Chasing Kane (3 page)

“Sure, if you want to drag this out for another year or two.” She rolled her eyes, sitting all the way up and against the headboard, drawing her knees in close.

Game over.

I sighed, heavily and frustrated, positioning myself next to her. “I don’t
have
to do this tour, you know. It was just some fun idea CJ and I tossed around. We’re not even headlining—we have no singer, for God’s sake.” I laughed, she merely smiled.

“CJ can sing, you know. You can, too, if you wanted.”

I nodded. “I know. But that’s not the point.”

“You’re scared about having a baby.” Her gaze drifted out the window and into the ocean.

“Hell yes, I’m scared. That shit’s scary!” She looked at me in horror, but I continued. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t
want
it. I’ve wanted all kinds of things that are scary. A career in music, a relationship with you—”

She jabbed me in the side with her elbow, giving me the opportunity to hook my arm around her waist and roll her underneath me.

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size,” she giggled, panting.

I buried my face into the crook of her neck. “You’re just the right size. Fun sized.”

“So where are we?” she asked, turning the water cold for the second time in five minutes.

Sitting back on my heels, I took a deep breath. “We’re right here.” I playfully dug through my pockets. “No condoms.”

“But no tracking ovulation,” she stated with some reticence.

No. Not yet.

“I don’t know … what do you think?” was what I came up with.

“I think you’ve talked me off the ledge. There’s no rush,” she said much to my deep, deep relief. “We can just let things happen, right?”

Grinning, I unzipped my jeans and kicked them off the bed behind me. “Now, if you would just let
this
happen …”

I grabbed her ankles and slid her body down until her head was on the pillow and Georgia was once again looking up at me with hopeful, loving eyes.

“I don’t want you to leave in a month,” she said, moving her hands across my hipbones and to all points south.

I swallowed a moan, pressing myself into her hand. “But the welcome home sex is oh,
so
fine.”

She reached around and smacked my bare backside, letting out a small yelp when I again rolled her over so she was on top of me.

“Well,” she half-slurred, drunk with lust, “I guess I better remind you what’ll be waiting for you at home.”

***

The good and bad news is that the month went by relatively fast. More bad news was always in saying goodbye to my wife. She’s tough as nails, at least through her first few layers, so she never really did weepy, long goodbyes. But she’s pure mush beneath the granite around her heart, so it never took more than a couple of days before I started getting a mixed bag of text messages ranging from
I miss you
to
Don’t do anything stupid.

The good news—great, really—was that all evidence pointed to CJ’s ability to keep it together at work, thereby reducing his professional liability on tour, but I couldn’t yet speak for his social risk. I knew he wasn’t anywhere near being over Frankie, but that wasn’t a conversation I was about to drag out of him.

He spent much of his non-studio time at Molly Molloy’s, quickly referring to it as
Molly’s
any chance he got, but the good news
there
is that there wasn’t a single bar fight. And, if he spent much of his time hooking up, he didn’t do it at our place.

Still, I hadn’t seen him in much more than flirty conversation and ass-grabbing, which made me wonder how long it would take for him to admit his still-lingering feelings for Frankie. Or push him over the edge into complete regression to his old self.

With a smile on my face, I barged into Georgia’s bakery, situated one floor below our sprawling apartment. Sweet Forty-Two was her pride and joy, in very much the same way music was mine. We learned more about art from each other in our different mediums than we ever could have if we stuck with our own kind. Though, we often argued which art was more satisfying to the soul—food, or music.

“What are you so happy about?” she spat out behind a wildly menacing grin. Sarcasm through her face at its finest.

Checking to be sure there were no customers, I hopped onto the counter and slid myself down until I was next to her. I simply beamed at her in silence.

“You’re weird,” she said. “And you’re dirtying my counters. People eat on this, Regan, seriously.” She shooed me away and I situated myself in the open kitchen.

“Our tour starts tomorrow,” I started, my hands rubbing together.

“And?” She scrubbed at the counter, annoyed.

“Our first two weeks—
two weeks
—are through California. Starting
here
. So, really, we’ve got another couple of weeks before I’m too far for a booty call.”

