Friends dont fall in lov.., p.8
Friends Don't Fall in Love, page 8
She shakes her head. “I thought about it. Talked with Mare. I haven’t responded to Jen yet, but no. It’s not really what I want. I don’t regret what I did. In fact, I’d do it again in a heartbeat, so how the hell am I supposed to grovel? The problem is, I don’t see another way.”
I nod, silently relieved. “I might have some thoughts. Maybe not an answer to the apology tour, but rather an alternative?” I offer. “If you aren’t afraid of being creative.”
She turns to me, tilting her head against her knee. “I’m listening.”
“How well do you know Clay Coolidge?”
“Enough to know that’s not his name anymore.”
I raise my glass in acknowledgment. “He’s my newest client. Met with him over the weekend. He’s looking to reinvent himself.”
“I thought he was already doing that with Annie Mathers?”
I shake my head. “He was … but he said he’s not interested in riding her star to make it happen. He wants to change things up a bit and do something different. Country, but more retrofit. Classic, minus the historically problematic penchant for sexism, classism, racism … And he wants to do it his own way, without the interference of the record labels. Whatever he’s cooking up, I definitely want in. I’ve already started writing with him in mind and I can’t wait to collaborate, but…”
I trail off, and take another sip, knowing I need to proceed with caution. I don’t want Lorelai to think I don’t believe in her. Or to think I’m trying to swoop in and save her. It’s not like that.
“But?” she leads, her hand doing a little elegant twirl in the balmy summer evening air.
“Well, okay.” I turn to her, placing both feet on the ground and my empty glass on the table between us. “Not so much a but … More like a possibility based around a caveat.”
“Caveat first, then. Lay it on me, Huckleberry.”
I can’t help my grin at how she always manages to say that name with a straight face. “The caveat is you know I think you’re fucking out of this world talented on your own.”
She presses her lips together and crosses her dark eyes comically. “Okay. Noted.”
“So I’ve started writing a duet for you and Coolidge. No pressure. But if there’s anyone who knows about reinvention, it’s him, and I just got the feeling … you know … the tingles.” I point to my arms. “Like this could be magic.”
“He’s with Mathers.”
“Nothing romantic,” I clarify in a rush. “And nothing manufactured for the sake of attention. I’m thinking more along the lines of a statement. What’s better and more influential than one beloved star jilted by the industry powers that be?”
“Two,” she whispers as a smile spreads across her lips.
“Two,” I agree.
“In theory, it’s a great idea,” she says. “But I haven’t talked to Coolidge in years. Not since Drake threw his tantrum over Best New Artist. I imagine I’m the last person, next to Drake, he wants to work with.”
“Not at all. He knows that wasn’t anything to do with you, and he even told me he sought me out because I produced your most recent songs. You impress him. I think he’d be down.”
“But you haven’t brought it up yet?”
I’m already shaking my head. “No way. Not without asking you first. That’s not how this works,” I say, gesturing between us.
Now her smile is full-blown. “You realize you’re a rarity around these parts, Huck?”
“That ain’t hard to be,” I grunt easily. “I said I didn’t ask him yet, and I didn’t, but I happen to know he’s playing at Lulu Mays”—I glance at my watch—“in thirty minutes. If you want to go check him out and see what he sounds like these days.”
Lorelai’s face smooths out, and while she didn’t look particularly stressed before, I can see a marked difference now and I want to slump with relief because it’s clear she really doesn’t hate the idea.
“I think that sounds awesome. I haven’t been to Lulu Mays in forever.”
* * *
Lulu Mays is one of those institutions in Nashville that locals are born knowing about and tourists wait in line to experience. It’s history, pure and simple. All the legends have played in this tiny bar and café at one point or another. The dingy walls are soaked in decades of grease, black coffee fumes, and the sweetest melodies to ever come out of this town. I will sometimes come just to sit outside on the curb and listen, letting the music roll over me and feed my soul. The proximity is enough. When I was a kid and my sister first moved to Nashville for school, she would let me stay with her some weekends and take me out. We went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and the Johnny Cash Museum and the Bluebird Cafe and all up and down Broadway. I knew from the very first moment this was exactly where I needed to be and what I wanted to do with my life. Eventually Melissa got married and moved out to the suburbs, but I’ve never left. Not really.
