[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
“Can’t settle down tonight, Howie?” Lyric asked as her boss paced back and forth on the bus. They were on the road, headed west from Kansas City on the way to Denver. It was pitch black outside the bus, very few lights lit up the night – only endless fields of knee-high corn.

They had been on tour in North America for little over a month now. Lyric hadn’t gone on tour with them in Europe, the band had hired someone else to assist them overseas. But Howie had insisted that Lyric could do the job, and so she was on tour with them, at least for this leg.

“I should be tired, but I just can’t sleep right now.”

Lyric was used to his restlessness, it happened after concerts quite frequently. “Want to stop and get something to eat?” She knew that sometimes a full stomach was the only thing that calmed him down.

“No, not hungry either.” He continued pacing, making Lyric nervous. “What are you doing?” He came to look over her shoulder.

“Just transferring some photos to my laptop.” Howie watched as she plugged a cable into the computer and then into the digital camera. With a few clicks, Lyric started the transfer.

“I saw you out there shooting tonight, get anything good?”

“How could I not?” she laughed.

“True,” Howie said with a snort. “We are very photogenic.”

Lyric playfully swatted his arm. “I did have fun, though. I just love my new camera.”

She’d always been interested in photography but her mother hadn’t been able to afford a camera for her. In high school, she’d taken a class and borrowed a camera from the instructor. Now that she had money in the bank, she was able to buy the camera of her dreams – a digital SLR, like the professionals use.

“That’s a great one,” Howie said, watching as Lyric scanned through the images. “You captured him so well.”

“Yeah, Nick all hot and sweaty – not hard to get that photo.” She laughed and continued scanning, liking most of the images she had captured.

Howie walked to the fridge and grabbed two bottles of water, handing one to Lyric.

“What’s this?” he asked, his fingers grazing the nape of her neck. Lyric was dressed for bed in t-shirt and shorts, her hair pinned up with a large plastic clip.

“A tattoo,” she said, reaching back to unclip her hair, letting it fall down her back.

“I didn’t know you had a tattoo. When did you get it?” She tried to cover the tattoo with her hand but he pushed it away, and then brushed the hair away from the small mark on her neck. He bent over to examine it more closely.

“Six months ago. I kinda lost a bet to Alex,” she admitted. Howie was tempted to ask about the bet, but then decided he really didn’t want to know. He had lost too many to Alex over the years and knew most of them were things he didn’t want to admit to.

“It’s a little butterfly, isn’t it?” Howie asked. Lyric could feel his breath warm on the back of her neck as he inspected the body art.

“It’s the DLF logo,” she admitted softly. A shudder ran through her as she felt him gently kiss the tattoo.

“Why?” he asked, sitting down on the bench seat next to her.

“Why did I get the tattoo? Or why that one?”

“Why the logo?” She could hear the curiosity in his voice.

Lyric couldn’t meet his eyes, he’d see through her lie in an instant. “Because I wanted to do something to show my support for your foundation and for your family.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” he said, reaching out to touch her face. She was used to his touch by now, but it had taken her quite a long time as she hadn’t grown up in a demonstrative family as he had.

He leaned back and drained the small bottle of water, then let out a loud belch. “Excuse me,” he said with a grin. Lyric rolled her eyes, it was one of his tricks to get her to laugh when she was acting too serious.

“There is no excuse for you,” she said, closing the laptop with a click, then stowed it safely away in her bunk. “Feeling sleepy yet?”

“Nope. But you can go on to bed, I can tell you’re tired.”

“I’ll stay up a bit with you, I can sleep in tomorrow morning.”

They sat and talked for an hour, Lyric could tell that Howie was slowly starting to unwind from the long day.

“Have you ever been in love, Lyric?” The question shocked her. Over the last year, they had gotten to know each other quite well, but he’d never tried to pry into her personal life.

“I thought I was once, in high school.” She shrugged. “But when you’re kids, you don’t really know what love is.”

“With Matt?” Howie knew the two had gone to high school together.

Lyric nodded. “But it wasn’t meant to be, we never had any chemistry together except as friends.”

“No one in college?”

Lyric didn’t mind the questions, he wasn’t mocking, she could tell he was genuinely interested. “Didn’t have the time, I had a full class load and a full time job. No social life whatsoever. Just like now,” she laughed.

“I know the feeling,” Howie admitted. “Always being too busy working to find the right someone.”

