Ch 60 ~ Tap Out

Rachel’s heart pounded feverishly, as the mist swirled through the night air, making the streetlights nearly futile.  She could hear a steady tap of footsteps behind her as she vainly sought to find the entrance to her hotel. 

She hadn’t walked that far away from the group.  It had only been a moment ago that she’d stopped to look in a lighted shop window.  Where was Jon?  And David, Richie, Matt... Anybody??

A hard-soled shoe rhythmically struck the sidewalk, never getting any closer, nor any further away as she wandered fruitlessly among the darkened storefronts.

“Jon?”  There was a tremor in her voice.  She heard it and cleared her throat, trying again, more firmly.  “Jon, is that you?”

In her heart, she knew it wasn’t.  He was wearing tennis shoes tonight.  That sound couldn’t be made by rubber-soled running shoes.  Were any of the guys wearing hard shoes?  She scrambled frantically to remember while her own quiet shoes continued to make time over the cobblestones.

Where was that damned hotel?  Or something that was recognizably lit? 

She turned a corner and found herself in a narrow alley that had no light whatsoever.  There was nothing but dark and fog that enveloped her like a frightening cloak of imprisonment. 

Even worse, the footsteps that had maintained a consistent distance now drew closer, their tap-tap-tapping echoing in Rachel’s head like a hail of gunfire, and her pulse rate jacked up to rival the shot pattern of an AK-47.

Tap…….tap……..tap….tap…tap...tap..tap.tap.taptaptaptap….

In her flustered urgency to escape the terrifying sound that was more menacing than Poe’s telltale heart, Rachel bolted, not realizing that the cobblestone alleyway was going to prove to be her demise rather than her savior.  She hadn’t taken two long strides before one of the cobblestones reached up and caught the tip of her shoe.  With the force and speed she was trying to gain, the impact sent her sprawling onto the bumpy ground.  She had just gotten her bearings enough to properly position her limbs when the invisible feet arrived at the exact spot where she was scrambling to put herself right again. 

She scurried frantically in the sudden silence, but – before she could draw her legs beneath her to gain purchase – something brushed her ankle.

“Eeeek!”  The strangled cry echoed in her ears as a warm hand ensconced her shoulder. 

“Rach!” 

Rachel’s eyes flew open and she flipped her head to the left, realizing as she did so that it was on a nice soft pillow instead of an uneven cobblestone street. 

There.  There was Jon.

“Fuck,” she sighed, taking a deep breath and turning over to seek out the warmth and safety of her man.  She snuggled into his chest, instructing her pulse to resume a normal tempo.

It was a dream.  Just a dream.

“Bad dream?” he asked, stroking a splayed palm down along the length of her spine.

“Mm.  Damn David and his Jack the Ripper escapade.”

The chest she’d rushed to for safety rumbled beneath her cheek with a quiet chuckle and Rachel raised up to scowl at him.  “It’s not funny!  That psycho was stalking me in the streets of London and all I could hear was the rhythm of his feet as he got closer!”

Blue eyes that had been brimming with humor now filled with something that looked suspiciously like…  Guilt.

“What?”

“Um…”  He lit up the already bright morning with his most charming smile, letting Rachel know something was amiss.  He didn’t whip out that charming smile unless he thought he needed to do some major schmoozing.  “Those weren’t Jack the Ripper’s feet, babe.  They were mine.”

Her eyes darted to the end of the bed, where she saw that the feet in question were still tapping to the beat of some unheard melody – that was likely playing in his head.  The same way they always did when he was working on a song.

“Damn you!”  She bumped his shoulder with the heel of her hand.  “Stop writing songs in bed.”

Laughing, he locked up her wrists in his hands and held them close to his body, effectively disabling them.  “One of the hazards of sleeping with a musician, babe.  And I’m not writing, I’m re-writing a song.  Or maybe two.  I’ve got lyrics in my head that I thought were for one song, but now it feels like they’re for two different songs.  Maybe.”

“Hmpf.”  She slowly lifted one eyebrow.  “Let’s go with two and make both of them hits, because you’re gonna need the money to pay for all the furniture I’m going to buy today.  And since you’re obviously anxious to get an early start, it’s going to be a lot of furniture.”

