Lasting Damage Read online

  If it was anyone else Harper wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Most of the people in her life were attached to their phone. It was a lifeline, a tether that kept them connected to the rest of the world. It was the new normal for the average American.

  But not for Jane.

  With her, there was no constant Twitter stream floating through their time together. She didn’t bother to jump at Facebook statuses or record every inch of her day on Instagram. Hell she didn’t even take her phone out of her purse most of the time, but there she was, seven on a Saturday morning, texting away.

  Harper finished her business as fast as she could, turned off her phone and walked back into the bedroom. She didn’t like how her brain seemed to seek out reason to be suspicious or jealous where none existed, but her gut told her something was wrong.

  Jane, looking distant and drawn, was sitting on the edge of the bed, her phone on the pillow beside her. She stared at it for a moment before turning her gaze to the open window.

  “You okay?” Harper sat down in the chair beside the bed. “You look a little shaken up.”

  “It’s nothing. I just need to get moving.” She said, her voice quiet and unsure,

  Harper kept her distance and waited for Jane to decide how they were to proceed. Harper knew it was going to be the same dance they’d been doing since she walked into the club. She would move closer and Jane would evade. One step forward and seventeen steps back. Being with Jane was starting to feel like dancing with a blindfold on and her arms tied behind her back. She could hear the music but she didn’t know what her partner was doing.

  “I’m running late.” Jane looked at her briefly before lowering her lashes. Happiness seemed to slip away as quietly as it arrived with her.

  “You’ll need this.” She picked Jane’s dress up off the and placed it on the edge of the bed.

  “Are you going to be working all day?” Jane’s words hung in the air between them. They sounded strained, as if she was inspecting each syllable for hidden meaning before it passed her lips.

  “In the studio.” She replied. “I’ve got Kara Olsen and most of my band coming in to do some work.”

  “I’ll try and stop by later.” Jane stared at her for a brief second before standing up to step into the dress and Harper realized that Jane seemed determined to be a stranger to her. That there might never be a moment where this person, the one she was probably going to fall madly in love with, would let her past the imaginary set of barriers she’d constructed to keep people out.

  “That would be nice.”

  Jane gave her a soft, sad smile before tucking her hand behind her ears and heading for the door. Once there she seemed to hesitate. Harper thought she might be trying to decide something, maybe rethinking her getaway plan but something inside her seemed resolved to stick with her present course of action.

  Harper held her breath as Jane squared her shoulders, turned the handle and walked out.

  *****

  Jane had never felt like a bigger asshole in her entire life. She’d been laying in a warm comfortable bed, listening to Harper answering messages when she got the text from Sarah asking to meet at Sammi’s, and she’d run out the door like her ass was on fire while Harper stared at her like she’d suddenly sprouted a giant set of horns and a tail

  She figured the description was not far off. She was giant bitch-demon for bolting like an asshole when someone like Harper was waiting for them.

  Jane tugged at the hem of her dress as she strode through the door, and tried to use her power of will to make the dress a few inches longer or the heels a couple of inches shorter since she couldn’t shake the feeling that she looked like a street walker returning from a night of hard labor.

  “Holy shit, girl.” Sammi whistled as Jane made her way to the bar. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “It’s a long story,” she groaned. “Can I get a Greyhound?”

  “Of course,” Sammi replied.

  “Make it a double and add a little Cointreau.”

  “You sure you don’t want to come back here and do it yourself?” Sammi raised a manicured eyebrow and grabbed a fresh grapefruit. “You’re certainly better at this than I am.”

  “I never tend bar in heels.” Jane let out an exhausted sigh as she sank onto the barstool.

  “You should think about it. I bet you’d get more tips.”

  “And a hammer toe,” Jane laughed. “A few extra tips won’t make up for getting ugly feet.”

  “I didn’t know you had a foot fetish,”

  “That’s because I don’t have a foot fetish.”

  Sammi set the drink down in front of her and gave a little wink. “But you do have a fetish?”

