great show,” Grace said as she peeked up at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.

I decided to follow her lead and play it cool in front of the guys. “So, I see you guys have met my girlfriend, Grace.” The word I’d so dreaded in the past now easily rolled off my tongue.

“Yeah,” Dean said. “Where’ve you been hiding her?”

I just laughed as I wrapped my arm tighter around her, my eyes nervously scanning the room for fear that one of my past conquests would pop up. I wanted out of there – and fast.

Just then Scott came skidding up behind us, almost knocking into me. “Did I miss anything?” he whispered, kind of breathless.

No one but me seemed to hear him, and I shot him a look as if to say “cut the crap”.

“Hey,” he said, turning to the other guys, “Who’s up for heading up the street to shoot a little pool?”

“I’m in,” Dean said.
Perfect!

Scott turned to us. “T? Grace?”

“Nah,” I said, relieved when I heard Grace say she was kinda tired.

“I think I’ll call it a night too,” Mick said. “Tanner, could you give me a lift home?”

Not so perfect.

“Yeah, sure, Mick,” I said because what else was I going to say? Everyone got up to leave, but I remembered I had to grab my guitar and keys, which were still in the back room. “We’ll meet you guys outside.”

But as I went to take Grace’s hand, Mick said, “Oh, you go ahead. I’ll finish telling Grace about me and Lisa’s trip out west this summer.”

You’ve
got
to be kidding me.
“Oh, all right,” I said, then winked at Grace and told her I’d meet her outside.

The drive home was only a few minutes but it felt more like an hour. I couldn’t wait to drop Mick off and talk to Grace…and then, hopefully, to get her into bed. We’d just turned onto the street when Mick said, “Hey, just take me back to your place. I think I left my phone there when Lisa dropped me off earlier.”

“Sure thing, Mick,” I said again, trying to hide my annoyance. I pulled into the driveway and the three of us got out of the car and walked around to the front door. Thankfully, Mick had left the phone right on the kitchen counter. He probably would have bullshitted for a while, had I not yawned loudly in his face and told him we were turning in.

I slowly closed the door behind him, then turned to face Grace. I couldn’t tell from her expression what she was thinking, but I could fathom a guess. She no doubt thought I was a dirtbag for keeping such a secret. We stared at each for a moment, but it was long enough to notice her extremely sexy high-heeled boots. I’d never seen them before.

“Listen,” I began as I slowly started to walk toward her.

But before I could say anything else she said, “You were
amazing
tonight.” With a huge grin on her face, she hurried toward me and wrapped her arms around my waist. “Why didn’t you tell me they were going to let you play with them tonight? I wish I could’ve seen the whole show.”

She was so excited about it that I couldn’t seem to get a word in edgewise. “And your voice…it sounded like I was really at a Triumph concert. How were you able to do that?”

Wow,
I thought to myself. This was
not
the reaction I had been expecting.

“Do you think they’ll let you do it again, because if they do, I definitely want to be there.” That’s when I realized she thought tonight had been a one-time thing, like they’d just put me in because they were in a bind or something. What would she think when she found out I’d been doing it all along?

I thought about just going along, but decided against it. She took my hand and led me to the couch, still talking. “What was it like up there? Were you nervous? Because if you were, I couldn’t tell.”

“Grace, wait a minute,” I said as we both took a seat on the couch.

“What is it?” she asked, still obviously excited about me and my “big break”.

I looked into her eyes and thought it would be so easy to lie to her –after all, I’d done it so much already. “Grace,” I began again. “I need…I need to tell you something.”

“Oh, go ahead,” she said, smiling and looking at me expectantly.

I dove right into it. “Grace, this isn’t the first time I’ve played with Hudson-Nash.”

“It’s not?”

“No, it’s not. Actually, I’ve been with them for about a year…”

“Yeah, I know, as their sound guy,” she said slowly.

“Yeah, that part’s true, but about a year ago they asked me to fill in for their guitarist, and I’ve been doing both ever since.”
There, I said it. It was out in the open; now just sit back and wait for the fallout.

“Oh,” she said as she slowly leaned back on the couch with a look of confusion on her face, “I don’t understand. Why would you keep that a secret?”

Here goes.
“Well,” I began, “at first, to be honest, I don’t know why I didn’t say anything. It was stupid, I guess, and then when I got to know you better, I don’t know, I thought you’d think it was too wild or something, and I didn’t want to scare you off. More time went by and the more I got to know you, the more worried I was to say anything. You see, when I’m up there on stage I’m playing to the audience, but that’s not really me up there.”
Well, not anymore, anyway.
“I’m playing a part and sometimes it can be a bit…I don’t know…much.”

She still looked confused. “What do you mean exactly? Like what’s ‘a bit much’?”

This was getting dicey, but I pressed on, wanting to get everything out in the open. I took a deep breath and slowly let it out before continuing. “Well…the girls at the clubs…they respond to a certain style and...well, we sort of play it up for them. I just don’t want you to think that any of it means anything, that it has anything to do with you and me.”

“Tanner,” she said as she reached over and took my hand, “I wouldn’t think that. I mean, you’ve never given me any reason to doubt you.”

I felt my heart sink as she spoke those words. She completely, without any reservation, trusted me, and I knew in that moment that if she ever found out what I had done – how this whole thing had started – it would shatter her. I vowed that the only way she’d ever find out was over my dead body. “Grace,” I said as I pulled her onto my lap so she was facing me, “I meant what I said the other night.”

She moved in closer and put her head on my shoulder. “I know you did, and Tanner, I meant it, too.”

We stayed like that on the couch for a few minutes, then I whispered, “Grace, you think we could move this conversation into the bedroom?”

She giggled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

I woke up the next day with Grace comfortably wrapped up in my arms. The way the light was coming in I figured it had to be nearly noon. I stretched leisurely, thinking I’d just had the best sleep in months, maybe longer. When she felt me move, she turned over. “It’s about time you woke up,” she said, smiling.

I put my hand through her hair. “Your hair’s, like, all wild again.”

She put her head down and started smoothing it back, trying to tame it.

“Leave it,” I said softly as I pulled her hand away. “You know I like it that way.”

“I should probably get going,” she said, pulling away from me, “I’ve got a lot of homework to catch up on.”

“Not so fast,” I said playfully, rubbing up against her until she started to giggle. “Stay for a little while longer. I’ll be quick, I promise,” I said as I began kissing her.

She didn’t say anything for a minute, then she pulled away just long enough to say, “Okay…you convinced me…but…you don’t have to be quick.”

I laughed at her honesty as I reached over into the nightstand drawer and felt around for another condom. I thought to myself that I wouldn’t mind staying in bed with her all day long.

By the time I dropped Grace off it was well after 2:00. What a night it had been. I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders and, much as I hated to admit it, I owed Scott big time. If he hadn’t brought Grace to the club, there was no telling how long I would’ve put off telling her about me and the band. She was actually cool with it and even seemed to understand my hesitancy in telling her.

I started thinking again about how much she trusted me, and I felt a niggling at the pit of my stomach. Truth was, I had nothing to worry about. Scott was the only person who knew what my original intentions were toward Grace, and I trusted him not to say anything. Still, I figured I oughta have a talk with him, make sure he knew just how important his silence was.