Chapter Text
He clutched the coin in his hand so tightly that the edges dug into the meat of his fingers. He wondered if the words on the coin would leave imprinted marks on his palm. Maybe that should be his next tattoo, a permanent reminder of what he’d worked so hard for.
One year.
At the meeting yesterday, it felt momentous. His parents had been so damn proud too when he brought the chip home to show them. He was on top of the world, he could do anything again. It had been a really fucking long time since he had felt that way.
This morning he had woken up in his shitty bed, in his empty, shitty apartment and it had felt like reality had come crashing down around him again. Luke Patterson was still just a washed-up former rockstar ex-junkie who blew the best thing that had ever happened to him, even if he hadn’t used in a year.
He could practically hear his therapist’s voice in the back of his mind, what did we say about negative self-talk? But he shoved that voice down. It was petty but tonight he didn’t want to psychoanalyze himself or practice mindfulness or do yoga or some shit like that. Tomorrow was his birthday and he wanted to feel free and have fun like he hadn’t done in years. He wanted to scream and celebrate and party and forget and…
And he wanted to get high. Which wasn't a new feeling.
But he’d spent the last year clawing his way out of the pit he’d dug himself into, so he wasn’t gonna fuck all that hard work up tonight, no matter how bad the cravings got.
It’s not like he didn’t know why he was feeling this way. His birthday was always a difficult time, because so many terrible things seemed to be associated with the day. He used to think that maybe he’d been cursed to always have an interesting birthday by some witch he’d pissed off, but he’d been coming to terms with the fact that he’d created so many of his own ghosts, and now he had to do the work to overcome them. His birthday was just a painful reminder of throwing away the life and dreams he’d worked so hard to build, and losing the three people who’d meant the most to him due to his own poor choices. He didn’t even fully remember that night, but he could never forget the fight that had left him storming out on the band, only to later realize that he’d destroyed his family and left his heart shattered under a broken bass guitar.
Trying to dispel the memories and the anxiety they brought with them, he had wandered around his neighborhood all afternoon, before he found himself standing outside what might have been LA’s dingiest bar, a tiny hole-in-the-wall dive with a flickering sign proclaiming it to be Dave’s Bar. Luke probably would have walked right past the place if not for the dahlia painting hanging in the window that caught his eye, which happened to be situated right above a flyer announcing an open mic night. The inside of the bar wasn’t any prettier than the outside, low lighting doing nothing to hide the peeling wallpaper and questionable stains on the floor. The area around the bar itself was crammed with wobbly tables and mismatched chairs, but a small space had been cleared at the far end and set up as a stage.
Maybe hanging out at a bar when he was fighting cravings was a bad idea, but if Luke was an expert at anything, it was bad ideas. So here he was, sitting at the bar, clutching his coin, and staring holes into the guitar that was sitting unused on the stage while a very drunk older gentleman plunked out Rocket Man on the ancient keyboard, slurring and stuttering his way through the lyrics.
Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe he should go home and forget he’d ever even seen a guitar before, maybe go to his parents’ house and —
“Hey, new guy!”
Luke whipped his head around. Leaning over the edge of the bar was quite possibly a literal angel. She was backlit by the gaudy neon lights behind the bar, giving her curly dark hair a halo of light, peering into his soul with luminous intensity. He thought he could spend years drowning in the galaxies hidden in those eyes.
She snapped her fingers in front of his face and he started.
“What?”
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “You’ve been sitting here for like an hour now. Are you gonna order something?”
Oh. She was the bartender and doing her job. Probably creepy to spout poetry about her beauty while she was on shift.
“No, uh, I don’t drink.” He twisted the barstool around to face her fully, and started tapping out a rhythm on the top of the bar, unable to keep his fingers still.
“Right, which is why you’re hanging out alone in a bar.”
“I like the ambiance.”
She snorted a laugh and Luke’s heart almost stopped at the sound. He decided he needed to hear her laugh again, possibly every day for the rest of his life.
“The ambiance, sure,” she side eyed the cracked countertop, cheap liquor, and three other patrons. “Well in that case, can I offer you some of our freshest week-old pretzels? Or maybe a can of Diet Coke that has been in the fridge longer than I’ve been working here?”
“Oh man, as much as I love stale pretzels, I’m gonna have to pass. Watching my carbs, you know?” Luke grinned and was rewarded with another snort-laugh. “I’ll take that Diet Coke though, and maybe your name?” He tilted his head and looked up at her through his fringe in a way that he’d been assured was very attractive.
