Resonance, page 22
Aiden must have noticed the flicker of hesitation on my part and latched on to it. “I’ll be gone before he gets back. Not here to cause any trouble, just need a place to stay for a little while until I get some shit sorted. I’ll stay out of your way if you do the same.”
I shook my head and punched the contact on my screen. “He’d be pissed as hell at me.”
Aiden made a gesture of annoyed surrender and turned back to his suitcase, tugging on the zipper. The nylon was fraying, one of the zip-up pockets torn.
I didn’t expect Dan to answer, because they’d had a show scheduled for the night and they’d likely just be getting offstage, but he did, albeit a little breathlessly.
“Everything all right?”
“Yes, Jesus. You have so little faith in me?”
I walked into the kitchen, putting some distance between Aiden and me when the glance he turned over his shoulder at me became a longer look.
Dan chuckled. “Nah. I just had a weird dream last night. Got me out of sorts. I was fixin’ to call you in a few once we got back on the tour bus. Check in and all.”
“That dream involve your brother showing up?”
He swore into the receiver.
“There was a key outside,” I continued. “He found it and let himself in.”
“I put it back out there, just in case. Goddammit.”
I laughed.
“What?”
“Just in case I lost mine, right?”
“Just in case,” he insisted.
“Stubborn old man.” God, I missed him. Just that tiny exchange kicked up a longing in me that felt the size of Tennessee. “You’re having fun out there, right?”
He hesitated. “More than I anticipated, yeah, I suppose.” I tried not to let that disappoint me, because it was wrong and selfish and I knew it. “Aiden probably figured he’d just freeload a little more while I was gone. He got kicked out of his apartment a coupla’ weeks ago. I’m sure he’s been couch surfing, and god knows he’s never missed an opportunity. Put him on the phone and I’ll get him gone.”
I nibbled my lower lip, glancing around the corner to spy Aiden sitting on the edge of the bed just kinda staring off into the distance. Something about the curve of his shoulders and hunched back struck me as defeated and weary. Goddammit. “You don’t have to. It’s fine, I mean, unless you just don’t want him here on principle. He’s kind of a dick, but I know how to navigate around that trait.”
“That a subtle dig?”
“Was it even subtle? If so, my skills have drastically improved over the last week.” I grinned. “But yeah, unless he’s secretly a serial killer, I can handle it if you can.”
Dan grunted and went quiet again, considering, I guess, then exhaled a noisy sigh. “All right, just let me talk to him for a minute.”
AURAL ADDICTION, EPISODE #18 TRANSCRIPT:
Dan: How’s the coffee today?
Owen: Perfection. I love that you’ve got it down now.
Dan: I still don’t believe you can tell a difference.
Owen: There’s a huge difference. This is spot-on.
Dan: Yeah? Guess what. It’s one pump of vanilla and a Splenda packet.
Owen: That… that is cold. You set me up. And Splenda? What the hell?
Dan: Admit it still tastes good.
Owen: You’re so immature.
Dan: Admit it.
Owen: Fine, it tastes really good. Can we move on to the music now?
Dan: I don’t know. Not sure I trust you to know the difference between a jazz and pop song.
Owen: [laughing] God you’re an ass.
Dan: Hee-haw. Drink up.
CHAPTER 25
“Big bro,” Aiden drawled as he came on the line. “How’s tour life?”
“You’d know if you hadn’t dropped that last gig.”
“The pay was shit, and they were overworking us.”
“Funny, that’s not a complaint I’ve ever heard about Marty’s outfit.” I could all but hear him shrug. “You get fired again?”
“Nope,” Aiden said but didn’t elaborate, and I dropped it. Didn’t matter anyway. It wasn’t the first time and sure as shit wouldn’t be the last.
“How long you planning on staying?”
“Jesus, D. A week or two, maybe a little more. I won’t mess with your shit, don’t worry.”
