Disharmony

My Favorite Place

It turned out forgetting about the past was surprisingly easy. Especially when she was with Xavier.

She loved award show after parties. The music was pumping, the alcohol was free flowing and it was entertaining as hell to watch normally straight laced celebrities let loose.

So she and Xavier danced and mingled and took far too many shots of rum until she could barely remember her own name. Unfortunately, this meant she woke up with a wicked hangover the next morning.

She groaned as she lifted her torso, recognizing her surroundings as the bedroom of her Malibu beach house, though she had no idea how she’d gotten there, considering the awards show was in LA. But she didn’t put too much thought into it, as the sheets were crumpled and clothes were strewn on the floor and she had a massive headache and an urge to vomit.

Also, there was someone else in her bed.

Usually, she wouldn’t be too surprised about ending up in this situation, but she’d been keeping her promise to Henry about not being too wild and had managed to abstain from one night stands since the start of her tour. So when she looked to her side and vaguely made sense of the bare back of another human being, she was a little confused, to say the least.

Squinting her eyes and sucking in her bottom lip, she blinked rapidly as her vision became clearer. He was lying on his stomach, so all she could make out was dark brown hair. Pushing herself up with one hand, she leaned over him to see if she recognized his face, only to have her eyes widen with horror when she realized who he was.

Xavier.

Shit.

She wasn’t really sure what to feel.

On one hand, she pretty much wanted to jump his bones every time she saw him; that boy had a smile that could power all of Los Angeles and it was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. On the other, she’d pretty much shut Xavier down in the romance department, so sleeping with him could be construed as sending mixed signals.

She had meant what she said about not yet being ready to let him in, but based on what she remembered of the previous night, she found herself more and more wanting to tell him everything.

Maybe today she would take that first step towards letting down her emotional walls. Maybe this was the sign.

She was pulled from her thoughts when she heard Xavier stirring. He shifted slightly, turning his head to face her as his eyes slowly opened. One side of his mouth lifted and his voice came out hoarse and gravelly.

“Morning.”

“Hey,” she whispered, wondering if he’d put together the confusion of their current situation.

Blinking, he settled his cheek into the pillow and sighed. “I’m hungry.”

“Same,” she nodded in agreement, chewing on her bottom lip as she decided she should probably make him aware of what was happening. “Xavier…I think we slept together last night.”

His eyes shot open and he pondered the thought for a moment, squirming beneath the covers before he burst out laughing. “No, we didn’t.”

Utterly confused, Kari glanced, noting that she hadn’t worn a bra with her awards show dress, so when she’d disrobed, she’d ended up topless. Performing the same wiggling action that Xavier had done a few seconds earlier, she realized she was still wearing underwear. She supposed that did reduce the likelihood of anything happening by quite a bit.

Biting her lip, she peeked beneath the covers to make sure Xavier was in the same situation and burst out laughing when she realized he was still wearing his fitted black pants from the night before.

“How is that comfortable?” she laughed.

He shook his head and buried his face in the pillow, his voice coming out muffled but cheery. “I probably couldn’t get them off.”

She blinked and then burst out laughing again. “Dude, we really need to get you some looser pants.”

Her laughter was stalled when she realized the full force of her headache and she groaned as she fell back against the pillow again. “s**t. Are you as hungover as I am?”

Xavier groaned in response, so she took it as a yes.

“Know any good remedies?” she asked hopefully.

He lifted his head a little and shot her a sly grin. “Isn’t that supposed to be your area of expertise?”

Of course, he was right. She’d woken up plenty of times with no memories of the previous night and a headache that made her want to scream. By now, she was an expert at getting herself back to normal.

“Yeah,” she let out a breathy laugh. “Actually, I know just the thing.”

Rolling to the side, she let the sheets fall as she swung her legs to the floor and smirked knowingly when she heard Xavier bury his head in the pillow again to keep from looking. She ran to her closet and pulled on a hoodie and a pair of yoga pants that was lying on the floor before quickly brushing her teeth and washing her face and heading to the kitchen. 

She hummed as she pulled various bags of fruit from the freezer and spinach and coconut milk from the fridge. Without bothering to measure out the right proportions, she dumped the desired ingredients into a blender and sent it whirring just as Xavier walked into the room.

