The Girl in the Comfortable Quiet (24 page)

I open my eyes. I see Alan’s face above me, head
leaning back—we’re in a car?—eyes closed, features in an intense
arrangement—angry or is he something else? My body makes jerks from my center
and I know I’m going to throw up.

I try to turn my head. Alan straightens and
stares down at me.

“Oh fuck, Chrissie. Are you getting sick?”

He turns me onto my side and something is pressed
against my mouth and the spasms get more intense, over and over again, but
nothing comes out. I feel a desperate need to throw up and it won’t happen.

I breathe in. I breathe out. I run my clumsy hand
across my mouth and then roll back until my head is again on the pillow that is
Alan’s body.

Those black eyes fill the world above me. Oh God,
I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but instinct warns this is another Chrissie
low moment.

How did I get into a car alone with Alan? Where
is he taking me?

I moan, wishing I could disappear beneath his
overly alert gaze.

“Are you OK, baby?” Alan’s voice is ragged and
unsteady.

“I feel sick,” I whisper. My tongue is thick in
my mouth, making my words slur. “And my head hurts. What’s wrong with me?”

He starts brushing back the wayward hairs from my
face. “Nothing. You’ll be fine in the morning. You need rest. You need to eat.
And you need to never listen to that miserable friend of yours again.”

Rene? If I had the strength I would laugh at the
way Alan says that. Only I feel so weak. And none of this is funny.

“What happened?”

He gives me a
don’t worry about it
, tender
kind of smile. “Nothing that hasn’t happened to me before. A dinner six parts
scotch and one part tranquilizer. You feel wretched now. You’ll be fine by
morning.”

“Oh God,” I groan. Is that why I feel so awful?

There are bits and pieces of the night in my
head, but they are foggy. I went on stage, I know that. But after that, blank.
Nothing. There is nothing in between me running on stage and waking up in the
car with Alan. A total blank. Why nothing?

Before I can question Alan, the car rolls to a
stop and he’s carrying me into the beach house. I struggle in his arms, wanting
to be put down, wanting to figure out what happened and why Alan has taken me
home with him, but the world turns back into shifting frames, and my mouth,
legs and arms are useless.

“Why—”

“Stop it,” he orders harshly. “I promised the
doctor someone would stay with you tonight.”

Doctor? Oh no, oh no, oh no. I don’t remember.
And why am I with Alan instead of Rene?

“Where’s Rene?” I stare up at him, wide-eyed,
alarmed. “What happened tonight, Alan? Why a doctor?”

He ignores my questions, holding me against his
chest with one arm, and opens the front door.

“Goddamn it, what is she doing here?” I hear a
voice screech.

Oh fuck. Elaina. Standing in the foyer, hands on
hips, stunning face contorted with rage.

Alan brushes past her toward the hall. “I thought
you’d left.”

“And I thought you said that you weren’t fucking
around with her?” she screams in a voice of pure venom and accusation. “That
the stories in the press were untrue. I stayed because I believed you, you
bastard. But I’m sick of your shit. I’m leaving and I’m not coming back.”

“Then get the fuck out,” Alan growls without
looking at her. “I was expecting you to be already gone.”

He goes into the bedroom.

I stare up at him, humiliation and so much more
turning in me. I don’t know where to start. What to say.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper weakly.

Alan exhales slowly, harshly. “Don’t be. It’s
been over for months. You just expedited the ending.”

His voice is clipped, angry, and I’m not sure
which one of us, me or Elaina, he’s angry with. The front door slams. He lays
me on the bed and sits down on the edge beside me. He is silent, taking in
measured breaths as if trying to calm himself.

I remember the question in my head before the
unpleasant appearance of Elaina. “Why did I need a doctor?”

He runs a hand through his hair several times. He
looks angry. Annoyed. Reluctant. Those black eyes lock on me. “You were pretty
fucked up by the time you went on stage thanks to Rene. You passed out at the
end of your set. As a precaution, I thought it best to have you checked by a
doctor. He gave you some fluids to hydrate you or you’d be still sleeping and
feeling a hell of a lot worse than you do. He sent you home and not to a
hospital, which I think we can both agree was a better outcome for you and
should tell you you’re fine and stop that panic I see in your eyes. You’re
staying the night here, Chrissie. That’s the end of it.”

