Bam
AFTER HITTING TRAFFIC and spending over an hour on the road, we arrived at the Haddon family beach house in Alki Point. I had seen many beach houses in my time. We had crashed and partied at surfer pads, crab shacks, and bungalows up and down the Gulf Coast, but I had never seen anything like this.
“This is your beach house?” I exclaimed as we pulled into the driveway.
“My family’s beach house, yes.”
“How many other families live here?” I asked with a chuckle.
“The Sullynator” parked the car and effortlessly hoisted our bags out of the trunk. It made me wonder how many bodies he’d pulled from that trunk in a similar fashion while on the job.
“It’s only a six bedroom house, Bam.” Lucy smiled as we stepped out of the car.
“Those must be some big ass rooms. You have your own lighthouse for cryin’ out loud!”
“This is true.” She giggled. “Mom keeps threatening to add on. She’s preparing for grandkids. Whatever. I love it here. I’ve been coming here all my life and sometimes I just forget to stop and look around at everything around me.”
She wasn’t kidding. There was much to appreciate here. The house sat on a bluff overlooking Puget Sound, with a private staircase directly to the beach. It was beautiful, but I could barely take my eyes off Lucy. The car ride here had been torture. To sit so close to her but not be able to touch her was killing me. I had never wanted a woman more in my life.
“You know what your problem is?” I asked while walking her to the front door. “You’re too serious.”
“I’m too serious?” she asked while unlocking the front door. The front alarm sensor beeped and Lucy punched in the access code on the nearby panel. “Who are you to judge, what with your rage issues and all?”
I looked down at my knuckles and smirked. “No, seriously, you said it yourself. You don’t ever stop working long enough, to appreciate what you have.”
“Ummmm, I don’t think that’s exactly what I said.”
“Close enough. Here’s my point,” I continued. “We’re here now, and there’s a beautiful beach just down there, so why not take the time to appreciate this night, and more importantly my charming company.”
Lucy let out a soft laugh and bit her lip.
“Will that be all, Miss Haddon?” Sully asked briskly, instantly breaking the moment.
“Yes, Sully, thank you for everything. See you in the morning,” she said. Sully gave me a slow nod and headed left. I watched him walk to the small home on the edge of the property, presumably to clean his gun.
“Let’s get our coats and hats on. It’s cold out there,” Lucy suggested.
While Lucy rummaged in the closet for outerwear, I took in the house. From the outside it looked much like the other upscale sea-side properties in the area. The interior was another matter. The Haddon’s had forgone the typical sea shells and anchors motif and designed the interior to look and feel like a log cabin style hunting lodge. With huge picture windows overlooking the water, it was magnificent.
Lucy handed me a leather jacket that probably belonged to her brother and we donned our coats then headed down to the water. The beach was nearly deserted. It was late in the afternoon and the winter air kept most beachgoers away. The violent grey waters crashed against the rocky shoreline as the sun began its descent. The two of us walked side by side, and Lucy resumed our conversation from the diner.
“What happened after your mom’s death?” Lucy asked.
“Dropped out of high school, hit the road with the band. The rest is history.”
“What about your dad?”
“What about him?” I snapped. She looked hurt and I immediately felt like a dick. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. The memories are shit at times.”
“We don’t need to talk about this.”
“I want to.” She raised an eyebrow in challenge and I sighed. “I do, seriously. It’s just no one knows this outside of the band, and it’s not a story I’ve ever had to tell, if you know what I mean.”
“Because the band was there while it was happening,” she deduced.
I nodded. “The truth is my dad was an asshole. Always had been. Drunk most nights, shoved my mom more than once, hit her a couple times, but she wanted to keep us together, so she stayed. When she died, he kicked me out and I haven’t seen or talked to him since.”
“What do you mean he kicked you out?”
“My old man and I never saw eye-to-eye anyway, and when my mom died, he blamed me. I blamed myself so I couldn’t really argue with him. He wanted me out and I wanted to be gone, so that was that.”
“And you haven’t spoken to him since? I can’t imagine not speaking with my dad.”
She looked genuinely heartbroken for me. Not just about my mother, but about my father as well. I had spent a lot of time grieving for my mother, but I guess I never thought much about the fact that I had lost what little I had of him as well. Shit, I didn’t even know if the bastard was still alive.
“He pretty much ignored my mother, when he wasn’t yelling at her in a drunken rage, so I could never figure out why he even cared when she died. I was just a kid who’d lost the only person who cared about me, and that prick wanted me on the street, so I split.”
“I’m so sorry, Bam, I really am.” Lucy’s words were soft and yet cut deeply into me. Her empathy and honesty were almost too much to take.
