The Duet

  It was no use. I was going insane, with thoughts of Jason pushing me over the edge.

  …

  Two long days later, I found myself back at Jason’s house just after midnight. They’d left the door unlocked for me since apparently no one gets robbed in the middle of the woods in Montana. The house was quiet when I let myself in, but I welcomed it. It meant I wouldn’t have to face Jason just yet.

  I’d had one last day of meetings and then I’d endured the ride back to Big Timber by myself, since Summer was scheduled to fly back to LA from the Billings airport. I tried to take a nap during the ride back to Big Timber, but instead, I’d opened and reopened my text messages wondering why I still cared that Jason had never texted me back. I suppose it gave me a definitive answer concerning Jason. The friendship I thought was slowly forming between us was most definitely not forming. We were still at square one. Except, we weren’t even enemies anymore. We were absolutely nothing. Not even worth a text back.

  Awesome.

  …

  The next morning I headed downstairs with what I thought was a very positive attitude. I’d pushed the negative thoughts that had clouded my brain for the last twenty-four hours aside and focused on better things, like my favorite pair of jeans – the ones that made my ass look “outta this world” (thank you, sales girl who talked me into purchasing them with that line). I styled my hair into soft curls, and swiped on some bright red lipstick. This day was about to become my bitch.

  When I stepped into the kitchen, LuAnne whistled from where she sat at the table, flipping through a magazine. Her poufy blonde hair and bright smile were just what I needed.

  “Welcome back, Brooklyn. This place was boring with you gone,” she said, winking up at me.

  I leaned over the table to kiss her cheek, leaving a bright red stain behind. She laughed, but wouldn’t let me wipe it away.

  “I needed a little color on my cheek,” she joked.

  “Where are the boys?” I asked, heading over toward the kitchen island. There was warm breakfast food laid out, the likes of which would bring a carb-conscious female to her knees, but I piled my plate with fruit and warm, scrambled eggs. Because I was in control of my life. I didn’t need French toast, and I definitely didn’t need Jason.

  “Oh, Derek went out to work a while ago and Jason hasn’t come down yet. He stayed up in that room the whole time you were gone. I think I maybe saw him for five minutes in total,” LuAnne said with an admonishing shake of her head.

  “Songs don’t write themselves,” a deep voice declared from the hallway.

  The hair on my neck stood on end and I whipped my head toward that soulful voice so fast I nearly sprained my back. I didn’t bother wincing at the pain because Jason was standing there in the doorway, running a hand through his mess of hair and stealing back my resolve like it’d never belonged to me in the first place. His facial hair was longer than I’d ever seen it, but it only emphasized his dark, grizzly man appeal. His song-worthy eyes were already on me when I met his gaze, but there was nothing behind them. No anger. No excitement. Nothing. He was the Fort Knox of people and I was sick of trying to read through his expressions. Clearly, I wasn’t very good at it.

  “Hello Jason,” I said, hoping I sounded as formal and annoyed as I intended to.

  “Hi,” he said, stepping forward to fill his own plate with food. He could have gone on the other side of the kitchen island, but no, he came to stand directly next to me so that our elbows bumped when he reached for the bacon in front of me. His body wash filled my senses in the most annoyingly sexy way.

  I grabbed my plate and took the seat next to LuAnne before he accidentally touched me again. But, that traitorous whore stood up as soon as I sat down.

  “Well, I’ll let you two enjoy breakfast. Come find me later if you want to chat, Brooklyn.”

  No, I had no plans of chatting with her. I had plans to murder her for leaving me with Jason.

  I once went on a blind date where in the span of one meal, my date had called his mom, cried, made me pray for ten minutes when our food arrived (I kid you not, ten minutes. My linguine was cold by the time he’d decided his prayer was long enough.), and then he yelled at our waiter when the steak he’d ordered wasn’t rare enough. It was the worst date I’d ever been on, and yet, as Jason sat across from me at the table, I found myself longing to go back to that night.

  Nothing was worse than sitting at that table with Jason in absolute silence. Painful silence. Every scrape of my fork on my plate, every time my glass clinked against the table. It made me want to scream.

  Jason stood up before I did, finishing off his eggs and bacon like a ravenous dog. I watched him clear his plate off in his sink, letting my gaze slide down his body. He was wearing loose black sweatpants and a white t-shirt, but I still thought he looked edible.

  “Come find me when you’re done. We have work to do.”

  He didn’t even look at me as he offered that line. He was looking past the sink, out through the kitchen window, and then he turned and headed back upstairs, taking them two at a time.

  “I’ll come when I find the time!” I yelled because that seemed like a smart thing to say. How dare he think that he could just order me around like that? Maybe I didn’t feel like writing right now. Maybe I had other, more important things to do.

  Ten minutes later I realized I actually had nothing to do. I’d already called and checked in with Summer and Cammie. I’d returned all my emails before breakfast. I’d even managed to work out already because my insane-ass trainer had called me at the butt-crack of dawn. So, I took the stairs really slowly, trying to show Jason that I’d come up when I was good and ready, thank you very much.

