Chapter 11
Hyde sat on the Forman porch sipping his beer with a contented smile on his face. Eric, who was hanging the red, white and blue decorations for the Veterans Day barbecue, figured that Hyde must have been dipping into his stash early. He would have been amazed to know that a girl was the reason for the smile.
It had been three weeks since that first meeting with Blue. Since then he had been at every one of her gigs, his eyes glued to her dynamic figure as she belted out rock classics on her drums. At the end of each performance, after the main crowd had cleared, she would emerge from backstage to meet him. Those first few assignations after that initial hot kiss, her body language had been nervous, as though she was afraid to get close to him in case he manhandled her again. He took Jackie's advice to heart and tried to show her she could trust him by going slow, making no sudden movements and just talking to her. Blue did not really talk about herself – he did not know much more about her than she had revealed that first night. But they talked about the music she played and the drummers of great rock bands. He found himself opening up to her in a way he never had to anyone. One night he even revealed his own closely guarded secret.
"So, Steven," Blue had said. "If you could play an instrument, which one would it be?"
"Well, actually," Hyde had confessed, "I kind of do play something."
"What? I never knew that," Blue had cried, surprised into a rare moment of emotion.
"Yeah, well, you don't really know me very well," Hyde had said with a quizzical look.
"Uh – I mean, Jackie never told me," Blue recovered. "So – which one is it?"
"Guitar." He had basked in Blue's admiring gaze for a moment, before continuing self-deprecatingly, "I'm not really very good so I don't play in front of people. My friends don't know I can do more than strum a few chords."
"Well, no-one ever starts out as good," Blue encouraged. "It all comes down to practice. Will you play something for me?"
After a show of reluctance, Hyde took the acoustic guitar offered to him and picked out the guitar intro to "Stairway to Heaven". This was a piece he knew like the back of his hand and he played it perfectly. Blue encouraged him to play more of what he knew, so he played her some Eagles and a bit of the easier Hendrix. As he played, Blue tapped out a beat to the music on her knees, which stirred some déjà vu feeling in Hyde he couldn't place. He pushed it to the back of his mind and concentrated on making it through the song without messing up.
When he laid down the guitar, her simple words of praise stole his heart. "You play well," was all she said but they had been enough to have him practising on his guitar three hours every night since then, after everyone was asleep.
He found he was living for those brief moments alone with Blue. His eyes drank in every detail that made her up – the way she twirled those drumsticks in her fingers like a cheerleading baton, the way she twisted her blonde hair around her finger when she was deep in thought and the way an extra swing was added to her walk if a catchy song with a strong beat was played.
All these memories contributed to Hyde's smile, but it was the breakthrough he had with her last night that was the main culprit. He had realised that during their trysts the conversation was mostly about what made him tick.
"The things Jackie has told me about you are so trivial they're useless," Hyde explained.
"Not that useless," Blue replied with a smile. "Thanks again for the donuts, by the way."
"You're welcome. My point is, you know all about me and I think it is only fair you tell me something personal about you. Something real."
"Something real," Blue mused, thinking the request over. They were sitting together in their usual spot on the steps leading up to the stage, their elbows resting on the platform. "Alright, here's something real. I like to dance."
"Do you now? What kind of dancing?"
"Oh, all kinds. Rock, Latin, disco."
"Disco?" Hyde had repeated with a grimace.
"Don't knock it till you try it," Blue had said with her husky laugh. "But what I really love is slow dancing."
"Like waltzing and stuff?" Hyde was surprised at such an old-fashioned preference from such a with-it chick.
"Yeah. Swaying to some classic crooning music… when it's with the right guy… well, it makes my bones melt." Blue had admitted.
"This I've got to see." Hyde had walked over to where the DJ set up was for the nights when the club played recorded music and looked through the collection. He came across a Sinatra album and recognised a song from it that took him back to a rainy Saturday afternoon in the basement when he had somehow been roped into watching some old musical with Jackie. He remembered Jackie sighing over this particular song so he put it on the player. As a slow piano intro tinkled through the speakers, he approached Blue and asked with his best Cary Grant impersonation "May I have this dance?" She had responded with a wide smile and placed her small hand in his. He felt a strange electricity between them as he drew her into his arms and dredged his memory for those dance lessons Mrs Forman had taught him. He found he didn't need too much expertise, after all, as Blue was content to let her head rest against his shoulder and sway to the mournful crooning.
It's the wrong time
And the wrong place
Though your face is charming
It's the wrong face
It's not her face
But such a charming face
That it's alright with me.
"Is there a hidden message in your choosing this song," Blue had asked in a teasing tone. "You're not thinking of some other girl, are you?"
Unbidden, the thought of Jackie rushed to Hyde's mind. Where did that come from? "No, of course not. I've always kind of liked this song and it was the right tempo – that's all."
"I always liked it too," Blue admitted. "It is so sweet and melancholy.
It's the wrong game
With the wrong chips
Though your lips are tempting
They're the wrong lips
They're not her lips
Though they're such tempting lips
That it's alright with me.
At the time Sinatra was getting to the subject of lips, Hyde's were hovering over Blue's. She could feel his warm breath against her mouth and met him halfway as his lips descended on hers. Their kiss remained unbroken until the last line of the song.
That if some night you're free
Then it's alright, yes it's alright with me.
The moment was almost perfect. The only thing it needed to make it the best moment of his life was if she were to have taken off her glasses when the kiss ended. Instead, she had slowly parted from him with a dreamy smile, thanked him for the dance and drifted away through the stage door.
"Bone melting, huh?" Hyde muttered to himself. "I see what she means."
"Hey Hyde," Eric called out, interrupting his reverie. "Hope its not too tiring for you watching me do all the work. I mean, I wouldn't want to overload you or anything."
"Forman, in this world there are those who do the work and those who, through their natural superiority, sit by and watch."
"You have definitely been spending too much time with Jackie," Eric condemned. "Speak of the devil…"
Hyde followed Forman's line of vision to see the girl in question walking up the driveway. The smile fell from his face when he saw the good looking guy walking next to her, his arm possessively slung around her shoulders.