I swallow hard and try not to breathe too loudly as I let her rub my hands with the slippery soap. I close my eyes, trying not to let what I think is happening inside my pants actually happen. Not now. Please not now.
“Does that feel good?” she whispers and I shake my head fiercely. “It’s okay if it feels good.”
She wraps her fingers around my thumb and moves her fist slowly up and down. I want to scream for her to stop, but there are people sitting in tables outside the door. What will Elaine do if I make a scene? I’m not at home where Grandma will keep me safe.
“Do you have to use the potty?” the blonde asks as she reaches for the button on my jeans.
“No,” I say firmly as I push her hand away. I can’t let her feel that thing growing in my pants. “Stop. Please stop. I just want to go home. Please.”
“Tristan, your mommy said you have to do this or she won’t take you home.” She reaches for my button again, but this time she waits until I finally move my hand away. “That’s a good boy. You’ll like this. I promise.”
Chapter Three
“Get up.” The redhead in my bed – I think her name is Beth – rolls over and reaches for me. I slide out of bed and yank the comforter off in one swift motion. “I said, Get up. You have to leave. I have plans.”
“What the fuck?” she squeals as she reaches for the sheet to cover up her naked body. I grab the sheet first and yank it off the bed. “You’re an asshole!”
I chuckle. “Like you didn’t already know that.”
She scrambles out of bed and quickly gets dressed. “One of these days your dick is gonna fall off or somebody’s gonna break your black heart. I’m just sorry I won’t be there to see it.”
“Yeah, I’m really sorry for your loss.”
I follow her downstairs, smiling as she continues to lob insults at me. I open the front door for her to leave and she looks as if she’s going to spit in my face. It wouldn’t be the first time a girl has done that. But she doesn’t spit; she just stares at me for a moment before she delivers her final blow. “You were talking in your sleep,” she says with a grin.
I suppress the urge to stop her as she steps over the threshold and sets off down the gravel path to the roundabout where her Toyota is parked next to my Lightning. Despite the fact that she just pissed me off, I still stare at her ass until she’s inside her car, but I don’t bother watching her car drive away.
So she heard me talking in my sleep? Big fucking deal. I’ve heard that same line from other chicks a dozen times. Not a single one of those girls sold her story. Chris Knight’s bassist isn’t a juicy enough target for the tabloids, even though I’ve given them plenty of material over the years. And what’s the worst thing she could have heard?
My stomach churns with the thought of the worst thing I could have said.
The shame morphs into anger and I punch the inside of the door. “Fuck!” The pain shoots through my knuckles and the burn of broken skin is instantaneous.
I am not broken.
I close my eyes and repeat this mantra in my head a few times before I make my way into the kitchen. My cell phone buzzes on the granite countertop and I glance at the screen before I pick it up.
“What?”
“Xander said we have to be at Reverb in an hour.”
Chris’s voice has an edge to it, like he’s in pain but he’s trying not to let it show. Typical Chris, putting Claire’s and the band’s needs before his own. Chris broke his leg a couple of months ago – a grotesque compound fracture – and since they cut off the cast a couple of weeks ago, the guy hasn’t stopped running around like a crazy person. He’s desperately trying to find a studio in the Triangle where we can record the new album. He even got the producer to agree to let us make this second album totally acoustic. All so he won’t have to go to Los Angeles to record and leave Claire behind for the second time.
There are only two persons’ needs that come before mine and I promised Molly and Grandma Flo I’d be there this morning. So I’ll be there at the studio in an hour, but I’m going to see them first. If Chris and Jake have to wait a while then that’s Chris’s problem for calling me at the last minute.
“I’ll be there,” I reply, then I end the call before Chris can ask me about my plans.
He knows I visit Molly and Grandma on Sundays, but he doesn’t know that I’m visiting them today on a Monday. And I don’t want him to know. Chris isn’t the type to ask questions, but if he finds out why I’m visiting my grandmother today, he’ll give me that look – the I’m-not-going-to-say-anything-but-I’m-secretly-pitying-you look. And I really don’t want him to talk to Jake or Claire about this. I don’t need anyone’s sympathy.
