Night shifts black

Day Ten - Fifteen.

 

 

Room 403 becomes our new Jemma’s Café, and breakfast club becomes more of a brunch room service. Luke is careful to keep his distance when I visit, and we both understand more and more about what happened when I first came to his room. How the vacuum created by two empty souls sucked them into each other in a moment of mutual weakness. We don’t regret the co

We spend our days as friends now. Watching movies, chatting about safe topics, and drinking. Lots of drinking. Well, by Luke anyway. I try not to say anything as I watch him fill his glass over and over again. I’m actually amazed he functions as well as he does, given the amount of alcohol that’s probably in his bloodstream at any given moment. I know it will be my business at some point in our friendship, but we need each other right now, and I can’t bring myself to alienate him quite yet.

“Here,” he says after about a week of my visits. “You might as well just have this. It’s not like I have anything here worth stealing anyway,” he adds with a smile.

I roll my eyes, but my heart nearly stops when I peak inside the small, card-shaped envelope to see a key to his room. I stare up at him in shock.

“Are you serious?”

He shrugs. “I feel bad that you had to wait so long yesterday before I heard you knocking. Now I don’t have to roll out of bed to let you in.”

I laugh. “I see. So this isn’t so much a statement about our friendship, but about your laziness.”

He grins. “Basically.”

“Business Suit Lady would lose her mind if she knew you did this.”

“Business Suit Lady?”

“Yeah, the Guardian of the Lobby who gives me a death stare every time I soil these grounds with my commo

Luke laughs and drops beside me on the couch.

“You’re talking about Mara Jacobson. Yeah, she’s a piece-of-work.”

“She’s something alright.”

I pull my legs up under me and lean back against the armrest to face him. “Really, though. Thank you. I promise I won’t abuse the privilege. You tell me when you don’t want me to come and I won’t.”

Luke waves his hand. “Nah, you’d be invited to all my wild parties anyway.”

“Oh? What about the ones I want to host here?”

“Will there be pancakes and toast?”

“Absolutely. And all the orange marmalade you can handle.”

“Whoa. Let’s not get crazy now.”

I laugh and study him for a moment. “Luke, tell me what it’s like being a rock star.”

He glances at me before laughing.  I think maybe it’s an uncomfortable laugh, but he doesn’t seem overly surprised by the question.

“What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. Anything. It’s not every day a girl gets to hang out with one on his couch.”

“Ah, I see,” he replies, suspiciously. “So I was right all along. This whole thing was an elaborate ploy of a psychotic fangirl.”

It’s my turn to laugh. “Yeah right. A fangirl who had no clue who you were.”

He grins, but studies me with that intensity that makes me want to climb inside his head.

“It’s different than what people think, I guess.”

“Different how?”

He shrugs. “They think it’s all glamour and supermodels and drugs.”

“It’s not?”

He stretches and closes his eyes for a moment before staring at the far wall again. “Maybe it is at the end, I don’t know. Not in the begi

“You mean when you were first starting out.”

He nods. “Then it’s all late nights, smelly vans, cheap hotels, and constant fear that your gear will get stolen.”

“So no supermodels is what you’re saying.”

He lets out a snort. “No. You aim for the hot bartender, if you’re lucky.”

“And were you?”

He shrugs. “Sometimes.”

He quiets, and I can tell I’m getting into dangerous territory again. He’s determined not to let me, so he continues. “It’s not an easy life. I’ve seen more people give it up than stick it out. You have no roots, no home, just night after night of setup and teardown. Lukewarm catered food, pizza, and cheap beer.”

“Did you ever have your gear stolen?”

He grunts. “Yeah. We were parked at this cheap motel outside of Austin. We took the van to get something to eat, but left our trailer. It was locked but they still got in and took two guitars, a pedal board, and pretty much all of Casey’s stuff. Thankfully, they left the in-ear system and most of the rest of the equipment. They obviously only took the stuff they recognized. Amateur thieves, I guess.”

I laugh. “You lucked out then.”

“Yeah. We could barely afford our gas at the time, let alone replacing all our equipment. Believe it or not, I was more upset about losing my pedal board than the guitars. I had my best one in my room. Those were backups I’d tune to different keys when we played ‘Sanctimonious’ and ‘Argyle.’”

“Argyle? Like the sweater?”

“Like the only thing a kid sees as his father is beating him.”

I swallow. “Oh.”

He grins at my expression. “Still think we’re a boy band?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. The old ladies really love you.”

“No, the old ladies want to make me vegetable soup and teach me Pinochle to keep me off the streets.”

“Well, it’s no wonder with your ripped jeans and frayed t-shirts!”

He instinctively glances at his shirt. “It’s not frayed. It’s worn. There’s a big difference.”

“Wow. I’m surprised in a place like this they can’t afford better laundry service.”

He laughs and shrugs. “You’re very critical of my wardrobe. You would prefer me in polo shirts and khakis, I guess?”

I scrunch my nose, almost horrified at the thought. I can’t think of a more ill-suited look for him. “I see your point. Although, I’m dying to know what your tattoos would look like with a pink polo shirt.”

“Pink, even? Wow. You have the strangest fantasies.”

“What, fantasies about rock stars in pink polo shirts? You’ve never encountered worse? Come on.”

He grins and shrugs with a mischievous expression. “Not until I got famous,” he comments cryptically.

“That’s not fair! Come on, Luke! Give me something!” I cry, instinctively leaning toward him in my earnestness.

He laughs.

“At least tell me the weirdest gifts you’ve gotten from fans. That has to be safe, right?”

He squints and bites his lip, as if deep in thought. “Weirdest gifts, huh? Let’s see.” I wait, not about to interrupt him. “Ok, once a fan gave me a calendar she made of shirtless pictures of myself.”

I burst out laughing, and he returns my amusement. “Of yourself? Why in the world would you ever want that?”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “I have no idea. The guys just about died when she presented it to me at the autograph table. She waited in line for over two hours for that.”

“Wow. That’s devotion right there. I’m going to guess it didn’t have the intended effect on your heart.”

“Unless she was trying to get me to double my security for the rest of the night, no.” He gave me a sly look. “What about you?”

I glance back, startled. “What about me what?”

“What’s the worst gift you ever got?”

I laugh. “I can’t top that, believe me.”

“That’s ok. You must have gotten something you hated at some point in your life.”

I think about his question and wonder if my face resembles his a moment ago. “Hmm…well, one time I got a stuffed cabbage.”

His brows knit in confusion. “A stuffed cabbage? You mean a stuffed toy shaped like a cabbage or an actual cabbage.”