The Dust and the Roar Read online

  Dear Wreck,

  I miss you so much, baby!!

  Yes, I’m having a blast at the concerts. You’re always here with me. I sing, and even though I know you’re not in the audience, in the crowd of faces, I close my eyes and my heart sees you, my soul sees you, and I sing to you. The best is when I sing Linda. I can feel your laughter and your heat around me. Now I sing that song a different way, though, because I have you, I’m loved.

  I’m getting much better at writing songs. It’s you and me that comes pouring out. I don’t need to write about the pain of before (but I’m real good at writing about “being wronged.” Ha!) I want to write about us. This beautiful pain, this joy. The Walkman you got me is amazing! I can play back the tapes of us working on the new songs, and it helps me so much. See? You’re with me every step of the way.

  Before I left Meager, I saw you riding by on your Harley, and my heart stopped, really stopped. Adrenaline pumped through me at your speed, at your hair in the wind. Your beautiful fucking hair. That serious line to your beautiful jaw. (Yes, you’re beautiful to me, deal with it.) You took my breath away, and you know what I did? I didn’t get upset. I laughed from the excitement of witnessing you in your element. I could feel you, hard muscles and soft lips. Your long legs hugging your bike, hugging me. I could smell you, metal and pine. I miss you so bad. I miss the house, the smell of the earth up there in the Hills, the way the soil shimmers in the sunlight. Everything is plain here. So plain.

  I can’t wait to see you in Nebraska. I can’t wait. I can’t wait to make love to you. I want you to make me sore everywhere. I want to feel you all over me again, to sleep in your arms, wake up with you. Even if it’s only one night. Even if.

  Love you always,

  xx Isi

  P.S. Write me back and get it to Georgia and she’ll get it to me. I told her everything. It’s cool.

  Over the many long weeks that followed, that became our phrase: “Even if.” It didn’t matter the shit storm that was blowing over us, didn’t matter where she was, or I was—if I was at some biker party in Oregon or she was singing to a crowd of thousands in Minnesota. All that was geography. We were together “even if.”

  Now, I understood the faraway look on fellow soldiers’ faces after they’d finish reading love letters they’d get in the field. Now, I got it. The separation, the letters, the clinging to her words and phrases, made my feelings for her fiercer, deeper, more pure.

  Dear Isadora,

  I loved your letter, baby. I miss you so damn bad, but you know what makes me smile? That you’re out there singing, so there’s a silver lining to this. I’m so proud of you. I wish I could be there to see you burn up the stage. I’d be your bodyguard, protecting you from your groupie fans. I’d kick them out and get you alone backstage, rip your clothes off and lick tequila off your skin, suck you off until you scream. I miss that scream.

  I miss your body wrapped around mine at night. I miss holding you while you sleep. I miss waking up to your kisses, and I miss kissing you in all your secret, tender places. I miss talking with you most of all. I need that to make sense of everything, to relax. And I need you on the back of my bike. There is nothing like that loud laugh of yours when I hit that curve real fast at the end of Clay. You know I do that for you, don’t you? Just for you. Every damn time.

  Keep writing to me. I like this.

  I love you, babe.

  W

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “Get real.”

  I blocked Claw at the entrance to The Tingle, arms crossed at my chest. It was a Saturday night, and a line of eager customers moved through the front door.

  “Fuck the welcome wagon,” he said on a sneer. “You know why I’m here.”

  “He don’t talk to scum,” said Jump.

  “And what the fuck do you think you are?” Claw shot back.

  “What the hell do you want?” I tossed my cigarette at his feet. Claw’s brother Vig stamped on it with his boot.

  “I need to find Isi,” said Claw.

  “I’m confused. Didn’t both Dillons break up with you? Yet you keep chasing after them like a hungry stray dog.”

  He slanted his head, not biting. “Isi left you, huh?”

  “The bitch decided she likes rock n’ roller dick better than biker dick. Her loss.”

  “Hey, I want your dick.” Kitty, a Tingle dancer who was sleeping with Jump, slid around me, pressing herself against my body. I threw an arm over her shoulder and laid a sloppy kiss on her until we both laughed like we were drunk and ready to get into it right there on the front steps, ignoring Claw and his buddies who stood there watching us.

