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whositmcwhatsit · 2 years ago

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Summary: Like a lot of girls, Chancy Crawford had once been able to call herself one of Elvis's girlfriends, but that was long time ago. Now, she called herself his friend, or his 'cousin' if any of his girlfriends asked. It was just easier that way. And their relationship was all about being comfortable and easy. Until she gets asked to come and join a tour that seems endless and cursed.

Previous chapters

Chapter 5: Forgive me?

At the hotel, Chancy felt herself easing into the routine. The room was already set up by the advance crew. She stood beside Elvis while one of the Colonel’s people outlined the itinerary for that evening. Apparently, the Governor was coming to the show and wanted to meet him beforehand. There was also a couple of long-time members of a fan club who would be backstage.

Joe managed to usher the outsiders out by arriving with dinner courtesy of some all-night diner that the local police had recommended. Chancy picked at the burger- far too overcooked for her taste- as Elvis and several of the guys tucked in with gusto. Jerry was there, sitting in the armchair adjacent to the sofa, and she could feel the weight of his gaze. Whether it was fixed on her or Elvis, she wasn’t sure because she didn’t dare return it.

“You not hungry, baby?” Chancy shook her head and gave Elvis the same fake smile she had been hiding behind for most of the night. She offered him the rest of her burger and her fries. “Hell, I shouldn’t…” Even as he was speaking, he picked up her burger and took a large bite out of it.

The guys started to disperse as soon as everyone finished eating and Chancy helped Joe tidy up after them while Elvis used the bathroom.

“We got the appointment with the doctor at 4.15,” Joe said as they threw wrappers into the paper sack. “So I’ll be up to get you at about 3.30. How is it feeling now anyway?”

“Oh, just a little achy,” she shrugged. “Thanks for arranging the doctor and the x-ray and everything.”

“No problem.” His grin was always quick and bright. “It’s my job, the road manager needs a healthy crew.”

“Is that what I am?”

“Of course. You help keep the show on the road, right?”

“I don’t know how much I help with that.”

“You do, of course you do,” Joe replied smoothly, shaking his head in admonishment. The bathroom door opened and Elvis came out in his pyjamas and robe. “Anyway, I’ll see you at 3.30.”

“Call the room around 2.30,” Elvis said. Chancy fought a little irritation at the lack of a request, or a please.

“Yep, not a problem. You want me to let Ricky-“

“No, I need a break from that horny little bastard,” Elvis replied, rolling his eyes. “Cha-Cha’ll wake me up, won’t you, baby?”

The sudden responsibility filled her with horror, but they were both looking at her like it was nothing, so she could only shrug and nod.

“Okay, so I’ll call at two thirty, pick up at three thirty. Good night all!” They called their good nights, despite dawn not being far away, and suddenly the room seemed very still and quiet.

“You gonna get ready for bed?” Elvis asked softly at her shoulder when she couldn’t find anything else to fuss over. “It’s getting pretty late…”

“Oh, yeah. You don’t have to wait for me though, honey. You need to rest- I had that nap on the plane, remember.” His gaze weighed tons, she was barely able to keep her head upright from the pressure, and she could feel him prodding and poking at the borders of her mind, trying to force his way in.

“Go get changed,” he said quietly. It was clear from his voice that he was speaking through clenched teeth.

Someone had already unpacked all of their things in the bathroom. She didn’t know who or how. Her toothbrush was laid out next to Elvis’, her washbag and make up bag all arranged on the counter. It seemed so ordinary and domestic.

She glanced up into the mirror as she squeezed the toothpaste out onto her brush and, for a second, didn’t recognise the woman staring back. She looked haunted, hunted, ready to make a run for it.

It was a relief to wash off all the make-up. She didn’t tend to wear much during the day when she was home and the layers she was wearing now were reserved for special occasions and nights out. Her skin felt oily and yet somehow dried out, like it was begging for relief from the onslaught. A little like how she was feeling in general. Her hair, well, her hair was never very happy with her.

Finally, when she had no more excuses, she came out of the bathroom and into the muted light of the bedroom. Elvis was in bed waiting, and he threw back the corner of the blankets in invitation as she approached, a small smile on his face.

Before she had even settled herself onto the mattress, he was presenting her with a pill held between his finger and thumb.

“Here, baby, take this,” he instructed, like it was perfectly normal for him to administer her medication, part boyfriend, part pharmacist. He looked a little put out when she drew back slightly.

“What is it?”

“Just something to help you sleep. It won’t hurt you.”

“I’m okay, darlin’, I don’t think I need it.” She tried to smile like her refusal was nothing, but he was frowning intently at her.

