Santa Monica, California
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
(8:00 pm)
********************
Dave Stewart was being entirely too free with his hands.
Lindsey had been sitting at Stevie's dining room table for an hour, and he had been unable to notice anything else but the way Dave found a way to touch Stevie with every new time he spoke to her, or the way they had been laughing together all through dinner at things that were obviously inside jokes. Stevie was no better herself, he thought, leaning into Dave with each little giggle or cackle and doing everything short of cutting his steak into bite-sized pieces for him on his dinner plate. He wondered if she was intentionally trying to make him jealous, or if she was just doing that thing she did that was so quintessentially Stevie - enjoying the beauty of the moment in such a jovial and lighthearted manner that every man in the room mistook her energy for flirting and fell more and more in love with her with every gleaming smile and every carefree toss of the long golden spun silk that was her hair.
He tried to put out of his mind the fact that one night in 1983, after a Eurythmics concert, when Stevie and Joe Walsh were in the process of splitting up for one of a million times, Dave and Stevie had spent the night together - in the very same bedroom where, only a year prior, Lindsey had cradled her in his arms like a baby on the floor of the walk-in closet as she sobbed her heart out and clung to him like a life preserver in the middle of the ocean because her best friend Robin was dead.
He tried to forget that "Don't Come Around Here No More" had been conceptualized by Dave the next morning as he'd waited for his limo, listening from behind a conveniently-located hydrangea bush as Stevie, high as a kite and shouting from a second-story window, had dumped Joe's possessions onto the pavement of the winding driveway and told him not to "come around here no more!" Of course, her demand hadn't lasted more than a few days before Joe's things were back in her closet and Joe was back in her bed.
He tried to forget that Jimmy Iovine had gotten a door slammed in his face a few weeks later as Stevie had stormed out of the studio upon hearing the origin of the track and telling him that "all you assholes stick together anyway" and to give the song to Tom, and to go fuck himself while he was at it.
He tried to forget Dave's comment just before dinner about sharing the jacuzzi in the backyard with Stevie, who'd owned the house for four years and had yet to try out her own jacuzzi. "Now's your chance," Dave had teased, smiling devilishly beneath his black fedora, taking Stevie's hand in jest as if to lead her outside to the jacuzzi right then and there. Stevie's shy smile and downcast eyes had told Lindsey she was embarrassed...but not very.
He tried to forget that the last time he himself had been in a jacuzzi was with Stevie in 1997, in her backyard in Phoenix under the stars of a warm July night, just after Chris and Lori had said good night and gone into their own house to put Jessi to bed. Stevie had worn a black bathing suit with a gold zipper down the front that barely contained her breasts, and after too many margaritas and the sound of Dave Matthews on the radio singing "Crash Into Me" he could do nothing else, finally pinning her to the side of the jacuzzi and lowering the little gold zipper, freeing her soft, round breasts to the touch of his hands as he kissed her like his life depended on it...because in July 1997, the year of The Dance, it had.
He tried to forget that three years later, on his tropical destination wedding trip with Kristen, they had gotten into a minor argument on their way to bed because earlier that night he'd been "distant and weird" in the jacuzzi at the resort. He hadn't had the courage to explain - nor would it have been right to do so - that being in the jacuzzi with her had made him remember that night three years before, when he and Stevie had hurried back into the house, dripping wet and giggling like kids at a community pool, dabbing at each other futilely with towels and racing upstairs to bed to finish what they'd started in the jacuzzi. His mind had flashed to peeling the soaking wet black Lycra from Stevie's warm, damp flesh, tasting the lavender of the hot tub bubbles as he'd devoured her with his lips and his tongue and his teeth before sinking into her and feeling strands of her wet hair against his face because their foreheads were fused together, his eyes locked with hers below him as they raced towards the finish line and she finally clung to him, trembling, and just about shrieked his name and that she loved him so fucking much.
