Page 13 of The Bloodfeather Promise
Chapter Three
Feeling desperate
scratching my skin,
does it want out
or does it want in?
Targets on my heart
words slashing like knives,
watch me slip away
unraveling the ties.
~Seven Seconds
Greyson
It’s her.
Every Monday for the past month, the same three make their way to the stretch of beach almost directly behind the house. They set up chairs, cooler, and a beach umbrella if it’s really hot. They drink. Talk. Sometimes they get in the water. They almost always stroll down the beach. After spending anywhere from two to three hours, they pack it all up, trudge the narrow path through the sand dunes to the boardwalk, finally ending up along the Run’s sidewalk where their cars have been parked. Usually, they drive golf carts like most people in this little village do.
The long-legged, sun-washed blonde chick and the guy are a couple. The stunning, dark-haired girl is alone. She never has a guy with her, and no other friends ever accompany their little group.
She owns the bookstore and works there six days a week. Her house, a two-story, whitewashed cottage called The Sandpiper’s Nest, sits about two blocks from the bookstore. She drinks vanilla macaroon iced coffee every morning. I’ve discovered it’s her favorite flavor.
Her hair is a glorious, glossy, dark mass of wavy curls tumbling to the middle of her back. It’s almost the shade of a raven’s feather. I’m dying to know the color of her eyes.
Her name is Emerson Jane Banner.
I’ve been watching her like a damned stalker.
Damned if I know why. She’s a brunette and I’m screwing blondes again. Like Holly, my interior designer. Holly has hair the color of expensive champagne. Blondes have crept back into exclusive rotation because, goddamn, brunettes are just as needy and batshit crazy as the peroxide whores begging to ride my dick.
“Want a line?” Holly hollers from the living room. With the multiple French doors flung open wide, the white draperies flow in the breeze, lending the terrace a dreamy, tropical resort atmosphere. There’s a popping noise when the wind catches them just right. It oddly irritates me. Maybe because it reminds me of when I was younger and Mom hung the laundry out to dry. Sheets always smelled better dried in the summer sun, she said. Alex and I would dash back and forth through them, hiding behind the walls of white, the breeze snapping the fabric and revealing flashes of our legs.
Holly moves around in the kitchen but I ignore her. When she’s here on the weekends, still designing God knows what, she frequently asks me if I want a line.
Of course, I want a fucking line. She knows I do, just as she knows I won’t do anything other than smoke an occasional joint.
If Jack knew about this, he’d blow a gasket. When I selected Holly Whitman as the interior designer for my new house, my manager cocked his head, alerting at once to the danger signals going off. He knew it wasn’t a good idea. I insisted. Holly’s got a nice set of tits, and I could tell from the way she sniffled during the initial meeting in that sleek and modern Atlanta office, she’d have hook-ups. The kind of shit I can’t, and won’t, score nowadays.
As for Holly’s decorating capabilities, I honestly don’t give a damn. If she painted the house dayglo pink and displayed plaster tigers everywhere, I wouldn’t care. I doubt I’d even notice because I only care about one thing right now. My music.
Fifteen months ago, I didn’t give a shit about that. With a black eye and busted nose, I quit my band. After Dylan said my songs were shit, my guitar playing was even shittier, and if I didn’t get my shit together, they’d kick me out of Seven Seconds.
Boot me. From my own band, the one I started twelve years before. The one my own brother named. The one I write all the songs and most of the music for.
Dylan dropped a bombshell that night. I’ve struggled with it ever since. I barely remember all the details but what does stand out is that my brother somehow played a role in his and Jessica’s deaths. I remember screaming like a madman when Dylan revealed Alex was sleeping with Jessica and had been for months. It seemed I was the only one unaware of that fact.
The label wouldn’t let me quit. Blah, blah, blah, I’m too fucked up and it wouldn’t be prudent to make such an important decision as quitting at that time. Besides, one of the dickhead lawyers for the label dryly informed me, I’m obligated to the terms of the contract I willingly signed. It states I must finish any booked tours and scheduled albums. Should I fail in upholding my end of the arrangement, they can and will sue my ass. I’d be lucky if I got out with my guitar, and a couple of picks.
Once I sobered up, with a banging headache and double vision, I reluctantly saw the wisdom of staying with the band. I even agreed with Dylan’s advice that I turn myself around before I crashed and burned. Turns out the record company, and the guys in the band, had me by the balls instead of the other way around.
So, the party that started with a blowjob ended in a bloody brawl and my decision that fuck it, maybe I was doing a little too much coke, a little too much drinking. A little too much sex and carousing. A little too much of everything. But up until the very last concert of that tour, I fucked, snorted, and partied like my goddamn life depended on it.
