About ten minutes later, a soft knock at the door silenced the room. With that huge smile still splitting his face in two, Conner opened the door. “Just in time, two beautiful girls in the studio should help ease some tension, I hope.” Lea walked in and jumped into his arms. But the sight of Grace walking in behind her was what made my breath catch in my throat.
I stood up, dusted my pants off, and started to walk over. But, Tucker reached her before I could, stumbling wildly. “Hey, are you here to listen to me play? That’s cool, my first fan.” I shoved him out of the way to see Grace better.
As I laid my eyes on her, a cool shiver passed through my body. She paused right after she stepped through the doorway and slid her arms slowly out of her jacket. My body became restless and alive as I drank in the sight of her like a thirsty man. Her hair fell like a straight silky black curtain outlining the savage beauty of her face. Eyes so light gray, they shined and sparkled like diamonds. The red straps of her shirt eased themselves over her shoulders and plunged down to show the curves and swell of her breasts. I swayed back on the heels of my boots when my eyes slowly traveled down to her hands and watched her open a guitar case. Then, I stopped breathing all together.
“I’m sorry, Tucker, but I’m not here to listen to you play. I thought I’d take a crack at auditioning; see if I could play as good as Alex,” she said in a breathy voice. Her eyes were fixed on mine, and I could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest. She was having trouble breathing too.
Tucker busted out a drunken laugh, “My fucking mother could play better than Alex right now, both his arms are broken, but she ain’t here. But, damn girl, you look hot. I’d like to buy some stock in that ass later. My place or yours?”
I wanted to hit him. I turned to grab him, shake some sense into him, or just shut him the hell up. The way he spoke to her made me want to lift him above my head and throw him against the wall.
Grace narrowed her eyes at Tucker, and then glanced behind him at the cans of beer he left on the floor. “I think you are subhuman when you drink and talk like that, so I’d appreciate it, if when you do drink, you don’t speak to me,” Grace said to him. I held back a laugh. “Shane, is it okay if I try?” She held her guitar in her hands and I stood there stunned. Oh my God, that looks like Eric Clapton’s guitar.
“That looks an awful lot like a 1964 Gibson ES0335 TDC,” I whispered.
“Yeah, an awful lot like it. So, can I play?” she said in a sultry tone. Her lips lifted up in a sideways smile. Oh my God, she’s smiling like it is Eric Clapton’s guitar.
I wanted to close my eyes and just focus on breathing again. Only Grace was standing there waiting for me to answer her. Standing there, while the most carnal, erotic sensations tore through my entire body. The first woman ever who was capable of making me feel so out of control in this body.
“You tell me, Grace. Can you play?” I asked.
“Give me a fucking break. Don’t let her embarrass herself like this. Shane, tell her no!” Tucker shouted to me. One of Lea’s shoes flew across the room and smacked him in the head. I smiled to myself as Tucker drunkenly stumbled back as if he’d been punched by a heavy weight fighter.
Grace strapped on her guitar and plugged into an amp. It fucking looked like she was born with it there.
Then the earth stopped and tilted rigidly on its axis. I felt the ground disappear beneath my feet as Grace’s hands replicated the haunting song I played for her that first time she came to the studio. The song that she unknowingly inspired me to compose, twisting itself from her delicately dancing fingers. Heat swept over my body and an overwhelming need to touch her, to kiss her lips, almost had me throwing myself at her.
A slow tight rhythm floated through the studio. My song, the one I wrote for her, was seeping through the strings of her guitar and echoing through Alex’s amp, filling the studio with my secrets.
Soft and forlorn, the notes she played reproduced the longing and desperate feelings I secretly felt for her when I first composed the piece. Her entire body, intensely involved with the power of the music, made tears sting my eyes. Then passion, pure and alive burst through the speakers as she sped up her hands and let them skillfully dance along the strings of her instrument. Dear God, who is this creature? She’s captured my heart without even trying. Without me even knowing, I still had one.