I almost had to laugh for how the vehemence in his tone echoed our teenaged years. He’d constantly “borrowed” from me. But back then, it’d been inconsequential things. A shirt here, a CD there, and I’d known it for what it was: reverence. Big brother little brother stuff. We’d been close.
“No parties, no random folks out there sleeping over, either.”
He let out a tired chuckle. “Yeah, I got it, man. Christ, when did you become Dad?”
“Dad would’ve already had you out mowing the yard.”
“It’s almost midnight,” he started, then seemed to think the better of it. “But I will. I can mow the lawn tomorrow. Shit, what am I saying? It’s barely spring yet. Fuck off.”
“How about you just find a job and figure out a place to live. You’re 2k in the hole to me.”
“Not counting blood bond for anything there?”
“I did that when I forgave the first five grand I loaned you. And do we need to rehash the lump sum you got from me buying you out of your half of the house?” His silence was answer enough. “My business is underwater, Aiden. I’m treading as best as I can right now until the money from this tour comes through.” I’d gotten an advance for the greatest hits album, but I wasn’t about to tell Aiden exactly how much money was on the line with both it and the tour.
More silence. And then, “Yeah, all right. I get it.”
I wasn’t sure if he did, but something about his voice was different, more muted. If I spent any time trying to decode it, though, it’d end up keeping me awake at night. I’d lost sleep over him too often in the past. Always trying to help him get jobs or put a word in, loan him a hundred here, a grand there. For nothing.
“Owen’s stuff is in our old room, so you want me to take the master? Or the couch is fine, too, I guess.”
“Owen’s not in the master?” I frowned, puzzling over that.
“Says he’s not, why?” Aiden latched onto my silence, slyness thick in his drawl. “That how it is? You got something going on with that pretty-ass twink? I’ll be damned.”
If I’d been able to, I’d have reached through the phone and punched him. As it was, I had to take a deep breath to steady the flare of agitation. No sense in letting him know how riled up I was getting. He’d probably enjoy it too much.
“Tell Owen to take the master, and you mind your manners and keep your hands to yourself or believe me you’ll regret it.” Guess I’d fucked up on not letting him know he’d gotten me riled, because he let out a low whistle but then unexpectedly dropped the taunting.
“I’ll mind myself. Not my type anyway. Not yours, either, that I can recall.”
“You haven’t known me for a decade, Aiden. Don’t try to predict me now.”
After a beat of silence, I heard him shuffle the phone around. Then, to my surprise, he said, “Thanks.”
Once I got off the call after talking with Owen a little longer, I made my way down the aisle to the lounge area near the front of the bus. In the time I’d been on the phone, we’d started up and headed out, and the road hummed beneath my feet as I walked, a disconcertingly familiar sensation. I tossed the phone on the dinette and followed after it.
Ryder studied me from the couch, where he was typing on his laptop, then closed it and set it aside. “Beer ya?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Since I’d signed on to do the tour and rerelease, Ryder and I had danced carefully around each other, and it’d very much felt like the business partnership it was meant to be. But there were moments when we broke the pattern, like the night of the first show where, just for a second, I felt that old thread between us crackle to life. Friendship, camaraderie, music. I felt it again then as Ryder passed me a beer and settled with his own across from me, cracking the seal.
We’d done two shows in four days, and he still looked fresh as daylight while I was already suffering the ragged-edged effects of constant travel.
“Things all right back home?” His gaze was full of open curiosity.
I nodded and fiddled with the tab on my can. “More or less. Aiden showed up, surprised Owen.”
“Aiden, shit.” Ryder laughed and shook his head. “He still up to the same tricks?”
“Same answer: more or less. Probably got fired from Marty Calloway’s tour, but he won’t admit it. Says he quit.”
Ryder sipped his beer, then set it on the table and gazed out the window where the lights on the interstate blipped by at staccato pace. “It’s hard for me to think of him as anything but a kid, still. My picture of him got cut off when he was what, thirteen?” His weak smile was heavy with the context he was trying to skirt around.
“Thereabouts. Acts about the same, though. Rowdy, always into something. Doing stupid shit.”