  “You had your fill of my leftovers, huh, motherfucker?” said Claw taking in Kitty from head to toe.

  Molten iron flared through my chest, and I pulled Kitty close, a hand carelessly hanging over her exposed cleavage. “I enjoy pussy, man. When it opens wide for me, I’m in. If I got to convince it—what the fuck—I’m out.”

  He held my gaze. “Some women don’t know what’s good for ‘em.”

  A cold poison streamed through my veins drowning the fire that he was trying to set. The fucker was smart. He was trying to get a charge out of me. “You got that right,” I replied.

  Kitty patted my chest, breaking the lock he and I had on each other. “I got to get ready for my set, babe. See you after?”

  “Yeah, darlin’. I’ll be waiting.” I kept my eyes trained on her swaying hips and ass as she left Claw and me.

  “I ain’t done with Leo. You let him know.”

  “Dude, I don’t talk to that whack job. The little shit threatened me ‘cause I was doing his sister. I know the two of you got yourselves a little boy drama going, a lot of history, but he torched his own dad, for fuck’s sake. I’d watch your back. One thing’s for sure, he could be anywhere. He’s a regular boogeyman. You better check under your bed and in your closet every night, Claw.” Laughter erupted around us.

  “You’re laughing now, cocksucker,” muttered Claw, the intricate scar on his hand whitening as he flexed his fingers. “You won’t be later on.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Leo was getting antsy. It had been six months already. I was antsy.

  I’d written Isi lots of letters, and she sent me a lot in return. It helped me handle the unknown. Seeing her words written on paper was a lifeline. The curviness of her handwriting, the fat dots on her “i”s, made me grin. I could hear her voice in my head as I read. Georgia and I came up with a system. I’d send Jake to Dillon’s General Store for batteries or pens or socks or lighters, and he’d bring my letter for her over and pick up mine if there was one.

  Georgia was now working full-time at the store, keeping it afloat and actually doing pretty good. From what the guys told me, she and Isi had spruced up the place, so it looked fresher, more modern, in a way that Isi’s dad would have probably hated.

  Isi had designated an old vintage oil can as our post box. Couldn’t miss it—it had an eagle on it. My woman. She’d sliced the top off for easy access and kept it in plain view. When Jake would go to the store, he’d ask to use the restroom.

  “Do me a favor, don’t make a mess back there,” Georgia would tell him which meant that a letter from Isi was ready for pickup.

  “No, ma’am,” Jake would say. A shelf with vases and old oil lamps lined the hallway leading back to the bathroom. The oil can was in between the two oil lamps. He’d grab the can and hit the head where he’d take out her letter and put in mine. Then he’d bring her letter to me.

  Oh, it was Christmas every time. Every. Fucking. Time.

  Three weeks later Isi came back to Meager from a concert the Silver Tongues had at a county fair in Alabama. Knowing she was in the vicinity was exciting, made my pulse race. Even though I wouldn’t be seeing her, touching her, taking that chance … just knowing she was back on Black Hills soil, breathing the same air as me made me happy. I had to jerk myself to sleep that night knowing she was here, but I did
that a lot anyway. In bed, in the shower, thinking of her stroking me, licking me.

  She was in Meager for a couple of weeks and then left again to see Leo in Colorado. On her way home from Colorado, I met up with her at a motel outside of Laramie, Wyoming. She straddled my lap, me on the edge of the bed, holding her. I rubbed her back, my one hand cupping a breast over my old flannel shirt that she wore over her bare body. Her nipple hardened immediately, her torso twisted, and she pressed against me, making those low noises that signaled need, desire. Her impatience only inflamed my anticipation. I took her nipple in my mouth, grazing it with my teeth.

  She lifted up, rocking against me, her body seeking friction from mine, and I gave it to her, my hand cupping her ass, keeping her close as my fingers found her again. Fuck, I loved watching her come.

  Her lips brushed my forehead on a sigh. “I miss you so damn bad.”

  We held each other. “I’m sorry about the insurance not coming through on the warehouse,” I said. “That’s got to be rough.”