It must’ve worked in some way because her smile softened even as she rolled her eyes.
“It’s Julie. One ancient can of Diet Coke coming up. I can get you a glass of ice, but I’m not sure I would trust it, to be honest,” she said, sliding the cool can across the bar.
“This is perfect,” you are perfect, “Thank you, Julie. My name is Luke.”
“Oh, just like that Trevor Wilson song!” Julie grinned and hummed a few bars of a too-familiar song.
Luke’s grin faltered and his tapping stopped as he clutched the coin in his hand a little too tight.
“Ha, yeah. Just like.”
Julie seemed to realize that she’d said something wrong, but Luke didn’t know how to explain why the name Trevor Wilson made him want to vomit and scream and cry, why hearing about My Name Is Luke made him so proud and so angry at the same time, why he was such a goddamn mess all the time. Instead he just sat there, tense and uncomfortable, feeling like he’d ruined yet another nice thing. The drunken patron at the keyboard tapped out the last few notes of his song and then ambled off the stage, leaving an awkward silence in his wake.
She pursed her lips and looked at him like she was looking through him and it was nearly unbearable. If she asked he’s certain he would spill the whole story, like disgusting word vomit all over the bar. Maybe he could vanish into thin air if he tried hard enough, just poof away and not have to admit to a complete stranger all the ways that he’d tried to destroy his own life.
Blessedly, Julie let the topic drop, grabbing the rag she used to wipe down the bar.
“Ok then, Mr. I-Don’t-Drink, why did you come to my bar tonight? And I know it’s not for the ambiance, the owner hasn’t properly cleaned any part of this place in like 10 years. No one comes here for the ambiance.”
“Hey, maybe I like the look of unwashed tables, have you ever considered that?” He raised an eyebrow and she laughed again and suddenly he felt the tension leave his shoulders. Why he felt so comfortable with Julie was a mystery to him, but he was going to take it as far as she let him.
“The truth is, uh, well it’s my 30th birthday tomorrow. And I don’t know how you’re supposed to spend the last night of your twenties but I guess I didn’t want to spend it alone in my apartment, so I started walking and my feet brought me here. To you.”
Maybe that was too much too soon. But it felt right. Like some divine being had intervened on Luke’s behalf to put Julie in his path, even just for this one night. Like a sign that after living in the gutter for so long, he could finally see the stars and they were all floating in Julie’s eyes.
Julie let out a small “huh” like she hadn’t quite been expecting that.
“Well, in that case, that refreshing Diet Coke is on the house, birthday boy. One drink only!” She said mock-sternly, holding one finger in front of her nose. “And don’t let it get out, Mr. Peterson will think he’s not my favorite any more.” She gestured at the patron who’d been on stage earlier, but had come back to a corner table to continue nursing one of several beers he’d left there. He glanced up at his name and saluted Julie with the bottle. She saluted back with her rag and laughed, before looking back at Luke.
Luke, who’d gotten distracted looking at the guitar on stage again. Now that no one else was on stage performing, the itch was back in his fingers. He could slip up there for one song, just to remember what it felt like to hold an instrument in his hands, what it felt like to perform for an audience of more than just his ceiling fan.
A cough drew his attention back to where Julie was looking at him with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.
“Ok I see how it is. I bet you give the all the girls that same line about ‘destiny brought my path to you’ but really you only have eyes for our guitar, is that it?”
Luke spluttered, “No - you’re - I mean - I didn’t say anything about destiny!” Out loud at least. But Julie just laughed at his floundering, so he sighed and laid his head down on the bar.
“I miss playing the guitar, but it’s been years so I don’t know if I should even try,” he muttered, his words muffled by the countertop and was that - yep. Disgusting. Julie had said that the owner never had this placed properly cleaned, so maybe he should stop putting his mouth against it.
When he picked his head back up, Julie looked unimpressed. “You can’t be worse than Mr. Peterson on the keyboard. What’s stopping you from going up there and playing for the bar? For me?”
A million reasons came to Luke’s mind. The guitar probably wasn’t tuned. It’s been seven years since he last played. Maybe he’d forgotten how to play. The last time he played was the worst night of his life. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself from pouring out his heart and soul if he caught a glimpse of Julie’s eyes while playing.
