It’s funny how attraction sneaks up on you. The subtle things you notice when you watch a person. The quirks. Like how he’s always pushing his ear-length hair away from his brow. How he’s always tapping out a beat on his thigh with his middle and index fingers. How his lip curls every time I crack a joke. How he saves his smiles and hides his truths behind them. Reid’s true beauty didn’t strike me when I first met him. I was too pissed off at the male race to notice. Sure, he was hot, in that slightly tattered, angry rebel sort of way. But beneath the surface of the animosity that played between us, my curiosity was growing. We’d been living in the back seat of Paige’s car for the last week, arguing, laughing, and talking. Every time he spoke, I felt myself leaning in a bit more, more engaged, more enamored . . . just more. And more often than not, the back seat felt like our space, a closed space between the two of us as Paige rattled onto Neil about anything and everything. Some nights, like that night, Reid would be amped up after a long day of sitting in his empty apartment. We were both a little stir crazy from all work and no play. But she and Neil had been our lifelines. Even if we were just visiting friends, going for takeout, or a drive, it was a break from the humdrum of survival. Restless and bored were a scary combination.
But every time I looked to my right, where he sat next to me, and saw the playful light in his eyes, I knew that he looked forward to that cabin space as much as I did.
“When do you get your truck back, man?” Neil asked from the driver’s seat.
“A week.”
Surprised by the tinge of disappointment, I stared at the back of Neil’s head.
“Cast off, too?” Neil spoke to him in the rearview.
“Thank Christ,” Reid muttered. “But I owe you both for letting me tail you.”
Paige twisted in her seat to look back at him. “Anytime, I mean it.” She gave him her motherly grin and he returned it. It was the oddest thing between them, this genuine friendship between two total opposites.
“Are you going to the show tomorrow?” Neil asked. “I’ll go with you.”
“Nah,” Reid said. “I’m sick of seeing them play without me. They get it.”
Neil nodded and Paige intervened. “You two go out anyway, okay? Me and Stella have to work.”
Reid nodded, Neil turned up the radio, and I felt sick and ridiculous. In a week he’d have his freedom, and I wondered what he would do with it. I’d been to another practice with Reid where he didn’t take part and had started four different drafts of articles on Dead Sergeants.
If I wasn’t sitting next to him in the back seat of Paige’s car, I was writing articles about his band, or feeding him lunch, which he was more receptive to. We’d talk while he ate. My relief at knowing he wouldn’t go without that day. The conversation was easy between us, but turned tense with the lingering goodbye stares at his front door. It wasn’t a big mystery why I suddenly felt the need to glance at him when he wasn’t watching me. I’d submerged myself into his life, his habits, his problems, him.
I needed to get out of it and fast.
“Stella!” Paige chimed from the front seat with a wink for me.
I smiled as she cranked the song up and explained to everyone in the car, “It’s her favorite song.”
“This?” Reid asked as he looked me over. “The Cars?”
Paige was quick with her explanation. “Daddy used to sing it to her every night before bed. And the Eagles. She would only go to sleep if he sang to her.”
Reid looked over at me with amused eyes.
“Don’t even start,” I warned.
His lip curled before he bit it. And I was suddenly dying to snatch it from his teeth and suck on it. I swallowed the desire and averted my eyes. “People dismiss old music far too easily,” I defended as the heat invaded my face.
“I don’t,” Reid said thoughtfully. I was ready to kill Paige for leaving no stone unturned when it came to fun facts about Stella. Then I felt his eyes on me, and the heat in my face spread.
“It’s depressing, right?” Paige remarked about the song.
“It’s the best kind of love song,” I defended. “He knows her so intimately, no one else can be to her what he can.”
“I like it,” Neil said with a wink in the rearview.
Quickly changing the subject, I grasped for straws. “If I get published in Austin Speak, I get to cover City Limits.”
Paige looked back to me with wide eyes. “That’s awesome. Oasis is one of the headliners! Dad would freak!”
“They are, and I know,” I said with a widening smile. A small pang hit me dead center when I thought about my dad. I missed him and our long talks. He had been my biggest supporter when it came to my passion for music. While my mother taught me all things Tejano, my father had spent hours dancing with me in the living room to American classics. He’d also played the biggest role in my education when it came to music. Like me, he had eclectic taste and played a pivotal role in fueling the fire. He was a connoisseur, and I his eager student.
“You miss him,” Paige gathered from the look on my face.
“Yeah,” I said, looking out the window.
