Resonance, page 23
Ryder tipped his head back to keep the sheen in his eyes in check, then nodded, swallowing hard. His sadness was so palpable, it seemed to thicken the air between us. “Think I just needed to hear you say it out loud.” He swiped a thumb under his eye and let out a huge breath and another one of those mirthless chuckles. “Fuck, rejection’s got some kinda bite to it, doesn’t it? I’m out of practice.”
“Sure as shit does. It gets better, though.”
“Yeah, yeah, time and all that bullshit.” He waved his hand and dropped his heels to the floor, straightening like the change in posture would cause a corresponding change in atmosphere. “I’m aware.”
I reached for the whiskey bottle and tilted it toward him in question. While everything he’d said tonight had satisfied some vestigial desire for redemption, that was just ego, and I didn’t have any desire to make him suffer or see him suffer any longer. “Sometimes whiskey helps. Especially if you want to drink it with me and go over that set list for the next show, because I noticed you left out ‘Days of Dust’ and ‘Gunslinger,’ and I think you’re goddamned wrong about that.”
Ryder held out his glass, and I filled it as his gaze moved over me, narrowing. “Time hasn’t made you any less bullheaded.”
“Nope. That’ll probably take another century at least.”
I woke the next morning with the acrid sweetness of whiskey in the back of my throat, a crick in my neck, and an ounce of lightness spreading through me like the dawn I could see beyond the curtain of my bunk. I thought of Owen and that motel room in Arkansas. And I thought I should’ve pulled him into my arms that night when he reached out for me.
A pen was digging into my hip, and my notebook still lay open at the foot of the bunk.
I’d written page after page last night. It’d come on like a deluge, ink trailing like it couldn’t keep up with the nib of the pen. I had no idea whether the lyrics were garbage or gold, just that I couldn’t stop.
It’d felt pretty fucking good.
On my phone was a series of messages from Owen sent at three in the morning. I opened the thread to find a picture of him with a goofy smile on his face, slitted eyes crinkling at the corners, those golden curls framing the elfin scrunch of his nose. The message beneath read: obligatory late night selfie.
Next came: P.S. I’m only a teeny tiny bit tipsy.
Followed by: Have you ever noticed how Jez looks at you sometimes like she’s measuring out your fate and deciding where to cut the string?
And then: Ru brought me home, by the way, just in case you were worried I’d drive. I wouldn’t. Ru is cheaper than Uber, but he wouldn’t drive through White Castle.
And another: Aiden keeps staring at me like I confuse him.
And finally: For all your obvious differences, some of y’all’s similarities of mannerisms are fucking frightening.
CHAPTER 26
You think you know yourself. Twenty-four years? That’s a solid amount of time to figure some shit out. I knew, for instance, I liked five sugars in my coffee. Not six, not four. I knew that at any given point, there was a 75-85 percent chance I’d put my foot in my mouth or stumble over a sentence. That my hair looked better parted slightly to the left over the right, but that it looked best when it was a little bed tousled, and no product or finger combing could create the same effect.
I knew my music was pretty decent, and that my lyrics got better if I let ’em rip the first go round without censoring myself and then went back a week later with fresh eyes, pruning as carefully and attentively as a gardener.
So you’d have thought I’d have figured out sooner that I really didn’t belong on a stage.
But it was more like a slow wave of recognition washing over me as I spent the morning at the small recording studio on Les and Evan’s property.
The nerves that plagued me onstage and the few times I’d busked downtown were absent in the closed setting, even with Les and Evan there. I’d been nervous, sure, but after the third run-through on the first song, I’d loosened up. It helped, of course, that they were both down-to-earth and enthusiastic about recording my songs.
And I’d loved how we could go back and fiddle with the sound, rerecord if something was off. Evan had downplayed their equipment; the studio was state-of-the-art, and I’d lost an hour and a half just letting them show me around. “You know you don’t have to be playing onstage to call yourself a musician, right?” Les had said toward the end.
“Or to make a living as one,” Evan tacked on.
They weren’t even the first ones to tell me that. But I guess it was the first time I really considered it as an alternative.
I’d left with a sense of both relief and anticipation fluttering through me that hadn’t been there when I’d arrived.
When Les called me later and asked if he could send a couple of the tracks to one of his publishing friends, I’d said yes immediately, my words stumbling end over end upon themselves with excitement until we were both laughing.
I got back to Dan’s midafternoon. I had no idea where Aiden was, but he didn’t appear to be around. He came and went a lot, and we navigated around each other well enough. Not that we were going to be bosom buddies anytime soon.
I stretched out on the couch, unlocked my phone, and queued up a replay of the Rolling Stones’ Bridges to Babylon tour, losing myself in it until a text notification popped up over Mick Jagger’s wide open mouth.
Dan: You available?
Owen: Isn’t the point of a cell phone 24 hour availability? Why don’t you call and find out?
I grinned to myself, imagining him scowling at the screen.