“What about you?” Lyric asked. She didn’t think he’d mind the question, seeing as how he’d started the conversation. Howie gazed out into the darkness beyond the bus windows. It was many minutes before he answered.

“I don’t think I can,” he admitted.

“Why would you think that?” she said.

“I’ve met so many women over the years – thousands probably - and all I ever feel is lust. And once I’ve had her, even the lust goes away, and I’m left with nothing.”

It was Lyric’s turn to look out the window, she didn’t know what to say – he’d never been that frank with her before. “Maybe you just haven’t found the right woman yet.”

“Maybe so.” Lyric could feel his eyes on her. “How do you know when it’s the right one though?”

“You’re asking the wrong person,” she said softly, reaching out to touch his hand. “I have no personal experience with loving relationships.”

“But your parents…”

“…were not a good example of a loving relationship,” she sighed. “Remember when we were in New Orleans, how I told you about my father?”

Howie nodded. “You said he came and got you and you went to California.”

Lyric couldn’t sit still, she got up and walked to the kitchen, grabbed another bottle of water. “I didn’t tell you the whole story.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he said softly.

“No, you need to know so you’ll understand why I am the way I am.” She opened the water and drank half of it, her mouth had suddenly turned dry. “We had a nice house, two cars, everyone seemed happy. James worked nights at different clubs, didn’t get home until 4 or 5 in the morning and then slept until the middle of the afternoon. Mom worked at an insurance agency, she had to in order to pay the bills.

“There was a fire at the school one day, they sent us all home. I tried to call my mom but she was out of the office, so I left a message. I got tired of waiting for her to come get me so I walked home, I knew James was home so I didn’t think my mom would mind.”

“How old were you?” Howie asked.

“Twelve, we’d been in California for six years at that point.” She started pacing again. “I walked into the house, being careful to be really quiet because James hated to be woken up. I heard James’ voice and that of a woman. I thought that maybe my mom was there, although I hadn’t seen her car in the driveway. When I came around the corner to their bedroom, I realized it wasn’t my mother.”

“He was in bed with another woman?” Howie asked gently.

“Yes.” She shuddered in revulsion at the memory. “I snuck back out, they hadn’t heard me. I ran next door to Matt’s, I was crying so hard that his mom thought something was wrong with me. She had just got me calmed down when we heard a car door slam outside.”

“Your mother had come home.”

Lyric nodded. “I ran out there to stop her before she went in the house, but it was too late. I crept in behind her, I didn’t want them to know I was there.” Lyric stopped and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “I could hear her calling my name as she looked around the house for me. Then it got quiet – I think my mom was in shock over what she found…and then all hell broke loose. Mama, she was a southern lady to the core. She never raised her voice to another person ever – until that day.”

“And you saw it all?”

“I ran into the room, tried to pull Mama out but she wouldn’t budge. James was standing there with the sheet wrapped around him, the woman had pulled a dress on. Mama was so angry! She ran at him, screaming. Next thing I knew, she was flying across the room – James had backhanded her across the face.”

“Oh sweetheart, how horrible!”

“Mama never had a chance – she was barely five feet tall and James was over six feet, he had the biggest hands I’ve ever seen. I completely lost it at that point – I jumped on him and started beating him with my little fists, like it would do any good. I was screaming at him not to hurt her anymore. He pulled me off with one hand and held me in front of him, like I weighed nothing. I’ll never forget the look of contempt on his face.” Lyric closed her eyes, swallowed hard. “I should’ve killed you both when I had the chance, he said. I was gonna leave ya’ll in the woods to die the night you were born, but that damn doctor had to show up. I never wanted either of you.”

“Oh god! He was going to kill you both?” Howie was shocked at the revelation.

Lyric nodded. “He said he was going to tell the preacher that Mama had decided to go home and no one would ever be the wiser. When that plan didn’t work out, he decided just to leave us in New Orleans instead. With no means of support and Mama so sick, he figured we would die anyway.”

“But he came back and got you…”

“Only because he had met a woman he wanted to marry, but he didn’t know if Mama was still alive. So he had to find her, and when he did he made up the story so she would go back to California with him. He threatened to take me away from her if she didn’t give him the divorce he wanted. But Mama wouldn’t, she didn’t believe in divorce – and knew that the courts wouldn’t give him full custody.”

