Page 10 of Mason Wilder
As soon as Mason saw her, he stopped talking. His eyes widened with apprehension for a moment, then sparkled with relief.
Tessa never slowed her gait but inhaled sharply through her nose. “I want you to hear what I wrote.” She addressed everyone, but stayed focused on Mason in the captain’s chair, dropping her eyes when she needed to pass him to sit on the couch across from Sindy and Lucas. She thumped out the baseline and then sang the first verse. When she got to the chorus, Mason started slapping out a beat on the arm of the captain’s chair. They were in sync, as always. They shared some sort of mental telepathy when it came to music, as if they were in each other’s head. They had a connection. They worked well together. They could work really well together as a couple. She looked at him, and a surge of energy filled her as his eyes gleamed at her. The wide smile and dimpled cheeks were back, in full force, and it reassured her that everything would be fine between them. But how could it be fine if he wasn’t by her side the way she had always dreamed?
Heartache gnawed at her, but she needed to put it aside and channeled it into the song. The result was a dark beat with grim lyrics. She sang with a gravelly voice filled with bitterness. When she was done, Lucas and Sindy stared at her, stupefied.
“Tessa.” Sindy slowly blinked with disbelief. “That was fantastic.”
“Yeah.” Lucas agreed. “Where did that come from?”
Tessa shrugged and focused on her bass, purposely avoiding Mason’s gaze which she felt on her like a bullseye. “I don’t know.”
While Lucas ran to get his Les Paul to add a melody to the beat, Tessa stared at the floor. At her fingers. At the couch. At the wall. She tried everything to keep her eyes from landing on Mason, but there was no avoiding it, and she finally looked at him. She swallowed. He knew exactly where the inspiration for the song came from – her broken heart. The heart that he broke when he pushed her away. The heart that still yearned and longed for him.
“That was amazing, Tessa,” Mason said after a long pause. “You’reamazing. I’ve been telling you that your entire life. And it’s true.”
She nodded at him in thanks. She wanted to say,Yes, Mason, that’s exactly what I was hoping you’d say, but she didn’t, because she knew he wasn’t saying the words in the context in which she wanted to hear them.
Lucas returned with his Les Paul lifting the shadow of gloom that cocooned Tessa, and she ran through the song again. The rest of the ride went quickly, and the writing session lifted her spirits. By the time the bus hit New York City, she had a genuine smile on her face.
Busy uptown traffic and narrow streets made it difficult for the tour bus to stop for more than a few minutes, so Mason needed to exit quickly. The doorman in front of his luxury apartment building was already waiting when the driver hopped out and handed off Mason’s suitcase and duffle bags.
Thank God there was no time for lingering goodbyes. “Later, man,” was all Mason said before clapping his hand into Lucas’. “Great first tour,” he said to Sindy as he squeezed her upper arm.
Tessa swallowed as she waited for her turn. Goodbyes weren’t usually a big deal, and the last few hours on the bus had been almost normal, but her stomach knotted when he faced her.
“Catch ya tomorrow, Tess. Great song,” he said with a wave, and then he was gone.
She should have known he would have handled it calmly. Typical Mason. Nothing fazed him. Never any drama. No grudges. No baggage. The corners of her mouth turned upward. These were some of the reasons she loved him so much.
The bus navigated across town, through the Midtown Tunnel and onto the L.I.E., and in just over an hour they were in Lido Beach. They came to Tessa’s apartment complex first, and she was grateful to be home. The tour had been everything she dreamed about, but the last 24 hours left her mentally exhausted and she wanted to fall into the comfort of her own home.
“Do you need help getting your things up to your apartment?” Lucas asked.
“I got it.” She had bought something in every city they visited and ended up coming home with two extra bags, but she just wanted to be alone. “See you guys tomorrow. I’m gonna crash for the rest of the day.”
The driver brought her things into the building and the doorman found her a rolling cart which she wheeled onto the elevator and into her apartment by herself. She’d only been living there for about a year and most of that time had been spent on the road, so she still wasn’t used to living alone. At times she hated it, but today she reveled in the solitude.
She opened the sliders, stepped onto the balcony and breathed in the ocean air. She missed the beach, running on the sand and sitting on the boardwalk. The water glistened in the distance and filled her with tranquility. She never tired of the view, which wasn’t much different from the view from her parents’ mansion where she had grown up. After relaxing in a chaise lounge chair for about 20 minutes, she went back inside and flipped open her suitcase to look through the souvenirs she brought back from around the country. They weren’t really souvenirs. She had been to every single city they had stopped in before while she and Lucas and Mason were kids and had toured with Immortal Angel, but she bought things that she liked, and they reminded her of the tour.
She picked up two rolls of stunning fabric when she was in New Orleans. It was really for her mom, but Tessa wanted to make something for herself from it. Ideas sprang into her head, which she sketched onto the nearest pad. When she was done, she realized it was her lyric notebook that she held in her hand. It was the one that contained the song she had written on the bus. Heartache really must open one’s thought process, because her mind was filled with creativity today.
Excited about the design, she pulled her phone from her handbag and called her mom. “I’m home!”
“Sweetie! Come over!”
“I am. I just wanted to make sure you were there. I picked up some gorgeous fabric for you in New Orleans and sketched out a design. I thought we could construct it right now. Do you have time?”
Her mother’s whimsical laugh came through the earpiece. “You just got back from being on the road for seven months and the first thing you want to do is design and construct a garment? You’re definitely my daughter. Come on over, baby.”
“Great. See you in a few minutes.”
Tessa loaded the fabric and her sketch into a tote bag. She found the vintage Pantera T-shirt she picked up for her dad in Dallas, and an apron for Papi in New Orleans that said “Cooking Makes Me Cray Cray” next to a picture of a crawfish. It didn’t take long to reach her parents’ mansion, a place she still regarded as home, which was only one town over. She started to put the key into the lock, then paused. Her parents lived alone now, she reminded herself. They often boasted about being empty nesters, and she knew the affection level of her parents. The last thing she wanted to do was walk in on something she didn’t want to see. She turned the knob and creaked the door open only a few inches, squeezing her eyes shut. “Mom! I’m home!” she called into the marble entry foyer.
The door was pulled out of her hand as it swung open and her mother stood there with open arms, hair as bright pink as ever. Tessa found herself smothered in a hug while happy laughter filled her ears.
Her mom smelled of expensive perfume, a scent that reminded Tessa of some of the trips she’d taken with her mom to Fashion Week in Milan and Paris.
After a suffocating hug, her mom pulled back and cupped Tessa’s cheeks in her hands. “Let me look at you. Did you get enough rest? How’s your throat? Did you overwork your voice?”
