Rock Notes (Book One of the Heartbeat Series) (9 page)

We enjoyed a great meal of small plates and conversation taking us deeper into what each other’s goals and hopes were in life. I had gotten the feeling that he didn’t open up like this to many. I felt like a sister sitting across from him just listening. I found that looking at this super fine-looking man across the table from me that there was such depth and emotion. Whatever love he lost saddened me but he was still such a kind person with substance. These were my mature thoughts but I also looked at him and just wanted to fall apart. All I wanted to feel was love but this could be a tragedy waiting for sure. He moved me inside without even knowing. He knew nothing of what I was thinking as he kept talking about the band’s funnier antics and I just smiled and wondered what we would be like if we were truly a couple. Would we be good for one another, or would we shatter one another? Could we trust each other? I know we could lust after one another. I was contemplating what would happen after I stopped traveling with him and the band…

“Madison, you want another drink?” He asked and interrupted my reveries. I nodded back and wasn’t sure what I was agreeing to. Rand took my hand and felt the inside of my palm and stroked his hand to my wrist. “Let’s get out of here”, he said deeply.

That evening I slept so well, no worries, no bad dreams, no thinking of life’s yesterdays, looking at life with all the tomorrows ahead. I awoke very refreshed. I grabbed my phone and sent Rand a text:

Rand, this morning I was flying high from our outing last night. Thank you for not letting me fall like I did earlier with the tears. I’m ordering room service since we are only here in South Beach one more night and I never order room service, do you want to join me?

I did not receive a reply; I guess he was still sleeping. He did need to rest because it appeared that he never slept. I got myself up and put the hotel robe over my pajamas – a cami top and underwear. I dialed the room service line and placed an order. Room service was really quick and as I heard the knock on the door I grabbed some money to tip the server. I opened the door and there stood Rand with a bottle of Dom Perignon and a quart of orange juice and a single rose. As he entered my hotel room, he hung the do not disturb tag on the door knob outside and tucked a fifty dollar bill next to it.

I never did receive my room service food order but sitting in bed making mimosas with Rand was fine. We played around, laughed, cuddled, tickled one another, had a vicious pillow fight that got out of hand since we started to use the heavier sofa pillows that were in the room and they hurt. We laughed so hard. I think we both worked up such a sweat that as we breathed heavily on the floor after our play the thought of a shower hit us like we read one another’s mind. Somehow, through playtime I lost the hotel robe and he lost his shirt so we just stared at each other’s chests rising and falling. Rand sat up and pulled me into the bathroom. We didn’t speak, we entered the shower. Steam filled the bathroom like the fog fills their stage and I felt that Rand was about to perform as the most romantic shower partner.

We stepped into the shower still in our few pieces of clothing, soaking them to our bodies like a second layer of skin, we laughed. Rand then began to lather my hair and washed my exposed neck. Before he spread the body wash all over me, he kissed each breast, and his teeth tugged at the thin drenched fabric covering me. I reached up and placed my hands around his neck, knotting my fingers together and dipped my head back to let the water spray across it and rinse my hair. He pulled my head back toward him and brought me close for a kiss. Our water soaked bodies swayed up against one another. My nipples tingled and hardened in my soaked cami top against his naked glistening chest. I am not sure who stopped this first but the water could have run all day; finally we were toweling off and still laughing.

I felt a dull ache as he said he had to get going and he would look for me at the show. After one more stolen kiss, I shut the door to him and went to change from my damp pajamas.

The South Beach show was again a hit. I again was taking mental notes to write down after the evening concluded. Maxwell watched over me and came out to the front of the stage and stood with me and I actually saw him make movement to the beat of some of the songs. He told me we all would check out in the morning and we would be back in Philly for a few weeks. He said he looked forward to me traveling with them to Atlanta next; this was the perfect opportunity for me asking him for passes for Jillian and her brother Jason. Maxwell said he would make any and all arrangements for them and it was no problem at all. I hugged him for some reason. Perhaps to thank him, but I was feeling a really nice bond with him and maybe out of appreciation for how nicely he took care of Rand. I felt him hold me tightly in the circle of my hugging arms.

I traveled back to the hotel with Maxwell and we shared a drink in the hotel lobby. I hung out there after Maxwell went up to his room, hoping the band and Rand would come in but it got even later, I headed to my room.

The Rolling Isaac’s never returned to the hotel that night, not until the morning. All of them wearing the same clothes, and very tired eyes. They chatted about their very, very long night.

On our travel back, Rand leaned his head softly on my shoulder and fell asleep but in his napping he spoke here and there, saying, “No I can’t…oh, I really do want you, we could be great.” I shuttered and could only imaging where they all went and what happened. I glanced out the airplane’s window into the sea of clouds; I was floating on top of the wispy, white puffs, but could see the squall colors brewing below. Was all this wonder I felt with Rand just the calm before our storm? I looked out into to the vast open sky beyond the wing of the plane, we would be home soon. With Rand now quietly sleeping, I lightly touched my stomach and felt the jewel underneath. I pulled open my notebook, not disturbing his sleep and I began to write him another love note.

