Scars and Songs (42 page)

She walked over to me and fixed all the pillows back on the couch.  She kept glancing at me as I watched her.  She walked to one of the closets where they kept extra pillows and sheets and fixed the couch for me to sleep on. I staggered to my feet and collapsed on the couch as I wrapped my hands around her waist and pulled her down to sit next to me. With one hand, I yanked my tee shirt off and threw it on the coffee table. I leaned back against the pillows of the couch and brushed the back of my hand against her leg, feeling the warmth of her skin.

I turned my head towards her and leaned in closer, “How was your date?” 

She looked down at her hands, my fingers softly stroking circle
s along her skin, and then our fingers entwined themselves into each other. “I didn’t go,” she whispered.

My heart raced.  That wasn’t what I had expected to hear.  The room spun even
faster and I felt light headed.  I lay down along the couch and pulled her gently into my arms, laying her against my body. “I know I’m drunk as hell, Grace, but, just stay with me. I need you like I fucking need to breathe.”

“Shane...” she breathed.  Then she nestled into me and I remembered what it felt like in heaven.

Softly, I placed my lips on the nape of her neck, just below her ear, inhaled deeply, breathing her in, and kissed her. “Shut up and go to sleep, Grace.”

This is where we belonged.

Why would someone be trying to drill a hole into my skull?  Holy crap, someone was trying to give me a lobotomy
.  I had to peel my eyes open with both my hands to get up.  Sitting up, I had no clue where I was or how I had gotten there.  The only thing that my eyes could focus on was a wooden baseball bat in the corner of the room and I wondered if I somehow had used it to play baseball without remembering.  Do you know what the trouble with real life is?  It lacks special effects movie music to clue you in on what the fuck is happening around you.  Because at that moment, I would have bet someone should have been playing horror-danger music.  I completely thought that this life I was stuck in was quickly becoming a very complicated drinking game.  And I was losing horribly. 
I wondered if my liver jumped ship last night, I would completely understand if it did, I had been totally abusive to it
.

I met up with Conner at the bathroom as he stumbled out holding his head.  “Bro, you might want to wait before you go in there,” he warned.  The warning was way too late, I gagged in the doorway.

“Holy sweet mother of bathrooms, what the hell crawled up your ass and died?”  I held my nose as I looked through the cabinets for aspirin.  “Con, you need to contact the military, because that is a potent freaking chemical weapon, my eyes are tearing!”

Laughing, we made it to the kitchen where Lea,
the most wonderful female friend ever
, had coffee waiting for us.  Conner and I both slumped down onto the kitchen seats and laid our heads down on the cool table. 

Sweet loving Lea handed both of us coffee.  Then she leaned her palms on the table and stood over us. 
Uh oh
.  “Whoever it was who got up in the middle of the night and drunk pissed all over my once clean toilet seat better hope they never do that again, but it’s okay, don’t either one of you worry your little hung over heads a bit about it. I cleaned it all up with one of your toothbrushes, thing is, you won’t know whose I used…” I peeked over my arms at her.  She grabbed her coffee cup, walked a few steps away and leaned against the counter.  “And, why the hell does Shane have a toothbrush here?” She was smiling.  I dropped my head back down against the table hard. 

“GOOD MORNING, BOYS!” Grace yelled from the doorway. I cringed and lifted my head, shaking it.  “You’re pure evil,” I whispered before my head collapsed back onto my arms.

“Why the hell are you girls up so early on a Sunday making a racket waking us up?” Conner asked. 
Yeah, great question.  Didn’t Grace have a hot date last night?  I hoped that Ryan didn’t walk out of her bedroom right then, because I would kill him.  I didn’t remember seeing her home at all last night.  Okay, truthfully, I didn’t even remember coming here last night, but still
.

Lea placed her hands on her hips, shaking her head, “Con, I told you. Grace and I are going to my parents. We’ll be back tomorrow. Grace is going to pick up her bike
and
maybe we’ll go out dancing tonight.” She winked at Grace, “What do you say, Gray? You up for dancing at one of the beach clubs?”

