The Bad Boys of Summer Anthology(147)
Here I thought she was implying I should go get my party on, and there she goes surprising me again. “That’s not stupid at all, Taryn,” I assure her. “It sounds normal, and God knows we need some normal in our lives.”
The door bursts open, just as I’m about to tell her we should try and meet up to do something “normal” together. Dre and half of the female dancers from the tour tumble in the room, as does an ear-splitting decibel of Jay-Z. “There ya are, Ace!” Dre yells, slurring heavily. “Get yo’ sorry black ass outta here and let’s show these girls how to dance.”
“T?” I ask, signaling to Dre to hold up while quickly heading to the empty walk-in closet. Once I’ve closed the door with the party on the other side, I say, “Sorry about that. Maybe we can we talk later?”
“Uh, sure, no problem,” she says. “I’ve gotta get some sleep anyway.”
“Well, I hate to run, but I’ve got to teach my cousin some manners,” I joke, trying to recapture the light-hearted banter we had going on earlier.
“Sounds as if you should go easy on him,” she replies.
“You’re right, the shit-faced son of a bitch probably won’t remember it tomorrow anyway,” I say, aggravated that Dre interrupted a perfectly good conversation that’s now coming to an awkward end.
“Hey, his mom would be your aunt,” she says astutely. “That’s kind of harsh, don’t you think?”
“Hon, you haven’t met my aunt, and to tell you the truth, neither have I. She took off when Dre was a baby. Left ‘em both high and dry, and that’s about the same time my uncle started drinking anything wet. Particularly of the alcohol variety.”
Shut the hell up, Trace. She does not need to know anything about my fucked-up past, and here I am spouting off like I’m the one who’s been drinking. Before I say anything else stupid or the closet door is broken down by a stampede of drunken dancers, I decide I’d better tell Taryn goodnight. “Well little lady, I’d better go hit the hay,” I say, over-exaggerating a southern drawl.
She begins laughing hysterically, and even though I didn’t think my accent was that bad, I love listening to her. When she still hasn’t stopped laughing after a couple more minutes, I begin to suspect that I’ve missed something. “What’d I say?”
She continues chuckling and I hear the sound of a fist pounding against something. Now I know I missed something. Finally, she catches her breath and answers, “If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you.”
“Aw, that’s not right to leave me hanging,” I say, triggering another round of giggles. If this wasn’t Taryn and her laughter wasn’t music to my ears, I would seriously be annoyed right now.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” she says, clearly trying to contain herself. “You’re right, you’ve got to go.” Oh, hell no. Not only am I curious what has her in stitches, but there’s nothing else I’d rather do at this moment than talk to her. That’s not true—I can think of a few things other than talking that I’d rather do with her.
“Wait, hold up,” I say, muting the phone. I fling open the closet door to find Dre and not one, not two, but three women…on my fucking bed. Fortunately, everyone still has their clothes on, but in the case of the dancers, there wasn’t much to begin with.
“Out!” I yell. “Get the fuck out, Dre! You know I don’t want anyone in my bed except me!”
He better be glad I’m talking to Taryn or I would waylay his drunk ass. I hear a chorus of groans and wait while they stumble out of my room. I make myself comfortable in a plush armchair before unmuting the phone.
“Sorry about that, it’s just you and me now.”
“What about Dre?” she asks.
“He’ll be just fine without me,” I say, thinking there will never be a truer statement. “Now please tell me what I said that was so damn funny before I keep my sexy southern accent to myself from now on.”
She laughs before hesitantly saying, “Well…um…I’m guessing you meant that you were going to sleep, but ‘hit the hay’ has a few other meanings, one of which means that you’re...a…well, not you, but that…”
Listening to her get all flustered is fun, but I’m dying to know what she’s going to say and I’m about five seconds from looking it up on my iPad. “Spit it out, Taryn,” I encourage.
“Okay, fine,” she says, sounding as if she’s steeling herself to say the words. So fuckin’ cute.