Rand:

As I dangle my little music note from my belly, I get yet another rush. I have to pause to breathe and I keep my eyes closed and see you as clearly as you touched me so gently, so seductively. I feel this little gem on my navel sparkles like a little hidden secret between us. I want to be your musical note, one that plays a tune in your heart endlessly. I see in the darkness of my lids, you barely touching my body and yet it instinctively moves toward your touch, craving that nearness. I feel you and want that touch again; I want you to continue with the course your finger tips were heading. I don’t know what is occurring in me but there has certainly developed a hunger like no other.

I want to tell you in just this short time we have spent together that it has all been such a different feeling for me from my past. I know in my heart that it will probably go no father than my travels with you and the band, but it’s intriguing and unknown and perhaps that is part of the pull that draws me near, but I know that I can’t seem to get enough of you right now. I hope you don’t know my fears – the fear of never feeling your touch again. I tread lightly not to speak out to your actions for you have given me both the opportunity to write again and to feel again. Until you came along I was uncertain I’d feel such emotion once more. I know you won’t read this, you won’t know my innermost thoughts but that is fine as if this is to be it will, if we are to be one we will. Somehow our two different worlds may collide and I await that. I will wait and hear, feel the hairs on my skin prickle sensing your presence.

Maddy xo

Chapter Four – Heartfelt Friends

O
ur time back in Philly surely grounded us all. The band kept up with their rehearsals. One evening when I called Raeford to get some detailed information about his musical upbringing, he told me that the band was really working hard on some new material, and that Rand was finally getting around to writing. I got caught up on my home stuff, all my phone messages, my writing notes and I tried to make sense of them and organize them. I had to open a huge pile of mail and all those things that stack up whenever you’re away. Rand and I still talked and texted one another but hadn’t seen each other for a week. Jillian and I set a date night tonight for the two of us to catch up and for me to reveal any and all details to her of my first travels with the band and everything about Rand.

With a big hug like life itself, I wrapped my arms around Jillian as soon as she crossed into my doorway. “God I missed you and it’s only been a few weeks,” I spoke as my eyes filled up.

“I missed you too girl, how was it? And don’t keep out any juicy details,” she replied.

Well I couldn’t say enough, I told her I thought I was falling for him and that I couldn’t believe this could be happening to me. I told her that we shared quiet time, fun time and very exciting time as I pulled up my shirt to display the dangling music note that hung from my navel. She laughed so hard, her shock apparent that I let myself get talked into a body piercing. I continued to tell her how I drank so much, braved my bikini (thanks to her) and was asked to cover up. I told her I had times my heart was so happy, but then I recalled her phone conversation with me about Thomas and those moments saddened with my reflecting on the past. I hadn’t forgotten that he really wanted to talk to me so I told her I decided to return a call to him even though it was against my better judgment. I wasn’t sure I could face him, but something in me still wanted to hear what he had to say. I had to stop feeling so conflicted.

We were talking at each other so rapidly, she was asking me all about Atlanta and she was excited that she would see her brother Jason. She told me she had looked up the information on the band and she had a spiked interest in Raeford. This was odd as he was the quietest of them all and Jillian was the polar opposite. She said his photos on the website showed him in a great light and he was very handsome. She asked if he had a girl in each town. I told her he was a sweetheart and really watched over me, and as for girls in each city, it was me that he mainly stayed near. I made a promise to her that I would definitely tell him about her in advance and introduce them both when we all would be traveling to Atlanta in a few weeks. Jillian said, “You promise?” I said, “Absolutely!”

I promise, oh I remember those words. I had promised my love to Thomas so long ago. In my whole life I never broke any promise. I remember Jillian coming to the front door of my condo and leaning on the outside and talking me through my tears and crying voice that she promised if I just let her in she would make it all better, that she would be by my side and she would make it all right. It had taken every ounce of my strength to open that front door and allow her to come in and join me on the floor and comfort me. At first she reached over to me to offer a hug and I flinched and pulled back.

Thomas had broken my very soul. Slowly she gained my trust and as she promised over and over that this would, one day, be much better. I felt somewhere deep inside that there was a part of me that may have believed her. “Maddy, are you still having wet dreams about Rand?” She broke into my thoughts.

“I wish I was, no I was just recalling the importance of promises.” I said to her as I pulled her into another hug.

We had ordered Chinese delivery, and requested they send plenty of fortune cookies. After the food arrived we girls did what we do best and we talked well into the evening, sitting on the floor with an array of white take out containers and then we ripped through all the fortune cookies to select the best fortune for each of us. I found one that I liked and claimed it, it read:
A wish for true romance will happen in your life when you dream rose petals.
Jillian selected one she liked and it said:
Your smile brings happiness to everyone you meet.
We were laughing and I got paper and pens and suggested that we write our own fortune cookie saying. Heck I am a writer, how hard could it be? We wrote the following, mine read –
Hold on to the past but eventually let the times go and keep the memories and move oneself into the awaiting present.

Jillian wrote –
No distance is too far for true friends bonded together.
I was really happy to have spent this time with her and told her we would hit the gym this week because I had missed too many days lately. Her schedule this week was going to keep her a little busier than normal but we could work it in, we hugged it out and I had just shut the door to her and my home phone rang. Thank god for caller ID, it was an incoming call from Thomas and I really didn’t want to start in on this with him at the moment. I let it ring and he did not leave a message.