He was afraid.
What came out of his mouth was, “I don’t know what song to play,” and then he wanted to smack himself because that could not have possibly sounded dumber.
“That’s an easy fix. What songs do you know how to play?”
He couldn’t say anything by Sunset Curve or Trevor Wilson, even though that was true, but that would hurt way too much and he’d never make it past the first chord. He should say some classic rock bands and maybe make himself look less like a complete dork in front of this gorgeous woman. So naturally what his brain came up with was, “I have every Taylor Swift song memorized,” because of course. Of course Reggie’s terrible taste in music would come back to haunt him now, in this exact moment when he didn't want to be making more of a fool of himself.
(And the thought of Reggie, idle and fleeting, still threatened to make his throat close up and his heart seize because he hurt him, he hurt him, how could he—)
Julie’s laugh ripped him away from a potentially dark spiral of thoughts. “I’ll admit, I didn’t expect that, but now that you’ve said it I need to hear it. Please thrill me with your Taylor Swift covers.”
Luke groaned, but knew he was going to get up there a do anything she asked. He’d known her for half an hour but he could already tell that he’d follow her to the ends of the earth as long as she kept smiling at him. He couldn’t say that though, what kind of creeper would she think he was?
“Ugh, Taylor Swift it is then,” he swiped a hand over his face, but didn’t miss the slightly wistful look that Julie gave to the stage, which was the only reason he said, “But only if you come up and sing with me.”
Julie stilled and for a moment she looked frozen, carved from the coldest marble and Luke thought maybe he wasn’t the only one with a complicated history with music. But Luke also knew that music was in his blood, even if it had been years since he had last played, it was something he’d never be able to fully give up. He wondered if Julie was the same, if she woke up at night humming half-formed melodies that burned her fingers when she tried to write them down.
“How do you know I can sing?” She asked quietly, without meeting his eyes.
“I don’t. But you were humming that song earlier and who doesn’t know at least a few T-Swiftie songs these days?”
Luke knew he could be charming. Before, well before everything, he could always talk his friends into the dumbest ideas - that was how Sunset Curve had started in the first place. And he could see Julie cracking in front of him.
“You know I’m supposed to be working. Who will watch the bar?”
They both looked around. The other patrons had wandered out, dwindling down to just Mr. Peterson, who looked like he might have fallen asleep in his corner, his head propped up against the wall.
“Yes, I can see you’re clearly being overwhelmed with orders right now,” now it was Luke’s turn to look unimpressed. “Really though, what’s stopping you from getting up on that stage and singing for the bar? For me?”
Julie pursed her lips, out of arguments when her own words were echoed back to her.
“Fine,” she sighed, tossing her rag behind the counter and coming around the side. “But you have to pick something good! None of this We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together nonsense!”
“Aw man I love that song,” he teased, just to see the way she rolled her eyes again, but internally he cheered. Maybe this would go ok after all, and if it was a complete failure, no one but Mr. Peterson would have to know.
It wasn’t that he’d forgotten, exactly, the way it felt to have a guitar in his hands. The comforting weight of the fretboard, the smooth grain of polished wood. But it did feel like waking up out of dream in some ways, like he was pulling the memories from underneath the surface of a body of water. His muscles remembered the angle of his arms and the positions of his fingers. His body curved into a once-familiar shape, reminding him of how this used to feel like home, like flying, like a million things all at once.
Almost like getting high. Music had always been his first addiction.
Luke looked over at Julie as she situated herself on the stool behind the keyboard on stage. She looked unsure and off-kilter, but her fingers traced the keys with no hesitation. He thought she looked radiant, like she was always meant to be on a stage, so the world could adore her.
“Let’s start with something birthday appropriate, I guess? Just jump in when you recognize this one,” he said, strumming out a few upbeat chords.
“It seems like the perfect night to dress up like hipsters, and make fun of our exes, uh huh.”
Julie’s laugh sounded startled and bright, like she really hadn’t expected him to know this song. But she jumped in on the chorus, “Hey! I don’t know about you but I’m feeling 22! Everything will be alright if you keep me next to you!”
And see, look, Luke was a professional, OK? He knew how to keep it together on stage, even when unexpected things happened. But he still almost fell off the stool when Julie sang, shocked that she’d been apparently hiding the literal voice of an angel behind that bar. And she also apparently knew how to play the piano?