“Sounds familiar.”
I scoffed. “I wasn’t rowdy or into stuff. That was you.”
“Whose idea was it to break into the pool that time in Texas?”
I started to grin and curtailed it, something about Ryder’s expression striking me as a little too much of the past trying to wander over into present. I thumbed toward the bunks. “I’m gonna cut some z’s.”
“You can take the bedroom if you want. I don’t mind those bunks.”
“Nah, suits me fine.”
There was a dark comfort to be found in returning to something you knew, even if it’d broken you. That despite the heartache it’d caused, was at least familiar.
Little Rock was madness, our loudest show yet. Unlike some of the more intimate venues Ryder’s promoter had booked for us, this was a step up. Not the arenas we’d done in our past, or that Ryder usually did solo, but a concert hall that seated a couple thousand. And it was packed to the rafters.
I left the stage that night with my skin buzzing, the back of my neck hot, and my entire body drenched. And I couldn’t deny I felt that old magic creep in, the high of being onstage in front of a live audience, the feedback loop of their energy colliding with ours. The first couple of shows we’d played had been sedate compared to this one. It was damn near intoxicating, and I could tell Ryder was lit with the same crazy cocktail of performance and reception when he knocked his fist soundly against my shoulder as we headed toward the greenroom.
The difference now was that once I got offstage, my thoughts drifted back to Nashville. My shops, and Jezebel. And Owen. He’d been more distant lately, and I couldn’t help but think back to that last conversation we’d had. Maybe once I was gone he’d started thinking he could do better than an old has-been prone to foot cramps. I envisioned him taking Marco up on that date he’d skipped out on and when it started to curdle my stomach, forced the images away. That wasn’t me. I’d razed a career to the ground because of a lover once. I wasn’t going to do it again.
We had an interview ahead of us, and a meet and greet with a few fans who’d won tickets from a contest, and for once I wasn’t itching to get back on the bus and pass out.
When one of the roadies handed me a glass of whiskey, I took it and upended it, then passed it back for another round while Ryder looked on with a grin.
“I think I jumped the gun on saying ‘Welcome back’ after that first show.”
I flipped him off.
We finished the social niceties and finally returned to the bus near midnight. I fired off a text to Owen and nodded absently when Ryder pulled some glasses from one of the kitchenette cabinets and aimed a bottle of whiskey in my direction.
Owen answered me back as I dropped down onto the couch and kicked my boots off.
Owen: At Ru’s show. How was it tonight?
Dan: Good. Good crowd.
I hesitated, then pecked out: I think of you a lot.
Owen’s pause was equally long, and then he replied: I think of you a lot too.
Damn our mutual cautiousness. Just that simple exchange ran through my bloodstream like sugar and made my lips twitch at the corners. Ryder passed me a glass of whiskey and carried his own with him to the bench across from me. He slumped down in the seat, kicking his feet up next to me.
“What’re you grinnin’ at.”
I fired off one last text to Owen, telling him I’d call tomorrow, and tucked my phone away before considering Ryder’s question with a shrug. I hadn’t mentioned Owen much, wasn’t sure there was a place for that kind of conversation between us. Sure didn’t feel like it.
“You said one of your employees was taking care of your house, yeah?” He tapped the rim of his glass thoughtfully. “The blond one I met when I was in?”
“Owen, yeah.”
Ryder didn’t respond immediately, but something was on his mind, sure as the day was long. He sipped his whiskey, and we both gave our driver the thumbs-up when he turned in his seat and asked if we were ready to go.
Ryder swiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve. “You’re the only man I’ve ever been with until recently. You know that?”
Christ, talk about left fielders. I narrowed my gaze at him and let the silence stretch. “I never made any kind of assumptions, and eventually I didn’t really give a three-legged goddamn. Hope you aren’t telling me you were stepping out on Iona ’cause I’d be tempted to knock you upside the head. She and I may never see exactly eye to eye, but—”
He set his jaw. “Cool your heels. That’s not where I was going with that. I was faithful.”
