Love Will (66 page)

“Yeah, that sounds a lot like an addict, Will.”

“Fuck me.”

“It’s sixty-seven-hundred dollars, Will. It could have been a lot worse, knowing how much you just got paid, right?”

“Not much,” I mutter.

“So you figured out another thing you need to stay away from.
Gambling
. Big fucking deal. We walk away. We’re leaving Vegas tomorrow anyway.”

“I’m such an idiot.” I start pulling on my hair.

“Fucking stop that, Will.” He smacks my forearms to get me to stop. “You’re the farthest thing from an idiot. You know what you are? Imperfect. Flawed. You’re flawed. That’s it. And you know what? I’m glad it’s something bigger than your fucking mustache that doesn’t grow evenly. Because you were starting to make me feel a little insecure, and I, Damon Littlefield, should not be feeling insecure around you.”

I laugh lightly.

“You knew you had those addict qualities. Were you not one-hundred-percent convinced you were an addict before now? I mean… I kinda was.”

“Walking away from the sex was too easy,” I tell him, “So I wasn’t convinced.”

“You have Shea. You have the promise of sex anytime she’s around. It’s not like you had to quit. People in recovery programs, Will, they have to quit. You’re not in recovery. You’ve just paced yourself and picked one exquisite bottle to quaff exclusively.”

“So, are you an addict?” I ask him, knowing he’s always partaken in sex just as much as I have.

He shakes his head. “I don’t
need
it, Will. I just like it. It’s just fun for me.”

Fun
. The fact that he just described sex as
fun
makes me realize he’s likely not an addict at all. To me, I would never describe it as fun. Before Shea came around, there was always an urgency about it for me. There weren’t heavy emotions tied to sex, but there was substantial need to fulfill something that was missing in me, and it wasn’t a desire to simply have fun.

With Shea, I was naturally drawn to her–in a chemical, physical, spiritual sense. She alone and wholly became my desideratum. Not for sex. For more than just sex. For everything. Maybe she was that missing thing in me, and without knowing it–without knowing I could be that to someone else–I provided something of value to her, too.

Is
she my new addiction? I saw briefly what life was like without her. The earth still spun on its axis. Stars still shone. The moon would still wax and wane as it always had. My life would go on if she wasn’t in it. But sleep would elude me like it had before. That was my withdrawal. How I coped with it was key. And now I know how. She’s shown me how incredible it is to be with her, and to be in love with her, but she’s also given me the one thing I need to live without her, and that’s hope.

I don’t think there will ever be another woman like Shea, but if we were to go our separate ways some day, I now know what it’s like to love and be loved, and I’m sure it’s something I want for myself. I would always have hope for love to find me again. So while my restless mind might keep me awake at night, I know that concentrating on the prospect of finding someone else would calm me, would quiet the constant barrage of thoughts. I would sleep. I would find a way. It’s not so different than what I do on these lonely nights on tour, and what I’ll do when I’m thousands of miles away from her in Abu Dhabi.

I am not addicted to Shea.

I’m simply in love with her. And right now, I don’t need to worry about a life without her in it.

“What do you want to do, Will? You wanna go write?”

Tonight was a mistake, but an honest one. A costly, honest mistake. All I can do is learn from it, at this point. Learn from it, stop beating myself up over it, and recognize that this probably won’t be the last time my addictive tendencies take control and cause some sort of temporary insanity. Fortunately, no one got hurt in the process. Hopefully, no one will the next time, either. But this is part of who I am, and I have to forgive myself just like I’ve forgiven my mother. Just like I’m considering doing for my father.

Why wouldn’t I absolve myself? Because I have always set impossible goals for myself–seemingly impossible, but never out of reach for me. I rarely fail. I don’t like to fail. But when I do, it’s big. It’s not fair to myself to not grant the same concessions and considerations that I do for both of my parents.

Absolution
. I linger on that word for a bit. I like the sound of the word, and repeat it in my head a few times. Absolution. Absolution. Absolution. Ab-SOL-ution. I grin, appreciating the word even more now.

It wouldn’t hurt to have a constant reminder of it. Pulling out my phone, I search for an old email Livvy sent me with a watercolor she’d done at my request. It’s simply the sun. I’ve always felt connected to the sun. It’s hot and fiery with magnetic impulses. Full of energy and always going, never resting. All-consuming. Passionate. It symbolizes life. Strength. Immortality; no matter what happens in the world one day, the sun always bounces back, unchanged; a fresh, new day. It’s the center of our solar system. It’s our anchor.

So many nights, when I was younger, I would think, “If I can just make it until I see the sun.” The corners of my mouth would rise with it in the mornings. My brothers and I had lived to see another day.

Eyes to the sky.

I’m powered by the sun.

The sun.
El sol.

“I want to get a tattoo,” I tell Damon, finally answering his question.

“Let’s go before you change your mind,” he says, getting up quickly. He’d asked me to go with him every time he went to his own artist back in Brooklyn. “I know just the person.”

“Can he do this?” I ask, showing him Liv’s artwork.

“Just that?”

“And a word. Absolution.”

He nods his head in approval. “Learned from the best. It’s about time, Will. Your pussy-whipped brother got his tat, what… ten fucking years ago?”

“This wasn’t a competition. I was never quite sure what to get. This will have multiple meanings, so it’s perfect.”

Once Peron, Tavo and Bradley find out where we are, they join us in the studio, and the four of them are suitable distractions from the pain while Heidi–Damon’s guy, who was actually a petite girl with blonde braids that fit her name perfectly, and shame on me for assuming it was a guy in the first place–works on my right upper arm. After the first story Tavo told, I apologized to her for his crudeness, but she joined right in and had her own stories to share.