  Mid-way up the stairs, I leaned over the banister and hollered to LuAnne. “Do you need my help with anything? Cleaning? Dusting? Flipping through magazines!?”

  “No, you go on ahead and get your writing done. I’m all good,” she said, and then she turned the vacuum on, drowning out any possibilities of using her as an excuse. Dammit. She’d been my last option.

  With the speed of a barely-mobile elderly person, I grabbed my guitar from the case in my room and then went out to look for Jason on the patio where we’d tried to write the first time. He wasn’t there. For a second, I was confused and assumed he’d ditched me for greener pastures, but then my eyes widened. His room. He was in his room and I’d finally get to see it. I practically ran to the third floor, tripped up the stairs, and then softly knocked on the door with as much composure as possible.

  “Come in,” he said.

  I turned the handle and pushed the door open, holding my breath in anticipation. I knew that taking a look inside Jason’s room would be like getting a peek inside of his soul. It was where he created music, where he sat and thought and wrote and played for hours at a time, and when I stood in the doorway, I wasn’t disappointed in the least. It was so Jason. The furnishings were all dark-oiled wood and clean, modern lines. The drapes were drawn to let in the early morning light from the large window that led to the third-floor balcony. To call it a room didn’t do it justice.

  On one side there was a giant four-poster bed that was, of course, unmade. I stared at the pillow where his head had undoubtedly rested the night before and I had a strange longing to lie down in that exact position so that I could get a sense of how he slept.

  Next to his nightstand, there was a bookshelf half-full of books and half-full of random trinkets that looked like they were souvenirs from various places around the world. There was a miniature Eiffel Tower holding up a guitar manual and an oriental elephant painted rich, vibrant colors.

  Across the room, where the window opened to the balcony, there was a small sitting area. Jason was already leaned back on a leather couch, facing the window. There was an overstuffed armchair across from the couch, and since he made no move to greet me, I walked over and took a seat there. I could feel the sun on the back of my neck and I knew the view from where Jason sat would
have been amazing, but I was not going to sit on the same couch with him. He’d probably push me off.

  “I started playing around with a few opening bars that I think could work for a duet,” he said, absentmindedly playing his acoustic guitar as he watched me take a seat. He was strumming a rhythm, soft and smooth. His guitar’s body was faded around the sound hole and pick guard, but the sound was clean. I wondered how many years he’d played on that guitar, how many songs he’s created using that fretboard.

  I started nodding my head to the rhythm he repeated over and over. It was simple, with a beat and pulse I could feel. He hit the bass string, followed with an upstroke, downstroke, upstroke. He held the note for one extra beat and then opened to a C chord. Am, Em, F, C, G. Chord after chord, and I was completely mesmerized by the finger-picking pattern he repeated on the strings.

  I couldn’t unlock my guitar case fast enough. Two more times listening to him strum the same rhythm, and then I started strumming along, mimicking his chords and picking the strings of my guitar until we were both working off one another.

  We started and restarted a hundred times, experimenting with the rhythm he’d created. Then finally, he closed his eyes and started singing softly. His gritty, soulful voice sent a chill down my spine.

  Don't want you to stay

  Can’t tell you to go

  He kept his eyes closed and I kept the rhythm for the two of us, praying he’d keep singing.

  But if there’s one thing you outta know

  You’re a designer queen

  A corporate machine

  A cold-hearted crow

  His lips twisted up after his last line and I knew he was teasing me.

  “Wow, tell me how you really feel,” I laughed, continuing to pick my guitar strings. “How about I go now?”

  He opened his eyes and smiled. The first real smile he’d given me in days. “Go for it.”

  I waited for the chords to repeat from the beginning while my mind sought out lyrics. This wasn’t how I usually worked. My songs were crafted, slowly and thoughtfully, but there was something fun about drawing lyrics from the tip of my tongue, seeing what I’d produce. I licked my bottom lip and swallowed, preparing my voice before I started to softly sing.

  You want me to go

  You hate the status of my quo

  He smiled wider. His dark eyes watching my fingers move over the strings with noticeable admiration.

  Now I’m at an all-time low

  I glanced down at the fretboard, trying out a lick that fell fluidly into the bars we’d already created.

  I’d go if I could

  Oh, yes I know I should

  You’ve got me misunderstood

  I bit my lip to keep from smiling.

  You’re a judgmental cow

  Bet you feel so good now

  Neither one of us stopped playing as we laughed at our pitiful attempt at a song. I didn’t know what we were doing— we sure as shit weren’t writing our duet— but there wasn’t half as much tension in the room as there had been when I’d first walked in and that counted for something.

  “That was really terrible,” I said, strumming my fingers down the neck of my guitar before letting it rest on my lap.

  “The bars or our lyrics?” he asked.

  “No, I loved the chords. I meant my lyrics.”

  He rubbed his lips together as if considering my answer. Thoughts clouded his gaze, but he kept them locked away.

  “I didn’t mean those lyrics. Maybe I did when I first met you, but not anymore,” he said, staring out through the window over my shoulder.

  I smiled. “Oh, I definitely meant mine.”

