Page 3 of Best Friend Burden

Kiefer and I made our way there, and the changing room was small. Very small. With one of those doors that swung back and forth with the slightest touch, like the entrance to a saloon in an old western. But it served its purpose, so whatever. Besides, it's not like I was ashamed of my body. Back in Austin, toplessness was legal and, while it wasn't typical, you could walk around practically naked, which I did one night on Sixth Street when hopping from bar to bar.

So I shoved myself inside the booth and put the blouse up on a hanger, knocking my elbows against the side of the walls in the process. I could have gone slower, but I was feeling the pressure of time and practically ripped my shirt off, tossing it to the ground. When I did, I accidentally placed one of my heels on the blouse. The heel slipped and I lost balance, then fell straight through the swinging barn doors, screaming.

It all happened in slow motion. I was headed straight for the ground, tits out and face first. It was fine — a Texas girl like me was tough enough to hit the ground and get back up — but Kiefer was also raised in Texas, where he was brought up to be a gentleman and wasn’t about to let a woman get hurt on his watch. He had to be a hero.

His hands flew out, he cupped them to catch me, and catch me they did. I fell boobs first into his strong Texan hands, pressing my semi-erect nippies into his palms, separated only by the thin fabric of the bra. And once he grabbed on, those nipples got so stiff, like handlebars on a bicycle, that they nearly shot through the cotton.

“Oh my God,” he said, still in slow motion. I could see the embarrassment on his face as he jolted back and let go, which sent me toppling to the floor with a thud. It hurt, but not nearly as much as the emotional pain inflicted by the embarrassment of being grabbed by my front cannons.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm so sorry.”

I got up and ran back into the changing room before he could see that my face was as red as the dick ketchup stain.

“I swear,” he said, “I didn't mean to do that.”

He was deeply apologetic. The least I could do was make a joke of it and try to laugh it off.

“Usually I expect a boy to buy me dinner before letting him get to second base,” I yelled from the changing room.

Maybe he couldn't tell I was joking from behind the wall without seeing my face, or maybe I wasn't really joking. Those countless nights back in high school, thinking of him as my hand moved between my legs — it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for him to take me out and show me a good time.

But I didn't expect him to take my comment seriously.

“Okay,” he said. “How's tonight sound?”

“YES!” I said, much too quickly and loudly. And my face got even redder.

CHAPTER2

***KIEFER***

Life was supposed to be better than this. It wasn't so long ago that I'd gotten everything I'd wanted and my dreams were coming to fruition. Well, that wasn't exactly true. My dream was to become a rock star and tour the world, spreading the joy of music to audiences near and far, transporting the people at my shows to a mental state of nirvana.

But I made it through my 20s, and that didn't happen. So it wasn't ever going to happen. The odds of becoming a rock star after the age of 25 were pretty much nil. You’d never headline at Madison Square Garden or the Hollywood Bowl — the best you could hope for was a special performance in a retirement community. As such, I had to come up with a compromise dream. And I thought I'd had it.

I was hired as a session musician for Cleopatra Records, a record label that focused on young, hip, independent artists with true heart, doing interesting things. It wasn't that pop music is bad, per se, but it's hard to remain personal when you've got a billion fans. And, while it would be killer to lay down the bass line on a Beyoncé track, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. With Cleopatra, I would get to be playing alongside the undiscovered geniuses and help them find their audience.

But Cleopatra got bigger than it should have. And money is as addictive as any drug and twice as dangerous. After they had a taste of success, suddenly discovering new talents wasn't as important as having the next big hit. Every once in a while, we might find someone with true heart, but Ernie, our main producer and my boss, would suck all the soul out of them in an effort to get a single.

Maybe the most depressing thing, though, was that it didn't really bother me. Not as much as it should have, anyway. It was a stable job, and it brought in good money. The hours weren't bad and it provided me the freedom to focus on making my own music if I wanted to.

But I didn't want to.

Whatever motivation I had to become a genuine artist was gone, and I'd officially sold out to the man. And I didn't even care.

It was like that line in Spinal Tap, “As long as there's sex and drugs, I can do without the rock and roll.”

Around this time, though, I also met Wendy. She was beautiful and sweet, in a girl next-door kind of way, and she wasn't so much into the drugs. We met online while I was beta testing a dating app my friend Mila had helped develop and hit it off almost instantly.

Unfortunately, I was drinking and using too much during the relationship and she made an ultimatum on New Year's, telling me that if I didn't give up the vices that were going to kill me, she was going to leave me. There was a big fight because I wasn't about to let someone else tell me what to do.

And so, true to her word, she left me.

She ran out the door, leaving me without a New Year's kiss. I figured she'd calm down in the morning and we could talk. But like a wish on a monkey's paw, fate had another horrible plan. A drunk driver hit her at 70 miles per hour going down Mulholland, and I had to go in and identify what remained of her body.

And so Wendy got her wish. My inner bad boy died too. I vowed on that day to never take another sip of alcohol or put any more narcotics into my body.

That was just over a year ago and, truthfully, after the first week of sobriety, it wasn't so hard. I stopped going to parties with people way too young for me and focused on being a mature adult instead.

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