This is home.
The warm night means there are no doors or windows to be seen. Already, music pours out of Lulu Mays into the street, and it’s excellent.
Lorelai leads us to a small table right in the front that a couple had fortunately vacated as we were walking in. Coolidge looks up from his mic, recognition flitting in his eyes underneath the brim of his hat, and without breaking the song, he sends a nod in our direction. I turn to Lorelai, who’s nodding back, a reassuring smile in place. We order a couple of inexpensive glasses of house White Zin (Lulu Mays isn’t the kind of place to serve red) and settle in our chairs to listen.
Jefferson’s accompanied by his usual rusty-haired fiddler, Fitz Jacoby, and a dark-haired drummer who looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t automatically place him. After a minute, Lorelai leans over and says in my ear, “Is that Mathers’s drummer? Diaz?”
Instantly, I know she’s right. I’ll have to confirm if he’ll be the one recording for Coolidge or if he’s just in town for tonight. The three play seamlessly for over an hour. That Jefferson has someone as talented as Jacoby on the fiddle opens a lot of doors. I wonder if he plays the mandolin or banjo? I don’t think he’s mentioned it. I let Coolidge’s whiskey tenor roll over me and allow my mind to wander, mentally skimming my catalogue for songs that might work for him. More than anything, though, I imagine his vocals layered with Lorelai’s against the backdrop of the lyrics I wrote this morning.
Soon it’s break time and they make a beeline straight for our table.
“Craig, you made it.” He shakes my hand. “You remember Fitz, and this is Jason Diaz,” Coolidge says before motioning to a server, who quickly brings him a tall glass of ice water and Fitz and Jason a couple of beers. Then he turns to Lorelai. “I’ll admit, Ms. Jones, to being a bit starstruck that you’re here. I’m honored you came.”
Lorelai holds out her hand. “Fuck’s sake, please call me Lorelai. Y’all make me nervous calling me Ms. Jones. The honor is mine. You play beautifully, and that tone of yours is a goddamn dream.”
Everyone settles around our table and compliments pass back and forth for a little while. Lorelai asks after Annie Mathers, telling Jefferson she remembers her from when she was a child. He tells us she’s in L.A. doing promo for a song she has featured on a blockbuster movie soundtrack. Because of that, Jason Diaz is on loan for the next few months and has committed to laying down tracks for Coolidge, which answers that question. Honestly, this keeps getting better and better.
“My girl’s in town for a few months,” Diaz tells me with an easy lopsided grin, his foot tapping a backbeat on the sticky linoleum. “So I’m happy to overlap here in Nashville and help out.”
I tell them that works for me. After hearing how cohesively they play together, I’m thrilled to put Diaz on the record. Someone from Lulu Mays gives them a discreet five-minute warning.
“I have a proposition for you,” I say. “No pressure and I don’t even want to know tonight, which is why I’m only bringing it up now. I was working on a little something original this morning. I’ve sent it to your email, as well as yours,” I say to Lorelai. “A duet, meant for two talented vocalists looking to reinvent themselves in this industry. Like I said, no pressure, but the timing is pretty perfect for you both.”
Coolidge looks surprised but intrigued. “Okay, I’ll definitely listen.”
Lorelai looks a little relieved, maybe that Jefferson seems interested in sharing a song with her and her reputation. She doesn’t have anything to worry about on that front, though. My gut tells me this is a good thing.
“Me too,” she says with a grin.
I nod my head, indicating that’s settled. “Awesome. That’s all I ask, and then we can revisit next week sometime if it turns out you’re interested.”
