Leaving Amarillo(56)
“What’s up, Dix? Something you want to tell me?”
I shrug. “Afton just mentioned that we might want to explore our options a little more.”
Dallas pulls a mockingly introspective face at me. “Ah. We’re consulting Afton for business advice now? This the same Afton who refuses to work with managers and labels?”
“Funny. You didn’t seemed concerned about that when you were all ‘she’d love to go’ and ‘Dix, this will be such a great opportunity for you to meet other people in the business.’”
My brother smirks at my mocking him and I feel like I’m fourteen again.
“Rain’s letting up,” Gavin announces suddenly. “We can probably go ahead and start setting up now.”
In other words, to your separate corners, kids.
Tamping down my annoyance, I step out into the rain and let it wash the exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours from my body. There’s something cleansing and renewing about just getting bone-drenched soaked by rain. I stretch my arms out and tilt my face skyward.
While the guys start carrying our equipment from inside the bar it’s been temporarily stored in, I open my mouth and let the drops fall on my tongue. Breathing the damp air in deep, I find things that have been so completely muddled becoming blindingly clear.
The rules I thought I could place on myself, on Gavin, on everything, they’re just me kidding myself. Gavin’s right, I can’t escape unscathed. Not from him, or this band, or this life. And I can’t force him to feel something for me that he doesn’t even believe himself to be capable of.
“Gavin?” I call out to his back as he walks toward the stage with my brother.
He stop and turns, watching me walk toward him. As soon as I reach him, I hand him something I knew I’d have to give him eventually. But the words accompanying it aren’t at all what I’d originally planned.
“Here,” I begin, placing the plastic key card in his hand. “I changed my mind about . . . about everything.”
He looks down at my room key then back at me. Confusion turns his eyes the color of the ocean sky clouding over before a storm.
“I can’t be just one more person making demands on you. You have enough to deal with. Dallas, your mom, your friends, whoever the hell else it was blowing your phone up all day.” I shake my head, knowing tonight I’ll lie in bed alone regretting every word I’m saying. “Forget what I said about one night, about expectations, about everything.”
His brows pull inward and he looks as me intently as if I’m one of those magic images where if you stare hard enough the jumbled mess of shapes will become one clear picture. “I’m not sure I’m following you, Bluebird. You hit your head really hard last night.”
I’d smile if my mouth would cooperate. I nod at the key still sitting patiently in his open palm. “If you want to come tonight, to my room, then do. But not for me. Not because I asked you to. Come because you want to.” I take in the deepest breath that I can. “And if you don’t want to, because of Dallas or the band or you’re tired or just not interested, then don’t. No hard feelings and nothing between us will change. I thought I needed something more from you . . . but I don’t.”
“You don’t?” he says slowly, as if still processing the words I’ve piled up between us like bricks.
I shake my head. “As crazy as the past twenty-four hours have been, I think adding more insanity to it might be the worst thing I could do. You had a condition, one that I said I could uphold. I lied. Expecting you to . . . um, you know, whatever, with me, and then pretending it didn’t matter or didn’t change anything, would be the definition of denial. So this is your out.”
My brother says something to us and Gavin nods his understanding over at him before returning his full attention to me. “My condition had nothing to do with not expecting it to matter.” He leans down and taps one finger under my chin. “Everything we do together matters, Bluebird. Everything.”
He’s right. And I think that’s why I’m willing to forgo our one night. I wanted to be closer to him and after today, after everything I saw, mostly the parts he didn’t want me to see, I know that I am probably closer to him than anyone has ever been. I walk in a daze behind him toward the stage.
“And Dixie?”
My attention snaps into focus. “Yeah?”
“I never said I wanted an out.” His eyes don’t leave mine as he slips my room key into his back pocket.
Lightning stops everything as soon as sound check is over. People are milling around like disoriented cattle as coordinators try to herd them into bars.
“Stage nine, you’re going into Bourbon Girl. Let’s go,” a man in a black T-shirt and matching ball cap turned backward hollers at us.
We follow his directions into Bourbon Girl, a bar we’ve played in before. Seeing the familiar lit-up American flag onstage comforts me and also makes me want to burst into “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Dallas and Gavin set up our damp equipment while wiping it all down with towels the bar has generously provided. My hair hangs wet and heavy down my back as I retrieve Oz from his nice dry case. I missed him.
Some musicians look at their equipment as a way to earn money. And I guess mine does that for me, but there are so many memories connected to this fiddle, some that aren’t even mine, that I could almost swear he comes to life and speaks to me when we play. Sure, he’s dented and scratched and has a few nicks here and there, but those things are part of what makes him so special. After a few paying gigs, Dallas encouraged me to buy a new one, but I couldn’t even fathom the idea. It felt like cheating or selling out. New strings are about all I can handle. I’ll play Oz until he crumbles in my hands.