Night with Sole Regret

TIE ME XXXII

“A bottle of whiskey?”

“A wristwatch.” Jacob unfastened the analog watch he sometimes wore before a concert—he was paranoid about being late and had a hard time reading digital clocks correctly. He handed the watch to Kellen. Kellen appreciated the gesture, but he didn’t think it would help. He put it on anyway and while it wasn’t the same as wearing a cuff—the watch band was cold metal, a bit looser, and about half the thickness of his bracelet—it did make his wrist feel less exposed and he wasn’t compelled to massage it, as if he had cuff obsessive-compulsive disorder.

“Thanks.”

Jacob slapped him on the back and then rose from the sofa. “Now you just have to make sure I get to the show on time.”

Ah, so there was a catch.

Kellen reached for the clasp on the back of the watch’s silver band. “I don’t need—”

Jacob’s hand circled Kellen’s wrist. “Wear it until you get your head out of your ass.”

Kellen laughed. “So you’re not expecting this back anytime soon?”

“However long it takes.”

Owen returned to the bus a short while later. Kellen had a bit of blue rope in one hand and was rubbing it with his thumbs, remembering how it had looked against Dawn’s pale skin.

“So you traded a cuff for a watch and a piece of rope?”

Kellen didn’t respond. He didn’t want to talk to Owen at the moment. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, but he did crave the feel of Dawn’s arms around him and the feel of her soft breasts pressing into his chest. He missed her. Her smile. Her laugh. The way her eyes sparked when she was perturbed. The sound of her voice. The way her fingers moved across her piano keys. Across his skin. Her. He missed her.

Shit. He couldn’t allow himself to think about Dawn right now.

He poked the piece of rope under the cuff on his right wrist.

Owen went back to buying Caitlyn gifts on the Internet and chuckling at various text messages that binged onto his phone every thirty seconds or so. Jacob had disappeared into the bathroom. Kellen wondered where Gabe and Adam were. The bus felt really empty. He had an uncharacteristic need to be surrounded by people and, as a loner, it felt strange to admit that to himself.

“What did you do with it?” Kellen asked in one of the pauses between Owen’s text message alerts.

“I buried it,” Owen said.

“Someplace nice?”

“Yeah.”

Kellen nodded, grateful that Owen hadn’t tossed Sara’s cuff in a dumpster or flushed it down the toilet. Kellen stood, deciding he’d go watch the crew set up the stage. Something to keep him busy so that his thoughts didn’t stray to his missing cuff or the continual turbulence in his soul. Or to the woman who had calmed that turmoil by creating the most beautiful melody he’d ever heard and held nothing back when she’d held him in her arms.

Kellen was halfway to the door when Lindsey climbed the stairs. Their band’s twenty-two-year-old lackey, Jordan, was right behind her, carrying several sacks of groceries and chattering about NASCAR. Kellen retreated toward the back of the bus so he didn’t have to brush against them on his way through the narrow corridor. Lindsey took the sacks from Jordan one at a time and set them on a counter in the kitchenette. She looked so much like Sara it was actually painful to look at her, but pain didn’t stop Kellen from staring. Would Sara have looked that beautiful pregnant? With his child growing in her womb? They’d talked about having kids before she’d gotten sick. At the time, he had been a bit hesitant about all the responsibility a child entailed, but if she’d had a baby, a bit of her would have been left behind. Part of her, mixed inseparably with part of him, would have lived on.

Kellen started when someone bumped into his back. Jacob grasped Kellen’s shoulders from behind and squeezed. “There’s just something sexy about a pregnant woman,” he said. “When Tina was pregnant with Julie, I couldn’t keep my hands off her.”

Uh… Was Jacob lusting after Lindsey? Weird. Especially since the baby was some other man’s. Maybe. At least Jacob liked kids. What if the kid was Adam’s? Adam detested kids. And what would Gabe do if it turned out to be his? A dude could go crazy wondering about such things. It was no wonder that Lindsey had insisted it was Owen’s. Not knowing whose child you were carrying had to be a serious mind-f**k. And what would it be like to give birth to a child created out of lust, not love?

“She’s cute,” Kellen agreed, so that Jacob would stop squeezing his shoulders.

“You know who would look f**k hot pregnant?” Jacob asked, still watching Lindsey like some predator.

Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

“Amanda.”

Fuck, he said it.

“Don’t you think you should date a woman for more than a week before you start trying to knock her up?” Kellen asked.

Jacob slapped him on the back of the head. “I’m not going to knock her up. I just think she would look hot pregnant.”

“I don’t think you should tell her that.”

Jacob chuckled. “You’re probably right.”

“Thank you, Jordan,” Lindsey said loudly, cutting him off in the middle of a description of his favorite driver’s car. She’d been patiently listening to him prattle for several long minutes. Jordan was very good at prattling and bad at recognizing shut-up-now cues. “I think they need your help outside.”

“They do?” Jordan glanced toward the open bus door. “I was going to help you make sandwiches for the guys.”

“I’ve got a handle on it,” she said. “Go on now.”

“If you need anything,” he said, “anything at all, just ask.”

“I will. Thanks for giving me a ride to the store.”

Jordan stood there for another long minute, raking a hand through his dirty-blond hair, before finally turning to leave.

Lindsey released a relieved-sounding breath and began to remove fresh-baked sandwich rolls and deli meat and cheese from her grocery sacks. “Owen, what do you want on your sandwich?”

“Pastrami and rye?” Kellen teased him with a wink.

“Do I look like I got laid today?”

“Huh?” Lindsey said, turning to look at him.

“Nothing,” Owen said, “Turkey and cheddar is fine if you’ve got it.”

“Shade?” Lindsey asked.

“What?” Jacob answered.

“What do you want on your sandwich?”

“You don’t have to make me a sandwich,” he said. “Go sit down and put your feet up. You look a little tired.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “I can’t just sit here all day and consume your oxygen. I want to do something.”

“You’re incubating a baby,” Jacob said. “That’s plenty.”

“But it’s not. I didn’t come here to be a pain in the ass,” she said.

“You didn’t?” Owen teased. “You were sure making a go of it when you first arrived.”

“I know I had a major meltdown last night,” she said. “I’m sorry you all had to see that. You try riding next to a grizzly bear of a truck driver who insists on calling you sweet-t**s. We’ll see how rational you are after fourteen hours of thinking you’re going to be r***d, murdered, and fed to the load of hogs in the back of his semi.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’d like anyone to call me sweet-t**s for fourteen hours,” Owen said.

Lindsey giggled.

“You hitchhiked here?” Kellen asked.

“Stupid, I know, but I was desperate. What do you want on your sandwich, Cuff?”

Kellen didn’t care. “Roast beef?”

“Shade?” she asked Jacob again.

“Yeah, roast beef sounds good. I still think you should sit down and let us make our own damned sandwiches.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not going to force myself into your lives.” She peeked at Owen over her shoulder, but he was back to texting on his cellphone, so he didn’t notice. “I just need a little help until I can get on my feet. I’m not a mooch.”

“You shouldn’t be on your feet at all,” Jacob insisted. He moved to stand beside her and placed a hand on her lower back. “You should be resting.”