  “It is. But you know what? I’m not going to let it get me down. Maybe it’s a sign for me to take a new direction with the business. Georgia and I make a good team at the store. We want to downsize it. Separate the building in half, and rent out the one. Maybe turn the five and dime into another kind of store that modern Meager needs or doesn’t yet realize it needs. Something that Georgia can run on her own eventually, because the band is doing great, and I want to focus on that. How does that make you feel?”

  “Makes me all hot and bothered, baby.” My hands slid under the soft fabric of the shirt, over her warm, smooth skin and kneaded her tit.

  “No, honey, really. It doesn’t bother you that I’ll probably be on the road with the guys most of the year?”

  “No, it doesn’t. You’re chasing your wild, Is, and I love it. I don’t want you stuck and unhappy, feeling like you’re in some cage you can’t get out of. Not wondering what if. Not you.” I wanted her to be truly happy, not like my mother who always had one eye out the window, wondering where that special something was for her. My mother, who’d always been on the hunt for something better out there somewhere, if only she could take off and grab it, wherever that was, wherever it was. Not Isi. Isi knew what she wanted, and it was real, and she was all in. I admired that and would support her any way I could. I believed in her, I believed in us.

  She tangled her fingers in my hair, tugging on it the way she always did. “Your trust in me, in us, is a great honor. I want you to know that.”

  “An honor, huh?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Woman, since you’ve been singing regularly, you’ve come alive.”

  She let out a soft chuckle as she kissed the top of my head, laid a trail down my forehead, my nose, found my lips. “Have I tired you out, soldier?”

  “No ma’am,” I said as I rocked my pelvis against her so she could feel my throbbing hard-on.

  She laughed, and I wiped the hair from her face. “I don’t mean that. That’s always been on fire between us. I meant you—” I tapped her upper chest. “No doubts, no holding back, no—”

  “That’s because of you,” she said. “Because you believed in me. From the very, very first. I saw it in your eyes from the beginning.”

  My hand slid against her jaw. “I might have given you the nudge, some kind of permission you may have thought you needed, unleashed you—and you unleashed is a sight to see—but you’re the one doing, Is, and it inspires me to be better. Yeah, of course, I want us to be in the same bed every night, but, hell, we got time. We got time for whatever we want to do. I’m not going anywhere, I’m not in some rush. I’ll come to the gigs I can get to, and I’ll always be in Meager waiting for you. Always. Who knows, if you get a record deal and go on some tour, I’ll be following you on runs all over the country. Wouldn’t that be something?”

  She snuggled against me, her fingertips rubbing my chest. “That would be something,” she murmured.

  “Think of all the hot I-miss-you-so-bad sex we’re going to get up to.” I let out a laugh. But she didn’t laugh.

  She stroked my neck. “You’re a special man.”

  “I just love you, Is.” That was all I had to say. That I knew right from wrong. Worth from useless. I did. Our love was all the good, the right, the beautiful.

  “Your kind of love is special.” Her head tilted ever so slightly, her warm hand rubbing the edge of my jaw.

  “There’s only you for me,” I said. “Only you. You know that, and if you honor that, I’m good.”

  “You don’t ask for much, ever,” she breathed, holding me close. “I honor you, baby. I love you, Wreck.”

  My hands cupped her beautiful, silky breasts, and a tiny sigh met my lips as I stroked her nipples firmly with my thumbs.

  “Need you, Is. Need to be in you. Need to feel you.” My dick was sore, her lips were swollen, legs shaky, and neither of us gave a shit. We were living every moment we had together.

  I brushed the sides of the plaid flannel shirt she wore away from her gorgeous flesh. I turned and laid her back on the bed. My tongue lashed down her tummy and found its luscious home between her legs. I suckled her hard, and she shuddered. “Wreck, Wreck…” Two of my fingers slid inside her pussy, churning at her sweet spot. Her pelvis rocked in the rhythm that teased me, demanded of me. Her fingers curled in my shoulders. She cried out loudly, and my aching dick pulsed and twitched at the sound, at her sharp scent. I lifted her up and set her face forward on the bed, ass in the air.

