In Drummer Heaven

Darcy The Lockbox

"I think I've got you beat." I say.

I pick up my hair and turn the stool so my back is to Tommy. We've been talking about scars and how we got them. I have a couple on the back of my neck that make a cross.

"Okay, what the hell did you do to do that?" He asks with a laugh.

"The horizontal one I fell out of a tree when I was like five or six. The vertical one my cousin throw a coke bottle at the back of my head when I was ten." I explain and he laughs.

"You have quite the life, Darcy." Tommy says and runs his thumb across the scars. "In a weird ass shape."

"A cross." I say and turn around.

"You know, I thought it looked like a T." He says.

"What T for Tommy?" I ask and he laughs.

"Well if it works." Tommy says and I smile. "You've got a really beautiful smile."

"Thanks, I really like yours." I admit.

"Well I smile a lot more when you're around." He says and his gaze drops to my lips.

Tommy starts to lean in closer to me and I smile. I lean in towards him, our mouths are almost touching when the bar tender yells.

"Last call, everyone! Last call!" He yells.

"Oh shit." Tommy mumbles and pulls back.

I look around for my band. The bar has pretty well empty. There's a couple of drunks passed out face down on the tables. My band is no where to be found and I look back to Tommy.

"My band left." I say and he laughs.

"Mine as well." Tommy admits. "You want to do something?"

"Yeah." I nod. "Sounds good to me."

We pay for our drinks and walk out of the bar. The bars are all closing and drunks are flooding out into the street. The neon lights glow against the inky black of the sky. Tommy and I wade through the sea of drunks and hookers.

I feel myself starting to feel the effects of drinking. The neon lights start to burn my eyes and I start to blink. My walking slows to a stop. Before I know it there's an insane amount of people pushing past me. My head starts to get heavy and I feel like I'll fall asleep standing up.

Someone's hand wraps around my wrist and yanks me forward. I collide with someone and they start laughing.

"You okay, Darcy?" Tommy laughs and I nod.

"I just kinda got lost in my head, I guess." I admit and he smiles.

"You looked possessed. Like I was watching a horror movie or something." He says as we start walking again. "Dealing with you is enough is to scare a guy."

"Sorry about that." I say and he his fingers lace through mine.

"Just don't scare me like that again." Tommy says and I look up at him.

He looks straight a head while we walk and Tommy is quite a bit taller than me so he walks faster than me. Soon the strip disappear to darkness and we come up at a park. I look up at Tommy again and he's smiling.

We climb up onto the monkey bars and lay across them looking up at the star. We lay with our heads beside each other's.

"I love the stars." I admit.

"Yeah me too." Tommy admits. "How long have you been in LA?"

"Since I was sixteen." I admit. "What about you?"

"Since I was about a year old. We moved from Greece." He explains.

"You're Greek?" I ask and he nods.

"Well my mom is." Tommy says. "I'm Tommy." He laughs and I smile. "What about you?"

"What about me?" I wonder.

"All I know about you is that your first name is Darcy, you work in a bar, and you play drums. What's Darcy's story?" He asks and I shrug. "Don't shrug at me either." I laugh. "Where are you from? I've heard Chicago and New York."

"Neither actually. I'm from this little town Cameron, it's in North Carolina." I say and he looks over to me.

"You're shitting me!" Tommy says and I shake my head.

"I'm not kidding." I laugh.

"You're a little country girl!" He says and I nod. "Tell me about it."

"We had this big dude ranch with horses and people came there every weekend. I used to chase our dogs through the fields. We'd go for walks in the woods and I'd run a head of my parents, I'd hide behind a tree and jump out at them." I explain. "We used to go hunting and finishing. The stars shined the brightest there, without a doubt. We were stone cold country by the grace of God."

"You talk in the past tense." Tommy notices.

"My parents died when I was little. I had to move to New York with my uncle." I say.

"I'm sorry." He says quietly and I look up at the stars.

"See those three really bright stars?" I ask and he nods. "That's Orion's Belt. If you connect the stars around it, you make the hunter Orion."

"How do you know that?" Tommy wonders.

"My dad loved the stars, I wouldn't dare forget anything he told me." I admit.

"You miss them?" He wonders.

"Of course I do, I mean it's been years but I remember everything about my parents." I say quietly. "My dad got me into music, he used to play his guitar every night. My mom loved to sing."

It goes quite for a second and I look over to him.

"What got you into drums?" I wonder and he looks over to me.

"I liked to make noise as a kid. I guess it's all pretty fitting." Tommy admits with a smile. "What about you?"

"Same reason." I smile and he looks down to my lips.

"Between the two of us we could make a lot of noise." He says quietly.

"Yeah." I agree in a whisper.

In the same second we both move closer to the other and his mouth connects with mine. We kiss gently for a second until he pulls away.

"You want to go back to my place?" Tommy wonders and I nod.

"Yeah. Sounds good to me." I agree.