“You did?” Owen asked, his stance shifting to one that was still guarded, but not threatening.
Kellen nodded. “I threw it in the ocean and it immediately washed back ashore.”
“Try throwing it into a volcano and see if it comes back to you then,” Owen said.
Kellen glared at him.
Jacob released Owen and pointed at the dining table. “Both of you sit down and talk this out. There’s no sense in letting misunderstandings and petty arguments come between friends when everything can be solved with a simple conversation.”
“Oh, hey, kettle, I’m pot and wow, you’re black,” Owen said.
Yeah, that was some pretty hypocritical advice coming from Jacob.
“What?” Jacob said.
“Uh, you’ve been holding a grudge against Adam for how many years now?” Owen said. “And for why?”
“But you and Kellen never fight. Adam and I have always had differences.”
Owen looked at Kellen and held the cuff in his direction. “Here,” he said. “Put it back on if it makes you feel better.”
Kellen’s hand felt like a leaden weight. His breathing became shallow. His lips trembled. He could feel the pressure of tears behind his eyes as his throat tightened until he thought he’d suffocate. For what? For a stupid strap of leather? It wasn’t Sara. Wearing it didn’t really keep her close. It wasn’t even a tribute to his memories of her. It just made him miserable.
“Get rid of it,” he said breathlessly.
Owen drew his clenched fist to his chest, holding the bracelet against him as if to comfort it. Kellen couldn’t take his eyes off the black strap. He was tracking it like a cat preparing to pounce.
“Are you sure?” Owen said. “You know I can’t stand you to be mad at me.”
“I’m sure. Do it quick before I change my mind.”
Owen brushed past him and hurried down the bus steps. Jacob caught Kellen’s arm when after a few very long seconds, he turned to follow Owen.
“Stick to your guns, man.”
Kellen nodded and sank onto a sofa. He stared down at his bare wrist. It looked as foreign as it felt. The skin was a shade paler than that of his hand and forearm. So even though the cuff was gone, the evidence was still there. He closed his eyes and massaged his arm with his free hand.
“You know what you need?” Jacob said, taking a seat beside him.
“A bottle of whiskey?”
“A wristwatch.” Jacob unfastened the analog watch he sometimes wore before a concert—he was paranoid about being late and had a hard time reading digital clocks correctly. He handed the watch to Kellen. Kellen appreciated the gesture, but he didn’t think it would help. He put it on anyway and while it wasn’t the same as wearing a cuff—the watch band was cold metal, a bit looser, and about half the thickness of his bracelet—it did make his wrist feel less exposed and he wasn’t compelled to massage it, as if he had cuff obsessive-compulsive disorder.
“Thanks.”
Jacob slapped him on the back and then rose from the sofa. “Now you just have to make sure I get to the show on time.”
Ah, so there was a catch.
Kellen reached for the clasp on the back of the watch’s silver band. “I don’t need—”
Jacob’s hand circled Kellen’s wrist. “Wear it until you get your head out of your ass.”
Kellen laughed. “So you’re not expecting this back anytime soon?”
“However long it takes.”
Owen returned to the bus a short while later. Kellen had a bit of blue rope in one hand and was rubbing it with his thumbs, remembering how it had looked against Dawn’s pale skin.
“So you traded a cuff for a watch and a piece of rope?”
Kellen didn’t respond. He didn’t want to talk to Owen at the moment. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, but he did crave the feel of Dawn’s arms around him and the feel of her soft br**sts pressing into his chest. He missed her. Her smile. Her laugh. The way her eyes sparked when she was perturbed. The sound of her voice. The way her fingers moved across her piano keys. Across his skin. Her. He missed her.
Shit. He couldn’t allow himself to think about Dawn right now.
He poked the piece of rope under the cuff on his right wrist.
Owen went back to buying Caitlyn gifts on the Internet and chuckling at various text messages that binged onto his phone every thirty seconds or so. Jacob had disappeared into the bathroom. Kellen wondered where Gabe and Adam were. The bus felt really empty. He had an uncharacteristic need to be surrounded by people and, as a loner, it felt strange to admit that to himself.
“What did you do with it?” Kellen asked in one of the pauses between Owen’s text message alerts.
“I buried it,” Owen said.
“Someplace nice?”
“Yeah.”
Kellen nodded, grateful that Owen hadn’t tossed Sara’s cuff in a dumpster or flushed it down the toilet. Kellen stood, deciding he’d go watch the crew set up the stage. Something to keep him busy so that his thoughts didn’t stray to his missing cuff or the continual turbulence in his soul. Or to the woman who had calmed that turmoil by creating the most beautiful melody he’d ever heard and held nothing back when she’d held him in her arms.
Kellen was halfway to the door when Lindsey climbed the stairs. Their band’s twenty-two-year-old lackey, Jordan, was right behind her, carrying several sacks of groceries and chattering about NASCAR. Kellen retreated toward the back of the bus so he didn’t have to brush against them on his way through the narrow corridor. Lindsey took the sacks from Jordan one at a time and set them on a counter in the kitchenette. She looked so much like Sara it was actually painful to look at her, but pain didn’t stop Kellen from staring. Would Sara have looked that beautiful pregnant? With his child growing in her womb? They’d talked about having kids before she’d gotten sick. At the time, he had been a bit hesitant about all the responsibility a child entailed, but if she’d had a baby, a bit of her would have been left behind. Part of her, mixed inseparably with part of him, would have lived on.
Kellen started when someone bumped into his back. Jacob grasped Kellen’s shoulders from behind and squeezed. “There’s just something sexy about a pregnant woman,” he said. “When Tina was pregnant with Julie, I couldn’t keep my hands off her.”
Uh… Was Jacob lusting after Lindsey? Weird. Especially since the baby was some other man’s. Maybe. At least Jacob liked kids. What if the kid was Adam’s? Adam detested kids. And what would Gabe do if it turned out to be his? A dude could go crazy wondering about such things. It was no wonder that Lindsey had insisted it was Owen’s. Not knowing whose child you were carrying had to be a serious mind-fuck. And what would it be like to give birth to a child created out of lust, not love?