“Maybe we can drive up to Dallas in a few weeks,” Paige offered. “I miss them, too.”
I nodded, trying to stifle the sudden burn in my throat. I still felt a new kind of alone in Austin, as if I really didn’t have anything keeping me there except my dreams. And the more I lived in the reality of Austin, the more far-fetched they seemed. Still, I had two years of school to get through and a semi-promising agreement with a gorgeous editor in chief, but nothing was guaranteed. Lexi must have sixth sensed my sudden desperation.
Lexi: I really can’t believe this kid. I have some questions for his father if I ever find the son of a bitch.
What did he do now?
Lexi: He peed off the porch like a caveman. Like we live in the woods and not the suburbs with neighbors on all sides. You would think he would only pull his pants down slightly, right? No, not this guy. His pants were around his ankles. His little pecker and bare ass on display for all the world to see.
I threw my head back with a laugh.
Hang in there. Only a few more weeks.
Lexi: You have a place yet? I’m about to lose it!
Almost. I promise.
Lexi: Thank God. X
Optimism gave way as I shook off the doubts about my future. It was all up to me.
After another few hours at Todd and Ana’s—the bartenders at The Plate Bar and couple who owned the house we frequented when we all had the same night off—I was itching to be alone with Reid again in the back seat. I was like a new addict, craving his attention, the intensity in his eyes, capturing his rare smile just for myself. But that night, despite his relief to be out of the house, he stood in the shadows, beer in hand, in his jeans, black boots, and faded black T-shirt that had seen better decades. The silver link chain from his wallet hung as the only jewelry on him. He was completely organic. What you saw is what you got. His day-old stubble and dark skin mixed with the black ink that covered his toned arms made him more alluring. Most of the time, Reid looked uninterested, as if he expected more wherever we went. He never drank too much, just enough to take the edge off. I assumed it was because of his parents’ addiction. He hit the joint every time it was passed. I, however, had decided that night to immerse myself front and center. I was on my fifth beer when Paige nudged my shoulder, ripping my gaze from Reid.
“What?” I asked, aggravated. She gave me a pointed look that told me I’d been staring too hard. Still, every few minutes, my eyes slowly drifted back to him. I felt safe, though, because that night he was far off, as if he was somewhere else but stuck where he stood.
“HEY, MOTHERFUCKERS!” We all heard called from Ana’s front door.
“Brodi must have gotten cut,” Ana laughed as he walked out onto the patio, where we gathered as sweat-covered victims of the horrific heat, too buzzed to care. Brodi sat a fresh bottle of tequila on the table, and we all groaned in anticipation of the hangover. Two shots in, the music got louder, and the party got more animated. Reid had surprised me by taking shots of the tequila, and I surprised myself by walking up to him after my third.
“Why do you look so bored?”
He shrugged. “Same old shit,” he muttered.
“Where would you rather be?”
Sea glass eyes drifted over to mine. “Doesn’t matter.”
“You miss her?”
He frowned and then shook his head. “No, and stop analyzing me, because you’re getting it all wrong.”
“Fine, sorry,” I whispered. I backed away then because I felt the frustration rolling off of him. Even in the midst of friends, that edge was always there, as if any minute he would break or blow or both. It scared me, but in a dangerous way, I was drawn to it. Reid was unpredictable in his moods, careful with his words, and constantly skirted the line between pissed off and pissed on. Paige thought the world of him, Neil, too, which should have eased my mind, but it didn’t.
I was both fascinated by and in fear of what I felt with Reid, and it was only getting stronger. A gravitational pull lured me to him. I wanted inside his head. And that was just the start of what I wanted.
Maybe he knew I could see the beauty behind his mask of indifference and I made him feel just as uneasy as he made me.
For most of that night, I steered clear of Reid, while Brodi filled my ear on one side with the mechanics of rolling a good joint, and Paige sat giggling in Neil’s lap on the other. Still, the idiot who got bolder with each shot of Cuervo managed to win out. I looked for and found him missing from the crowded porch. Without a single partygoer noticing, I managed to slip inside to find Reid on his phone.
“I’m sorry. I know. I’m fucking sorry. I’ll find a way to help. I swear.”
I held my breath as I passed him to make it seem like I was going to the bathroom and caught his glare as I rounded the kitchen table. I was intruding again by simply breathing. When I’d washed my hands and wiped the sweat-induced black streaks from underneath my eyes, I walked out of the bathroom to see Reid sitting on the couch. His stare distant, his cast and forearm resting on his knees. I paused, my heart racing as I bit my lip. Everything in me told me it wasn’t the time.