  “Not one that I’m willing to talk about in public,” she laughed.

  “Oh, come on? You know you want to tell me your best secrets?” Sammi inquired with a sly grin. “I’ll tell me mine and you tell me yours so we can see if our fetishes will play nice together?”

  “Now, Sammi,” Jane paused to take a fast drink. “Don’t you think Nat would be mad at me if I tried to put the moves on you?”

  “I doubt it since she knows you don’t do girls with cocks.” Sammi shook her head. “Just give me a little glimpse into that beautiful brain of yours so I can die a happy woman.”

  Jane smiled, leaned forward and whispered, “A hot bath and a cold drink.”

  “What about a warm body?” Sammi gave her a crooked grin and nodded past Jane shoulder. “Looks like you’ve got one coming for you.”

  Jane turned to see Sarah, fresh, blond and perfectly put together for Saturday breakfast, coming toward her. Her stomach dropped into her mile-high shoes as she watched Sarah clear the tables.

  “You have the most interesting taste in women,” Sammi mused. “I never knew you were the type that went for that virginal thing.”

  “I’m not,” she muttered.

  “I take it she’s not the reason for that dress?

  “No, she’s the reason I put the dress back on this morning and hustled my ass over here.” Jane felt it was important to clear that up before Sammi got the wrong idea. “She texted me this morning and asked to meet her for breakfast.”

  “Sounds ominous,” Sammi chuckled and started wiping down the bar. “I’ll make you another one of those.”

  Jane didn’t have time to express her approval she was too busy trying to figure out why Sarah’s arms were wrapped around her in a hug. Jane tried to return the gesture but she wasn’t much on physical contact with people she didn’t know and wasn’t going to sleep with.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” Sarah sang.

  “Thanks,” Jane stammered as she broke free from Sarah’s arms. She picked up her drink and took an extra-large sized sip and tried to forget the smell of the sticky sweet perfume she’d just inhaled.

  Harper had worn perfume the night before, her brain whispered. It was a dark scent, earthy and warm with hints of amber and sandalwood. Jane took another sip, she could feel the alcohol in her veins and the memory of Harper’s hands on her skin.

  She’d made a huge mistake

  “That looks good,” Sarah said, pointing to Jane’s champagne flute as she sat down beside her. “Maybe I should try one of those? Are they strong?”

  “Strong? No,” Jane paused. “Unpredictable? Yes.”

  “How can a drink be unpredictable?” Sarah tilted her head to the side and gave her a flirtatious glance.

  “It’s grapefruit and vodka with a little splash of orange liquor,” Jane pointed to Sammi humming away while she cut grapefruits on the other side of the bar. “A lot of places will use grapefruit juice and you’ll get a predictable drink. As long as you stick to the proportions all the drinks will come out tasting the same. It’s when you use freshly squeezed juice that you get your surprises. One drink might be sweet while the next is tart.”

  “So, it’s going to be a surprise.”

  Jane finished her drink and set the empty glass do
wn on the table. “I don’t know about you but I feel like living dangerously for a few hours.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Sarah laughed nervously. “I’m feeling a little underdressed for drinks at the bar.”

  “It’s not you, it’s me. You look much more respectable than I do.” Jane replied. “I didn’t plan things out very well and I sorta got stuck in this dress.”

  “You two ladies ready to put in an order?” Sammi asked as she set down the fresh round of drinks.

  “I’d kill for some baked brie and a fresh fruit plate,” Jane said. “Maybe some crusty sourdough on the side?”

  “Anything for the pretty lady?” Sammi gave Sarah a smile so dangerous it would’ve made a sailor blush.

  Sarah didn’t bat an eyelash at Sammi’s lascivious behavior, either because she didn’t recognize it or wasn’t interested. “I’ll have the eggs Benedict.”

  Sammi ran a hand down the front of her dress, straightening the small wrinkles that formed between the buttons. “Can I interest you in some fresh crab cakes to go along with your eggs Benedict?”

