Nashville 3 - What We Feel (11 page)

“It’s okay. That’s not Beck.”

“How do you know?” he asks.

“I just do,” I say, and then because the guilt is starting to choke me, I add, “You should go.”

He watches me while weighing his decision. “I’m not leaving you alone right now.”

“I’m fine. I… I need some time to think.”

I can see that he wants to disagree but he finally relents with, “I’ll check in on you in a little while. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

I nod.

He stands then without touching me again. He walks to the door, turns, and looks at me. His eyes are solemn and serious. “Do you want me to go back to pretending that I don’t love you, CeCe?”

The question echoes from my head to my heart. I am at once joyful and stricken.

He loves me.

Oh.

He loves me.

“No,” I say. “I don’t.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CeCe

I don’t sleep.

I try, but the effort amounts to nothing more than rumpled sheets and a comforter that ends up on the floor.

My thoughts bounce back and forth. From Holden and loving every moment of being in his arms, to Beck and the look on his face when he walked in the room.

I feel horrible, and I really don’t know where to begin to try and fix this. There is no fixing it. I can’t erase what happened or the fact that I’ve hurt Beck in the process.

All I can do is apologize.

I give up the fight and get out of bed at four-thirty, heading for the shower where I stand under the spray for a good twenty minutes. I brush my teeth and dry my hair, slide into jeans and a t-shirt. I make myself wait until five-thirty before walking to Beck’s room. It’s still an indecent hour to wake anyone up but I can’t wait any longer.

He’s one floor down from mine. I take the elevator and get off, glancing at the number signs and turning right.

I hear the music from the far end of the hallway. It’s blasting loud enough that I wonder how anybody can be sleeping.

It’s not until I’ve almost reached his door that I realize the music is coming from his room. I stop instantly and decide this is a very bad idea. Just then, a girl stumbles backwards out of the doorway. She is laughing so hard she’s holding her stomach, and she’s having extreme difficulty staying upright on her stiletto heels.

“If three isn’t a crowd, Beck Phillips,” she says, her voice slightly slurred, “four is just getting the party started.” She laughs as if she has nailed the best punch line ever.

I start to back away. She looks around and points at me, staring for a moment as if she’s trying to focus. “Oh, my gosh! You’re CeCe. Beck’s singer. I mean, girlfriend.”

I decide that now is the time to go. But she moves surprisingly fast for someone who would no doubt blow a DUI test. She lurches forward and grabs my hand, pulling me toward the room and then through the half open door.

I stop as if I have hit a concrete wall.

Beck and two girls are in the king-size bed that takes up the middle of the floor. One girl is sitting on top of him, naked. The other girl, also naked, is draped alongside him, one leg entwined with his.

He looks at me, and I can see that he’s trying to focus, as if I am very far away, when actually it’s only a few feet. “CeCe? Is that you?”

His words are every bit as slurred as those of the girl who pulled me into the room. His eyes are like slits, and he’s clearly having trouble keeping them open.

I spot the traces of white powder on the coffee table and the two empty gin bottles.

I’ve never seen Beck with drugs, never known him to even want to be around anyone messing with them.

I start to back away as he says, “Did you think I’d just come down here and cry myself to sleep, CeCe?”

I shake my head, stung by the harsh tone in his voice.

“Or maybe you thought it was okay for you to screw around as long as I didn’t know about it?”

“Beck. Please.”

He vaults off the bed and stumbles to a stop in front of me, wearing black briefs and nothing else. The girls are giggling now, watching us the way they might an episode of their favorite sitcom.

He grabs my arms, holding onto me so tightly that I’m not sure if it’s because he doesn’t want me to go or if it’s the only way he can keep himself upright.

“What did I do wrong?” he asks, staggering backwards a few inches and then swaying forward again. He rights himself when his chest bumps my shoulder.

“Nothing,” I say. “Let’s not do this now. I’ll come back when you-”

“Don’t have company?” he interrupts, waving a hand at the girls on the bed. “What’s wrong with me having company? It’s not like I have a girlfriend or anything.”

I swing around to leave, certain now that things are only going to go downhill from here. But he whirls me back, and I collide with his bare chest, grabbing his arm to keep from falling.

I look up at him then, and my growing anger instantly deflates at the look in his eyes. The hurt I see there takes my breath away. “Beck. Oh, Beck. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

“Break my heart?” he finishes softly. “Well, you did.”

“Come back to bed, honey,” one of the girls says, patting the mattress. “We were just about to fix it for you.”

He reaches out and brushes my cheek with his knuckles. “I loved you, CeCe. No. I
love
you.”

Regret forms a knot in my throat. I try to say something. The words won’t come. I realize I don’t have any that will make this better. “I’m sorry, Beck. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“But you have. Right?”

I look down at my hands, unable to respond.

“You can’t make your heart feel something it doesn’t feel.”

