A shadow appeared in the dark and music started to play along with its moves. It was grey at first, like smoke. Moving and moving around, according to the song. Then it started to get a shape, a real shape of a gorgeous naked woman. But she never turned to me.

Where am I? Is this some kind of… magic night club or something?

Was I having an acid trip? No, definitely not. I’m not supposed to do drugs anymore, remember?

The woman began to move closer, always on her back and her arms forming choreographic waves like she was dancing some kind of sensual Middle East dance. As much as I wanted to pinpoint the song, it was almost like I couldn’t hear it, but I knew it was there, cause I felt seduced as hell by that woman.

Was it Emily?

She had very white skin, like Emily, but… That woman was brunette. Yes, I know Emily is naturally brunette but… no. It wasn’t her. I just knew it.

When she was very close, I could almost touch her, but somehow I was stuck in the same position. Couldn’t move, could only keep watching her, mesmerized. And as she was coming closer and closer, I could pay attention to every single detail her body held. Her curves, her back tattoo showing up bit by bit to my eyes like magic, I could even sense her smell. I was just dying of curiosity about her face I was never allowed to see.

Wow… I had forgotten how much I loved girls with tattoos…

Wait… there’s something written on her upper back. Damn it… it’s blurred. I can’t see it clearly!
I tried to move away from my position at every way but it was worthless. I couldn’t move somehow, I was paralyzed. God… am I in coma again?

As I still tried hard to move she was leaving my sight slowly.

“Hey… wait! Is it a song lyric written on your back? What is it? Hey, girl, just don’t go ye…”

“Jimmy? Babe? Are you okay?” I heard a soft voice taking the sexy mysterious girl away and for a minute I thought it was her finally talking to me. But no, it was the tattooed and red headed woman I had in my arms and in my bed for a few days now. And that surely felt better than just a dream…

“Yeah, I… it was just a dream, babe. It’s okay.” I embraced my arm around her and she let her head rest on my chest.

“You talked about a girl. Was I in it?” she smirked up to me and I froze.

I felt like cheating on her. All men have those kinds of dreams, right?

“Of course you were, babe.” I had to lie. I’m so stupid…

“You better tell me about that dream tomorrow…” her head lied back on me and she wore a smile as she went back to sleep. That’s all I needed to feel better about my little lie.

And I definitely had to get rid of that stupid boner too...

---

“…You’re doing great, Jess, you really are. But I still feel like there’s a block when I try to talk about your parents. And you’re ready to face it now. You need to face it so we can go to the next step. Think about it…”

Wow… Nothing better than waking up by the sound of your hot therapist’s voice telling you what to do with your life, huh? Well, I could think about a lot of better things at the moment. Like having a whole day available to stay in bed with Zack. But no… that wasn’t an option anymore. He was way more than busy with the new album and had almost no time to waste.

In fact, he was showering now and had to go to the studio as soon as he could, leaving me all alone in that enormous beautiful house. If Brian wouldn’t show up, he would have to start creating and recording his parts and that meant double work on his shoulders. And it meant less time with me.

I could deal with that… I guess.

But could I deal with the fact that my therapist wants me to go see my parents and I’ve been avoiding it for too long? I don’t think I can keep delaying my life like this.

“Hey, you’re up!” Zack came out of the bathroom with the towel wrapped up on his waist and took me out of my thoughts instantly with that sight.

“Yeah… pretty much. Now I’m even more awake…” I answered seductively, making sure he could see my gaze flowing down to his waist. He smirked.

“No, Jess. Don’t start with that look now. I’m late to meet the guys.” He grabbed his clothes and was about to go back to the bathroom when I jumped out of the bed in a rush.

I can’t waste the opportunity to provoke him…

“Why?” I whispered sweetly as I glued my body on his before he could go anywhere or make any moves. “Why can’t I just look this way to my man, huh?” I let my hands hold his towel and I felt him shrinking backwards as my eyes went from his to travel all his chest straight to where my hands were comfortably hanging. “He’s gonna leave me alone all day long and I can’t have a piece of paradise before his day starts?”

“Jess… Just cooperate here, okay? I’m wearing much less clothes now for you to start rubbing that sexy body on me. Don’t try to wake up the demon.” He was wearing lip rings again and I couldn’t wait until I could have a taste of it.

“That’s exactly what I want.” I smiled and made my lips reach his in a second.

His tongue rushed in like a hurricane and I just let him dominate me for this time only. It felt like we were kissing for the first time. For a man that had so much worry about arriving late at his job, he was doing a hell of a great job at the lips department.

“Hmm… babe…” I moaned and felt him backing out. “You’re on fire today!”