I knew not to say a word.
“What’s wrong?”
Fucking tequila.
Instead of the glare I expected, I got a sarcastic laugh followed by silence. I saw the crack then. It was small, but it was there.
“Reid?”
He gripped his hair in his fist and shoved it back.
Tread carefully.
The words echoed in my head as he loosely scoured me.
“If you need to talk to someone—”
“Stella.” He was exasperated, and I knew he was holding back his wrath in respect of my sister. I resented their friendship in that moment.
“If Paige wasn’t my sister,” I said slowly before I sank down to squat in front of him. Eye level, he searched my face as if he couldn’t believe I had the nerve to ask. And without a belly full of courage, I knew I wouldn’t have. “What would you say to me right now?”
I could see the bite, and for some reason, I was a glutton for it. Maybe I wanted to see what he truly thought about me in that moment when his wall was temporarily down and the anger was seeping through. I was hoping for it. Because maybe then I wouldn’t be so tempted by him, so curious about him, so needful of his attention. And I didn’t want to be. If there was one thing I knew about Reid Crowne, it was that he was fire, and it took fire to recognize it.
“We’re both victims of circumstance, aren’t we? I’m stuck with you too, for now, Reid, so just say it.”
And in the hazel mass of clouds that built as I watched him, I saw it. The slight fear in his eyes when he looked at me, the temptation, a reflection of the same flames.
I wasn’t alone.
“I’m right here,” I said, throwing another log on as I stood before him. His eyes slowly drifted up to my face. The air charged between us, and it was overwhelming. I was high on him. So high, I began to shake. I swallowed hard as I tried to find a solid voice. “What’s on your mind, Reid?”
“Stella.” Paige’s voice cut through the haze as she made her way into the living room. “What are y’all doing?” Without a reply, she looked between us and then settled her accusatory stare on Reid. “Reid, come with me to the store. We need more beer.”
I moved to grab the can I left on the table and downed it as I passed my sister to avoid eye contact. I could feel her eyes follow me as she picked up her purse and ushered Reid out of the house. Instead of joining the party, I bypassed the patio and walked around the side of the brick to see if I could hear their conversation down the front walk.
“What are you doing?” Paige said in a scolding hiss. Reid’s words couldn’t be deciphered as their car doors closed.
Paige saw it. We all were aware. The lines had been drawn. Reid had been careful with his footing, and I had just become aware of myself teetering on the edge Paige was going to make sure neither of us crossed.
And maybe it was for the best. But deep inside me, the fire had been lit, and though it was low lying, I knew it would only be a matter of time.
So did Reid.
And so did my sister.
Later that night, the party continued at Paige’s apartment. A few people had come back with us, and Neil played DJ while the rest of us gathered in the kitchen, dancing while finishing the bottle of tequila. Reid sat alone on the plastic chair on Paige’s two-person porch, chain-smoking, his black boots crossed on top of one of her terracotta pots. I was tired but had people sitting on my bed, and the more I drank, the more I felt driven toward that porch. When Paige and Reid rejoined the party earlier, he hadn’t so much as looked at me. I wanted to feel relieved, but instead, I felt a restless stir. Even in the back seat on the way home, he didn’t glance my way. My sister had done her job. And the more I thought about it, the more resentful I became toward her rule.
After an hour of watching the black boots out my peripheral, I walked onto the porch with the last beer and handed it to him. He took it and popped the top without a thank you as I stood against the railing, obstructing his view from the grass that we’d laid on days ago.
His face covered in shadow, he sipped the beer wordlessly until he drained it.
“Can I come to practice this week?”
Reid exhaled and grabbed another cigarette from his pack. “No practice this week.”
He was lying.
“You’re lying.”
“Even so,” he said in a whisper, a cigarette dangling from his lips, “no practice this week.” I scoffed and crossed my arms over my stomach, gripping my sides. I was wearing a thin tank top that showed my midriff and cut off shorts. Reid’s eyes covered me, stopping at the bronze skin of my stomach before they flicked away.
“Is this about Paige? Because I can talk to her. She thinks there’s something going on, and I can tell her there’s nothing.” I took his silence for confirmation that statement was bullshit. Because every beat of my restless heart told me that something was definitely going on, and on both our parts.
Reid stood and crushed his cigarette. That alone had us inches away from each other. “’Night, Stella.”
“Great. You know I’m trapped in this hell, too. Don’t leave me hanging like this.”