I take a five-minute shower and speed over to my grandmother’s house in Raleigh. It’s thirty minutes from my house in Cary. As soon as I had enough money, I moved the fuck out of Raleigh. That city and that house are ripe with bitter memories. Plus, being out here means I don’t have to get weekly visits from Elaine asking for money.
I paid to have Grandma’s house renovated last January while we were on tour, so Molly wouldn’t have to change schools. I wanted her to come live with me in Cary when I bought this place in August, but she didn’t want to leave her friends behind. She’s thirteen; she doesn’t understand that leaving her friends behind in order to get away from Elaine is in her best interest. Unfortunately, this also means I haven’t had Molly or Grandma over to see my house yet. I can’t risk them giving Elaine my address. Like me, Elaine can be very convincing.
I pull up in front of the yellow two-bedroom house I grew up in and take a deep breath to prepare myself for this visit. Throwing open the car door, I’m not surprised when I hear the squeak of the front door opening and Molly’s shoes slapping the pavement. As soon as I close my car door, she’s rounding the front of my car.
“Gah! I missed you!” she squeals as she throws her arms around my waist.
I chuckle as I wrap my arms around her shoulders and squeeze her tightly. “I missed you too, Moon.”
I gave Molly the nickname “Moon” when she was three years old. She has a round, moon-like face that shines like moonbeams. And she used to beg me to read Goodnight Moon to her every night, until I turned twelve the next year and everything changed.
It wasn’t until I met Chris in my seventh-grade math class that I realized I wasn’t doomed to follow in my mother’s footsteps. When he asked me if I wanted to start a band, he didn’t know he was offering me a key out of my self-made prison.
As soon as I kiss her forehead, she starts to sob. “Why are you crying?” I ask, though I already know.
Grandma Flo is sick. Since the day she took me away from Elaine when I was nine years old, she’s been stronger than the rock this house was built on. But it turns out she’s only human, after all. Three weeks ago, she was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer after a routine mammogram showed a small lump the size of a grape. The tumor had nestled in at the base of her breast and attached itself to her chest wall where it began to spread to her left lung and lymph nodes around her neck and under her arm. Once the cancer reaches the lymph nodes, where the lymphatic fluid then carries the cancer cells to other places in the body, there’s not much that can be done. The doctor labeled Grandma as T2 N2 M1 – Stage IV. A bunch of gibberish that basically means she’s going to die.
“I don’t want to be alone,” Molly whispers against my chest and I grit my teeth against all the anger that naturally follows moments like these.
“You’re not going to be alone. People with stage-four cancer can live for several years.”
She lets go of me and walks toward the house without replying.
I only have ten minutes, so I bound toward the house and open the door for Molly. She walks in with her head down, unimpressed with this gesture. I follow her in and my stomach clenches at the sight of the living room. I had everything renovated to get rid of the memories, but you can’t hide pain that runs this deep under a c
oat of beige paint.
Molly looks over her shoulder at me as she plods into the kitchen. “She’s in bed.”
I trudge through the hallway and slowly push open the door to Grandma Flo’s room. She’s asleep, curled up on her side with the blanket clutched tightly beneath her chin. Her short grayish-brown hair falls over her face as her chest rises and falls slowly. I kneel down next to her bed and reach for her.
Her eyebrows scrunch together as she tries not to cry. “I’m sorry,” she whispers and her face forms an expression of unimaginable anguish.
I don’t have to ask her why she’s sorry. She’s apologizing because she thinks she’s not going to live long enough to take care of Molly until she’s an adult. That’s bullshit.
“Don’t you apologize to me,” I reply, brushing her hair away from her soft cheek. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.”
“I’m so tired. I couldn’t sleep last night worrying about what’s going to happen.”
“I’ll go so you can get your rest. I have to be at the studio in a few minutes. I just wanted to check on you.”
In typical Grandma Flo style, she delivered the news of her diagnosis a couple of weeks ago as if she were merely remembering something she needed me to pick up from the grocery store. Don’t forget the eggs, and, by the way, I’m dying of cancer. I could hear from the weariness in her voice that she wasn’t feeling well when I called her yesterday to cancel my usual Sunday visit. But I had just finished taking five body shots of tequila off of Beth’s creamy white naked skin. I was in no condition to rush over here to check on her last night.