“Beck, I didn’t plan tonight. I didn’t expect it.”

“Didn’t want it?”

I start to respond. I realize I can’t answer this without hurting him further. Because I
did
want it.

When I don’t say anything, he raises a hand and drops onto the bed, sliding back in between the two girls who instantly welcome him with open arms.

“Go, CeCe,” he says. “We’re done.”

I DON’T KNOW WHY I’m crying. I have no right to be. I created the situation I am in. I could have asked Holden to leave tonight before anything went as far as it did.

But I didn’t.

I start to go back to my room but turn for Thomas’s instead. I knock on his door with tears streaming down my face. I don’t bother to wipe them away because they are instantly replaced with more.

“Who is it?” he calls out, husky-voiced.

“CeCe,” I say, my sobs refusing to stay silent now.

He pulls the door open and stares at me with alarm on his face. “What happened? Are you all right?”

“I think I… I might have just ruined everything.”

He takes my hand and leads me in the room. “First, clarify everything.”

“Barefoot Outlook,” I say, the words breaking in half. “The tour.”

“Why would you think that?” he asks, pulling me to the bed where we both sink onto the edge of the mattress. “We had a great first show. It couldn’t have gone any better.”

“It’s what happened after the show.”

“What?”

I honestly don’t know where to start. Finally, I just say, “Holden.”

“And you?”

I nod again, miserable.

“Like that hasn’t been inevitable,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say.

“Well, you’d have to be blind not to see it.”

“I thought you were my friend.”

“I am your friend. Friends tell each other the truth. So what happened, other than you two knocking boots?”

I put my hand over his mouth and say, “We did not knock boots.”

He play-wrestles with my hand for a moment and says, “What exactly did you do?”

“I… we were kind of headed in that direction,” I admit in a low voice, “and Beck walked in.”

“Dang,” Thomas says, sounding completely serious now. “That’s bad.”

“He’s really angry with me.”

“Yeah.” He lets out a soft whistle. “Can’t say that I blame him.”

“He has three naked girls in his room right now, and he’s been drinking. That’s probably not all.”

“Girl,” he says, shaking his head, “you sure know how to bring a fella down.”

“I didn’t mean to,” I say, miserable. “I didn’t want to hurt him. What happened with Holden tonight wasn’t supposed to happen. Oh, Thomas, what if I’ve messed it all up?”

“Why would you think you’ve done that?”

“He’s pretty mad.”

“Beck has as much to gain from Barefoot Outlook hitting it as any of us do. From everything he’s said to me, going back to school is the last thing he wants. I doubt he wants to give his dad a reason to say the gig’s up.”

I shrug. “Maybe.”

“Want me to talk to him?”

“I’m not sure it will do any good.”

“I think he’ll see the logic. But here’s my one stipulation,” he says, his voice suddenly serious.

I turn my head to look at him. “What?”

“You and Holden cool it until the tour is done.”

I want to argue, tell him what happened tonight won’t happen again, that we both lost it and things can go back to the way they were. I can’t. Because I know that’s a lie.

So I nod. Once. Looking down at my hands. “Okay,” I say. “Okay.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CeCe

I keep my word to Thomas, but the wear of avoiding both Beck and Holden for three weeks is starting to become evident. I’m not sleeping great, and it’s taking more makeup to prevent that fact from showing beneath my eyes.

I’ve been talking to Mama pretty much every night after the show. We talk about normal things, people back home, who’s recently gotten married, had babies, bought a new car, the kind of regular stuff that keeps me from thinking about the strain within our group.

I send her tickets for the Annapolis show, and on the morning she and my Aunt Vera are scheduled to meet me at our hotel, I wake up so excited to see them, I can hardly wait.

I’m standing outside when Aunt Vera’s Suburban turns in the parking lot. As soon as she pulls into an open space, I run to the passenger side door, barely waiting for Mama to slide out before throwing my arms around her and hugging her as if I can absorb every ounce of the comfort I know she will fill me with.

“Hello, honey,” she says with a catch in her voice, her southern Virginia accent music to my ears. “Gracious, it’s good to see you.”

I nod and bury my face in her neck. She smells like home, like the bread she makes almost every day and the basil she grows in a pot by the kitchen sink where it gets lots of sun. All of a sudden, I am crying the way I did when I would go to her as a little girl, certain that whatever was wrong, she’d be able to fix.

“Aw, honey, what is it?” she asks, smoothing her hand over the back of my hair.

“Nothing,” I say as convincingly as I can manage. “It’s just so good to see you.”

Late forties looks more like late thirties on her, and I feel proud of her, proud that she is here. She hugs me even tighter, and Aunt Vera waits a couple of minutes before she gets out and hugs me too.

She pulls back and gives me a long look. “Good gracious, child, could you get any prettier?”

I smile a watery smile and say, “You never did go see that eye doctor, did you, Aunt Vera?”