“I better be… I need to finish 5 songs today.” I pecked his lips again not letting him finish. “…and maybe finish 5 songs as the lead guitar…” I kissed him again and he couldn’t keep backing out anymore, his back found the wardrobe. Gotcha! “I fucking need Gates!” and he gasped that…

My horny mood got washed away along with that name that wasn’t mine.

“What? We’re here all mingling and canoodling and you… you say you need Gates NOW!?” now it was my time to back out and sat on the bed, staring at the ground.

“Jess, I’m sorry I… it’s… it’s not how it was supposed to sound like, okay? I’m just freaking scared of doing this alone. He’s my partner at music crime, you know? It’s weird not having him around at the studio all the time…” Zack pouted and he looked so left out I wanted to cradle him in my arms and… NO! No mother comparisons, ugh, that’s disgusting!

“He better show up! Or I’m going myself at his house drag his drunk ass back to the studio.”

“Can you come? You can help me out with a few harmonic progressions as I record the solos.”

“Zack, c’mon, the guys must be tired of seeing me there everyday trying to add strings and piano on all the arrangements you’ve done. Besides… I decided to do something today...” I said that with a determined tone and got up to the bathroom. Of course he followed me.

“Are you planning to tell me what?” he stopped by the door as I started to undress myself. I knew I had to do that so I could convince him of what I wanted.

“Well I… I’m planning to ask my parents to come here, meet the house and well… you. Of course, if you allow me to.”

He didn’t answer right away. By the look on his face and where his eyes were roaming now, I knew he would say yes without even thinking. Right?

“What…? No… wait! They already know me! You’re trying to play me here!” he shook his head like trying to get rid of my image on his head and I suppressed a chuckle. I really enjoyed using the effect I had on him “And I think I might be the last person in the world they would want to meet now…” he saddened.

“No, babe, don’t worry about that. You just need a proper introduction this time, not like it was… last time…” I shrugged and stepped inside the shower stall. “It might take some time but they will see how good you are to me, blueberry.”

“Okay, okay. But I have no idea what time I’ll be back.”

“Never mind, I’ll make them wait to let them see how much of a hard worker you are.” I showed my head in the door and blinked at him.

He was still standing in the door, towel still on his waist and seemed like in a trance.

“Are you… going to the studio or… joining me?” I licked my wet lips and opened the entire stall so he could have a good look at what he was wasting.

I made my best seductive face as the water ran on my body and he was getting hypnotized, I could tell. I closed the stall again and counted.

3…2…1…

“Okay, I guess I can be a little late today.” And there he was, already inside, towel-less and throwing his delicious body on me and against the wall.

Ahh… that should be a good day for both of us…

---

Yeah I showed up today. And I did showed up yesterday, with Michelle, but there wasn’t a single member of my band in the studio. Yep, Emily fooled me and I kinda hated her a little for that. But I should thank her now. Because of her, I had a pretty good afternoon with that lovely woman by my side and a great date later at night.

God… who am I kidding? I have absolutely nothing in common with Michelle anymore. Maybe in bed we work good but… that’s not enough, is it?

While she blabbered about her rich girl’s life, her girlfriends and clothes, I could only think about the little but remarkable moments I shared with Emily along the year to get me distracted. With her, the talk was never trivial like that. We shared the same passions and ambitions. And I had this big and strange urge to give her the world. But she doesn’t really want it, right?

So I had to offer it to someone who wanted it. I could still see the glare on Michelle’s eyes everytime I looked inside them. And that was enough for me to keep going with this. She was happy with me. I might learn to be happy with her.

And right now, as I waited for a very late Zack to start working on our guitar layers, I picked up my red and black Schecter and thought about start working on that song without using the score Emily wrote me. I didn’t want anything that could remind me of her in that album or in that song. But it was too late for that now, wasn’t it? Even my own guitar reminded me of her; it had her name.

“That’s beautiful, Bri.” She touched my shoulder and I could only close my eyes to hid my frustration of losing my concentration to her.

“Just… Don’t call me that, alright? I hate it.” as all seemed to remind me of her, that short for my name was always with her voice in my head, not with anyone else’s.

Michelle pulled back in the second I let my rude tone out. Shit…

“I’m… I’m sorry, Chelle. It’s just… I’ve been struggling with this piece for a while. I can’t remember the notes correctly. It seems like… it’s blocked somewhere in my brain I can’t access.” Well, I could access if I would just forget my pride and get the damn score lying in the backseat of my car. But no, I wouldn’t! I love my stupid pride!

“I think I know what you need.”
Please, don’t tell me I need Emily.

“What?” I tried to form a smile up to her.