The men return to the stage, but it’s late and Lorelai traveled from Michigan this afternoon, so we decide to give up our table. Outside, it’s even more dark and humid, and when combined with the half bottle of red from earlier and the more recent two glasses, I’m feeling plenty loose-limbed and drowsy. We decide to forgo a ride and instead walk back to the duplex, allowing us some time to sober up and stretch our legs.
The sidewalks still hum with music and laughter and the clinking of bottles, but they’re less bustling than they are on the weekends, so we stroll side by side. Our hands dangle between us, occasionally tangling but never quite catching, and I ignore the way my skin practically vibrates from the closeness.
“Do you think he’ll want to do the duet?”
“Do you want to do the duet?” I toss back.
She looks over at me, her dark eyes penetrating. “Well, yeah. You had me at ‘I’m writing a song for you…’”
“Okay,” I concede, fighting the urge to smile, “but I would write you a song either way.” Every day until the day I die if she wanted.
She slows to a stop under a glowing neon sign flashing a pair of dancing cowboy boots. “Have I thanked you lately?”
I pause alongside her, the corner of my mouth lifting. “For what?”
She raises her hands and gestures around. “For everything, really, but mostly for being such a good friend.”
My mouth goes dry because that’s me. A good friend. “Oh. Well.” I shrug a shoulder, looking forward at nothing and grateful for the flashes of blue and green neon when I feel my cheeks flame. Might as well let the moss grow back and retain the tiny shreds of dignity I have left. “You really don’t have to thank me for that.”
She’s quiet and eventually I turn to look at her. Her brows are pulled together and her lips are tight. I wait for her to say something, but she doesn’t. She steps into my space and gingerly lifts her hand toward my face. Eventually her cool palm finds my burning jawline. She stumbles the tiniest bit forward and I reach up my hand to steady hers on my skin. This close, the scent of White Zinfandel mixes with her breath and covers me in soft puffs of sweet air.
“I’ve been—um.” She pauses. Starts again. “Your face. It’s so smooth. I wanted—” She swallows, her eyes searching my own. She has to be able to feel the way my blood is rushing beneath my skin. The way I can’t help but sway toward her, magnetized. “I was curious if it was as smooth as it looked.” Her thumb brushes along my cheekbone, back and forth, and I’m pulled closer still.
“Is it?” I ask her, dumbly.
She blinks, her lashes fluttering, and I sway even closer. Her inhales are bringing her chest within inches of mine. I don’t dare look down to confirm, but I swear to Christ her breasts brush against me. Her lips are open ever so slightly. I can practically taste her. If I just bent the slightest bit …
“Look out!” Suddenly I’m swept to the side and knocked off-balance as someone zips past on a rented scooter, reeling out of control and shrieking over their shoulder, “Sorry, man!”
Lorelai untangles herself and straightens first, eyes bright and brimming with amusement. I shake my head, getting to my feet. “Are you okay?” she asks, holding out a hand. I take it, but she releases it almost as quick, biting her lip. The moment, whatever the fuck it was, has passed.
“Yeah.” I laugh once, rubbing at my bruised ass. “Yeah, I’m … fine. Good. I mean, I think I broke my tailbone, but it’s nothing an inflatable doughnut seat can’t fix.”
My bruised pride, however? That’s gonna need something stronger.
10
LORELAI
SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT
Is my breath wasted if it’s only exhaled between your lips
If my fingers print the sway of your hips,
If my eyes crave to trace your freckles unseen,
If my tongue licks and lingers just in between,
If I tease out your cries,
If I spread apart your thighs,
will you save your sated sighs
only for me?
I say a quick good night to Craig on our porch, and by the time I hear his feet ascending the staircase and his apartment door shut, I’m already wearing my hardwood floors smooth with my pacing. Thankfully I’m on the first floor, so he won’t know by the creaking of floorboards that I’m emotionally and physically spiraling. What just happened between us on that street corner? He definitely leaned. Full frontal leaning. Slow-motion nipple brush. There was contact. I felt it zinging straight to my damp panties and circling wildly through my bloodstream. If that guy on the scooter … if we hadn’t been interrupted … was he about to … was I about to???