He'd been trying to forget all of this because there was so much he couldn't stop himself from remembering as he sat across from Stevie at the table, and all of it had to do with their night together in San Jose. Every girlish little giggle at the table brought him back to the giggles she'd hidden in his neck as he'd reacquainted himself with how ticklish she was. Every sigh of tiredness or resignation to something that was said at dinner reminded him of the sighs of pleasure that echoed through her San Jose hotel room as he'd traced his fingertips over every inch of her body and told her how beautiful she was, how soft, how sweet. Every time she flipped her hair back over her shoulder or tucked it behind her ears, he remembered the way her hair had tickled his knees in the darkness as she'd arched her back in ecstasy, moving on top of him like a perfect graceful ballerina and letting her cries of pleasure tear unabashedly through the quiet of the night.
Lindsey was beginning to wonder how much more of this dinner he could take before telling Dave Stewart to take his ridiculous hat and silver skull rings and his guitars and his seemingly innocent dirty jokes and go fuck himself.
He needn't have worried for long, though, because as his mind came back to join his body at the dinner table, Sharon Celani had risen from the table and Lori and Kellianne were doing the same, and he heard Waddy's voice in the mix of the chatter telling Kellianne she had outdone herself tonight. Dinner was clearly over, and it was time to get back to work.
"Hey Lindsey, can I talk to you in private for a minute?"
Lindsey turned around from where he'd just risen from his chair at the table, and Stevie was standing in front of him. She wore a slightly anxious smile and was wringing her hands, which were covered in black fingerless gloves. He could tell she was trying not to let on that she was nervous, which she'd been doing for the entire time he'd been there. She'd looked so uneasy at first, opening the door to him with a tense smile on her face and Sulamith in her arms, that he'd decided to hold off on giving her the Animal Crackers he'd brought, not wanting to start off with such a personal gift tied to so many memories.
"Sure," he said, a little surprised by her question. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Dave had been watching their exchange, as had Lori. He looked back at Stevie then, electing to ignore the interested parties in the room, because Stevie was right. They did need to talk in private.
"I have to let Sulamith out," Stevie announced, taking his hand and leading him into the kitchen beyond the formal dining room, where the dog had been eating her own dinner from a pink heart-shaped bowl. "Come out to the yard with me...I'll carry the dog if you carry the wine."
Before he could blink, Lindsey was being led into the large gourmet's kitchen, where an excited little yorkie in a Tiffany blue sweater began spinning around and jumping at Stevie's presence. In one quick scooping motion Stevie lifted the tiny dog and held her tenderly in her arms like an infant. Looking down at the dog and smiling, she said in a soft voice, "Did you eat your whole dinner, sweetie pie? You ate your dinner like a good baby." She placed a kiss between the dog's tiny ears. "Mommy loves you, baby girl." She looked up at Lindsey and then, motioning with her head towards the island countertop, said, "That bottle over there has your name on it, Linds."
Lindsey had barely recovered from the sweetness with which he'd heard her speak to Sulamith, thinking for the millionth time that she would have made an incredible mother. He looked at the bottle of wine on the counter which sat beside two glasses, and, narrowing his eyes, discovered it was 1961 Lafitte Rothschild, his favorite wine. "Stevie..." He couldn't muster up a thing to say from the jumble in his mind, but he didn't have to. Stevie was already smiling at him, her big brown eyes narrowed in kindness.
"Your help with this song is at least worth a bottle of Lafitte," she said. "Don't you think?"
Lindsey swallowed hard and said, "I've got the wine if you've got the dog. Let's go." He knew he was grinning like an idiot but he couldn't help himself. He grabbed the bottle and glasses and followed her through the glass door to the deck, watching her hair swirling around in the deck lights like spun gold and holding his breath. Stevie knew as well as he did that if he was going to help her with "Soldier's Angel", they had to talk about their night together in San Jose.
Something told him this would either be the easiest conversation they'd ever had, or the hardest.
********************
YOU ARE READING
My Heart
Fanfiction***Another In Your Dreams era tale*** Stevie Nicks has spent the better part of 2010 having the time of her life. After agreeing to create her first studio album in a decade in her luxurious Santa Monica home, Dave Stewart has added immeasurably to...