  “Sure,” Sarah said. “That sounds great.”

  Sammi looked from Jane to Sarah and back to Jane again. It was difficult to know just what was going through her mind, but Jane assumed it had something to do with why she was sitting at the bar in last night’s clothes with a fresh-faced breakfast companion at eight in the morning.

  “I’m glad you could meet with me,” Sarah said in between sips of her drink. “So, how did you end up stuck in your dress?”

  Jane shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “It’s a long story.”

  “Thank you for texting me last night.” Sarah smiled. It was a sweet, gracious smile, the same one she used when she was stealing girlfriends back in high school. “I appreciated it.”

  “Even though we didn’t make it to your party?”

  “We?” Sarah’s smile grew curious as she sipped her drink. “Is it a serious commitment?”

  Seeing as how she wasn’t sure Harper would want to see her after her earlier bad behavior she gave an most honest answer to a question she didn’t want asked. “We’re more of a work in progress.”

  “What do you think it’s progressing toward?”

  “It’s still early to tell anything.” Jane picked up her second drink of the morning and took a sip. It was good and tart, better than the first one, which was too sweet for her liking.

  Sarah eyed her carefully before furrowing her brow in an expression of concern. “Does your friendship with Lily get in the way?”

  “Lily?” Jane stared at Sarah’s face in the mirror. She didn’t know what she was supposed to be looking in her demeanor for but something felt off to her.

  “Well,” she said with a shrug. “The two of you were always close. I just assumed there was something going on.”

  “No, there’s nothing going on between Lily and me.”

  “I offended you.” Sarah’s face flushed, Jane didn’t know if it was on account vodka or the conversational fumble, but she was grateful for it all the same. To her it signaled the first crack in Sarah’s candy coated shell.

  “It takes more than that to offend me.” Jane informed her.

  “What if I ask you if you’re in love?” Sarah’s laughter was light but nervous and unsure.

  “In love?” The phrase felt unfamiliar in her mouth and she nearly choked on the words as the moved up her throat and passed her lips. “In like? Yes. And we’re probably in lust, but that other thing takes time.”

  “That other thing?” Sarah sat up, squaring her shoulders as though she’d finally been able to latch onto something. “I never heard love described with so much emotional distance before.”

  “I’m just trying to keep things in perspective. Love and sex have a tendency to get mixed up if you’re not careful.”

  “I’m actually very good at separating love and sex.” Sarah lowered her thick lashes and smiled. “You have to be when you’ve been with the same person since you were seventeen.”

  “I’d think it’d be the other way around.” She’d arrived for breakfast knowing that there was a strong possibility that Sarah would turn the conversation toward her relationship with Sarah but Jane still wasn’t prepared to discuss things stemming from what happened nearly a decade before.

  “Robin’s not very interested in sex anymore.” Sarah set her empty glass on the bar and motioned to Sammi for another. “And I have a tendency to…stray.”

  “Stray?” Jane asked. “You mean you cheat?”

  Sarah raised an eyebrow. “You sound surprised.”

  “I am,” Jane paused to take a big gulp of her drink. “I just never…I mean you don’t seem like the type of person who could cheat on someone.”

  “I wasn’t aware that there was a type?” Sarah followed Sammi’s movements across the bar for a while before drawing in a breath. “But I suppose it takes all types, doesn’t it? All types and the people to judge them.”

  “I wasn’t judging you.” She sat back and put her hands in her lap. This particular piece of information was unexpected and highly unwanted. “It’s just surprising to hear someone talk openly about infidelity.”

  Sarah gave her a fast smile before looking away. “I was amazed when Robin broke up with you,” she began. “It’s been a source of contention with us for years. Well, I suppose just for me since she never brings it up.”

  “I don’t see why.” Jane didn’t want it to sound like a question. They were talking about something that happened when they were kids. Yes, she got her heart broken. Yes, it was one of those experiences that shaped who she would later become, but there were a million of those moments and she never liked giving one experience more weight than it deserved. “It was a long time ago.”