Luke was a goner. He’d never be able to let her go.
They finished up 22 laughing and then Julie surprised him by launching straight into the next song with “You should take it as a compliment that I got drunk and made fun of the way you talk.”
Listening to her sing was intoxicating on a whole new level. Their voices sounded like some divine being had designed them specifically to harmonize with each other, elevating some silly pop songs into a new plane of existence. And yet, at the same time, this was as easy as breathing. Luke had been terrified to pick up an instrument for years, afraid that he would feel clumsy and broken with something he had once loved so much. But singing with Julie was the most natural thing in the world.
He hadn’t had a jam session like this in years - and that’s exactly what this felt like, a jam session, with one song flowing seamlessly into the next one. They jumped from Gorgeous to Style to You Belong With Me and no one would have ever guessed that this was their first time playing together. He threw out a riff and Julie countered it on the piano, never missing a beat. It was new and familiar at the same time - safe, but also terrifying. If he closed his eyes, he could almost see the old garage that Sunset Curve had practiced in, back when they were just high school dropouts with big dreams. Alex keeping them grounded with a steady drumbeat, Bobby matching him on the guitar, and Reggie inches away from him, sharing a microphone, beckoning him closer.
He crooned, “when you think Tim McGraw, I hope you think my favorite song,” and tried to pretend that it wasn’t so close to the truth, so close that it hurt to think about. But for the first time it hurt in a good way, like the memories wouldn’t drown him tonight, but maybe he could float on them, buoyant and approximating happy for the first time in a long time.
His heart was probably falling out of his eyes, clear as day for anyone to see as he looked straight at Julie and sang “This ain’t for the best, my reputation’s never been worse, so you must like me for me,” but his breath caught in his chest when she looked back at him and kept it going - “We can’t make any promises now, can we, babe?”
When the last notes of Delicate faded out, Luke just kept looking at Julie, unwilling to break eye contact. He wanted to ask again, is it cool that I said all that? Is it cool that you’re in my head? He didn’t know if she knew what this night had meant to him, how he never wanted it to end. If he died tonight, he hoped his afterlife was playing Taylor Swift songs on this stage with her for eternity.
They were forcibly ejected from their moment by the sound of clapping. Mr. Peterson was standing, leaning heavily on the wall and giving them a round of applause. Luke had completely forgotten they’d had an audience, but he stood up to take a bow, gesturing to Julie as she stood and curtsied with him.
“You kids these days are so talented,” Mr. Peterson said. “I’m gonna leave you to it. I’ll see you later, Julie.”
As he ambled his way gracelessly out of the bar, Luke turned to look at Julie, who was looking down at the keyboard with a face full of sadness and longing. He wanted to know what caused it and why she wasn’t a world famous singer with a voice like that. He wanted to know everything about her.
“Hey,” he said softly, causing her to look up at him. “You’re amazing, you know?”
She smiled sadly. “Thanks. It’s…it’s been a while.”
“Yeah, I mean, same. But still, the way we sounded…” Luke trailed off, lacking the words to describe the magic they had just made together.
But Julie seemed to understand, nodding along. “Yeah, that was really something, wasn’t it?”
They probably could have stood on that stage forever, gazing into each other’s eyes and falling into each other’s gravity, like two twin stars drawn together by some larger ineffable force, except the alarm on Luke’s phone started going off, causing them both to jump.
Laughing at his own ridiculousness, Luke grabbed his phone and shut off the blaring noise.
“Hey, look it’s midnight,” he tilted his phone so she could see.
“Happy birthday, old man,” Julie grinned at him and it was brighter than the sun. “Sorry you had to spend the last night of your twenties here.”
“I’m not. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend it anywhere else.”
Luke could hear the broken honesty in his own voice, but at this point what did he have to hide from her?
The only other thing he could have wanted for his birthday was something he’s not sure he could ever have again. But tonight he played guitar and sang for the first time in seven years, and yesterday he would have told you he would never be able to do that again either. Julie made him believe in miracles. And from the look on her face, maybe she got her own version of a miracle tonight too.
The act of playing seemed to have unlocked a hidden door in his mind, and he was flooded with the half-formed melodies and jumbled up lyrics he had shoved back there and done his best to ignore for years. But he couldn’t seem to hold anything back anymore and he was alight with energy for making music, awake like he hadn’t been in years.
“How late do you have to work?”