  She turned her face, her gaze finding mine. “Do you jerk off thinking of me?”

  “You fucking tramp.” I licked at her puckered hole, teasing it with my thumb. “What do you think?” She relaxed her ass and let me in. Slowly, my thumb edged in deeper.

  She let out a low moan. “All the time.”

  My other hand slid down a damp thigh. “All the fucking time.”

  “Do it. I want to see.”

  I released her and fisted my cock at the root, twisting, stroking. My length hardened quickly as she watched, her tongue darting out to wet her lips, her fingers stroking between her legs. “Jesus, you’re so thick.”

  “You say that to all the boys, don’t you?” I smacked her ass, and she let out a gasp, laughing. “Now you’re going to take it.”

  I pushed her wet fingers out of the way, and I rocked into her slick, slick pussy, driving deep. Driving fast. My grizzled face scraped over the damp skin of her back. My hand went to her clit, stroking it hard as I thrust inside her. She cried out loudly.

  “Isi.” I came alive for her. She made me feel another level of alive.

  This was our time, our stolen time, a moment. And my every muscle was squeezed tight. She gripped me, pushed back against me, and one of her hands went between her legs, her fingers sliding over my wet shaft pounding her. Sweet, holy union. We came one after the other, and I slumped over her damp body.

  She reached out and gripped my middle. “Don’t pull out yet. Stay.”

  “Not going anywhere, baby.” I wiped her hair back from her neck.

  “It’ll always be this way for us, right?”

  My lips brushed her damp cheek. I swallowed a tear. I wanted to swallow all her tears. I never wanted Isi to cry again. “Always,” I replied.

  “Even if.”

  “Even if.”

  A handful of hours later, on my way back to Meager with dawn’s first buttery-light breaking through the clouds, I’d pulled up at a truck stop. I got myself a pen and a notepad at the convenience store and headed for the restaurant. As I drank my second cup of coffee, and pushed away the plate with the remnants of the pancakes and bacon I’d devoured, I wrote to Isi. Grinning like a fool, I couldn’t contain myself. It was barely seven in the morning, and yet I’d never felt more awake and alert in my life.

  I wanted to tell her more, express more, make sure she knew. Share. I knew it would please her, and what was more, I knew she would hold my confessions in her heart for u
s both. I’d climbed the top of El Cap and was breathing the air at its peak. That’s what pure honesty and trust between the two of us felt like. Clean, sharp. Raw. An achievement. The eager words poured forth, I couldn’t stop, I didn’t want to.

  My Is,

  You are mine, baby. Not like a thing that I own: my bike or my boots, my tools. I mean you’re me, part of me. Hell, you’re the poet, you can say all this better, prettier. I know that you and me together adds up to way the hell more than me apart. That with you I’m more me than I’ve ever been or hope to be. That good? Ha.

  I know we won’t be seeing each other again for at least a month. Like always I’ll be counting the days, the weeks. Or I won’t be counting to pretend I can hack it. But nothing helps. I miss you. Miss you so damn bad. I close my eyes at night, and I can hear your throaty voice, feel your soft hair on my chest, against my chin. Or in the morning when your arm slides around my middle and squeezes right before you get out of bed. That, I miss all those things.

  When this shit’s over, and it will be soon, we’re going on a vacation together. Just you and me. I want to see you on a beach, your hair flying in the breeze, your skin golden brown in the dazzling sun. You’re the one that’s dazzling. We’ll drink margaritas, you’ll wear pretty dresses, and we’ll watch the sunset and the sun rise over the Pacific. We can do something ridiculous like go to the circus. We deserve it.

  It’s funny, but I like writing these letters to you. Of course, I like getting yours even more. Have I told you that before? I think I have. When I get my hands on your envelope, my heart soars, but it’s trapped in my chest, and it literally hurts. All I can think about is getting somewhere on my own to open it and read and read it again and again. Reading yours, writing these are my lifeline, baby. I read your words, and I can hear your voice in my ear. My fingers brush over your sentences on the paper, and I think, yeah, everything will be all right. It’ll all be over soon enough. It will.