I scrambled for my guitar and added my sounds to her symphony. Eyes locking, we played for each other, to each other. I knew I would never be the same. Together, our rhythm quickened, teasing notes and harmony into the air. We exploded in sound and feeling until we stood breathless across from each other, ceasing our melodies and slicing silence through the room.
“What else can you play?” I asked panting.
“Anything you want me to,” she whispered.
“Hendrix,” I answered.
She grinned wide and blasted through Purple Haze from start to finish, embellishing on Hendrix’s infamous guitar solos and deliberate distortions. My heart pounded. Before I could ask for more, she began fingering a soft ballad, unfolding the notes at a slow measured pace. She bounced towards all genres of music, each note giving rhythm and birth to a funky piece of music that soared throughout the studio. A bleak bluesy beginning dripped from each note, transforming into a jazzy composition and weaving into a web of classical eloquence. A sharp shrill rock solo to the heavy chords of thrash then back to the low murmurs of a hushed lonely melody, like a heartbeat unraveling its beautiful ethereal essence into the heavens until there was silence. All the while, her eyes never left mine.
“That girl can play,” Ethan’s voice cut through the silence. I completely forgot that everyone else was here.
Alex chuckled, “Yeah, and I think I’m in love!” His words sent a fire of rage through my body.
“Shut up,” I said to Alex, but still glared at Grace, “play more.”
A beautiful blush of crimson colored her face. “No. You seem really upset with me for some reason right now and that’s not what I had wanted to happen, Shane.” She slowly slid her guitar strap over her head and gently leaned the guitar against the amp. Eyes still locked on mine she started packing up.
“Don’t go, Grace,” I whispered.
She looked away from me, intently stared at something on the ground, and then with a deep breath, met my eyes once more.
“What did you want to happen?” I asked.
“I honestly thought you would let me play for Alex and that you wouldn’t be angry. I don’t understand what it was that I did wrong, but right now, you look like you want to kill me,” she stammered.
“I’m just thunderstruck right now, I’m not angry. That’s like the third time in less than a week you’ve managed to shock me. What else can you do? Fly? Or,” I started laughing, “Or, can you also play the piano and sing? Because then I’d understand Alex, then I’d be in love with you too.”
Her face paled. “Well, we definitely wouldn’t want that, would we? So let’s just say that I can play guitar really well and I can’t do anything else.” Then, a deep red splash of crimson spread across her cheeks and down her neck. Holy shit, she’s lying to me and she could sing?
“Ha! Don’t let her kid you. She can do it all,” Lea laughed.
No way.
Ethan jumped up, pulled her over to keyboard, and switched the mic on. Grace looked up at him with a sweet shy expression, but he smiled down at her, brushed the hair off her shoulder, and whispered into her ear. “Go ahead, Grace, make us fall in love with you,” his whisper softly echoed through the microphone.
Hell no. Please God, make her suck at singing; please don’t give me anymore reason to want her.
A sublime expression brightened her features as she bit her lower lip and closed her eyes. Eyes still closed, she reached for the microphone, cleared her throat, and placed her hands on the keys, knowing where everything was blindly.
Slow and steamy, the lyrics of my song fell from her lips. Her delicate fingers danced
like raindrops across the keys. My legs buckled and I dropped to my knees. She brought me to my damn knees.
Where do I go from here? What do I do? This had to be the worst part of my punishment. This was going to destroy what was left of my soul wasn’t it? Seeing this beautiful being, so much like Selah in every way, but never being able to have her. Anger tore through my body. It crashed over my soul worse than any pain that I had ever felt while being imprisoned in Hell. This was my torment. This would be my end. Grace.
“I think I can speak for everybody here, you’re taking Alex’s place,” Ethan announced. “Where the hell did you learn to play like that?”
Grace’s eyes met mine and she shrugged in answer to Ethan’s question, “I took a few lessons.”
Tucker stumbled up to Ethan and looked around to the rest of the guys. “Wait a second; does this mean I don’t get to play? That pretty much sucks, Grace.”
Ethan grumbled at Tucker to shut up and climbed behind his drum kit and nodded to Brayden and me. “Let’s practice with our newest band member,” he smiled.