The end of it? I search his face. Oh no, there’s
more. I can see it in his eyes. Something happened in that chunk of time I
can’t remember. And I’m not sure I want to know what. It has to be dreadful if
Alan won’t tell me. Alan says every thought in his head, untempered.

I feel frazzled and disoriented and sick again.

“You should go to sleep,” Alan says quietly.
“We’ll talk in the morning.”

Alan removes my shoes then reaches for the clasp
of my pants and I start to protest.

His eyes begin to flash. “Fuck, Chrissie, will
you stop being a pain in the ass? You scared the hell out of me tonight. I’m
out of patience. Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”

His voice brings me up sharply. He sounds
emotionally ragged.

“If you’re in trouble, you come to me first. Why
won’t you let me be there for you?”
he whispers.

His smoldering gaze burns into mine. The inner
tension that I didn’t even know I had slowly leaves my limbs and I release the
air from my lungs. His hand cups my cheek, and his thumb lightly caresses me.
I’d forgotten the care in which he touches my flesh, so gentle, and I quiet
beneath his touch.

After a few minutes, his hand falls away and he
undresses me. He lifts me up and puts me beneath the blankets.

“Do you feel all right?” he asks softly.

I nod.

“Do you need anything?”

“No. Just sleep, I think.”

Alan sighs. “Are you ready to tell me what’s
going on with you, Chrissie?” When I don’t answer him, his jaw clenches. He
stands. “I should let you sleep.”

I stop him with my hand. “Can you do something
for me, Alan?”

He stares down at me.

“Can you stay, hold me, not let go and let me
sleep?”

He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move. It feels like
an eternity with us doing nothing but staring at each other. And right when I
feel like I can’t endure another second more of his silence or the look in his
eyes, Alan settles beside me, takes me in his arms and holds me close against
him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

My
lids open wide and Alan’s face fills the world above me. I catch it—that look
in his eyes he only has that first moment I wake when he’s watched me
sleep—before he can reclaim it behind the shadowy darkness of his gaze.

I take a moment to let that look calm my
internally messy. Parts of last night are clearer. I am calmer, though I
probably shouldn’t be because my public Chrissie low moment just propelled my
problems with Neil into epic proportions and I don’t even know everything that
I did last night. But that Alan stepped in to take charge tells me it was bad.
And I should definitely not feel calm inside with him lying close to me,
reclined on his side, cheek in hand, and unwaveringly staring at me.

I try to gather something reasonable to say to
him in
this
circumstance that won’t sound trite or lame, but the task is
made impossible by having him close to me. 

I’d forgotten how beautiful Alan is in the
morning, strongly carved features softened by sleep, dark black waves tousled,
eyes more like melting chocolate instead of burning coal.

He smiles, a gentle, sort of nothing kind of
smile. “Good morning.”

Normal conversation in not a normal context.

I brush the hair from my face. “What time is it?”

He checks the clock. “A little after two in the
afternoon. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep quite so soundly. No
nightmares. No babbling.” He arches a brow, amused. “Completely uneventful and
not interesting.”

He says that with just the right amount of
inanity, but my inner distress returns and I laugh to hide my sudden
discomposure caused by the memories he brings flooding back without effort.
Memories of him. Memories of us. Memories of other times I’ve woken in his bed.

They are not all happy, and I shake my head to
push them away. I pause to let my gaze move around the room, bright with
afternoon light, as I try to orient myself to this day’s events.

Waking up in Alan’s bed and having him in it.
Jeez, how much of the time since I’ve been here has Alan done nothing but lie
and watch me? Inside my head I roll my eyes at myself since that is a vain
question, in the extreme, to think he’s done nothing but watch me sleep.

I change course. “Are you going to tell me what
happened last night? What I did on stage? What got everyone in a panic over
me?”

His gaze fixes on my face, stripped of
expression, but it feels like he’s trying to decide which way to go with this.
“Do you want the highlights or the lowlights?”

He phrases it in a way that deliberately gives me
an out. I tense. “Both.”

He stares into me, hardly blinking, calm and
gentle. “You performed remarkably well last night. One of your best, considering
how fucked up you were.” His expression changes. Serious. He looks annoyed with
himself. “And you were fucked up, Chrissie. Make no mistake, no one watching
missed it. Not the audience. Not the press. It isn’t so much the performance
that is the issue you might need to work through with Neil.”

Oh no. I’m starting to remember. He pauses as if
waiting for me to grow steady enough for him to continue.

