Rough Rhythm: A Made in Jersey Novella (1001 Dark Nights)(31)

She nodded. She shook her head. She nodded again.

“We can stop,” said the lead singer. “Pick it up tomorrow.”

“No.” Her foot slipped and hit the bass drum pedal, making a low boom inside everyone’s headphones. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

I’m not fine. I want James. I want him here. Why doesn’t he need me back? I hate him for not needing me back. But I love him so much.

The new manager’s light, feminine tone replaced the voice in her head. “We can take five, Lita, but we’re on a schedule. We need to lay this track today.”

Lita swiped her wrist under her nose. “I said I’m ready. I don’t need five.”

When her voice cracked on the final word, a silence filled with skepticism ensued. She gripped the drumsticks so hard, the bones in her fingers protested, pain bloomed and spread up her forearms. Oh God, she’d done so well until now. She’d bought furniture for her duplex. Decorated the shit out of that motherf*cker. She’d been the one to schedule band rehearsals, even providing wake-up calls to their lazy bass player when necessary. All her accounts had been transferred into her name. She’d been paying bills on time without fail. There had been temptation to fly off the handle and do something reckless in the hopes of bringing James back, but she’d resisted.

But this…this was so much harder. She and James had started this band together, put it together piece by piece. They’d been here first, never acknowledging out loud that James’s intention had been to create something for her. A chance to do what she loved. All of it for her. But now she was abandoned and maybe, just maybe, she didn’t want any of it without James.

“Lita.”

Her rioting emotions screeched to a halt, then picked up at one hundred times their original speed, tearing through her blood stream like a horse race. She opened her eyes, afraid to draw breath in case she’d imagined James’s voice coming from the other side of the glass. But no, he was there. Bearded and dressed down. He was there. Familiar and different, all at once. She wanted to drop her sticks and run toward the booth. She also wanted to throw them at the glass. Unable to decide, she could only look down, rolling her stick against the high tom-tom. “We’re trying to record an album here. What do you want?”

Electric silence. “Is that what you’re doing? It looked more like stalling.” He reached up to adjust his tie, but he was wearing a T-shirt and that stupid, nothing movement almost choked her with love. “You’re the best drummer I’ve ever seen. So what do I want? I want you to stop moping and act like it.”

Lita yanked off her sunglasses, irritation needling her from all sides. Odd, though, there was something else beneath the layer of I-want-to-kill-him. It filled her with helium, making her weightless. “Take a seat and watch how it’s done,” she said directly into the microphone hanging over the kit, tossing aside her sunglasses.

“I’ll stand.”

She ground her teeth and gave the engineer her signal that they were beginning before giving the countdown. Just before they launched into the track, she caught Sarge’s smile, but everything but James was peripheral. He was the music. Always had been. She’d lost her love for it before they met, forgot she could be good at something, and he’d brought it all back in. Just as he was doing now.

As Lita wailed on the drums, leaning forward during the chorus to lend her vocals, she felt him inside every downward movement of her arms, every vibration of the bass in her stomach. Toward the end, her throat started to ache. Swallowing became difficult. She could feel James watching, watching, as always. His confidence surrounded her, lifting her off the ground. You’re the best drummer I’ve ever seen. He’d never said that to her before. Others had, but she’d only ever wanted to hear it from him. Because he never said anything he didn’t mean. Just like he’d meant everything he’d said in the car.

That reminder came just as the song ended. Lita let the sticks drop to her sides, winded, gaze locked on James through the glass. Her instincts screamed at her to run to him, jump into his arms and ask questions later. That was why he was here, right? Looking at her as if he might expire if they didn’t touch soon? But she stayed put. Waiting for what? She didn’t know. Only knew it better be f*cking good.

James leaned forward, mouth hovering over the microphone a second before he spoke. “Lita, I don’t know how much time I have. But I need you to know…” he shook his head. “I live for you. You’re not just in my thoughts, you are my thoughts. Every single one. And somehow, I lived for you all wrong. I should have been living with you. Not only for.” His hand gripped the microphone. “I should have seen how capable you were and known we were always in this together. I’m sorry. I’m…sorry doesn’t really cover it. Because you’re crying and I wish I was dead seeing that. Fuck, I really do. But I already died when you left.”

Lita swiped the back of her hand across her cheeks, dashing away the rolling moisture. His explanation was necessary, but God help her, as soon as he’d said I live for you, any remaining resolve had broken. But her legs weren’t moving, weren’t allowing her to travel his direction. Relief and love and surprise had weakened her knees. “What do you m-mean, you don’t know how much time you have?”

James threw a glance at the door but didn’t answer her question. “I love you, Lita. Even if my mistakes made it so you can’t take me back, I’ll always be somewhere, loving you with every single thought. Every memory I have stored up.” Even though everyone in the studio could hear him, it felt as if only she and James were present. “My first memory of you is that brave, determined girl in the bar. I don’t know how I forgot. I don’t know—”