“Babe, you didn’t have to have them go out for some! I can drink something else.”
“Nope. Only the best for my wife,” he teases.
Laney beams at him. “Say it again.”
“Nope.”
She slaps his arm playfully. “Not that! The other part.”
“Only the best,” he says.
Laney eyes him in a mock threat. Finally he gives in with a look that could melt the coldest of hearts. “My wife.”
She sinks into him, and I think, for the moment, they have no idea who else is in the world with them, and I envy them their easy love. I don’t know exactly how long they’ve been married, but it couldn’t have been that long. A couple of weeks, maybe. But it’s plain to see that they are very much in love and destined to be together.
I turn my attention back to Jet where he’s finishing up a song. My heart does a little flip when his eyes meet mine and he winks at me. As handsome as Jake Theopolis is, he doesn’t hold a candle to Jet’s amazing good looks. In fact, he just doesn’t hold a candle to Jet, period.
When the stage lights dim and the music slows, I feel a flutter in my stomach. I love it when he sings the slow songs. In a way, it feels like he’s singing to me. Only to me. I know that’s hardly the case, but it’s easy to pretend.
As is his custom, Jet sits on the edge of the stage with his legs dangling over, his acoustic guitar cradled against his body. When he begins picking the notes to the song, I search for it somewhere in my memory, but it doesn’t even sound familiar. It’s beautiful, though. I’m sucked into it within a few bars.
When he begins to sing, his eyes find mine again and, once more, I feel as though he’s singing for me, to me. Only to me.
She crept in with the night, violet streaks on the wind.
She saw my soul, stole my heart, found the place where I’m a better man.
If I cared enough, I think I’d let her go.
Or do I care too much to ever leave her alone? (To leave her alone, leave her alone, leave her alo-one.)
It’s when he gets to the chorus that I realize that he is singing to me. And that he’s singing about me.
She pulls me down, takes me under, makes the noise of the world seem softer.
Touch her body, feel her lips, lose myself in her sweet, sweet kiss.
Drowning in violet, drowning in violet. Don’t pull me out, because I’m drowning in violet.
My heart is beating so heavily, I wonder that my chest hasn’t exploded from the pressure. And when the second verse begins, and I see the pain and worry in Jet’s eyes, I feel sure my ribs can’t take it.
Will she hate me when she knows?
Will she take her love and go?
But they do. As much as my heart swells and throbs and aches, it’s safe inside me. But how long can I keep it that way? How long before it’s no longer mine to keep safe, mine to keep at all?
I know the answer to that when the song ends and Jake leans forward in his seat, putting his head in my line of sight. “So you’re the one, huh?”
“Pardon?” I ask, still feeling dazed.
“You’re the one that finally got her claws in.”
I struggle to wrap my head around what he’s saying, what he means.
“You’re the one who finally got Jet Blevins’s heart. Sounds to me like that boy’s in love with you.”
And just like that, everything changes.
TWENTY-EIGHT: Jet
I sit with the phone in my lap, shocked and satisfied and excited as hell. I rerun the last ten minutes over in my head, like pinching myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.
The call came in as I was onstage. When the show ended, I came into the back room to listen to the message.
Back here, it’s basically just a lounge area for Lucky’s employees and the few bands that they ever host here. It’s nothing more than a bathroom, a small kitchenette, and a lunchroom-style table littered with packets of salt and sugar substitute and half-full ashtrays.
But all I needed was a chair and some quiet. To sit in while I listened to the message of a lifetime. Even as I digest what I heard, I feel the urge to replay it. Just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.
I know I won’t be able to hang out for the rest of the night, acting casual around the other members of the band and some of my friends. No, I need to get the hell out of here and find a place to think. Really think.
After taking a couple of deep breaths, I make my way back out to the main bar area, to Violet where she’s sitting with Jake and Laney. The three of them have their heads together, talking about something, until one of them says something funny and they all laugh. Laney is facing me. It’s not hard to see why Jake fell for her. She’s a classically beautiful blonde. But when Violet turns in her chair, presumably to look for me, and her eyes stop on mine, I can barely remember what Laney looks like. And that scares the shit out of me. For several reasons, not the least of which is the way I’ve misled Violet. If she ever finds out, she’ll be out of my life so fast my head will spin. And I’m not ready to let her go just yet.
But that doesn’t make me feel any less shitty about the whole thing.
What the hell were you thinking, brother?
When I stop at the table, I hold her gaze for several seconds, enjoying the way she licks her lips nervously, and the way she seems like she wants to look shyly away, but can’t. Finally, I look up at Jake.
“Thanks for coming, man.”
“My pleasure. Laney hated every minute of it, though,” he teases.
Laney slaps his arm and smiles kindly up at me. “He’s lying through his pearly white teeth, Jet. Don’t you believe a word he says. You were amazing! And that slow song . . . what was that called? I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before,” she says.
“You haven’t,” is my only response.
“Oh,” is her only response, although the glance she sends Jake tells me that she suspects she knows what’s behind it. Or, rather, who.
“I’d love to stay, but I promised this beautiful woman a ride home,” I say, referring to Violet.
“We can stay as long as you want,” Violet says kindly.
“I’m ready if you are.” I don’t want to give some half-assed excuse or explanation in front of my friends. I respect them too much to treat them like they’re stupid.
“Well then, we can go. I just thought . . .” Violet trails off and, when I don’t offer to stay, she stands, grabbing her purse from the back of the chair and saying her good-byes to Jake and Laney. “It was so nice to meet you, Laney. And congratulations to you both on your wedding.”