“Just tell me, Alan,” I whisper, almost unable to
push the words out.

“I’m not sure which will be the highlight or the
lowlight for you, love. I definitely have a preference. When you finished
singing you came to me on stage. Do you remember that?”

My lids fly wide, partly because of how he says
it and partly because I don’t. I remember Len Rowan, but not going to Alan.

More heavy silence. The lump in my throat is
strangling.

His mouth sets in a grim, albeit slightly amused,
line. “I would have stopped you, Chrissie, if I had a clue what was going on
with you or what you were going to do. But to be honest, I enjoyed it.”

Enjoyed it?

“Full mouth, wide open kiss, lots of tongue and
overtly sexual.” He pauses, his face changing into something deliberately
humor-bent. “I admit, the kiss was among your best, perhaps because you were so
fucked up. At any rate, Len pulled you off me and that’s when the lowlight
happened. After kissing and rubbing yourself up against my cock for quite a
while, love, you told Neil to fuck off and gave him the finger in front of a
packed house filled with press and the BBC filming. And then you passed out
before we could get you off stage.”

I stare up at Alan. No. This can’t be. How could
I forget
that
? And shit, if I forgot that, what else have I forgotten?
Fear and dread turn my muscles to rock.

“Is that all of it? I didn’t say anything else,
did I?” I ask, anxious and afraid of the answer.

Something flashes in his eyes quickly then is
banked. He smiles. He laughs. “You think there is more? Isn’t that enough,
Chrissie?”

I search his face. He didn’t directly answer me
and I can’t tell if he’s being honest. Oh shit.

“Why did you kiss me last night on stage? Why do
it then, that way, love?”

His question startles me, and changes the
direction of my careening thoughts. I did it because I love him. My body aches
for him, and last night my brain couldn’t get in the way of my heart having
what it wanted.

“I don’t know. I was out of it.”

He starts to climb from the bed. “I should fix
you something to eat. Rene says you’ve not been eating.”

“Alan—”

He cuts me off. “Everything is going to be fine, Chrissie.
These things have a way of blowing over all on their own. You don’t need to do
or say anything. It’s probably best to leave it alone.”

I have the strangest feeling that he’s not
talking about the public spectacle I made of myself. That he’s talking about
us. Him.

Probably best to leave it alone?

I’m suddenly aware of the feel of us in the room,
the blending closeness that is us, that somehow last night we’ve been pulled
back into that space, unintentionally and effortlessly. My emotions start to
collapse when I realize Alan feels it, too, and dismally I wonder if he has
just provided me an out if I want it. A way to turn back from whatever this is
rebuilding between us.

Why would he do that? I don’t want to turn back.
Even as horrible as the past twenty-four hours have been, being here with Alan,
this way
, feels as if the disjointed pieces of me have joined
comfortably inside me for the first time in a very long time.

The room is suddenly overfilled with the feel of
Alan. I ease up in the bed, slip my arms around his neck and pull him into my
kiss. It’s what my heart wants and I’m not letting him or myself get in the
way. Not now. Not anymore.

I am met with tension and resistance in him,
though I don’t know why he should be either, and I deepen my kiss. I curl my
fingers in his hair, holding him to me. My heart accelerates. Then I am pinned
against his body and he is kissing me passionately, in a heated assault, in an
almost desperate, frenzied way.

I am lowered beneath him and I lift up into him,
giving him the feel of me there. His hands roam me, hungry, his limbs
surrounding me as we devour each other. All I am feeling is him. My insides are
anxious and demanding. I’m out of my mind with the urgency to have him buried
inside me.

I start to move more frantically against him.

Then abruptly it stops and I am pinned beneath
him in a not so gentle hold. My eyes fly open. A ragged shudder moves through
his limbs and what’s revealed in his eyes blasts me with a chill.

Those black eyes are burning into me. Angry. He
pulls back from my body. “If this is about you adding to your week of colossal
fuck-ups and public meltdowns with a few days of revenge fucking with me to get
back at Neil, then I prefer to pass, Chrissie,” he growls, disgusted, and then
releases me and moves away completely.

His voice brings me up sharply. It takes a few
moments to believe he actually said that. Humiliation rips through me.

Rejection. Alan is saying no to
me
. Clear.
Absolute. And brutally him.

My body covers in a tell-tale blush. “That isn’t
what I’m doing and that isn’t what I’m thinking, and fuck you for thinking that
it is.”

