That Blue Gibson

CH 93

"Can we talk?"

She sounded hopeful... or maybe he was just imagining it. 

"You can talk all you want," he muttered, the pictures he had been sent of her and Johnny at The Rainbow were still fresh in his mind as he leaned against the foyer wall and crossed his arms.

Liz calmly finished climbing the front steps and took a deep breath to start explaining, but a call from the dark driveway made her jaw snap shut. 

"You good, baby girl?"

Dave slowly craned his neck to see Jesse nervously watching them from the seat of his bike and felt as if he might snap. She had been on a fucking date with Depp, knocking back shots like they were best buddies and then showed up on the back of Jesse's bike when she had specifically promised him she wouldn't anything of the sort and now she was here to beg for forgiveness? "She's good, man," he replied for her, eager to hear how she was going to explain her way out of this one.

Liz closed her eyes and sighed deeply, pivoting on her heel to wave goodbye to Jesse when he fired up his bike. Once the bike was revved enough to wake the entire neighborhood, he gunned it out of the driveway and down the hill. 

Dave waited until it was quiet again then raised an eyebrow at her. "Baby girl?"

"Do you want me to start with that or with the thing that I agonized over the entire trip here?" she asked, her voice low and even. 

"Ladies' choice."

"Great," she sighed and reached into her leather jacket to produce a white card with his handwriting on the front in black marker. 

He recognized it instantly as the one he decided upon after having written several drafts in the front seat of Jordyn's rental car as she broke several Parisian traffic laws to get him to the airport before Liz left. The first notes were long, poetic and romantic, but they didn't feel right. They weren't the words he really wanted to tell her and in the end, he had settled on a memory from the night they met, knowing it would get through to her better than some bullshit Hallmark prose. Can we start over?

"I...," she started to speak and he looked from the note to her face just as the tears spilled over her lashes, "I had a whole speech but I was never any good at monologues. Maybe I found this far too late, but I'd like to start over too... If you're still willing."

He could very easily toss her a polite, 'No, thank you' and turn her out into the night. She knew where Taylor and Allison lived, certainly they'd give her a ride home and then he'd be free from the drama that seemed to plague his life as of late. He could simply walk away and go back to running the vast musical empire he had so painstakingly created, maybe he could even check out of that as well and just be a dad for a while, but if he were honest with himself he knew he'd always miss her. He'd always wonder what she was up to and if someone was making her laugh as much as he did.

"You ready for that date?" he asked casually, taking her by surprise.

She tilted her head slightly in confusion, but dashed the tears off her cheeks and forced a smile, "I mean, that's why I'm in this dress."

"Great," he quickly repeated her words and snatched his keys off the little table next to the door, knowing that if he stayed in that house with her another moment they wouldn't be going anywhere. 

Liz's heels clicked on the tile as she followed him out into the garage, then stopped short when she saw the entirety of his motorcycle collection lined up next to the Tesla. He had finally managed to get all of them out of the garage at his old place, much to Jordyn's delight, but didn't even realize that Liz had only seen two of them until that moment. She walked between them, running her fingers over the custom paint on the tank of his newest Harley and glanced up when she heard him swear. He was standing on the other side of the Tesla, staring down at the floor with an annoyed look on his face.