Okay, so it probably wouldn’t be a lot, but it would be good furniture.  They’d planned all along to do some shopping for the “new” Jersey house on this trip, because where better to shop for timelessly classic furniture than London?  Since he was so restless, that just meant they’d have more time to browse the offerings of London in between bouts of tourism.

But wait.  There was that look of guilt again.

“What?” she sighed.  Why did she have the feeling he was about to not go shopping?

“Nothin’,” he claimed innocently.  “I was just thinkin’ that they could probably be hits if I could convince Rich to help me fuck around with ‘em this morning.”

Aha.  She hadn’t been mistaken.  It was nice being able to read the man.  Kind of like having her own personal superpower. 

But she’d still rather he go shopping.

“The only thing Richie is going to be involved with this morning is a royal hangover, I would imagine.”  The guitarist had produced a flask part-way through the tour, his laughter coming easier and easier as the group checked out each of the murder sites.  By the time their tour guide had presented Jack the Ripper’s actual knife, Richie had challenged the man to a swordfight with his – ahem – dick, claiming it was longer than the knife.

Fortunately, Tico had managed to convince his friend to keep his pants zipped, but that didn’t change the fact that Richie had made a nest in the hotel bar once they’d returned to the property.  She couldn’t imagine that he’d sipped coffee until the wee hours of the morning. 

“Probably, but we’ve been known to write hits when we’re hungover, too, so….”

With his mind wrapped up in his music, Rachel knew that even if he did go shopping, he wouldn’t really be there.  That would end up in a typical man-woman squabble because he wasn’t showing any interest, yadda, yadda.  In the end it would be better to go it alone, because she had no desire to spend her day pissed and annoyed. 

But it wouldn’t be right to just offer to let him off the hook.  He should really have to work for it a little. 

She gave his nipple a quick nip and wrapped her arm across his torso, tucking her fingers under his back. 

“You’re going to bail on our outing today, aren’t you?” 

“It wouldn’t be all day,” he started his spiel of justification, looping his arm around her shoulders and squeezing.  “Just a couple hours this morning.   We’re doing the final mix this week on the four new songs for the greatest hits record and I think I wanna make changes to a couple of ‘em.”

So he wasn’t writing new stuff, but rehashing?  What was that old adage?  Your first instinct is usually right?  But what did she know.  She sold real estate and didn’t possess a single creative bone in her body.  He was a song writing legend.

Still…  She couldn’t resist asking, “You’re second guessing what you’ve already written?”

“Maybe.”  He shrugged.  “I’ve been lying here thinking about us and all the good and bad days we’ve had that brought us to where we are now.   That got me thinking about one of the songs Rich and I started back before you left Jersey.  After you left, we finished it, but…  I dunno.  Since you were gone it went a different way than it would’ve if you’d stayed.  With things being back on track with us, I don’t wanna sing it the way I left it.  The story’s changed.”

Yeah.  He was so getting off the shopping hook.  Who wouldn’t let him off the hook to re-write their story?  Nobody but an idiot. 

“I love hearing you do the stuff you’ve written since we’ve been together.  I like it much better than hearing the love songs you sing night after night after night, knowing you wrote them for somebody else.”

His arm tightened around her and Jon dropped a kiss on the top of her head.  “I bet there’s not a song on this last record that wasn’t inspired by a conversation we had, or a conversation Richie and I had about you.”

Unable to resist a pleased smile, she playfully poked him in the side. “That’s very sweet, and I feel very privileged, but there were forty-eleven records before this one that had nothing to do with me.  They all produced a gazillion hits, most of which you sing every night!” 

“All the more reason for you to want me to work on a couple of your songs today.”  Cue the charming smile. 

And she?  She was a mere mortal woman whose panties melted away in the presence of that smile.

“Yes, dear.”  Rachel kissed the lips that made that smile so perfect.  “Whatever you need is fine with me.”

Besides, if she left him here, hers would be the only panties he’d be melting today. 

She liked that. 

She liked it a lot.