Julie shrugged. “Technically we’re supposed to be open until two AM. But, as you’ve mentioned it’s not like we’re bursting at the seams with customers. Dave - my boss - won’t care if I shut down early, if you have a better idea of where we could go?”
He bounced on his toes and grinned at her. “Well we can get street dogs across the alley and my apartment is three blocks away.”
Julie moved around the keyboard to stand right in front of Luke, close enough that he could feel her body heat but just far enough away that they weren’t technically touching. It was agonizing being this close to her and yet he wouldn’t move away for a million dollars. She raised an eyebrow. “Are you propositioning me?”
He used to know how to do this, but Julie was special in a way that every other girl had never been. Just having her this close was causing his breath to hitch and heat to rise along the back of his neck.
“I was just gonna ask you to come over and continue playing music with me, but…”
“But?” Julie titled her face towards him, raising one hand to delicately rest her fingers on his cheek. Luke felt like he was on fire, flames racing from her fingertips to consume his entire body, his entire being.
“Julie,” he breathed, unable to help himself. “You have to know…”
“Yeah, I feel it too,” her eyes slipped down to his lips. “Can I kiss you?”
“Yes, of course, please,” which is something he might have been embarrassed by if Julie hadn’t surged forward onto her toes, pressing their mouths together and god, he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol but he was drunk on her taste already and her touch made his heart race and his brain shut down and every part of him feel electrified. He was weak for her, weaker than he’d ever been for anyone since —
No, don’t ruin this. He forcibly pushed his thoughts away, focusing instead on the soft skin of her sides, where her shirt edges had ridden up. He traced his fingers along the hem, eventually slipping a hand under the back of her shirt, to rest it along her spine, pulling her as close as they could be. Her whole body shivered under his hands and mouth and he wanted desperately to watch her fall apart because of him. He wanted to take down her walls and see her open and needy and so, so gorgeous under him.
Then she opened her mouth under his, and gently took his lower lip between her teeth, biting down softly, sending sparks of sensation flying up under his skin. She could have anything she wanted from him, he would give her everything, just to keep feeling her tongue in his mouth and her hands weaving into his hair. She tugged on the strands of his hair and he saw fireworks behind his eyes. He clutched her closer, wrapping his arm around her waist and dragging his free hand to her neck and stroking behind her ear. He wanted to feel every part of her as close as she would let him, close enough to be consumed by the light of her presence.
He was considering lifting her onto one of the tables near the stage and saying fuck it and going down to his knees there and then, never mind they were in a technically still open bar that had a questionable level of cleanliness, when she pulled back. They stood there, breathing heavily into the space between them, lips still smeared with kisses and the air thick with mutual desire.
Then Julie started giggling. Luke would’ve been almost offended if her laugh hadn’t been so infectious that he started giggling too. When they made eye contact they just laughed harder until they both found themselves needing to sit on the floor because they couldn’t stop laughing.
“Oh my god,” Julie said, breathless and flushed and Luke couldn’t possibly look away from her in this moment.
“Yeah, I know right?”
“Ok, so this is happening. Let me close up and then you should take me to your place,” Julie took a deep breath and looked back at him, her gaze lingering on his mouth. “Yeah, you should definitely take me to your place. But no street dogs! I refuse; those things are gross. We’ll order pizza when we get hungry.”
Luke just laughed some more, feeling like this was the best birthday he’d had probably ever. It looked like it was only going to get better.
“Anything you want, Julie.”
———
———
Julie ended up staying for two days.
That first night was almost dreamlike. Walking to his place side-by-side, hands barely brushing, knowing that if they touched they wouldn’t be able to stop.
Then she was in his apartment, and his heart started racing with anxiety about what she would see when she looked at the pieces of his life that he’d only barely started cobbling back together. At least his bed, shoved in the far corner, had been made that morning, but his sagging couch had clearly seen better days and the card table he used for meals had three mismatched folding chairs around it and was covered in piles of junk mail and GED study materials.
When her eyes lingered on the blue, pink, and white pride flag he had hanging on his wall, he reached out to grab her hand and brought her knuckles to his lips in a soft kiss.
“I have a lot of scars,” Luke whispered, afraid to break the quiet that had settled on them while they stood there. “Some physical,” he nodded to the flag, “and some that are harder to see.”
He took his one-year coin out of his pocket and placed it in her hand. If these things were going to be a dealbreaker, he needed to know now so he could try to salvage some of his heart.