Oh, hell no
.

“Now that sounds like a good idea. I’m going to need to pack a little skirt and some heels then,” she said as she poured herself a cup of coffee and stirred in some sweetener.

I leaned back on the kitchen chair to look at her and folded my hands behind my head.   I was trying to stay as calm as I possibly could, since I hadn’t seen any sign of Ryan yet. It wasn’t too hard, but I had a sinking feeling that he was just sleeping late from being up
all night
.  “So how was your date with the bartender last night, finally get laid?”

Grace’s eyes widened and her coffee cup froze midway to her lips. “Are you serious right now?” Lea gave Conner a sideways glance and a shove, which made his coffee slosh all over his hands.  Then both of them started to leave.

Grace jumped up.
Yeah, I flinched,
so what, and she slammed her cup of coffee down on the table. The dark liquid splashed over the top and spattered all over the table. She stood right in front of me leaning down, leveled her eyes to mine, and I didn’t make a move to lean away.  She was so close I could smell her shampoo and soap on her skin.  “He damn near wrecked my ass he was
so big
. Thanks for the condom, one just wasn’t enough though. So, yes, Shane, I am one well-fucked girl right now!” Then she moved even closer, like she was about to kiss me, or I was about to kiss her. 
Damn, I couldn’t think straight!
“I didn’t know how much I needed to be with him. It’s like I needed him like I needed to breathe. Ever felt like that, Shane?”

I took a long, deep breath, blowing it back out through clenched teeth. Slowly, I pulled myself out of the chair, not breaking eye contact with, she stood up moving her body in tandem with mine. “What did you just say?”  She didn’t have to answer me, the memories from last night came flooding back, pouring over my head, pulling me under; drowning me.

She didn’t go
.

Grace backed away from me and looked over to Lea. “I’m going to pack some more stuff. Let me know when you’re ready to leave.” She walked around me, giving plenty of room so she wouldn’t accidently brush into me.

My body went rigid, muscles all stiff and tight, and knuckles white.  I hated it when I planned out a whole conversation in my head and the other people don’t follow my script!  I always ended up looking like the
King of All That Is Douchebaggery
.

“My God, Shane, you are the biggest asshat in the whole world!” Lea screamed in my face. “You ran out of the house like a God damn five year old yesterday and she told Ryan she couldn’t go out with him! She stayed here the whole night. Alone!” She stomped into the hallway and continued her tirade at me, “And maybe you were too damn drunk to remember, but when I woke up this morning, she was wrapped in your arms on the couch, Shane. She stayed with you the whole night. She’s right about you. You don’t deserve someone like her.”

I dropped to my knees hard.  Pain shot up through my legs, rocking my bones.  Lea was right; I didn’t deserve her.  I didn’t deserve someone who stood by the memory of us for thousands of years, who believed in our love for so long, when I couldn’t even get though a conversation without irrationally accusing her of things that only I have done.

“Do you like, take classes to be
that
freaking stupid, Shane?  If you don’t stop, you are never going to be with her.  It can’t actually be this hard for you to like just one girl, can it?”  Conner asked.

“I
am worse
than Tucker,” I said hanging my head in my hands.  Yeah, I cried.  Fuck it; I’m a mush when it comes to her. 
Grace is my everything
.

Lea’s clicking heels walked back into the kitchen.  Then they kicked me, hard.  “Get up off my damn floor and go in there and spend the rest of your fucking existence making that girl forget you are an
asshat
and make her love you,
asshat!
”

I wiped at my tears before she could see them.  It didn’t matter, I knew she could see me wiping the tears away so she knew I was crying, but yeah, whatever.

“And go put a damn shirt on and cover up your eighteen pack or whatever you got going on under that skin, you are making me drool.”

“Lea, stop saying crap like that to me and stop the gawking, awkward.”

Lea smiled down at me, “You, sir, are a bit easy on the eye, so therefore I shall stare at you.  If you feel at all uncomfortable, I could always knock you over the head with something until you’re unconscious and take pictures.  Now go get Grace!”

