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Maybe that’s why I had that dream.
I shiver. But then, I pause, glancing at the time.
It’s only seven-ten. And again, his royal prickishness was still awake, and probably drinking himself into a stupor, at past two in the morning.
There’s no way he’s up anytime soon.
Heart racing as if I’m breaking and entering, or trying to find hidden presents before Christmas, I rush down the hallway I went down yesterday. I go through the library, and the parlor, until I’m back at the door to the recording studio.
I push the door open, feeling my very soul surge a little bit as I step into air charged with the promise of creativity. My feet carry me through the uncertainty of being in here, until I’m standing in front of the little stand holding the very same acoustic guitar Jackson was playing yesterday.
I don’t think. I just reach for it, like it’s been left out for me, and slip the strap over my shoulder.
It was Will Cates who bought me my first guitar one random Wednesday when I was nine. Then he sat me down that very day in my mom’s apartment and showed me how to play the opening to The Velvet Guillotine songLydia.
NotJingle Bells. NotHot Crossed Buns, or any of the other extremely entry-level “first time playing guitar” type songs.
Nope. Straight into rock ’n roll.
Will taught me to sing, too. I mean, I was already singing all over the apartment. But he showed me how to use my breath, and how to hit notes the right way. How to train my ears to know where the melody is going.
My eyes close, and excitement flushes through me as my fingers touch metal strings. I used to love thisso muchit hurt. I mean I still love it, it’s just…
My smile falters.
It’s just that it was taken from me. By a monster. When I was thirteen.
After that night, I…
I exhale slowly.
After that night, the joy I found in playing and singing became a private-only thing for me. The guitar playing, yes, I could maybe still do in front of people.
But not singing. Never singing; not after him.
My eyes close as my fingers walk slowly over the strings, feeling the power in them as if they’re still vibrating from their master who played them just yesterday.
And then, unbidden, and without trying to even coax it out, my mouth opens.
And the words pour out of me.
I go with Warren Zevon, because I was just listening to him, andKeep Me In Your Heartis one of my all-time favorite songs. And standing there, in what I know is a forbidden room, holding a forbidden object, I engage in what is—at least for me, since that night—the forbidden act of singing out loud.
And I’m lost in it. Lost in the love and joy for life itself that I feel when I sing, or when music just flows through me.
I get so lost in it, in fact, that it’s not until I hear the thick growl behind me that I realize I’m not actually alone at all.
I have an audience.
And when I gasp and whirl to stare at him in shock and horror, my heart climbs into my throat. My pulse hammers like an invader in my ears, and my vision blurs as I lock eyes with Jackson.
And here I am standing here in a t-shirt, no bra, and panties, like something out of a porn shoot.
But the man standing six feet away from is absolutelydrippingwith sexual energy and raw lust. And as much as I want to look away—to drag my eyes kicking and screaming away from him—I can’t.
Because no one can. Because Jackson is sexual freaking napalm.
The man is, what, forty? Forty-two? Beyond that, he seems to eat like a pig and drink like an Irish dock worker. And yetabsurdly, the man has the body of a cage fighter. The body of a fucking god.