He was still shirtless, but looked a little more awake, his face damp as though he had just splashed it with water.

“So,” he said as he slipped into a barstool across from her. “Do actually remember anything from last night?”

She shook her head as she turned to grab two large glasses from the cupboard behind her. “I remember pretty much nothing after we got out of the limo at the after party.”

“Same,” he sighed, propping his elbows on the counter top and holding his cheeks in his palms. He looked ridiculously adorable and she held in a laugh. “Hopefully we didn’t do anything stupid.”

Kari snorted, raising her voice over the sound of the blender. “Xavier, this is me you’re talking about. If I got drunk enough that I don’t remember what happened, chances are I probably did something illegal. Plus, we somehow ended up an hour away from where we’re supposed to be, so something wild must have occurred.”

He pursed his lips and studied her as she switched off the blender and poured the goopy green liquid into the two glasses. “Are you gonna get in trouble with Henry?”

She shrugged and slid his glass across the counter. “Are you gonna get in trouble with Jack?”

Xavier sighed and wrapped his fingers around the glass, pulling it towards him. “I’m not the one that supposed to be staying out of trouble.”

She lifted one side of her mouth into a wry smile as she brought the glass to her lips. “Well, maybe getting into trouble will be good for you.”

“Maybe,” he replied, “But it won’t be good for you.”

“Just drink,” she sighed, rolling her eyes.

He did as he was told, grimacing as it slid down his throat and he shot her a look of complete disgust. “What’s in this?”

“Trust me,” she laughed, “You don’t want to know. But it’s my go to hangover cure.”

He nodded and they downed the rest of their smoothies as quickly as possible. While they waited to feel better, Kari decided it might be a good time to piece together the happenings of the previous night.

Taking a deep breath, she retrieved her phone from the floor of her bedroom and her laptop from where it sat on her living room table. The phone was first, because if she had done anything outrageous, chances were that she would have several strongly worded messages from Henry.

With a reassuring nod from Xavier, she woke her phone from its sleep mode and her eyebrows shot up in surprise at the result.

17 missed calls.

Henry probably wanted to kill her.

“Is it bad?” Xavier asked quietly.

She sighed. “We’ll see.”

Chewing on her bottom lip, she unlocked her phone and called her voicemail to listen to the first of seven messages that Henry had left.

Kari, where the hell are you? I swear, if you’ve stolen a car and driven to another state again, I’m absolutely going to…well, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but it’s going to be bad. So bad. Bad enough that you’re actually going to hate me for the rest of your life. Call me when you get this.

The other six messages were pretty much the same thing with a variation on the threats and strings of imaginative curses.

She winced as she deleted the last of the messages, giving Xavier a small shrug when he shot her a worried look. “He’s pissed because he doesn’t know where I am. He didn’t mention anything about what I did last night besides disappearing, though.”

Xavier nodded towards her laptop. “Well, we can soon find out just how bad you were.”

Laughing, she logged into her computer and pulled up the celebrity gossip site she had bookmarked to look at when she needed a good laugh. Sure enough, her picture was on the first page.

Kari Parties Hard

Not the worst headline she’d ever read about herself. Below it, there was a picture of her standing on top of a table as she chugged what looked like a bottle of vodka.

Still, not the worst picture she’d seen of herself.

“That seems pretty average to me.”

She jumped as she realized Xavier had walked up behind her and was staring at her computer screen over her shoulder. Breathing deeply to restore her heart rate to normal, she nodded. “Yeah. I mean, considering they portray me as a wild child on a regular basis, a picture of me dancing on a table top isn’t exactly scandalous. It might not be as tame as Henry would like, but he’s seen me do far worse.”

She paused and raised an eyebrow at Xavier. “Where were you in all of this?”

He furrowed his brow as he scanned the picture before smiling widely and pointing to the corner of the photograph. “Right there.”

Her gaze shifted to where his finger led and she laughed at the sight of him standing on the ground by the table and smiling up at her like a proud father.

They read the remainder of the article to see if it could give them some insight as to how they ended up in Malibu, but only discovered that they’d spent hours dancing and mingling and generally having a good time before leaving together at around 3 in the morning. Luckily, there were no comments made about any romantic relationship between them. Apparently being together on tour made people used to her hanging out with Xavier.