“You need Zacky! He’s gonna help you figure out the notes missing. You two are always talking through music so fluidly. I love to watch the way you work together.”

I felt my smile growing wider and hey! Apparently she’s not that bad. She really knows me, at least.

“You know what? You’re right. He’s gonna help me figure it out, I’m sure. He just gotta be here on time for once in a while…” I stood up and reached for her lips hungrily, like in appreciation for just being there with me.

I pushed my guitar to my back, held her neck and pulled her closer while our tongues played. But still no love involved on it. Not from me.

Our kiss was intensifying in a way I wasn’t expecting as her hands started to move under my shirt, wandering over my abs. And when her hands began fumbling with my belt, the studio door opened.

“Look what we have here! Brian showing up on time and… Michelle? Making out heavily as I can see…” he widened his eyes to her hands still in my belt. “Well I can’t complain, I was doing something like that either.”

“Oooohhh, that’s what you were doing while I was here waiting for you?” I couldn’t believe on his sincerity.

“Yeah, mr. I-show-up-whenever-I-want!” of course he showed his finger. And that’s how we get along. Picking at each other.

“But let’s clarify some rules here… no messing around here with all those valuable instruments that can break at the slight move of butts and… well, no one wants body fluids spread on them either so… Please, go do that in your car, Gates.”

“Shut up and let’s go to work.”

Zack grabbed his guitar, I pulled mine back and I showed him the notes I had. I asked him to fill it with something he wanted, and it wasn’t even close to what I had come up with Emily that day. But as we were writing all the songs together, I couldn’t really boss him to play the notes I didn’t even remember what they were.

“This intro is very good now, right?”

“Yeah… kinda.” I only shrugged, not really happy about it.

“Okay… I know when you don’t like something. Let’s keep trying.” He said and I agreed.

We tried three more times and it wasn’t up to my ears yet.

I was losing my patience when I took a deep breath and glanced at Michelle. She was typing on her phone, leaning on an amplifier. If she had something I really liked was her legs. I let my eyes climb from her calves to her thighs and I noticed her skirt was a little too lifted. Maybe that landscape could make me inspired now.

So I tried. And tried. Stared at her cleavage. Tried again. And again.

Fuck it’s useless…

“You know what, Zack? Let’s just not… use this song. I don’t like it anymore.”

“But… it has potential. We just need to let the idea ripen.”

“Fine, okay. Let’s move on now.”

We did some other arrangements and the other guys arrived. Matt was still pissed at me apparently, showing his clenched jaw and his MMA fighter face. Maybe he was even angrier now with the fact that Michelle was there with me… again. I didn’t like that at all but I know I would regain his trust with time..

Johnny was all jumpy with the notes I came up and he told us he had lyrics that fit to that gloomy and mysterious melody that was still unfinished, but somehow he liked it even more than me.

“Hey Z, remember we took pictures of that poetry Jimmy wrote on that hotel wall?” Johnny asked him and I frowned. What poetry? Wrote on the wall?

“Yeah… I do. Are you… thinking what I’m thinking?” he raised one of his brows.

“Man… I was reading it today again. It totally fits to this eerie atmosphere.”

“Yeah it does but… we gotta ask him first. What if he thinks it’s… weird? He was very high on dope when he wrote that, remember?” Zack said it and it got me even more clueless about what they were talking about.

“When was it, guys? You lost me.” I finally meddled in.

“Well… it was that time when you and Emily were hibernating in that hotel, god knows doing what.” Johnny mocked and I gave him a slap in the back of his head.

“She was detoxing, you moron!” I answered sharply, shutting him up promptly.

Johnny looked in his phone and showed me the picture with the writings on the wall. And I gulped hard at what I saw. It was like someone had put into words what Emily had gone through and felt in that hotel room. This time I could really acknowledge how deeply connected they were. And it made me jealous as fuck.

“Nah… I don’t think it fits, Johnny. Besides, it’s too heavy… I don’t think we should use it on this song. In fact… I don’t want to use it, I don’t want to keep working on this song and period.” I breathed once, as they were both looking at me with frowns in their foreheads at my sudden change of mood. “I… I think I need a break.”

I stood up and left them behind to go kiss the hell out of that woman that was waiting for me. Cause that was the only shot I had to keep moving on with my life now. And take those two out of my head once and for all…

Notes

hmm Jimmy has a new girl on his dreams... is she real? xD Can you... guess who she is?
Shh, if you know her, just let me know, but dont tell it out loud, it might scare her away from his thoughts =p

And Brian... pooor Bri... he's in the verge of throwing out Buried Alive in the trash. It would be the biggest mistake of his life, right? haha xD

Anyway... next one we will see Jess' parents back at the game. Stay tuned! ;)