I start to scramble from the bed, wanting to get
out of here before the tears give way. I put my legs over the side, sitting
beside him, but I am shaking too hard to stand. I can hear Alan breathing, but
he’s not moving and I can’t look at him.

“I get it,” I force myself to say, hating how
weak and pathetic I sound. I lift my chin, struggling for my pride. “I’m sorry,
Alan. I am sorry about everything. My mistake. I’ve read the signals wrong and
I won’t make that mistake again. But you don’t have to be so mean, Alan. I’ll
go—”

My hand is jerked toward him and my palm is
pressed into his cock before I realize what he’s doing. In a voice rough and
grinding, he says, “I’ve had a fucking erection since yesterday afternoon when
I heard you and Neil might be splitting. I don’t even know what you want, but I
am hard from the possibility of you. Don’t play games with me, Chrissie. Don’t
fuck with me, unless you are interested this time in something other than
fucking.”

He tosses my hand back at me. His words lie
heavily in the room. It takes me a moment to absorb what just happened here.
Something
other than fucking?
Weird, angry, Alan honesty.

My heart turns over in my chest and begins to
race. I stare up at him, breathy and excited. Things are moving too fast. My
life is careening out of control. This is not the way I imagined this, going to
bed again with Alan. But I can’t turn away, not from him, not from myself, and
not this, no not ever, not after those words.

How could he think all I could want from him is
meaningless, angry fucking? Doesn’t he know that I love him?

Instead of trying to sputter out a response to
his crass speech, I surround him with my arms. I kiss him hard, spreading his
mouth wide and claiming his tongue. The taste of him runs wildly through my
veins as my blood pulses in my ears, drowning out all sound around me. My
fingers find the buttons on his shirt as my pelvis moves into him.

Against his mouth, I whisper, “I love you, Alan.”

And then his body and mouth take control of me.
He deepens the kiss, and before my spinning head can catch up with what we are
doing, we are both naked on the bed and neither of us is fighting this.

~~~

I
hold my breath as Alan’s fingers run along my flesh. The first time we made
love was frenzied and burning. Each time we’ve fucked, inside I think we’ve
both quieted a little. And now after two days in Alan’s bed, he is slow, tender
and gentle in how he makes love to me as he expertly moves his body in and out
of me in unhurried thrusts, bringing me to the edge, and overfilling me with
the feel of him.

The tension in his body ripples beneath his skin.
He spreads my mouth wide with his lips, filling me with his tongue as he
plunges deep within me. Oh, he is done playing. He is as wild in his body as I
am and the movement of his flesh in me comes harder, building tempo. I feel the
climb, my senses swirling. My head sways on the pillow and I arch up into him,
meeting his thrusts and releasing the air from my lungs into his mouth as I
come apart and he lets loose in me.

We slowly melt onto the bed, both sweaty and sex-
damp, breathing heavily, and he turns onto his back with me draped across his
chest.

“I love you,” he whispers between the play of his
fingers and kisses in my hair.

“I love you, too, Alan.” I peek at him and smile.
“You do realize we’ve done practically nothing but fuck for the last two days.
We barely even talk.”

He grins. His fingers do a slow trek up my spine.
My bliss-numb senses tingle.

“I think what we’re doing is working remarkably
well for us, love. Especially the barely talking part. I may keep us mute and
like this forever.”

He laughs, his muscles shimmying beneath me. I
know that voice. The voice of theatrics. I roll my eyes.

“I need food,” I tease.

He shakes his head. “No. Kiss me instead. I’ll
make you dinner later. Now you are not moving one inch away from me.”

I kiss him in a loud, wet, purposely silly way.
He’s been playful since we woke this morning. But the
barely talking
comments
are only partially a joke. I should probably slow this down. It worries me how
little we’ve talked about us, things, what we’re doing. My fucked-up life.

A measure of the glow of being with Alan dims.
The voice inside my head chides that we can’t keep our issues under the carpet
forever. That it would be better for us both to pull them out and find out now
where they leave us. But I don’t want to ruin this perfect quiet I feel in Alan
and in me and in the room.

I reach out to trace the lines of his face. It’s
been too long since I’ve seen
happy Alan
and to savor what it’s like to
be with him when he’s this way. I’ve missed it. The way it makes his eyes look.
The way it makes me feel.