Page 17 of Protecting Her

The bar had reservations for tables already, and every seat would be full. No pressure, right? I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror in the hotel and took another deep breath. Should I eat before or after? I didn’t want a rumble from my tummy to interrupt my set and make the crowd laugh.

Maybe some chips or a bit of toast? I headed into the kitchen and looked around. I’d become used to the place over the last few days and now it seemed like home. It was mine, and I’d started to leave little bits of me around the place. A notebook I wrote songs in was on the coffee table. A picture I’d found in a shop and couldn’t live without, a drawing of a ballerina in a pose was on the wall instead of the generic picture of orchids that had hung there before. The kitchen now had a brand of coffee I’d adored from the first taste in a canister on the counter. A set of lime green glasses sat in the dish drain, another purchase I’d made.

A coverlet I’d bought because I adored the old-style quilted pattern was folded over a kitchen chair, and I picked it up to take back to the couch. And my wine. A box of muscadine wine sat on the counter. A dark, sweet red wine that looked absolutely amazing in the tall wine glasses I’d bought.

When I was a child we’d used empty jelly jars as glasses and butter tubs as bowls. With Graham, we’d done the same, even when he had won a lot of money from a poker game. That made me pause, and I stopped to think. Maybe he was dealing drugs even back then? The man wasn’t the most patient guy in the world, and I’d learned to tell when he was lying after a stupid amount of time. Could he sit through a poker game without giving himself away?

“Huh. I bet he was dealing drugs back then. That bastard!” I didn’t always swear out loud, but the moment deserved it.

Even when Graham had a lot of money in his pockets, we’d lived in a hovel, until we couldn’t afford even that. When he’d come home with a lot of money and said we were going to England, I’d wanted to get away from the poverty I’d known all of my life. I’d jumped at the chance, basically.

I’d had a feeling that trip was planned as a drug run from day one. I remembered now the way Graham had messed with my guitar case, and how he’d insisted on carrying it from the airport. He’d helped the driver put it in the back of our taxi when we got there, and now I could remember how he’d messed with the case again when we got to the hotel. Had he used my case to carry it all in?

Heat from my anger made my cheeks burn red, but I couldn’t help it. That… twat! Only, I thought it in the way the English had said it, as if they were saying cat instead of the way we say it in America, which sounded more like hot. That fucking twat!

It wasn’t all bad though. That decision to follow the man I’d thought I’d loved across the pond had led to this moment. A moment when people would listen to me sing, hear my songs, my stories. I wanted to dance I was so happy.

Only, I couldn’t dance. I had two left feet, obviously, so I’d never learned to dance properly. It was one of the reasons I would play from a bar stool tonight; I just had to hope I wouldn’t fall off of it. Maybe a chair would be better?

I pondered the choice as I walked into the bedroom and sat down on my bed. I sent Kevin a message and asked what he thought. He had some work to do and had left my place early this morning. Sometimes, when he was at work, he could be a little impatient, or even cold, but he always made up for it with a kiss when he came back to me.

His brothers had left him alone, but I always knew when they called him or sent him a text message. He’d go tense, growl, and prowl off to stand on the balcony of my room while he talked to them. He didn’t seem to care for his brothers very much. Especially the one named Trent. He was closer to the one called Mason, but he still went stiff when it was Mason who wanted his attention.

He’d told me about his family, and how he adored his sister, but his father had always pitted the boys against each other. It didn’t help that Trent seemed to think he was the king of the roost, but I didn’t give my opinion on it all. It seemed dysfunction struck even the rich. I’d always thought it was a symptom of poverty, but I could see it wasn’t now.

We’d had a week of bliss so far, and I’d come to learn some of his quirks. When his brothers needed his attention he could be distant, and I didn’t like that, but I didn’t push. Our relationship was still too new. I didn’t want to intrude or upset him. One day, I’d ask him more about his family.

I’d told him about my past one very long night and how I’d grown up. He’d been amazed at how I’d managed to survive childhood with drug addicts for parents. He didn’t chide me when I told him I hadn’t gone back to check on my mother. She’d forgotten about me the moment Graham came along. She’d seen him as the new dummy who had me as a burden. Her addiction had become worse after that, and I stopped trying to help her. She didn’t want my help.

It was a cold decision, but one she’d taught me to make. If the bird wouldn’t fly, why try to force it? I hadn’t given up on her; she had, a long time ago. I couldn’t sit around and watch her self-destruct, and I’d left her in my past. It was all a kid could do, right?