Reid shoved his cigarettes into his jeans and looked me over. “I’m not the answer.”
“What? What does that even mean?” I said, taking a step forward. Pushing.
“It means you need to find your own friends here,” he said thoughtfully. “This isn’t your crowd.” I’m not for you.
“Who says?” That’s my decision. I took another step forward. “I say.”
“Stella.” Stay away.
“Why?” I couldn’t if I wanted to.
It was there again, the unbelievable static. My whole body trembled in anticipation. I felt sick and alive as my hair stood on end, warmth everywhere—so much warmth. He towered over me as I looked up at him with permission and fear. “You don’t want me there?”
His voice was laced with an edge. “No.”
I pushed.
“Do you want me here?” I asked as I stood flush to him, my eyes pleading, my lips begging. “Kiss me, Reid. Once. Just kiss me. If you don’t like it, you never have to do it again.”
His head slowly bent, our eyes locked, and he leaned in. “No.”
“Yes,” I urged then licked my bottom lip. His eyes followed and his lips turned into a smug smirk.
“What about your boyfriend at the restaurant?”
“Reid,” I said on a whimper. We were so close, the lines crossed and my breathing heavy. My lungs filled, and I was dying to exhale into him. My heart thudded so hard I could swear he could hear it. I was completely immersed in his eyes, drunk on temptation, done.
Pissed at his hesitation, I took a step back with a forced and defiant grin. “I won’t offer again.” I shouldered past him, blocking the door. My breath caught when he gripped my arm and his head bent so that our lips brushed as he spoke. “This can’t happen.”
“If you say so,” I bit out before I ripped my arm away and pushed through the hot air of the apartment laced with alcohol and bodies before walking out the front door. I needed more air. I needed to stop drinking tequila, or anything for that matter. I’d made a fool of myself. If Paige knew, she would accuse me, as usual, of being overly dramatic.
Because I’d always been an emotional person. I cringed when I heard the words “calm down,” and got highly offended when they were directed toward me. They were like battery acid being thrown at the overly sensitive.
It was hard for me to keep them bottled, a problem for me through most of my life. That was the thing about musicians that I envied most. They could bleed at the top of their lungs for a few hours a day on stage, pouring out their hearts, hurts, or anger into the crowd, and they were worshiped for it. It was not such an epic affair when your emotions bleed into everyday life and have an overabundance of them bubbling to the surface.
One of the most powerful pictures in music history wasn’t on the cover of a magazine. It was a candid snapshot of Kurt Cobain crying backstage. I remember staring at the picture for hours. He was sitting on the floor in ripped jeans and a flannel shirt, one elbow braced on his knee, while he fisted his hair with his other hand, his face twisted in agony, crying freely. Even with his warranted success, his emotions ruled him. That picture should never have been taken. It was a moment of weakness and he deserved to have it alone. But at the same time, that powerful snapshot made me feel like I wasn’t alone in my struggle to keep my emotions at bay. I understood his inability to keep them in check even in the public eye, and especially when it hurt.
I was the crier and puker in the family and constantly scolded by my mother not to take things so seriously. When I got overly excited, I would often throw up, especially at Christmas. It was my mother’s worst nightmare. “Oh, Mommy, Mommy, Santa got me a new doll.” Bleh. “Oh, Mommy, it’s the first day of school!” Bleh. And so forth and so on.
I wasn’t happy about it. I often felt uncomfortable in my own skin, especially as time marched on. It made for euphorically charged, angry periods and days where I had to walk myself stupid to get the aggression out. It was never a pendulum swing of daily emotions type of deal, though I was tested for bipolar and every disorder under the sun. And the verdict always came back the same. “Stella just seems to be an emotionally charged kid. She’s passionate.”
My father put an end to my mother’s scrutiny, telling her she was very much the same way when they were younger. My mother had taken serious offense, and that was one of the biggest fights they had in their marriage, which only proved my dad’s point. He still pokes fun at her about it to this day. I still remember his words to me when I got into a fight at school. I was crying in his lap.
“Boo, listen. You can’t go beating up everyone that pisses you off. Use your words, I promise you they are much better weapons. But be careful with them because bruises heal.”
It was the typical sitcom, father/daughter talk, except his next words resonated the most.
“You are so much like your mother. She doesn’t see it, but I do. Just remember when you’re yelling, you’re hurt. And whoever hurt you probably loves you just as much.”
I was an emotionally charged woman as well—passionate—just with a little better grasp on how to deal with it, and music was my outlet. It was my sanctuary where I could bleed, get angry, or hurt, without consequence.