Georgia turned on her heels and cracked my hip with a fast whip of her towel. “Ass.”

“Yours.” I winked and grabbed her hips. “You’re still gonna send me goodies on the road, right?” I eyed the display case filled with mouthwatering cupcakes, danish, muffins, and brownies.

“We’ll see,” she retorted. “Only good boys get cookies.”

Just then, CJ came in through the back door. “You better get baking then, sweet thang, because I’ve been just this side of a saint.”

Georgia shot him a look. “CJ, the only saintly thing you could do is sterilize.”

He held his hands against his heart, playing hurt. “I’ll have you know, I’ve been a good,
good
boy,” he said with some measure of regret.

Crossing my arms, I leaned against the large, stainless steel prep table. “What’s that been about?”

“What?” he and Georgia asked in unison.

I pointed at CJ. “Don’t think I didn’t notice your rather chaste behavior these last few weeks. It’s freaked me out. What gives?”

“Don’t trust me?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

His eyes lit up and he stuck out his tongue to reveal the silver barbell stuck straight through the center. The one that had been there for at least ten years. “Good, you shouldn’t. I’m saving myself for the road.” He produced a plastic grocery bag from the other side of the door and emptied its contents onto the table. “Always be prepared.”

Georgia stared with tired resignation at the pile of boxes spilled before us. Extra large, Ribbed For Her Pleasure, Warming Sensation, Ultra Thin …

I picked up the box of extra large condoms. “Thinking mighty highly of yourself these days?”

He snatched them from me, stuffing his loot back into the bag. “You’re just jealous you don’t need them anymore.” He couldn’t stop himself, but knew he should have. I could tell the way his eyes flashed to Georgia and back to me in an instant.

“Yes,” I said with hyperbolic awe, trying to defuse the tension “tell me the story about not remembering who you’re waking up next to again? Oh! Or the one of getting chased down the stairs by an ex-boyfriend with a bat who returned home
early?
Yes,
”
I said, wrapping my arm around Georgia’s shoulders, “sign me right up for that life.”

He waved his hand, staying in character, but knowing not to push it anymore. “Eh, you never made a good slut anyway.”

The thing about Georgia is, she’s not truly a jealous person deep down. She’s insecure, with wounds that go a little deeper than even I know. It’s a difference that took us a long while to sort out when we first got together. Her dad was … complicated. A successful business man in his own right, but a drunk who did the best he could to raise her until his best wasn’t much, and she moved to California while still in high school to live with her mother.

And her mother … that’s even more of a tangled web. Amanda Hall, while healthy and functioning now, and for the last couple of years, was a diagnosed schizophrenic. When I first met Georgia, her mother had just completed a lengthy stay in Breezy Pointe—a mental health facility—and had just begun receiving ECT, or shock treatment, for the first time.

While schizophrenia isn’t all that common to begin with, and the risk of developing it is only mildly increased for those with it in their family DNA, this didn’t help Georgia’s outlook on life. She was terrified around every corner that she’d be struck with a diagnosis of her own—her very own worst-case scenario.

When our relationship began, Georgia hadn’t had a loving relationship in years, aside from her friendship with my cousin, but they hadn’t seen much of each other since high school. She was wary, and had every right to be. I was, too, which didn’t help matters. At the time of our meeting I was still recovering from some emotional devastation of my own. Needless to say, we were quite the pair when we first met. Damaged, battered, but hopeful. While it happened less as time went on, I still had to coax Georgia out of the thickly wooded forest of her fears from time to time.

Boiled down to its simplest parts, it’s not that she didn’t trust
me
—she didn’t trust that she was worthy of the love we have between us.

“Sorry ’bout that earlier,” CJ finally said as we fooled around with our set at the studio that night, pulling me out of the silent psychoanalysis of my wife.

“With Georgia and your flaunting of condoms? Don’t worry about it. Just … you know how she is.”

He set his sticks down and crossed his arms over his chest. “I thought she’d gotten better about all that. You’re
married
for Christ’s sake.”

It had gotten better, he was right. Until recently.

“And we thought you had gotten better,” I shot back as lightly as I could.

He just rolled his eyes, ignoring me.