I flop on my navy faux-velvet sofa with a loud sigh and slip out of my boots, letting them thud softly against the inexpensive blue-and-white area rug I picked up at Target when I realized the duplex was outfitted in hardwoods. I still haven’t bothered with lights. There’s a full moon shining through the slats of my blinds, painting everything an ethereal blue, pale enough to see my way around. My phone buzzes, and thinking it might be a text from upstairs, I check it, turning the screen light way, way down. But it’s only an email. Instead of closing out, I listlessly scroll through Instagram, not really taking in the images posted by people I wouldn’t recognize if I encountered them on the street.
Another zing of awareness breaks through the inattentive fog. He’s posted. Not on his account, but on his other account. The poetry one. I wish I knew if it was scheduled or if he wrote this after leaving me … I settle against a cushion to read.
And read again. And again.
I probably have every one of his poems imprinted in my memory. What makes his account so popular, and likewise his lyrics, is the uniquely sexy accessibility of his words.
Blah blah blah, now I’m horny and he’s literally just upstairs. What fresh hell. I try to shift mental gears, but all I can come up with is the accidental nipple brush from an hour before. Which makes me even hornier.
My eyes slide shut and my head is full of traitorous thoughts, images conjured within and filling the spaces between his written words. I imagine them precisely chosen to trigger a reaction in me. Which, honestly, is so unfair, and the next time I’m drunk, I might tell him, because, right now, inside the hidden walls of my mind, I see only him, his dark brows drawn together, his newly shaven cheeks flushing, his breath panting between us.
I think of the way his air traded places with mine on that street corner, twining and covering us in things unspoken. In my imagination, we’re not interrupted. Deep inside the secretive hollows in my mind, his long fingers reach for my waist and tug me close. Close enough that our hips meet and sparks fly. And it’s with intention. There’s nothing accidental about it. His blue eyes dip, just long enough to be followed by his hands.
And like that, I lose control.
My imagination takes over, or maybe my memories. Behind my closed eyelids, I watch as he unbuttons my shirt (because of course I’m wearing a button-down—way sexier than a tee), popping each individual button through its hole and placing a cool, open-mouthed kiss on the feverish skin left bare by the effort. On my couch, in my apartment, only one floor away from him, I clench my knees together, but his words echo inside of me and spur me on … if I spread apart your thighs, and I let them fall open. My skin is aflame in nerve endings and sensation and I quickly unzip my jeans, my fingers ghosting inside my panties to find the exact spot where I’m soaked and aching. I imagine his hands, his mouth, his breath all over me. I imagine him hard and thick inside the cradle of my legs and I press and tease and expertly dip the way I wish he would. My free hand finds my breast and I cup and pluck and roll until I cry out into the silence, shattering against wave after wave after wave of real release.
But when I finally open my eyes, wrung-out and half dreamy … the room is dark and still. My body is left unfurled on my navy couch, the moonlight slanting through the windows and my phone discarded on the floor.
I’m completely alone and he was only words.
* * *
The following morning I wake up in my bed, grumpy and a little dehydrated. For the dehydration, I guzzle a tall glass of tap water before popping a pod of caffeine in the Keurig. For the grumpiness, I text my best friends on my walk to my favorite rock-climbing gym.
LORELAI: How do I make someone want to have sex with me?
MAREN: Is this rhetorical?
SHELBY: No, I bet this is Craig Boseman.
LORELAI: I’m positive he almost kissed me on a street corner last night. There was definitely leaning. Maybe even nipple brushing.
SHELBY: *eyeballs emoji*
MAREN: NOT NIPPLE BRUSHING!
LORELAI: Ha-ha, laugh it up, Beauty Queen.
SHELBY: So lean … more. Seal the deal, Jones.
MAREN: He wrote another poem last night.
LORELAI: OH I KNOW
MAREN: *smirk* I’ll just bet you do.
SHELBY: Does he know you know he writes those? (whew that’s convoluted)
LORELAI: NO. And I don’t know if I can tell him.
LORELAI: It might make him feel weird that I know.