I waited, but it took a few seconds of him shifting around in the seat before he spoke again.
“I thought of you a lot over the years. Couldn’t be helped, I guess. That’s one of the strangest fucking things about getting older, how you start to realize everything’s not black and white. How you can be of two minds about the same damn thing and have them both make sense.”
A clawing sensation dragged through my stomach. A canyon wide, a heartbeat long. That deep and that quick. “Tell me you loved her.” If he was about to tell me he’d never loved Iona, I might’ve actually hit him.
“I did,” Ryder snapped. “I do. Not the same now, of course, but I did.” His voice got quieter. “And I thank whatever’s above that gave me my son. I was young and stupid, and I got lucky a lot of times that what could’ve been huge mistakes turned out okay.” He paused meaningfully. “Not all, but most of them.” Tipping his head back, he polished off his whiskey, then leaned to put the glass on a table. “Iona said you were all somber when you came out to the house.”
“Of course I was.” I was unsure where Ryder was going with this conversation and more than a little on guard. “It was the kind of confrontation I hadn’t had to make in years. Even the rearview shit can still get to you sometimes.”
“Don’t I know it,” he muttered.
“Yeah?”
“You know I do.” His gaze wavered toward the window, then landed on me.
Discomfited, I knocked back the rest of my whiskey and started to rise, but Ryder lashed his foot over my hip, applying pressure to urge me back down while I tried to keep my expression neutral. “We don’t need to have this conversation,” I told him. “That’s past and we’ve got plenty ahead of us to deal with.”
“That’s exactly why we need to have this conversation,” he countered.
I nudged his foot away but relented and eased back into my seat, staring levelly at him.
“I’m sorry.”
“You said that back then.”
“As a kid, and now I’m saying it as a man. You quit playing because of me. You know how often I think about that?”
How often had I thought of a moment like this in the years shortly after our breakup? I’d wanted some showdown, wanted to fling my hurt in his face. Make it enormous. Let it crash between us like thunder and lightning. I’d played it out so many times. And now we’d arrived at that moment, a chance for a little retaliatory vengeance.
But I looked at him and thought of Owen, instead.
Owen, who rambled and broke my displays and used towels as aprons. And who made me laugh and provoked me endlessly. Who threw his head back and gasped so sweetly when I was inside him.
I sighed. “I quit playing because I was an idiot, because I let it get to me, and because I was tired of all of it. Ryder, shit…” I trailed off with a shake of my head. I hated the way he was looking at me. Too damn close to the way he used to. You could be over someone and they could still pierce through the armor of time, even when you were eyeing the horizon of a better life.
“For years I wondered what happened to those notebooks you took with you. Figured you’d tossed ’em, maybe burned them. But you didn’t, did you? Couldn’t get rid of them.” Ryder waited a beat and when it was clear I wasn’t gonna say anything else, said quietly, “Me either, as you saw. There was a part of me that hoped when we did this tour that we could go back. To like it was before.” He let out a mirthless chuckle and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Not gonna happen, though, is it?”
I guess I’d known that was coming. At least my gut had. The words still spread through me, joining old regrets in the pit of my stomach and unfurling in a tender sadness for him. And maybe a little for me, too. For the stupidity on both our parts.
It was strange to realize that something I’d carried with me for so long no longer rested on my shoulders with the weight it once had. “I’m not interested in going back anymore. I’ve got too much at stake now. So do you,” I reminded him.
“Is it Owen?”
I groaned and pressed my fingertips to my temples for a second, then let them slide down the roughness of my cheeks. “He’s part of it, yeah. I don’t know how it’s gonna play out. We’re both—” I cut myself short because I didn’t reckon it was any of Ryder’s business, and because I read pain in the way he lowered his eyes and looked away. “It broke my heart, how it went down with you and me, you know that. I was in love with you, would’ve done damn near anything to keep you. But you wanted other things more. And I don’t fault you for that anymore, but I couldn’t ever go back to it.”