Dan: Smartass
I answered his call on the first ring. “Looks like you hit the jackpot and I am, in fact, available.”
Then I realized he’d hung up.
My phone dinged with a text.
Dan: Availability confirmed.
I stared at the phone like an idiot for a second, then typed back.
Owen: Did you call me just to hang up on me?
Dan: I might have. Because you were being a smartass.
I punched his contact and heard laughter in his voice as he answered. “Owen, hello. What a nice surprise.”
“You’re such a jerk. Are you drunk?”
“It’s the middle of the afternoon. So no. We got an actual hotel tonight, got early check-in, too. I’d forgotten what a luxury it feels like after a tour bus. How’s Jez?”
“She’s on a hunger strike,” I told him, running my hand over her fluffy coat.
“Really?” His tone instantly shifted to one of concern.
“Not at all. Actually, I think she’s enjoying her freedom from your iron rule.”
“Iron rule my ass, that cat owns the throne.”
I snickered as Jez stared imperiously at me.
“Finally wore those jeans you told me to. Think it threw off my rhythm a couple of times.”
I snorted. “Right. I’m sure that was the problem.”
“They’re a little tight.”
“In all the right places. Your fans will thank you.”
“I’m not certain they can even see it in the first place. Pretty sure the front row could’ve used a rack for cane storage.”
“Really?”
“Nah.” He seemed to consider for a moment. “Actually, it’s been surprising to me how young the faces are. I figured for sure only old diehards would show up, but there’s been plenty of new blood. No doubt a good proportion of them are just Ryder fans, but…” He trailed off in a verbal shrug, but the happiness in his voice was undeniable.
“Everyone loves classics.”
“Very subtle.”
“Told you I was improving.”
After another beat of silence, he cleared his throat. “How was your day?”
I shifted around on the couch, and Jez arched her back to communicate her disapproval before plopping onto my chest. “Are you really asking me that?”
Dan grunted. “Sure, why not?”
“I dunno, because you just recently played a live show in front of at least a thousand fans who’d probably sell a kidney to hang out with you for an hour?”
“How about you?”
“How about me, what?”
“Would you sell a kidney?”
“God, the fame’s already going to your head. No. I guess I might sell the tip of my pinky toe? I can do without it.” He laughed, and then I filled him in on the session with Evan and Les. When I’d told him a few days back about the call and what I planned on doing with them, we ended up spending an hour going over what I’d record, debating different songs I’d played for him before, and then I played him a few that I’d been working on since he left.
“Les is gonna send a couple of the tracks we did today over to Soundhouse and see what they think.”
Dan mmm’d into the receiver. “Soundhouse is good. And if they’re not interested, there’s also Palladia and Mercury Group. I’ve still got contacts there.”
“Yeah…”
“Yeah, but what? I’m hearing a but in there.”
I fiddled with the bottom of my shirt, then stroked down Jez’s back until her purr rumbled against my chest. “I just… I have a hard time accepting help sometimes because I’m used to trying to do stuff on my own, you know?”
“You didn’t have trouble accepting it from Les.”
“It’s different with you.”
Dan got quiet, then said, “All right, I see. Offer’s on the table though if you need it. No strings. Even though, let me point out, all of Nashville is held together by strings. The whole damn music industry is. You pluck one and it ripples across the web of ’em.”
“I know.” I didn’t want to explain why it was so important to me that I try to accomplish shit on my own without the palm grease of a man I’d slept with and who was currently letting me stay in his home. But that he didn’t push it any further suggested he understood. Or at least respected it enough to let it go.
Thankfully, he changed the subject. “What else you got going on? Aiden behaving?”
“He’s not here much and… oh! I did reorganize your pantry. You wanna get on FaceTime and I’ll show you?”
“I can’t imagine anything more exciting, Owen,” he deadpanned.
We clicked over and my heart stuttered to see the smile lines around his eyes again.
Dan smoothed a hand over his hair and narrowed his gaze at the screen. “How’m I coming through? I’ve only done this with one other person ever. Feels weird.”
“Coming through fine.” I nudged Jez from my chest and sat up.
“What have you got on there?”
I glanced down at the black tank I was wearing. It was maybe a little small, but I’d had it forever. Earlier it’d been covered by a hoodie. “A leftover from a brief period of trying to be a skater boi. I’m sure you can imagine why that was short-lived.”
Dan grunted.
“What’s that mean?” I’d been expecting laughter.
“It means it looks good on you.” He seemed on the verge of saying something else, then inclined his chin. “Gonna show me that pantry, then?”
“Mm-hmm.” I hopped from the couch and headed into the kitchen, flipping the light on in the pantry to reveal the shelves I’d organized with extreme care powered by plenty of boredom.
“So, I’ve put all the soup cans here—God, you have a lot of soup. I didn’t really notice it until I started gathering up the cans. Do you really eat that much soup? Because I feel like that’s too much. No one needs twenty cans of tomato.”
“It’s easy,” he groused.