“It can also mean when someone is taking care of themselves. You know, jacking off?” she asks, and I laugh for what feels like the hundredth time tonight.
“Yeah, I get what you’re saying. And what else does it mean?” This should be good.
“Well, where I’m from, it also means to have sex with a country girl,” she says and then rushes on, “although I didn’t figure there were any of those hanging around your hotel room.”
“No, but I can think of one I wish was here,” I murmur. When she doesn’t respond immediately, I wonder if I’ve made her uncomfortable. But I don’t regret what I said because I do wish she was here right now.
We continue talking and finally hang up when we both decide that we’d better get some sleep before the sun rises, at which point we’ll both be hitting the road. I somehow managed to keep my increasingly sexually-oriented thoughts to myself. Despite our often flirty exchanges, I have no idea if Taryn would be interested in actually pursuing anything physical with me. I could tell I got her hot and bothered the few times we were together in LA, but attraction and action are worlds apart. And speaking of which, I need to keep reminding myself just how different ours really are.
For the past month I’ve been jetting from one city to another, tired but happy. When I’m not promoting and performing, I find myself checking my phone like a crackhead waiting on their dealer to call. I have no idea when I’ll see Taryn next, but to my surprise, I like this getting-to-know-each-other thing we’ve got going on.
While sitting in the green room waiting on the Denver show to start, I laugh to myself when I recall the texts we exchanged yesterday. Between rehearsals and our respective concerts, Taryn and I played a little game of “Two Truths and a Lie.”
Taryn: You know how to play, right?
Me: Yeah, babe, believe it or not, I did go to middle school ;)
Taryn: You first then, smartass.
Me: I play three instruments.
Taryn: A kazoo totally does NOT count.
Me: Who’s the smartass now? ;)
Taryn: You got me there. Truth?
Me: Yup, piano, drums, and harmonica, which totally does count ☺
Taryn: Keep talkin…
Me: The image I portray is not who I really am.
Taryn: Truth, but I already knew that.
Me: I have ten brothers and sisters.
Taryn: Cop out. You’ve mentioned before that you’re an only child, just like me.
Our conversation was cut off by the untimely arrival of her mother, right when she was trying to justify her ability to play three instruments. I jokingly told her that acoustic, bass, and electric guitar only count as one.
I’m instantly pulled back to the present when Jay rushes in the room and begins passing out schedules for the next two weeks, which no doubt are as hectic as the last two…and the two before that.
“Hey, listen up, y’all noisy motherfuckers,” he says, trying to get everyone’s attention. “You might wanna read this so you’ll know when to tell your families you’ll be home next weekend.”
I laugh out loud, saying, “Hey Dre, can you tell your dad we’ll be off in case he wants to have a little family reunion or somethin’?”
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that, Ace,” he says with a smirk.
Jay ignores us and starts yammering on about dates and times and who-the-hell-knows-what, but I tune him out when I look at the calendar and notice that by ‘home’ he meant we’re headed back to Los Angeles. “Why LA?” I interrupt.
“If you’d get those baby blues out of the clouds, you’d know that you’ve got a video to film, followed by a release party the label is hosting for you and farm girl.”
“Yee-haw!” shouts Xavier and I fight the urge to cut him a dirty look. “We gonna have us a hoedown.”
“Ah yeah,” chimes in Quinton, “I’m looking forward to gettin’ down with some hos.”
“Dude, you get down with hos every night. It ain’t like you gonna wait ‘til we get back to La-La Land,” says Marcus.
“You right about that,” Q says, “but there’s nothin’ like LA hos, right, X?”
“I know that’s right,” Xavier replies.
Jay shoots everyone scathing looks before saying, “If you all are done talking with your dicks, then we’ve gotta show to put on. So get out of here and do what you get paid entirely too many Benjamins to do.”
Lots of grumbling is heard as everyone starts to head out of the green room. I catch sight of Marcus messing around with his camera equipment and ask, “So what’s the deal with the video?”