I ignored my anger and rage. I controlled my desperate need to run out of the studio and never return. I picked up my guitar, and like a robot, I watched Grace and played. I needed to stay the hell away from her; the archangels put her here to remind me of Selah. She wasn’t Selah. I was done with this shit, with her.
Those thoughts didn’t help with the fact that I thought I might be falling in love with her.
We played for hours, until I unhooked my guitar strap and just stopped playing.
Ethan pulled me to the side and brought his face just inches shy of mine. “Dude. I can see you, and your emotions are written all over your face right now. Don’t go there, Shane, especially if she’s going to be playing with us. Don’t mess this up for the rest of the guys.” He backed away from me and held his hands up. “Bro, just do me a favor and wait until after six weeks is up to sleep with her. Remember, we made a rule, if there’s any chick in the band, hands off.”
I made my way to the studio door. Ethan was right. Now I had to get the hell away from her. It was like my own personal room of Hell, in a house in the neighborhood of Hell, right smack in the middle of the city Hell. I grabbed my jacket and shoved my arms in it.
“Hey, dude. You’re splitting?” Ethan asked. “Where you off to? Shouldn’t we celebrate or something?”
“I have plans,” I said opening the door and slamming it hard behind me. I stormed out of the building and down the street. I walked past Boozer’s until I hit the next bar. There I drank myself stupid until a cute dark-haired girl started yapping at me. I told her I was in love with another girl I would never be allowed to have, and she said she would help me forget about her. She sat next to me at the bar, talked, and slid her hands up and down my back. I barely registered her there. The only time I noticed her and her efforts was when she got too close and her perfume slapped me in the face.
A few hours had passed and my only thoughts were of calling Grace. I just wanted to hear her silky voice. I needed to see that little mischievous smile and hear her contagious laugh. Fuck, I wanted to tell her how I felt. How she twisted my insides like nobody else, how I didn’t want to spend one more minute without her.
“Hey, Shane? Are you still with me? What are you thinking about, Sweetie?”
I was peeling back the label of my beer, one wet thin silver strip at a time, ripping it into shreds on the bar. My shot glass sat empty next to it. How much had I drunk already? The bar was spinning. I glanced at the girl next to me. Her eyes were big and brown, full of pretend sympathy. They weren’t light gray. She wasn’t Grace.
“Need another shot,” I said.
Like drunken magic, a shot appeared before me. I smiled, thinking that was pretty awesome.
“Shane, you want to go somewhere else, baby?” What the hell was this girl’s name again? Couldn’t she see I was in love with Grace? Shit, I was in love with Grace.
“I gotta go,” I explained.
“I’ll come with you, baby.”
“I’m going to Boozer’s to see if Grace is there.”
“You sure you don’t feel like swinging by your place, Shane?”
“Fuck no,” I slurred.
She must have used that drunken magic voodoo again, because the next thing I remember was walking into Boozer’s and my freaking stomach dropping to the floor when I saw Grace. Something invisible was squeezing my heart, making it sputter and thrash. She and Ethan were hunched together in the corner away from everybody else, like they were a freaking couple. No fucking wonder Ethan was so against me liking Grace. He liked her just the same. Backstabbing fucknut. It didn’t help me at all to know she was better off with someone as good as him. The big-ass teddy bear would never hurt her. I’d be the only one with a broken heart in that scenario.
The girl I was with dragged me to the bar and ordered more drinks. She was still yapping at me. Giggling, yapping and running her hands all over me. All I wanted to do was walk right up to Grace and tell her I loved her. Pick me or Ethan, Grace.
“No, Shane. My name is Ava. Stop calling me Grace.”
I looked at her and laughed. “Sorry,” I said running my fingers up her arm trying to be sweet and let her down nicely. “Maybe you should leave me alone, especially since I don’t care enough to remember your name.”
She leaned forward and thrust her tongue right into my mouth. I backed away quickly, only to hear Grace’s musical laughter from across the bar. Our eyes caught each other’s and the expression she offered me made me feel like Ethan was her choice even though I hadn’t yet asked her to pick between us.
