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You can imagine my surprise when I found Tommy waiting for me when I got off the plane in Boston, standing there in the terminal with a sly smile on his face, like he knew some big secret that I didn't have a clue about. I just nodded to him and started to walk past him, kind of hoping he was there for some altogether different reason, but he stepped out in front of me and reached to give me a hand with my bags and guitar case.
"Welcome to temp-ville, man."
I looked him up and down uncertainly. Part of me wanted to get on the next plane back to Malibu, rather than put up with him...he'd seemed a tolerable-enough guy when we'd met, that one night, but he'd also rubbed me the wrong way on a lot of levels; the rest of me wanted to stick around, because there was a chance Wish was going to show up, what with her sort-of-a-brother being around.
The hope of running into Wish again won out; I handed him my bags and grunted, "Okay, fill me in. What's the deal?"
He gave me a Cheshire-Cat grin. "Simple: We need a backup guitar, and you're good; your style fits in with our work. When the word got around the rock music grapevine that Ill Noise's lead guitarist was out with appendicitis, and you were all on hiatus for a coupla months, at least, we just decided to send an invite. Glad you came."
Then he stopped dead, and his usual cockey, wise-ass air evaporated for a moment. In a perfectly guileless tone, he added, "Besides, Wish would love to see you again."
That decided things for me right then and there; if there were any chance this might lead to further meetings with the green-eyed ocean lady of my dreams, I was willing to put up with her "brother".
We retrieved Rocky from stir and got all my stuff out to a beat-up old van he'd left in the airport's short-term parking lot, and piled everything and everyone in. I took a minute out to reassure Rocky that everything was okay, and to offer him a kitty treat, and then we climbed in and set off.
As we pulled out onto the highway, Tommy glanced back at the cat carrier and commented, "Nice that you're a cat person. Until Razor joined the group, Wish used to ride along with the tour, sometimes, so we're used to cats in the bus. But she's not perfect; she's taken up with a few buttheads that got along with cats like I get along with elevator music; she ended up dumpin' 'em like yesterday's garbage...and us guys had to dump one of 'em into a dumpster to get the message across when he wouldn't take 'no' for an answer."
I peered around at him warily; that could have been taken as a veiled threat. But there was nothing in his attitude to suggest that he was leaning on me for any reason whatsoever; he seemed genuinely pleased that I was a cat-lover. I finally ventured a small smile and told him, "Too bad I wasn't around; I might've helped out. I never could stand jerks who think they're the only important ones in a relationship; they're throwbacks to the Neanderthal stage. Anyone who thinks romance is all about clubbing a woman over the head and dragging her back to his cave deserves to be in a cage somewhere."
He favored me with a surprised look for a second, then turned his attention back to the road. I thought I spotted a faint hint of a smile, but I wasn't sure. But I did feel something coming from him that felt like guarded approval. I settled back in my seat and tried to relax; this looked like it just might work out, after all.
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