She turned the coin over slowly, and traced her fingers over the words. He held his breath for what felt like an eternity as she studied it and then when he thought he couldn’t take one more second, she lifted her eyes to meet his.
“I think,” she said, slowly placing the coin on his table and reaching over to cover his heart with her hand, “scars are what make us human. They show that we’ve fought, and survived, and our hearts are still beating beneath our fragile skin.”
He kissed her again because what else was he supposed to do with that?
He kissed her and she kissed him and they eventually fell into his bed and didn't stop kissing until well after the sky started to lighten through the window in his kitchen. He spent that night mapping out the contours of her body with his fingers and his mouth, making sure every inch of skin had been given the level of adoration that it deserved. When she was desperate and in tears, begging for more, for anything, he made sure she saw stars over and over again, until she was oversensitive and pushing him away. And if he almost cried when she rolled him over to return the favor, pausing to press gentle kisses to the scars on his chest, well no one else had to know about that.
The next two days passed in a haze of sex, napping, and writing some of the best music Luke had ever heard. Together, they were like electricity, lit up and shining. Everything they wrote was magical and he didn’t know where this was going but he was so excited to find out.
They laid in his bed facing each other, curved towards each other like two parentheses holding in the whispered words of their conversations. Maybe it was a false illusion, but Luke felt like he could tell her anything. He’d never been more stripped bare for another person, even if they were both wearing some of his shorts.
“The last time I sang was seven years ago,” Julie said quietly. “It was a Christmas concert at USC. I was a third-year in the Thornton School of Music.”
Maybe he should have been more surprised than he was, but it seemed appropriate that Julie had been in that program. She was a star; of course other people had seen it.
“What happened? That made you stop?”
“My mom died. The night of the concert. She had cancer and the new chemotherapy had been working, but she had still been too tired to come to the concert. While they watched the livestream at home, she suddenly threw a blood clot to her lungs and by the time the ambulance came…” Julie trailed off, tears pooling around the edges of her eyes and spilling over onto her nose and down her cheek.
When Luke raised his hand to wipe those tears away, she grabbed it and pressed a kiss to his palm.
“I didn’t know anything was wrong until after the concert, when I checked my phone. My brother had called dozens of times but I was so busy being focused on my singing and the concert and my own career…” A breath hitched in her chest. “I never got to say goodbye. I was too busy. How could I bring myself to sing again after that?”
There were a million empty platitudes he could fill the space between them with, but he was sure she’d heard them all before. And he knew in exquisitely painful detail what it felt like to blame yourself for tearing apart your family. So instead he said, “Thank you. For singing with me. For sharing your gift with me. I didn’t know your mom but I hope that she could hear how amazing you sounded.”
Julie smiled at him through her tears and it felt like the sun breaking through the clouds.
“Usually people tell me not to feel guilty.”
“If anyone knows anything about guilt, it’s me,” Luke laughed bitterly. “If you know how I can get rid of some of this guilt, please let me know.”
“Hey,” Julie gently tugged his hand away from his mouth. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d been chewing on his nails, but apparently his thumb nail was already down to the quick and stinging. “Tell me about it. I can’t promise it’ll fix anything, but I can promise to listen.”
He sighed, but she was right. Even more than that, he wanted to tell her everything, which was a new feeling for him.
“I can’t even pinpoint where things started to go wrong, you know? I was in a band, a fucking amazing band and we were selling out shows, living like rockstars. Everything should have been uphill for us - record deals on the horizon, headlining our own tour, it seemed like everything was going our way. At some point though…”
Luke sighed and ran a hand through his hair. In some ways this was just like sharing at a meeting, only it was actually worse because he cared what Julie thought about him.
“You know after you have major surgery they give you pain meds and I had a bunch left over after,” he gestured at his chest, “and at first they just helped me sleep after a show, you know? All that energy bouncing around and I couldn’t shut my brain off. Then somehow I was taking them just to get through every day, and tolerance is a bitch because I was needing more and more. And then one day before a show another band that was performing the same night as us offered to let me in on their pre-show ritual. Doing cocaine for the first time was like snorting lightning straight into my brain, I was on fire on stage that night.”
He could still remember it too, clear and bright in his memory. Back when he didn’t know how badly things would go, when he was just living to have a good time. He was ashamed of how good that memory still felt when he thought about it years later.