“It’s okay,” I continued. “The band became my family and the road became my home. It’s pretty much been that way ever since.” I shifted gears. “What about you? What was your childhood like? It must have been pretty amazing, right? Growing up among rock royalty?”
“Amazing, yes… up to a certain point, then crazy, then really hard,” she said. “I grew up on the road too. In all of my earliest memories, we were on the road with RatHound. Jack and Mitch are my uncles and Mitch’s wife and kids are my aunt and cousins. Not to mention, the road crew guys who were always there to get us into, or keep us out of trouble.”
“I can’t ever imagine you being any trouble, baby.”
“Bam, you really can’t call me that.” Lucy turned to face me.
I took her hands in mine. “I think I’ve been perfectly clear that I like you very much. I call you baby, because I love the way the micro-expressions in your face change when I do.”
I felt Lucy’s hands tremble and I held them tighter while pulling her closer to me. “I know you’re scared, and I can think of half a dozen reasons why you should be. Hell, I’m scared too, but I know how I feel about you.”
“Bam, you don’t understand. I can’t get involved with you—with any musician for that matter.”
I knew one of the reasons she was so afraid. Her father and RatHound guitarist Mitch “Robbie” Roberts had both had very public battles with heroin.
“When I was eleven years old, my mom told me and my brother that dad was sick. She assured us that he was going to be okay, but would be away in a hospital for a few weeks. I didn’t see my father for three months, and he didn’t come home for good for another year.”
“I understand Lucy, but I’m not your father. I’m not Rex Haddon.”
“Maybe not, but you don’t know how much you’re like him. Sometimes I really like that about you, but sometimes it scares the crap out of me. The passion you have for your music, for your life, is a lot like my dad, and that passion almost burned him up. The road, the drugs, the anger, the isolation—it destroyed his band, nearly ended his marriage and almost cost him his life.”
“Lucy, I promise I won’t let this life, or anything in it, destroy you...or me,” I avowed as I desperately pulled her closer. Our bodies were pressed tightly against each other as I leaned in to kiss her. Our lips met and I heard her moan softly. I cupped her face and deepened the kiss. Her skin was warm but I burned for her as I tipped her head back slightly.
* * *
Lucy
Holy crap on a stick, the man could kiss. Shit. I was worried about how his voice affected me… but now his tongue made me long for more.
I had to get a handle on this.
But in a minute.
Right now I wanted to explore his mouth. Truth be told, I wanted to explore more than his mouth, but for the moment, I’d settle for lips… and his tongue.
Ohmigod, his tongue. He was an expert with his tongue.
Why do I keep obsessing on his tongue?
I couldn’t stop a giggle which forced me to break the kiss.
Bam raised an eyebrow. “My kisses make you laugh?”
I licked my lips and shook my head. “Sorry. They don’t. They’re nice.”
“They’re nice?” He dropped his hands. “Damn, baby, I was hoping for something a little better than nice.”
I could feel the heat creep up my neck and I groaned. “If you really want to know, I couldn’t stop thinking about your tongue and how amazing it was. I kept obsessing on it and then I realized how weird it was that I kept obsessing on it.”
He grinned and slid his hand to my neck. “Obsessing, huh?”
“No. Nope. You need to let that go. Because this is not a good idea.”
“Something you need to know about me… I don’t let things go.” He kissed my cheek, then the other. “Especially when I meet someone as special as you.”
“Bam,” I whispered.
“I’m gonna stick around a while, Lucy. We’re gonna get to know each other and then at the end of the tour, we can decide where to go from there, sound good?”
“I don’t know—”
“Nodding is a good way to go here, baby.”
“I don’t have time for a relationship, Bam.”
“Then we’ll take it slow. We have a couple days to get to know each other without interruption… and no sex. Kissing, however, is on the table… and maybe some light petting.”
“Ohmigod, stop,” I rasped.
He grinned. “You’d rather some heavy petting?”
“Bam,” I breathed out, and dropped my head to his chest. “You need to stop talking. I can’t resist you when you’re talking.”
“I can kiss you instead,” he offered.
“No. Absolutely not.” I met his eyes. “I need you to stop doing both.”
“How do we get to know each other if I can’t talk?”
“Charades.”
Bam dropped his head back and laughed. “Shit, you’re funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny.” I rubbed my arms and smiled. “But I’m glad you think so.”
“You cold?” he asked, and shrugged off his jacket, slipping it over my shoulders.
“Ohmigod, you’re a gentleman as well?” I complained. “Just stop all of this.”
Bam laughed again. “How about we head back to the house and light the fire?”
I nodded. “Sounds good. We’ll do it silently, though.”
He grinned and took my hand.
Oh, yeah, ’cause that makes things better.
I sighed. I was screwed.