Maybe I wasn’t the best person in the world, but there was nothing else I could have done. Mom wanted her drugs far more than me and always had. I couldn’t change that. I’d been an accident, a night of sex, drugs, and rock and roll gone wrong, and she didn’t want me. It was a miracle I hadn’t been born addicted to the drugs she’d taken, but she’d stopped in the late stages of her pregnancy because she’d been living with my grandmother then. Grams had promised to raise me, if Mom would just lay off the drugs and give me a chance.

The problem was, Grams had passed away before I could leave the nest on my own. I’d lost her guidance and her strength, and it had nearly broken me. When I’d been taken to my mother’s, ahem, home, I’d wanted to run back to my grandmother’s house. It had only been a rental though, and my mother had already cleared it out before my grandmother had even been buried.

I’d felt alone from that moment on. Graham had relieved that loneliness for a little while, but as time had gone by, it had started to creep back into my life. Until the day he kicked me out. I still didn’t want to think about that night. The cold, the fear, it was too much to deal with. I’d hunted for a homeless shelter of any kind, but couldn’t find one and had found the building after hours of walking. I’d gone in afraid, terribly afraid, but it had gotten me out of the wet, cold snow that fell from the sky, and I’d huddled in the darkness there until the sun came up.

The situation could have been much worse, I knew that. Kevin had saved me in so many ways. I was grateful to him for that, but gratitude wasn’t all that drove our relationship. It wasn’t just the sex either, although that was good.

The man knew how to touch a woman, just the right way to drive the desired response, and I think that had given me a confidence that I’d never had before. He made me feel beautiful, even when his hand slid over the bulge around my hips that would disappear if I’d lay off the chips. His hands cupped my breasts and found their soft weight amazing, not overly ripe. He never criticized me, or my weight, and he told me more than once that I was beautiful.

He respected me, and he showed me that all the time. I loved his kindness, the way he treated me, although he could sometimes be a snob. I laughed now at the way he’d cringed when a waiter had brought him the wrong fork for his dinner one night. One does not eat fish with a normal knife and fork, he’d sneered. I’d had to look away or burst out laughing at him.

I bet he ate spaghetti with a fork and spoon too, I thought now, and sat down on the couch. I was falling in love with the man, and there was little I could do about it. I didn’t want to do anything about it, if I was honest. He might have been a little snobby, and sometimes he was distant, but he was also gentle, caring, and generous. Not just to me either. I’d seen the tips he’d given to people, and heard how he’d instructed the manager to give the waitress who had fallen at home and broken her ankle her wages, whether she came in or not. Money wasn’t something to be hoarded, according to Kevin.

It was meant to be used, enjoyed, and shared. I’d got the impression over the last few days that his older brother, Trent, was a hoarder, while Mason was a spender. The other two brothers seemed selfish, whereas Kevin wasn’t at all. Not that I’d seen anyway.

I looked up at the clock on the wall of the kitchen and realized it was time to go downstairs and face the music. Play the music, one of those. It had sunk in that I was about to play to an audience, and I had to really impress. Kevin deserved that I go beyond my best after all he’d done for me. I had to repay that somehow, because he’d already said he wouldn’t take payment for anything that he’d done.

My phone vibrated as I took the elevator down, and I pulled it out of my back pocket to look at it. A message from Kevin. “I’ll see you soon. I know you’ll blow everyone away.”

There was a kiss emoji, and that made me smile. I had a feeling Kevin Thompson had never sent an emoji in his life before I came along. He was an odd character, American in so many ways, but with a hint of the British reserve I’d become accustomed to in my time over there. It made me smile. He was trying his best.

He’d said he’d never really been in a relationship before, not one like ours, and that meant a lot to me. Alright, our relationship was still brand new, but I felt as if I already knew the man. I knew he hated to wake up to an alarm clock, but often had to. I knew he loved orange juice with his breakfast. That he wanted to find a way to end poverty across the globe, and that he often thought in terms of the global community, rather than on a micro level.

In many ways, Kevin went beyond his reserve, his private-school background, and used what he’d learned to help others. He had even started a foundation for that change, although it was still in the early stages of development. It was nice to know he had some brains behind all of that money and privilege. More importantly, Kevin had the heart to go with those brains, and that was amazing to me.

I walked through the bar, to the back of the stage, and sat down as a woman came at me with a powder puff and the snap of chewing gum. “You ready, sugar?”