  He laughed and we continued to strum for the remainder for the morning. We didn’t write any lyrics that day, but we continued playing together, creating what would eventually become the melody of our duet. The roots were being laid with chords that fell together like the leaves from a tree.

  Creating the chords to a song was a process that never got any easier. In the beginning my fingers would sit on the fretboard as my mind worked in overtime, trying to fuel my creativity. I’d strum and strum, pick and pluck, until things started to work together.

  I’d start with one chord. That’s all it took. And when I finished, and played back the song, it felt like that’s how those chords were always meant to be.

  A good song never felt like it’d been struck into creation by my own hands. It felt like fate had willed the song to be and I’d merely chiseled away at the clutter around it, breathing clarity into the infinite combination of sounds.

  Jason and I didn’t get to that point on the first day we played together, but I knew we’d get there soon. I’d never felt the clutter fall away quite as fast, or quite as easily, as it did when Jason and I played together.

  Chapter Fifteen

  If I had one piece of advice to bestow upon you, it would be: Never wear a pair of high-heels to a stable. Leave your Prada sling-backs in LA.

  The next morning I found myself wandering out toward the barn and stable with a cup of coffee in hand. The morning air was cool, but I had a wool wrap to keep me warm. My heels were wobbly on the gravel path, but I did just fine getting to the door of the stable without spraining an ankle.

  I hadn’t seen Dotty since before I’d left to go out of town so I was anxious to pay her a visit and sneak her some of the sugar cubes I’d tucked into my pocket at breakfast. I set my cup of coffee on a rock outside of the stable door and used both of my hands, and pretty much all of my body-weight, to pull open the heavy stable door.

  “Jeez.” I exhaled as soon as I’d pulled it open wide enough to step inside.

  The stable had natural light from the windows on the roof so I didn’t bother turning the light switch on. I didn’t want to jar the horses if they were still resting. Just like last time, the smell hit me first. It wasn’t too strong, just a reminder that I was in a stable and not a five-star hotel, but then I saw Dotty standing in her stall as if she’d been waiting for me all night.

  I smiled and stepped forward slowly, letting her get used to me before I reached out so she could sniff my hand and rub her muzzle against my palm. She pushed her head and neck out over the top of her stall so that she could sniff my hair.

  “Dotty, you are looking like a stunner this morning. Bet you have the stallions going crazy,” I said, rubbing her cheek and neck.

  She sniffed my coffee first and then bent her head low to try to get to my pocket.

  I laughed and pulled out the sugar cubes, feeding them to her one at a time. I could have stayed out there all day, writing next to her stall, but I had a Skype call with my agent in thirty minutes and I doubted Jason’s Montana internet signal reached the horse stable.

  “I’ll come back later today,” I promised her, rubbing her neck until she emitted a low rumble through her nostrils.

  I turned to leave the stable, careful to pull the door closed all the way once I was outside. But when I turned toward the house, my heel caught on a rock in the path and since my bottom half was facing the stable and my top half was twisted toward the house, I went down flailing aimlessly. Scalding coffee flew onto my hair and shirt. But no worries, I only got mud in my mouth, hair, eyes, ears, and nose. Nowhere important. Oh, and my Prada heels that cost me more than what I used to make in a month at my high school job? Broken, so broken that the mud in my vagina took a backseat. (Just kidding, sometimes life just demands a little dramatic embellishment.)

  I wobbled back into the house with one heel intact and the other, less than intact, and passed every single person on my way to the kitchen. Derek was walking out the front door, LuAnne was finishing up some dishes in the sink, and Jason was sitting at the table trying so, so hard to keep from cracking up.

  When I spoke, my voice was eerily calm, but I could hear myself getting close to cracking.

  “LuAnne, could I borrow a car to head into town after I wipe the mud, and what smells like shit, off my face?”

&nbs
p; My Skype call with my agent would have to wait.

  “Oh God, Brook. How’d you manage to do that to yourself already? The day just started.”

  I shook my head, and took the towel she held out to me. Pretend it’s a mud facial; pretend your skin will be flawless once you wipe it off.

  “I think it had something to do with those shoes she’s wearing,” Jason said from the table. His tone was a little too light and happy for my taste, so when I wiped the towel down my face again, I made sure to hold up my middle finger. His chuckle told me he was more than aware of my gesture.

  …

  Thirty minutes later, I pulled up outside of Callahan’s General Store in downtown Big Timber. The parking lot was completely empty other than an old busted-up truck. The store itself looked old, but the white paint on the outside was new and a big wooden sign blew back and forth in the wind. It was cut out into the shape of a pair of cowboy boots with “Callahan’s” written in white calligraphy.

  I had faith that I’d be able to find what I needed here.

  A bell chimed when I pushed open the door, and a grizzly looking man stood behind the counter with his palms resting on the glass. His black eyes stared straight at me.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked, his voice an octave lower than I even thought possible. This man was a bear in human form. His white beard hung low, past his chin, and I wondered if there was anyone else around to help me find a pair of boots. This guy looked like he wanted to eat me for lunch.

  “Hello. I umm…I need a pair of boots,” I said, scanning his merchandise before glancing back at him.