I could tell from Tavo’s inability to hide his lesser-than-human-emotions that he was completely infatuated with my tattoo artist. And she seemed pretty into him, too. Granted, she was seeing faux-Tavo. He was still in his suit, and well-groomed, for once.

Damon goes to check on Heidi’s work. “Hey, Will, you know the S-O-L is in a different font?”

“I asked for that, Damon, yes. I approved the design first.
Sol
means sun in Spanish.”

“Ohhh,” he says. “I get it. You and your planetary shit. Makes sense.”

“The sun is a
star
, but yes. You still approve?”

“Hell yeah. It looks pretty badass. Told you she was good.”

“I didn’t think you’d take me to someone who wasn’t. I trust you, man.”

“Wait, wait, wait, Will. Wait a mother-fucking-God-damned minute.”

“What?”

The entire room gets dead-quiet. Heidi turns off the needle.

“What is Shea’s middle name?”

I look him in the eyes and smirk as I answer him. “Ophelia.”

“Did you just get your girlfriend’s fucking initials tattooed on your arm, Will?” he asks me.

“It’s the sun in Spanish,” I repeat myself. “Those letters are laid over the image of the sun.”

“You got your girlfriend’s fucking initials tattooed on your arm!” He starts laughing. I smile at him, eventually nodding at him.

“She’s the sunshine of my life, Damon, and that fucking genius Stevie Wonder stole my lyrics
decades
before I knew I’d need them.”

“That is the corniest thing I’ve ever heard you say, Will,” Tavo says.

“Did you seriously just do that?” Peron says, walking over to see the tattoo that Heidi’s started working on again.

“It says ABSOLUTION,” I announce. “I wanted the word as a reminder. Yeah, it happens to contain her initials, which also happen to spell the word
sol
, which happens to mean
sun
in mother-fucking Spanish, you dickholes.”

“I love it even more now,” Heidi says. “And I already loved it when you told me the meaning behind it when you came in.”

“You’re the expert,” I say. “Obviously your opinion is the only one that matters. Thank you.” I peer down my arm to see her working on the final letter. I can’t believe how vibrant the sun is. Just like the real thing, and just like Livvy’s painting. “It’s fucking incredible.”

“Alex wants to know where I am,” Bradley announces.

“What time is it, anyway?” I ask, since Heidi was using Livvy’s picture on my phone for reference.

“Four-thirty.”

“Oh, man.”

“Our flight’s at six-thirty,” Damon says.

“Almost done here, guys,” Heidi says.

“Tell Alex we’re on our way,” Peron says. “Ten minutes, tops.”

“
You’re
,” I correct him. “Not
we’re
. Don’t get him riled up about all of us. He’d shit bricks if he knew we were all twenty minutes away, not packed, and nowhere near ready to head out.”

“Yeah,” Damon says. “You can be our sacrificial lamb.”

“Thanks, newbie,” Tavo says, patting Bradley on the back.

Heidi cleans off my arm and checks out her work, then offers to take a picture of it with my phone. She hands it to me to take a look. “Looks exactly like the sketch, and you got Livvy’s painting perfect. I’m very impressed. Thank you.”

“I’m glad you like it. I hope it helps you.”

“Thanks… thanks a lot.”

Heidi carefully places a bandage over my arm, and I dress quickly in my button down and jacket before paying her and adding a generous tip.
This
is money well-spent.

The five of us leave the establishment together, still telling stories about our night. Damon and I fall behind the others. “Feeling better?” he asks me, putting his arm across my shoulders.

“It’s stupid, but I am. I messed up, you know? But I have to move on. You’re right. I’m flawed. I’ve got to allow myself to be that sometimes.”

“All this time you spent killing yourself over this cash… you know what you didn’t do tonight?”

“What?”

“You didn’t pay an ounce of attention to that girl who was throwing herself at you while we were at the regular tables.”

“Who?”

He laughs. “Who? Really?”

“Yeah…”

“The one who stood behind you all night. The one you hit in her girly parts.”

“Her?”

He nods. “Her name was Natalie, by the way.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Because you didn’t ask.”

“No.”

“She was hot, Will. She was smart, too. And sober. And
very
into some Will Scott.”

I shrug my shoulders. “I was playing cards.”

“You were resisting your natural instincts, whether you realize it or not. The old Will used to stop studying when a pretty girl fluttered her lashes at him. He’d walk away from running the table in a game of nine-ball at the mere suggestion of a little loving–even if there was a twenty at stake and he needed lunch money for the week. You lost some money tonight, but you never considered the slightest bit of action with
this
girl or
any
girl tonight. And that, my friend, is such a monumental success in your world that you should have gotten a huge tattoo on your back that just read, ‘I DIDN’T FUCKING DO IT!’”

I laugh at his idea.

“I’m not kidding. You’ve come a long way. If I were you, I’d be focusing on that accomplishment instead of dwelling on the other bullshit.”

“I’m not dwelling on it anymore. I’ve been absolved,” I assure him.

“Well, then just celebrate. Let yourself be proud of this, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Now, how the fuck are we gonna get all our shit together in fifteen minutes?”

“Just throw stuff in suitcases and we’ll sort it out in Idaho.”

“Deal.”

We barely make it into our first-class seats, and Alex is pretty frustrated with all of us this morning–it may have something to do with the fact that he got no sleep last night, and didn’t have as much fun as the rest of us did. Damon takes the seat next to him to talk business and to assure him that we’ll all be ready for tonight’s show.