“Still no idea how we got here,” she said, shutting the laptop, “But it doesn’t look like I did anything too crazy. I better call Henry so he doesn’t have a heart attack.”

“Yeah, I should call Jack as well,” Xavier agreed, padding back towards the bedroom to find his phone.

She held her breath as her phone rang and an extremely irritated Henry picked up.

“Kari? Where the hell have you been?”

“I’m in Malibu,” she explained. “At the beach house.”

“And how exactly did you get there?”

“No idea,” she answered honestly, walking towards the foyer and peeking outside to confirm that there were no stolen vehicles on the driveway. It was empty, meaning it was more than likely they’d taken a cab. “Probably taxi? There’s no cars outside, so I didn’t drive.”

“That’s good to hear,” he sighed with relief. “Is Xavier with you by any chance? Jack’s been freaking out all morning.”

“Yeah, he’s here,” she replied, walking back to the living room and plopping down on the couch as she watched Xavier appear every now and then in the bedroom doorway entrance as he paced while presumably having a similar conversation with Jack.

“Did you two…”

She rolled her eyes. “Henry, how is that any of your business?”

“The last time you two were alone, someone snapped a picture of you smooching and I nearly had a media spectacle on my hands, so it’s not a completely outrageous question,” he snapped back.

He was right, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of believing so. “For the last time, Xavier and I are just friends.”

“I know that’s not true,” he replied, “But as long as you keep it on the DL and I don’t have to bribe anymore websites to take down pictures, I’m not going to complain.”

She parted her lips to protest before realizing it was a lose-lose situation and waiting for Henry to continue.

“Anyways,” he went on, “You and Xavier better get your little asses back to LA as soon as possible. You have some studio time booked before we fly out to Chicago for the next show.”

“Roger that,” she nodded. “I’ll call a car. Later, Henry.”

She wandered into the bedroom to find Xavier pulling on his shirt from the previous night and running a hand through his hair in an attempt to tame his messy curls.

“Did you get a lecture?” she asked sympathetically as she rummaged through her drawers for clean undergarments and a change of clothes.

“Not really,” he looked surprised. “But we should probably get back.”

“Probably,” she laughed. “I wish I remembered last night. I’m sure it was epic. We always have a good time together, don’t we?”

It wasn’t until after she spoke that she realized the truth behind that question. Xavier made her feel utterly normal. He didn’t judge her or act different around her or treat her as if she was fragile or damaged. He just saw her as a person and it made spending time with him the most amazing thing in the world because she never had to worry about being anyone other than herself.

His eyes twinkled and he nodded slowly. “That we do.”

She couldn’t help but smile as she hugged her change of clothes to her chest. “I have to go into the studio when we get back. Do you wanna come?”

“Sure,” he replied immediately. “You working on stuff for the new album?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “It’s not coming out for a while, but I wanna start recording the stuff I have written so I can decide what to cut out later.”

“Of course,” he agreed. “I did the same thing with my album.”

Another thing they had in common.

When they had first met, Kari had thought they were polar opposites; and they were in many ways. Their personalities were drastically different and there were times when he made her so mad that she wondered why she put up with him in the first place. But they agreed on the important stuff: like how the fans were always their number one priority and how they would do absolutely anything for the people they love.

It turned out their writing processes were similar as well, and for a while now, she’d been toying with the idea of asking Xavier to co-write a song for her next album. Maybe being in the studio with him would help solidify her thoughts on it.

They got dressed and greeted the car about fifteen minutes later and arrived back at their LA hotel to knowing looks from Henry and Jack. After the world’s most luxurious bubble bath, Kari met Xavier in the hallway and they headed to the studio together.

As they laughed and wrote and swapped ideas, she wondered if he understood how much this meant. Her songs were sacred. They were a part of her soul, a page from her diary, and yet she found herself easily being able to share them with Xavier. It was terrifying, yet exhilarating.

She’d just finished recording a version of a song she’d written specifically for the fans and walked into the sound booth to find Xavier contemplatively reading through her song book. Despite the fact that sight caused her stomach to twist into nervous knots, she didn’t have the urge to snatch it from his hands. Besides, watching his lips purse and his brow furrow in concentration as he carefully read each line was fascinating.