  Sarah put down her glass and shook her head. “She never wants to talk about you.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything.” Jane shook her head and held her hand out to signal to Sammi that she was going to need another drink the instant she finished the one she had. “We were kids.”

  “You’re the one that got away,” Sara announced with a resolved shrug of her small shoulders.

  “Did she tell you that?” The conversation was going in a direction she hadn’t anticipated and it seemed like the only thing she could do to maintain her composure was to pump a cubic ton of vodka into her system.

  “She didn’t have to,” she answered. “I can see it in her eyes every time she looks at me. After I saw you the other day I realized that you were the one who got away, for the both of us.

  “Excuse me?

  “I’d like the opportunity to fix things,” she said, her smile wavering a little. “For the three of us. I think it’s important.”

  “I don’t think I’ve got anything that needs fixing,” she laughed with just enough exasperation that Sarah went a little pink in the face. “At least not fixing from you or Robin.”

  “I feel all this energy coming off you and-”

  “Is this why you wanted to see me?” Jane pressed her fingers to her temples and pushed hard enough to feel her pulse pounding. “You wanted to heal some part of me that doesn’t need healing so you can save your relationship? What, am I like a bad piece of real estate that you and Robin are going to try and flip or something?”

  “You’re in pain.”

  “Of course I am, but it’s got nothing to do with either you or Robin or crap that happened a million years ago.” Jane swallowed back the overwhelming desire slam her glass down onto the bartop but stopped herself, because a random act of violence would only help Sarah prove her point, and she was not willing to let that happen.

  Jane was in pain. She was hurt. She was in need of a little tenderness but that was her business and hers alone.

  Sarah placed her hand on Jane’s forearm and gave her a sad, piteous look. “Robin wanted to be with me because she needed to have someone to rescue.”

  “And so you’re here trying to find her another person to
rescue?” Jane questioned. “Is that like a thing with the two of you? Is it like a kink or a fetish or something?”

  “It’s got nothing to do with sex.” Her announcement came with just enough defensiveness that Jane knew she’d struck a tender spot.

  “How do you know it’s got nothing to do with sex if you’re not having sex with Robin?” She figured that if Sarah was determined to give her the knife she might as well drive it in and give it a twist. “I mean, you’re here telling me all about how she’s not interested in you sexually and how you cheat on her and you’re looking for what? A replacement?”

  “You’re being cruel,” she whispered.

  “You know something,” Jane paused to drain the last of her drink. “I am being cruel. I’m being a cruel nasty bitch and you wanna know why?”

  “Why?” Sarah’s voice rose a little but stayed quiet.

  “Because you said you had something important to tell me.” Jane tossed back the rest of her drink, put the glass aside and took the next one before Sammi had a chance to set it down in front of her. “This morning I was in the bed with this completely amazing woman who is so perfect for me it actually makes my head hurt, and what the fuck do I do? I leave her sitting there looking at me like I’m breaking her goddamn heart because you texted me.”

  “This is important.”

  “No, this is bullshit.” She placed one hands on the bar to steady herself and downed the drink in one swift gulp. For someone who spent a good deal of time around alcohol, she wasn’t accustomed to drinking that fast that early in the morning and it was catching up with her but she didn’t care. “Complete and utter bullshit and I’m done listening to it.”

  “Why?” Sarah placed her hand on Jane’s arm, holding onto her until Jane pulled away.

  “Because I am, and I don’t owe you any sort of explanation.” Jane set the empty glass on the bar, and for the second time in two hours walked out on a woman.

  12.

  Harper had been fighting the overwhelming urge to throw up for hours because sitting in front of her were the draft copies of the hospitality rider, the tech rider and the tour itinerary. She had copies of contracts for session players, contracts for the road crew and the lighting crew. She and Riley were patching together a schedule for when he’d be available to join them on the tour and she was messaging back and forth with her tour manager and her agent to fit it all together.