Julie kissed his knuckles again, prompting him to continue.
“The night before my twenty-third birthday was the last time I sang but…I don’t really know what happened exactly. I guess I took things too far and blacked out. And then the next day, we had a show and our bassist,” Luke couldn’t bring himself to say Reggie’s name, certain he would choke up and lose his composure, “well he caught me doing lines off of some random chick’s ass in the venue before soundcheck.”
He hesitantly lifted his gaze to meet Julie’s eyes, fearful of what he might find in them. Maybe anger, or hatred, or worse, pity. But she was just watching him, patiently waiting. He released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
“Saying we fought was an understatement. When the rest of the band showed up, god, we were such a mess. I hurt him so badly, I smashed his bass and said the cruelest things I could think of, all because I was fucking embarrassed. He cared so much though, he wanted to help, but I pushed him away and —“ Luke couldn’t stop his own tears then, so much for keeping his composure.
Julie wiped at his cheeks and leaned their foreheads together. “You loved him, didn’t you?”
Luke laughed wetly, “So much. For years at that point. But I didn’t deserve him. I didn’t deserve any of them. I destroyed our band — our family.”
Then they were both crying, for families they had lost and the guilt they were both carrying on their shoulders and the relief of telling someone and how their music was so connected to the joy and the pain and how it didn’t seem to be possible to have one without the other.
After they’d both cried themselves out, tear tracks drying on their faces, Julie laid her head on Luke’s chest and drew constellations in his freckles, humming quietly under her breath.
“Is that Lover?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re such a dork,” Luke smiled, running his fingers through her hair.
“Her music is great and you know it.”
“Have you ever been in love?”
Julie stilled and turned her head to look up at him. “I don’t know. There’s this guy and I thought maybe we could be heading for something but…” she sighed and shook her head, “I think he’s still too hung up on an ex. So, yeah, I don’t know.”
Luke nodded, because there wasn’t anything he could say to that. He’d known her for only about two days now — whatever they had was clearly chemistry but it was far too soon for love.
From the way his heart throbbed when she pulled away from him to sit up, he might have to remind himself of that a few more times though.
“I have to work tonight and I have to go back to my apartment to shower and get some clean clothes,” Julie said, stretching her arms over her head. Luke was sorely tempted to reach out and touch the miles of beautiful skin that were displayed in front of him, but he was trying to be a gentleman here.
Still he pouted a little, mostly because he knew it would make her giggle. “I know, I’ve just enjoyed living in this little bubble and having you all to myself for the last two days. Working with you is like getting to hold a supernova in my hands. I’ve never met anyone as amazing as you, Julie.”
She paused after tugging her shirt back over her head to look at him incredulously. “Unbelievable,” she huffed and then grabbed his face in both her hands to kiss him fiercely, like she was stealing the very air from his lungs.
“How do you just say things like that?”
Luke grinned, “It’s all part of my natural charm.”
Julie laughed and pushed him away, walking over to the kitchen table to grab her phone so she could order an Uber. Luke lazed on his bed and watched her as she continued to get dressed, finding various pieces of her clothing that they’d flung around the room in their hurry to be as close as possible, finally digging her purse out from where it had fallen between the couch and the wall. She paused by the door, though, and turned to look back at him.
“Luke…” Julie bit her lip, “I don’t mean to be presumptuous or anything but if I’d been in your band back then? I’d probably still be worried about you. And I’d be so proud to know how hard you’ve been working to be better.”
If her kiss felt like stealing his breath, this felt like being punched in the chest. Luke could have sworn his heart skipped about twelve beats at the thought of reaching out to—
“Just a thought, you know,” Julie looked back at the door, reaching down to adjust the straps of her shoes.
“Um, so anyway, you should call me. Or come by the bar, we have open mic nights every Tuesday and I’m usually off on Wednesdays. We could, you know, practice some of the things we wrote, if you wanted.”
Luke finally seemed to catch his breath and bounded over to where she was standing, wrapping her up in a tight hug.
“Yes, please,” he breathed into her hair, desperate not to let this amazing woman walk out of his life.
A car honked from the street outside and they separated, reluctantly.
“Bye,” Julie blew him a kiss over her shoulder as she slipped out his door and down the hallway.
Luke’s traitorous heart thumped in his chest again and he knew that he was in way over his head, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret even a moment.