“Mm-hmm. Well, a third of them were expired, so I threw those away. Next”—I did a Vanna White flourish toward another shelf—“we have crackers. Crackers are also something you have in abundance, so I chose to arrange by tastiness.”
“Whose perception of tastiness?”
“Mine, but I feel confident that I can speak for the masses when I say these gluten-free whole-grain things are the weakest showing here. Saltines are right in the middle, as the marker of average.”
“The Cheez-Its should be leading the pack, then.”
“No way. Triscuit easily beats Cheez-Its in both nutritional content and deliciousness, as well as bonus points for extra-crispy texture. And I’ve put the Animal Crackers over here on the shelf of despair.”
“What’s the shelf of despair?”
“Your most embarrassing foodstuffs.” I panned the phone that way to show him.
“They’re leftover from when a buddy of mine visited with his daughter. “
I considered for a moment. “Okay, then they can go next to the Wheat Thins, I guess. But honestly… Chicken in a Biscuit?”
“They’re good. Leave me alone. In fact, turn off that light and close the door. It looks good, barring the shelf of despair, and I appreciate it. I’m grateful for your ability to make me feel judged the next time I try to nourish my body.” His gruff tone made me grin. “Now, will you take that shirt off?”
Breath catching, I switched the view on the camera and squinted at him. There was a twinkle in his eye and a half smile hooking one corner of his mouth that didn’t make my next breath come any easier. I’d just assumed that we’d not be… well, I’d clearly assumed wrong. “Really?”
He nodded serenely. “I’d like you to, yeah.”
“Were you just listening to my whole pantry presentation while thinking about asking me to take my shirt off?”
Dan’s smirk was shameless. “How honest do you want me to be?”
“I didn’t know there was an option besides cutthroat with you.” I was already getting hard. My hand had gotten a workout in Dan’s absence, and though we’d spoken frequently, there was a kind of caution in the conversations I knew was mostly my doing considering the way I’d sent him off on the tour in the first place.
Dan chuckled. “I appreciate you reorganizing my pantry, I do. And taking care of Jez. And putting up with Aiden. The shirt part, that was on the back burner, then kinda came to the fore around the time of the shelf of despair.”
“You needed a distraction from your shame.”
“Owen.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I peeled my shirt off, then angled the camera toward myself again. “You know, if we’re gonna do what I think we’re about to do, maybe I should get on my laptop to enhance the view.”
“I don’t have a laptop handy.”
“That’s okay. Hang up and I’ll call you back.”
“From the computer? You can do that? And I can still be on my phone?”
“Oh god. Yes, you can do that. I’ll show you sometime.”
We hung up and I got out my laptop, carted it into Dan’s room, then made a quick trip to the bathroom, where I considered my hair and stopped myself as I instinctively reached for my toothbrush.
I smoothed the covers over the bed, fluffed the pillows, then arranged myself in what I hoped was a believable version of casually seductive. I was now rock hard, so I didn’t even bother trying to hide it.
When Dan answered, his brows shot up. “You’re in bed.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “Should I be somewhere else?”
“I… no.” He shook his head, gaze roaming me up and down.
“I’ve never done this before,” I admitted.
“Me either.”
“Do we just start?”
Something popped loudly.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “Squeezed my Coke can too hard.”
“So what now?” I’d severely underestimated the level of awkward on this undertaking. A flush crept up the back of my neck. How did people casually progress into internet sex? I felt like a total dork right now.
Dan didn’t suffer the same lack of confidence. “How about you unbutton those pants and take them off?”
I nodded vehemently and did that, wriggling free of my jeans, then boxers to save him a step. My dick thumped against my stomach as I lay back down again, and Dan let out a soft breath.
“Constantly amazes me just how damn sexy you are.”
My own sense of inhibition started to melt with the praise, and I ran a hand lightly down my chest, then over my shaft. Fuck, I missed him, missed having his voice close to me. In my ear. Against my lips.
“Did you think about me today?” I propped up on some pillows so I could still see the screen as I touched myself. Aside from that blip where he’d texted that he thought about me often, we’d been careful about that stuff, too. But how else was I supposed to start off?
Though, I definitely didn’t anticipate the thrill that’d run through me when he answered, “Often.”
“What’d you think about?”
“Lotta things. The kitchen that night. The next morning after that.”
“Me on my knees?”
“Yeah…” His voice went growly and low, the screen shaking for just a minute, then steadying.
“God you’re turning me on.” I feathered another touch up my shaft, balls tightening and tingling because I could tell he was stroking himself, too. “What about after we went walking that one night? In the living room?”
Dan exhaled a low sigh. “Goddamn, that was good, too. And it’s not just that—” He hesitated, then shook his head and grinned. “Never mind.”
I squeezed my dick hard, and a shiver ran up my spine. I let my eyes fall shut for a moment, imagining him standing over me at the edge of the bed, pulling his shirt off. The broad shoulders and thick biceps. The springy hair of his chest.
“Fuck, let me see you closer.”
Moving the laptop, I wiggled around until there was more of me in the frame.
