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My mind races as I think back over the episode she had out in the driveway. Seeing that much fear in her eyes, it tears at my soul and makes me want to pound my chest like a caveman at the same time. It’s the same fear I saw outside of Smokey’s, only there she was able to contain it, whereas here she just couldn’t. I don’t know who put it there, but they better hope they never cross me in a dark alley.
I feel awful for trying to joke around with her, but I didn’t know, and now I do. Speaking of knowing, it occurs to me that not once did I introduce myself to her. And I still don’t know her name.
After a while, the crunching sound of gravel lets me know the girls and Clay have pulled in. The car turns off and giggling hits my ears. Such a different ending to their night than mine and the girl’s upstairs.
The glass door behind me slides open and Clay walks out with the girls following right behind.
“Hey, man. This worked out perfect. Thanks for waiting for me.” He doesn’t know the real reason I’m here. My text just mentioned I would stick around until he got here. I’m sure he thought it was for other reasons, whatever, I don’t even care. All I know is that I wasn’t leaving her here by herself.
“No worries.” I get up and face the three of them.
The two girls are standing slightly behind Clay, and while he is smiling, the two of them are glaring at me. How he can be oblivious to the tension radiating off of them?
“You two got home all right?” the little brunette asks me.
“Yep.” I walk over to their patio table and place the empty bottle on it. Her forehead wrinkles a little in confusion and she tries to process my clipped answer. I’m not going to tell her what happened on the driveway, that’s between the girl and me. She glances over to the other blonde who shrugs her shoulders, and then they both look back at me.
“Soooo . . .” Clay drags out. His smile has dropped a little as he watches our exchange. “The girls are here for one more day and invited us over for a barbeque tomorrow. What do you think?”
The unease that has been coursing through my veins for the last forty-five minutes dissipates. I wanted to see her again, I just didn’t have a reason to, and now I do.
“Sounds good. What time should we come over?” I shove my hands in my front pockets and grab my keys.
“How about any time after lunch? Clay volunteered you to do the grilling,” the blonde says innocently.
Clay smirks and I just shake my head. “Of course you did.”
“What?” he shrugs. “You’re much better at grilling than I am.”
“Well, that’s the truth.” I rattle my keys and Clay takes that as his cue.
“Th-thanks for bringing me home,” he addresses the little brown-haired girl. “We’ll see y’all tomorrow.”
“Looking forward to it,” she responds. My eyebrows shoot up at the suggestiveness in her tone.
The blonde and I watch as the two of them smile at each other. Clay blushes. Man, he’s got it bad.
The air is cold this morning, more so than last night, so I grab an extra layer to throw on and an ear band. It’s my thirtieth birthday and I can’t think of a better way to start my day than on the lake.
Years ago, Clay and I were driving by a yard sale, and out front there were two single-person kayaks. We stopped, the seller gave us a great price, and we never looked back. We immediately drove to the lake, dropped them in, and with one stroke, I fell in love with flat-water kayaking. It calms me; it’s my therapy.
After I walked out in Phoenix, it was here in the middle of the lake on the calm waters that I truly began to ask myself the tough questions. I had spent the last however many weeks brooding, becoming more asocial, and all around just a pain in the ass. I needed to sort my shit out, and here was the place to do it.
It’s easy to have self-reflection when you are surrounded by the solitude, the quiet, and the impossibility of escaping what’s in your own head. It makes you realize how awful things have become and that it’s time for change. With a tightness in my chest, I confronted what I had been avoiding: Is it possible to love what you do so much that in the end you don’t love it at all? And if I don’t love it anymore, what do I love? What do I do? Music is all I know, it’s all I’ve ever wanted, so if not that, what?
Dragging the kayak into the water, I step in, use my paddle to launch off the shore, and float into the freeness that comes with leaving the world behind on dry land. The feeling I still get each time is indescribable and invigorating.
Paddling across the water, I easily fall into the routine of alternating the strokes from toes to hip and then right to left. Twisting my hips, there’s a symmetry between me, the paddle, and the water that is almost hypnotizing, and often times I find myself so relaxed in the repetitive movements, that I’ll end up on the other side of the lake but won’t remember the journey.
Consciously, I track the number of houses I pass and slow down as I approach where the girls are staying. I went to bed last night thinking about the beautiful blonde and I woke up this morning thinking about her too. The house is quiet and I can’t help but wonder if she’s still asleep. Thoughts of her in bed with those gorgeous legs and full lips, every fiber of my being tightens and I let out a groan. I still say there’s something about her that feels eerily familiar. Maybe I’ll be able to figure out what it is later.
Switching to high-angle paddling, the stroke pulls closer to the boat and my speed picks back up. I’ve made this trip around the lake no less than two hundred times and I love it as much now as I did the first time.
I had been reluctant to go out last night, and Clay doesn’t even realize what he did for me, but it turned out to be just what I needed. It’s like they say, “When you least expect it is exactly when you’ll find it.” For quite some time now, I’ve been lost, confused, and not really sure what direction to go. It makes sense to go back to where it all started. Back to the roots. If I hadn’t been so adamant about hiding, I should have come up with this on my own.
In many ways, last night I felt like a fly on the wall of my own life. The young guys on stage were laughing, singing, and just loving what they were doing. Hell, at some point in the night, they played one of our current songs and I found myself completely lost and absorbed in the music, just like I used to get. Music speaks for me, it feels for me, and it defines me. And after eight weeks, I had an answer to the first question . . . I do still love music. Now, I just need to figure out if I still love what I do with it.
“GOOD MORNING, SLEEPYHEAD.” Emma grins at me as I walk into the kitchen and head for the coffee pot. Both she and Cora are sitting at the table looking very pleased with themselves. They are both itching to say “I told you so,” and I turn my back quickly so they can’t see me smile. I don’t know why I’m smiling—the evening definitely didn’t turn out like they think it did—but it still feels good.