I downed my drink. Then I downed some more until I watched Ethan walk Grace out of the bar, and I wanted to freaking die. She didn’t even look at me when she left. I jumped up and my head swam with the rush of alcohol that surged through my veins. My hands dropped heavily to the top of the bar and I leaned against it to help myself stand upright.
“You ready for some fun, now?” Eva, Evie, Avery, Ava…whatever the fuck her name was, asked.
“Going after Grace,” I slurred back. Fuck this shit. If falling in love with Grace was some fucked up shit from my punishment, then bring it on, punish me. Punish me with Grace. I have to take my chances on loving her.
What’s her face’s high pitched whines echoed in my ears as I stumbled out of the bar and into the street. Snow covered the ground and was falling in huge flakes across the city. How the hell did I not remember seeing snow before? And where the fuck was my coat? Not important, I had to get Ethan away from Grace.
I pulled out my cell and stared down at it, willing it to call Grace. My dumb drunk fingers hit Gary Tompson’s icon instead of Grace’s. He was my dentist. I hung up. I didn’t need to make an appointment right now. I walked in the direction of Grace’s apartment and kept trying to call her.
“Hello?” God, her voice was amazing. It could soothe a man’s restless soul.
“Where are you?” I demanded.
“I’m in bed, Shane. Honestly, I just fell getting the phone and right now, I’m on the damn floor. Why are you calling me?” Oh shit. SHIT, SHIT, SHIT! They were in bed already? I stumbled down the block faster.
“Is Ethan with you?”
“No.” Low. Quiet. Full of hurt.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have...” I was on her block. I was a freaking stalker now and not about to stop.
“Don’t feed me any of your crap, Shane. I have no idea why you think you can call me at any hour and pretend you give a crap about who I leave a bar with.” Pretend? I fucking wish I were pretending. I am in fucking love with you. I had to tell her I loved her.
“Stop, Grace. Please!” I pleaded into the phone. “I have a whole speech I need to say and...”
“Yeah, yeah, Shane. Four whores and seven beers ago...save it, Shane. I don’t care what you have to say to me. It’s none of your business if I take home an entire football team. Are you just pissed because you didn’t
get a crack at it first? You can’t even comprehend how someone isn’t fazed by your rock god status. Well, get it through your skull, you’re not a thought in my mind. So get on with your life. And don’t be pissed off at me because I tried to do you and your friends a favor by showing you I can play a few instruments. You don’t want me to play with you guys; fine. I DON’T CARE!”
Disconnect.
What the hell just happened?
Did she just fucking hang up on me? My body went numb. Mind reeling. I had no right to this beautiful creature, but I wanted her more than I ever wanted anyone else. I wanted her more than anybody ever wanted anybody else.
Standing in front of her door, snow soaked through my shirt, I wondered if I should ring the front bell. Hell no, she would never answer the door for me. Wow, the city was spinning around me.
I climbed over her railing and scaled the tall iron gates to the small alleyway between her building and the next. Falling over the garbage cans, I crawled my way to the fire escape. I jumped up, pulled down the rusty ladder, and climbed the rungs. My hands slipped off the wet metal a few times before I got a good grasp and made it to her bedroom window. There was no sensible thought in my brain. I needed to see her. The world spun out of control around me and I felt swept up in its torrents.
I rapped my cold wet knuckles against the glass of her window. Inside, the curtain was pushed to the side and the vision of her, so damn beautiful, looked back at me. Heat soared over my body as I placed an open palm against the icy glass near her face to try to touch her.
The curtain fell back, robbing me of my redemption. In my skin, my blood, my bones and my soul the only truth I felt to be real was one: If this creature could love me, and if I could love her, this existence of mine would mean something. I would never get to stand in heaven again. Yet, heaven was standing on the other side of that curtain.
“Grace, please. It’s freakin’ cold out here,” I pleaded, letting my forehead fall limply against the window. “Grace, I swear I will ring your doorbell until I wake everybody up. Open the damn window!”