“We’re talking about having a kid,” I blurted out. “She’s been more insecure since then. Like we’ve gone backward in the trust department.”

CJ eyed me carefully. “Does it have to do with all her mom stuff? Worried that she’ll end up like her?”

“I think so. Or that she’ll pass it along to our child …”

“What are the actual odds of that?”

“Higher than zero,” I admitted. “I don’t know the numbers because I know it’s quite small. At least for the schizophrenia.”

CJ huffed. “Yeah but not alcoholism.”

“That’s the truth …” I didn’t know the genetic likelihood of passing addiction down to our theoretical child, either. And, I wasn’t sure of the best way to bring any of this up with Georgia in a way that wouldn’t have her thinking I was accusing her of being a genetic liability. Because I didn’t think that at all.

In truth, I often tired of having to play out our potential conversations in my head before having them. I know, relationally speaking, that wasn’t the healthiest behavior to engage in, but it was a tough habit to break.

CJ lifted his eyebrows, smiling. “But a fucking kid? Really?” His face broke into a smile and, inexplicably, he rose to his feet and grabbed me into a brief, but tight, hug. “Me! An uncle!”

“Calm down.” I chuckled, shuffling my sheets of music together and stuffing them into a folder. “We’re talking about it. We’re just going to see how it goes. Let nature do its thing.”

“You better do
your
damn thing, Kane.” He pounded on his chest like a caveman, talking like one, too. “We Kane men are strong. We bring the sperm.”

I broke into laughter, realizing that despite his faults—and maybe because of them—CJ really would make one hell of an uncle. Someday.

***

Our first gig of the tour was at a local concert hall. Small compared to the ones we’d see later on tour, but a huge step up out of the bar scene CJ was used to. Sure, he’d played to bigger crowds before, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to him getting through a little stage fright here and there. No harm in knocking a cocky bastard down a few pegs.

Grounded Sound put together a fantastic lineup and tour, further proving Yardley’s strength as a businesswoman in her own right. Her family is well-entrenched in the music industry, having started in Country before expanding into other territories. Yardley had a hunch that the independent and folk-rock scenes were on the rise, and got her claws into this division as soon as it became available. According to Yardley, her parents sent her off to California half-expecting that her “little project,” as they called it, would end soon enough and she’d have to sell to the highest bidder.

Much to their surprise, Yardley’s instincts were right on. Groups like Mumford & Sons, The Lumineers, and The Civil Wars—until they broke up, anyway—took off, leaving the local circuits hungry for artists that could provide that unique sound right in their back yards.

Our lineup was comprised of instrumental-only acts like me and CJ, solo artists with their guitars, and larger ensembles that rounded out the folk sound with banjos, tambourines, and the whole nine. One of the groups, The Brewers, actually asked me to step into some of their numbers to add in a violin solo—called a fiddle by most of the folks in the genre. It’s the same instrument, which some people don’t honestly know, but has alias’ depending on the setting. I agreed to jump in wherever they needed me. Performing has always reinvigorated me in ways little else could.

“We’re opening?” CJ asked when we arrived at the concert hall.

I nodded, handing him his cymbal stand. “Damn straight.” I winked. “I’m a star.”

He rolled his eyes. “Save your winks for the girls, Kane.”

“You can have ’em. You know I’m spoken for. You were at the wedding.”

“So you never flirt? A wink, that sideways grin of yours that gets everyone all hot and bothered?”

Taking a deep breath, I conceded. “A little,” I admitted. “Just show. Georgia knows, sees it, all that. It’s just a performance thing.”

He held his hands up. “Dude, I didn’t come out here to babysit you. I know you’re Captain Fidelity, and I admire that. Especially when your wife is my best friend, and I’d really hate to kick your ass if you hurt her. As for me …”

The fluidity of his morals wasn’t shocking, but I did find some relief in it. Musicians, athletes, actors, anyone who is up for public consumption, is expected to maintain at least
some
level of availability for their fans. Despite knowledge of marriages, babies, girlfriends/boyfriends, whatever, part of the popularity of commercial artists is the ability of the fans to sink themselves into fantasies and daydreams, just enough that they come back for more. More songs, more shows, another interview, anything.