“So your father kept the woman on the side, probably promising her that he would get the divorce and marry her.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Lyric said. “When Mama heard all of this, she went crazy. Even after everything that had happened, she still loved James. And he had lied to her for six years and told her he loved her too.”

“What did she do?” Howie asked, almost afraid to hear.

“She went after the other woman, tackled her and was trying to scratch her eyes out. James threw me across the room, I hit my head on the wall and blacked out. He picked up Mama and punched her in the face, knocking her unconscious. When we came to, James was gone. He’d packed up his clothes and left – we never saw him again.”

“I’m so sorry, Lyric. How did you and your mama deal with that?”

“We never talked about it again.”

”Never?” he asked softly.

“Nope. James was never mentioned in our house again, it was like he never existed.” She finished off the water bottle, suddenly thirsty. “Your parents had a great relationship. And your family, they all care about each other. Do you think there is something wrong in that?”

“No, I have plenty of role models when it comes to love. I just don’t know if I’m capable of it – because of how I acted before.”

“Before what?”

“You know, when we first got famous. I acted…well, I was really stupid when it came to women.” Howie looked out the window again, his face serious. “I was the short goofy kid in school, girls wouldn’t even look at me. And then suddenly I was famous – and girls were throwing themselves at me, begging me to have sex with them. I did what the other fellas were doing – meaningless one night stands with groupies. I knew it was wrong, knew my parents wouldn’t approve but I did it anyway.”

“Typical musician,” Lyric snorted, images of her father ran through her head. “You’re all alike.” She pushed past him, headed for her bunk.

“It’s not like that any more, Lyric. I’ve changed.”

“They all say that,” she called over her shoulder. She thought of Hilary and Orchid, tempted to throw that in his face but she resisted.

“Your father was old enough to know better, Lyric. I was just a kid.”

She stopped and turned to face him. “Yes, he was old enough to know better. He was old enough to know that he’d broken my mother’s heart as well as mine - but that didn’t stop him from rutting with every whore he could find.”

The tears were running down her face, she couldn’t stop them. Howie gently pulled her into his arms and held her tightly until the crying eased.

“I’m so sorry he hurt you, Lyric. But not all musicians are bastards.”

“I know,” she whispered. “But what about you? You just admitted to being the same way.”

“And I regret it very much. I’ve promised myself that I’ll never use a woman like that again, Lyric.” He swallowed hard, it had been a tough promise to keep. “But I won’t sleep with a woman unless I know I love her,” he thought to himself.

The bus lurched suddenly, throwing them against the bedroom door. It popped open and they tumbled into the room. Lyric landed on the bed, Howie on top of her.

His face was mere inches away, she could feel his breath on her cheek as his fingers smoothed the hair away from her eyes. Howie’s lips gently touched hers in a butterfly kiss, then came back for more. Lyric resisted for a moment, but gave in and kissed him back. She’d yearned for the taste of him since their last kiss, the touch of his hands on her skin.

After a long moment, he released her mouth. They both were breathless, Lyric’s heart was pounding. She lost herself in his eyes, drowning in their chocolate depths.

Howie couldn’t pull his gaze away from her eyes either. Lyric didn’t shield herself from him like other women did, he could see into her very soul. And what he saw there saddened him, all the pain and suffering and longing for love were there on display.

He wished he could wipe it all away. He wanted to love her, to have her love him too but he knew it was impossible, knew it was all his fault that they could never be together.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…” he mumbled. He climbed off of her, pulled her to her feet and gently pushed her out the door, closing it with a soft click.

Lyric climbed into her bunk and pulled the curtains shut. Emotions jumbled within her – desire, sadness, and longing. Her lips tingled, she could still taste him, smell him – and it made her want him all the more. She couldn’t understand why he kept rejecting her when he obviously wanted her.

Howie sat on the end of his bed, his head in his hands. “Why did I do that?” he asked himself over and over. He knew it was wrong, on so many levels, but that still didn’t keep him from wanting to do it again.

Howie pulled a flask of scotch from the dresser and drank directly from it, not even bothering to get a glass. He’d been trying to cut back, but he felt the need for it more and more lately. He undressed and climbed into bed, his body and mind finally relented and allowed him to sleep.

As he drifted off, he thought of Lyric’s lips and the taste of her. And he wondered at the feeling in his heart, the warmth that built there when he thought of her. No such feelings were there when he thought of his women back home though.