“What’s this one?” he asked, looking up and holding out the leather journal and tapping a finger on a page that had the words ‘Tell Me Why’ written across the top in large block letters.

“It’s about my mom,” she replied bluntly.

His eyebrows rose in surprise. “The lyrics are very angry.”

“That pretty much sums up my relationship with my mom.”

He sucked in his bottom lip and spoke softly as she plopped down in a chair beside him. “You don’t talk about her much.”

Kari shrugged. “We don’t really get along. She never really supported me doing this for a living. I swear, she’s just waiting for my career to falter so she can say I told you so.”

“Sorry,” he winced. “I didn’t realize your relationship with her was that strained.”

“It’s alright,” she sighed. “It might have been a good thing, actually. I built my career entirely on my own and even if it all ends tomorrow, I can always look back and I know that I was the one that made my dreams come true.”

He nodded and they sat in silence for a few moments before he spoke again. “Will you play it for me?”

“Sure,” she agreed, a little surprised by the request. It was an unrecorded song, one that she’d written just to get her feelings on paper but never had any intention of actually bringing to life.

Standing, she walked back into the recording studio to grab her guitar and settled herself into the chair once more, strumming a few times as she reacquainted herself with how the melody went in her head. With one more strum, she began. With each passing second, the song got faster. Probably because the more she sang, the angrier she became.

She repeated the chorus, glancing at Xavier’s expression to find him watching her with great attention as she took a deep breath and slowed down a bit for the bridge. There was another repeat of the chorus, this time without furious strumming before she stopped playing entirely and sang the last few lines on their own.

 “It’s good,” he said quietly as she set the guitar to the side. “How come you never recorded it?”

“I never felt the need to,” she responded. “I guess I thought writing it was therapy enough. But singing it out loud did feel really good.”

“I’m glad,” he shot her a small smile. “And thanks for singing it for me. I feel like I know you even better now.”

Although she agreed, she reached out to punch his arm jokingly as she lowered her chin to hide her blushing cheeks. “You’re getting soft on me, Spiers.”

He winked before laughing and turning in his seat to grab his guitar. They spent the rest of her studio session swapping songs and lyric ideas and possible harmonies before Kari drove them back to their hotel and they snuck in the back entrance.

Polite as ever, he walked her to her door and she hesitated once she had stepped inside, not quite ready to let him go.

“Today was fun,” she smiled brightly. “And so was last night, I’m sure. I’m really glad you’ve been around, Xavier.”

She expected him to return the pleasantry, but instead he stepped right up to the doorway, looked her directly in the eyes, and said, “I’ve wanted to kiss you all day.”

Her eyebrows shot up and she felt her heart skip a beat as she whispered, “I’ve wanted to kiss you all day, too.”

He took another step so that he was now just inside the doorway. “Then why didn’t you?”

Her initial reaction was to repeat the words back to him, before realizing she was the one entirely at fault in this situation. They had both stated their feelings, but she was the one calling the shots because she was the one claiming she wasn’t ready.

But despite the fact that she was absolutely terrified of opening herself up to Xavier, she couldn’t help but trust him.

“I’m scared,” she admitted, avoiding eye contact.

“I know,” he whispered, raising a hand to cup her cheek gently. “But you can’t keep yourself caged off forever, Kar. Nobody knows what’s going to happen.”

She nodded slowly. “You’re right. I know you’re right.”

“So what do you want, Kar?”

Stretching her lips into a slow smile, she looked up at him from beneath her eyelashes and reached out to tug on his t-shirt. “Remember how we woke up this morning?”

He quirked an eyebrow in slight confusion. “Half naked in your bed?”

Her grin grew. “Yep. I’m thinking this time; we should go for fully naked in my bed.”

“I’m good with that plan,” he laughed, tilting his chin downwards.

She clutched his t-shirt in her fist and leaned up to kiss him soundly on the mouth. This time, she didn’t hold back. She melted against him, throwing her arms around his neck and smiling against his lips as she enjoyed the warmth of his arms wrapping around her torso. She tugged at his hair and he nipped at her lips and what started as playful and exploratory soon became hungry and passionate.

Which is why she was a little dejected when he pulled away until she his eyes, sparkling and dark, and her heart began to race again. And then he kicked the door shut, grabbed her hand, and pulled her towards the bedroom.