Huck left Drake and flew to me.
Eyes still closed, I swallow hard against the wave of emotion squeezing my chest.
“Whoa, hey. Lorelai? Oh god. Hold on. Let me…”
I open my eyes and see Huck hopping on one foot, trying to shove his leg into a pair of discarded jeans. “No, don’t look!” he says, alarmed, and I close my eyes again, confused. “Don’t freak out. It’s okay. Fuck, I knew this was a bad idea. I’ll get some clothes on and run out and you can just, um. Fuck.” I hear the sound of his zipper and some more muffled cussing, presumably as he pulls on a shirt. I sneak a look, and his expression is pained.
“I’m gonna go.”
“Huck.” I start to get up, the sheet pooling around my bare waist, and this time he crushes his eyes closed, slapping a hand over them for good measure. I bite back an exasperated laugh. “Okay, you don’t have to cover your eyes. You literally had your tongue inside—”
He holds one hand out, halting me from saying anything else, his other still covering his eyes.
“Don’t. Don’t say anything else. That was last night. In the dark. After a few beers and sexy dancing and my hips—fuck. I rolled my hips at you, didn’t I?”
“Well, sure, but I didn’t mind.”
He drops his other hand, but he’s still looking at the ceiling. “Of course you didn’t mind. They’re irresistible. It’s my sexy superpower. Which is why I swore to never use them on you. It’s, like, a rule.”
“A rule?” This time I don’t stop the smile, even if he can’t see it.
“A code,” he insists. “That says you don’t use any sexy superpowers on your bandmate’s fiancée.”
“Ex-fiancée.”
He huffs. “That fucker. He’s so stupid.”
“Look at me, Huck.”
He shakes his head. “I can’t. I need to go. You can stick around as long as you want. Move in if you want. Just let me know and I’ll find another place to go.”
I finish pulling on a random shirt I’ve dug out of the covers and realize it’s his from the night before. “Huck,” I repeat, scrambling across the bed and parking myself in front of him. I tug gently on his chin, so he’s forced to look at me. “I’ll go. This is your place. I need to figure some things out anyway.”
“I’m not trying to kick you out,” he says in a quiet tone. “This isn’t like that.”
“I know. I don’t think that. I think you’re the guy who dropped everything, hopped on a flight, and tracked me down to get drunk at a dive bar. You’re also the guy who gave me the first orgasms”—I emphasize the s and his eyes flare with heat—“I’ve had in a really, really long time. Well, ones I didn’t give myself, anyway. So thank you.”
“Be that as it may,” he says in a slow drawl, “I don’t think we should have done that. It crossed a line that can’t be put back up.”
I lift a shoulder, too exhausted and feeling the weight of all the things I’ve been through in the last few days. “Consider it a goodbye gift, then. From me to you and you to me.”
His hands curl around the tops of my arms and his thumbs trace back and forth. “You’re really leaving?”
“I have to. I’m not welcome in this town right now, and sticking around isn’t doing anyone any favors. I don’t have the first clue what I’m gonna do, but that’s okay. I’ll miss you, though.”
He grimaces and I press my lips together. The look on his face is so self-deprecating and familiar.
“I still think it was a mistake. For the record. Sex always complicates things, and—”
I press my finger to his lips, cutting him off. “No one ever has to know outside of me and you, and anyway, we may never see each other again. So no harm, no foul. I’m glad I got to experience your superpower at least one time.”
I drop my finger and he exhales long and slow.
“Fine. There’s coffee downstairs. I’m gonna run out and grab something for breakfast. Want a doughnut?”
“Sure,” I say lightly, but we both know I won’t be here when he gets back. This is another gift he’s giving me. A chance to escape. I fucking hate goodbyes.
“Great.” He leans forward impulsively and presses a warm kiss to my forehead for a single beat and then turns around, grabbing his keys and wallet and shoving them in his pockets. “The place on the corner is closed, so I’ll be a bit. Take your time.”
“See you,” I say, drinking in his tall, comforting form one last time. He raises a hand in farewell, not bothering to look back, and then he’s gone and the door closes behind him.
I don’t waste much time slipping on my pants and shirt from last night, refolding Huck’s T-shirt and placing it on the bed. I consider keeping it, but I don’t. I don’t want any reminders. Not that I could possibly forget, but I’m making a clean break. From everyone and everything.
And when he comes back, I’m long gone.
15
LORELAI
BABE
The following day, I’m sitting perched on a rocky shelf in one of my favorite high places outside of Nashville, letting the September sun warm my skin and clear my head. This is as good a place as any to wander amidst the thriving field of my many, many tactical missteps. Steamy excerpts from the night before intersperse with the painful memories of a night all those years ago. A clear pattern emerges, and I don’t love what it’s saying.
Because it appears my gut is unreliable.
Time and again, it nudges me into action, and time and again that action results in a fucking mess.
Like when I loftily decided I was going to make concertgoers stop and think. Reset their minds. Engage with some empathy. Instead, I flushed not only my career but the careers of my bandmates and my manager down the proverbial drain. I thought it would be a flash in the pan. Maybe a headline or two, but certainly everyone would forget about it and move on to the next bit of news …
Except no one forgot. Not country music radio, who refused to play any of our recordings, including the old, politically mundane ones. Not Nashville, where the glass entrance to my condo building was spray-painted with the words Yankee Bitch and restaurants refused to seat me. Not my bandmates, who had to completely fall off the radar and restart their careers from scratch. Not Jen, who was hired out by the label to someone just getting started.
Not my fiancé, who took three days to call me back (after publicly canceling our wedding) just to tell me he thought it was time for a break. “Not because of the Neil Young thing,” he insisted. “But because we’ve been drifting apart, and I need to focus on my art right now.”
Everything, gone. One song to ruin it all. Fucking Neil Young.
Ugh. I don’t mean that. I love Neil Young. And I sang what I sang, and to this day, I stand by it. I just wish taking a stand hadn’t cost me everything I had. Utter cancellation.