Scrambling off the floor, I ran down the hallway and banged the side of my closed fists against Grace’s bedroom door. 
Nothing
.  Well, actually I thought I heard someone whispering; maybe she had a radio on or something.  I pounded my fists on the door again.  “Grace, please open the door,” I whispered.

Red-eyed and trembling, she opened her door.  My legs almost gave out from beneath me;
I was the cause of her sadness.  I have been the cause of her sadness and suffering for so long. 

It was time to change that.

I slowly stepped up to her, brought my hands to her chin and touched each side of her face.  I ran my thumbs along the underside of her eyes.  My breath came out labored and my voice thickened with sorrow, “I don’t know how to do this, tell me how to fix us.”

Grace leaned her face into my hands and sighed heavily.  “Just be my friend, Shane, start there. Anything else might kill us both.”

I pulled her into my arms and crushed her against my chest.  She melted right into me and put her head against my heart.  “Damn, girl.  I’m so sorry I’ve been such a
Tucker
to you.”

She pulled her head off my chest and laughed, “Yeah, like what are you doing, taking lessons from him or something?  I was thinking of kicking your ass out of the band and getting him to come back!”

Our bodies parted slightly, and I kept my arm around her shoulder and walked her out into the living room with her bag.  “Difference is, I’m so much better looking than him that you just accept it from me, right?”

She laughed and hip checked me, “Lea,” she yelled over my shoulder.  “I’m pulling the Jeep around!”  Grace walked out the door but I still held onto the bottom of her shirt and kept the soft material clenched in my fingers.  Slowly walking backwards, she smiled and the material slipped through my fingertips. 

Lea and Conner walked up behind me and I got elbowed in the gut by one of them, most likely Lea.  “So, I don’t see any bruises or cuts on you, so it doesn’t look like she kicked your sorry ass like I would have,” Lea teased.  “What happened?”

Pressing my lips tight to keep from smiling, I couldn’t fight the chuckle from bubbling in my chest. “I’m coming with you to your parents.  It’s been a few months since I’ve seen
Mr. and Mrs. Rossi.” I gave her a wink.

Lea bounced on the balls of her feet and she held her hand over her smiling mouth, “Holy Discovery Channel Sex, Conner, we are going to get caught in a porn storm between these two.  Conner you better be coming with us too, because if I have to watch them making googley-steamy-nasty-dirty-sex-eyes at each other, there won’t be a vibrator in the world big enough to satisfy me!”

Conner’s eyebrows shot straight up his forehead, “Where the hell did I find someone like you?  That’s so hot, and I would like to see you use this vibrator that you speak of.”

I wrinkled my nose at the both of them and leaned back, “Ookay.  I’m going to get my running bag; I have some clothes in there that I could take.”  Then they started sucking on each other’s face as if I were invisible. 
Yeah
.  I definitely needed to get the hell out of the hallway.

Within ten minutes, Grace was in front of the apartment honking her horn and adrenaline was bursting in little pinpricks of heat all over my skin.  I hoped Grace wasn’t going to be mad that I was coming, but I decided when I was on the floor in her kitchen, on my knees, I was never letting her go.  Never.  She deserved a man that would fight for her, a man that would be the best man he could be, and I was taking the job.

The three of us ran to Grace’s double parked Jeep and Lea opened the passenger side door and yanked the front seat forward. Conner and I climbed into the backseat silently, shoving our bags in the small space behind the seats. Lea pulled the door closed after she climbed in and gave Grace a small sideways smile. “They wouldn’t let us go without them.”

Through the rearview mirror, I watched as Grace’s lips curled up into a stunning smile and then her eyes met mine.  For a small moment, we stared at each other, in the chaos of the city, before she pulled the Jeep into the street and drove, I knew that
starting as friends was bullshit
, we were way past that.  But I’d give it to her anyway, for about a week,
then
she was mine.  And to send that point home, on the Jeep’s audio system played
So Far Away
by
Avenged Sevenfold. 
God, I’d love to do a show with those guys.  “Love this band,” I said to Grace in the mirror.  She raised the volume,
hell yeah
.