Everyone, at some point in their life, breathes and grieves through song, but for me, it was daily therapy.
When a certain song plucked those strings in my chest, I felt it all, and it was freedom. Those songs didn’t judge or tell me I was a fool for feeling the way I did. They told me they were with me. It was how I balanced my life and my passion.
Sometimes I envied those girls who had a better hold on their emotions and could reel them in and keep it together. But I wasn’t them, and so I found my solution in sound, and in that, I found my calm.
I ended up walking around the park across the street, drunk and muttering to myself like a lunatic. I heard Paige call my name and ignored her. After several miles of an alcohol-driven nature walk, I went back to the apartment and was met with the furious eyes of Reid Crowne. He glared up at me from the bottom step, stood, and then took off toward his place. Paige was just as pissed off inside. “Where the hell have you been? You’ve been gone for two hours!”
“I took a walk,” I defended as she shut the door behind me.
“In the middle of the night?”
“Stop worrying about me!”
“Reid walked the complex the whole time. He has a shift in four hours!”
Guilt surfaced as I stood staring at her. “I was at the park across the street. I’ll apologize.”
“No, you stay away from him. His life is complicated enough without bringing in your drama.”
I bared my teeth. “My drama? I took a walk.”
“Stella,” she said on a long breath, “just stay away from him.”
“Who the hell are you to tell me that?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Your sister and his best friend. I know you both. This is the last thing either of you needs.”
I pushed, exhausted. “What thing?”
“Look,” she said, ignoring me as she began collecting beer bottles, “we talked about it and we both agree it’s for the best.”
“You talked about it?” I felt my body tense with anger and humiliation. “You had a conversation with Reid about whether or not we can . . . What in the hell, Paige?”
“It’s for your own good and his.”
“Are you kidding me?” I said with my arms crossed, cringing and fuming. “Let’s get one thing straight. No one, not even you, dear sister, gets to make those decisions for me. I’ll be out of here in a few weeks, and after that, your job is done. You get to be there for me, but not govern me. I don’t do well with authority, and you have crossed the fucking line.”
Paige gawked at me. “You hated him.”
“I still do,” I said as I snatched the trash from her hands. “Just go to bed, and thanks for humiliating me.”
“I’m just trying to keep you from getting hurt.”
“The only one that hurt me tonight was you,” I lied. Reid’s rejection stung, but the whole thing was already disastrous and apparently had been decided. “And for someone who speaks so highly of him, you sure are changing your tune.”
“Before you get all fixated on him, you should probably know the truth,” she bit out. “That accident he got into? He was driving drunk, and before the cops came, he put Lia in the driver’s seat.”
I cringed as the gravity of it hit me. “She was almost arrested. He slammed them into a telephone pole and nearly killed them both, and he was willing to let her take the fall for it. And that’s why she left him.”
He couldn’t be that asshole. Not Reid. But maybe he was that asshole. Maybe that night was the cause of the guilt that weighed on his back. His anger went inward. It was plain as day.
“She loved him with all her heart, and he hung her out to dry. Is that the kind of guy you want to get involved with?”
I swallowed hard. “He hates himself for it.”
“And that’s the only reason I don’t hold it against him. He’s trying to make it right, but make no mistake, Stella, that’s who he is.”
“That’s not who he is. It’s a mistake he made. God, do you hear yourself? With friends like you—”
“Don’t you dare,” she warned. “He’s got problems, Stella, and he’s truly trying to straighten his life out. Neil and I are behind him, always, but he’s not for you.” She sighed as she watched me absorb her words.
“Just let it go, okay?”
“Okay,” I said with a lead tongue.
“Okay, I’ll clean the rest of this up in the morning,” she said as she walked up to me and hugged me tightly to her, a rare show of affection. “I don’t want to fight. I love you.”
I hugged her back. “I love you, too.”
“All bullshit aside, tonight was fun, right?” She pulled away and gave me a genuine smile that reminded me of our mother. “It was.”
“See, I’m not so boring.” She winked.
“I didn’t say you were,” I defended as she closed her bedroom door behind her. My mind was racing as I began to clear out the rest of the trash. No matter what angle I looked at, as far as what Reid had done, I couldn’t for any reason justify it, and I guess that’s where his misery lay. He couldn’t, either. As I scrubbed the counters and floors, I couldn’t stop the racing, the pacing. I was beyond exhausted, but I kept working until the apartment was spotless, only finding sleep when the sun had fully risen and was peeking through the blinds.