“It’s like you said though, honey, you’ve already had a nap. This’ll get you good and sleepy straight away and then we’ll fall asleep together at the same time. That way I know you’re safe and sound with me where I can protect you.”

The idea of Elvis being able to protect himself let alone her when he was deep in his usual sleep coma was laughable, but she could tell that he wasn’t about to let it drop. Since the plane, he had been looking at her a little more intently as if he was aware of her growing ambivalence.

Feeling perturbed, but knowing that she would not be able to escape without causing another outburst, Chancy opened her mouth and let him place the pill onto her tongue.

“Good girl,” he murmured as she took a sip of the water he offered her. “You know I always know what’s best for you.” He followed up the water with his lips, pressing her back against the pillows. She sank pliantly, her good hand clasping his shoulder.

“I’m gonna take care of you so good that you’ll know that this is right,” he murmured. “By God, there ain’t nothing more right than this.” He moved down on his side so that his head was beside hers on her pillow and he slid his legs either side of one of hers, entangling them. “See how good we fit together?”

His words were already slurring and though she had no doubt he intended to be emphatic, his tone was actually more imploring. She laid her hand on the side of his face, stroking the contour of his cheekbone with her thumb as he smiled slightly at the touch.

“Shhh, baby,” she whispered. It was harder to talk than she remembered, her tongue felt thick. “Go to sleep for Cha-Cha.” She jolted slightly as he tightened his grip around her, squeezing her to him so close that she was no longer sure where either of them began or ended.

Fall 1954

Chancy crossed the lawn arm-in-arm with a girl from her English class. It was Friday and they were discussing their plans for the evening ahead. Barb inhaled, and Chancy already knew her friend was going to start in again about going on a double date with Vince’s cousin that night.

“C’mon, Chance, please? I’ll owe you a huge favour. Vince said that he’s a real catch with the girls back home. Think about it, a true-blue looker in uniform. And he flies a fighter jet, so you know he knows how to manoeuvre his hands.”

“You know I can’t!” Chancy giggled, as Barb yanked her arm up and down like she was trying to pump her into submission.

“Why not? You gotta sit at home and wait to see if one of your neighbours gets a phone call for you?” Barb tried to soften her caustic words with a smile even though they both knew they were often true.

“No, the boys are playing at a dance tonight, at a high school, and it’s not too far away.”

“So you’re going along?”

“Well…” In truth, Elvis hadn’t asked her.

“Chance-”

A loud, sharp whistle pierced the pleasant ambient hum of the afternoon and they, along with half the kids on the lawn, turned in search of the source. A grin spread across Chancy’s face as she registered the truck, even more when a long, lean figure leaned out the window, beckoning her.

“Oh well,” Barb sighed in resignation. “I guess I can try Jeanie. Hey, you want me to wait for you?”

Chancy shook her hand and waved her hand behind her as she hurriedly crossed the sidewalk towards the truck. She leant against the open window and revelled in the sight of her boyfriend grinning at her, his arm hanging from the steering wheel.

“Hey, pretty girl, wanna go for a ride?”

Chancy wondered if her stomach would ever stop flipping when she saw those hooded eyes and that shy smile. She was weak, a prisoner, but an enraptured one.

“Sorry, fella,” she replied, forcing her face to stop grinning mindlessly. “I don’t think my boyfriend’d like it.” He pouted and tilted his head.

“Aw, c’mon, baby, not even a teeny, widdle one? No-one’ll know. Your boyfriend the jealous type or somethin’?”

“Yup,” she returned, stepping back and swinging her linked hands slightly. “And he’s big too. Built like a gorilla, an’ covered in hair.”

“Heck, you better get in here ‘fore he catches us then!” He leant across and opened the door, barely waiting for her to step up before he was dragging her across the bench seat.

“Hmmm,” he murmured. His full, warm lips were a gift. “I’ve been thinking about this all day.”

Chancy smiled and didn’t tell him that she had been doing the same; that she had probably failed her Math quiz because she had been thinking about how he had said goodnight to her outside her door the night before.

“Wait, what are you doing here?” she said instead, though her tone was warm. “Didn’t you get in enough trouble last week?”

Chancy had lost track of the times that Elvis’ boss had taken him aside and given him a stern talking to for veering off his delivery route to come see her, pick her up from school or for letting Chancy accompany him while he worked. Each time, Elvis would apologise and promise it would never happen again.

“I just made a delivery to a site near here,” he returned, looking overly innocent. “I swear it! And I thought I’d swing by and see if my sweet lil darlin’ needed a ride home. Gotta make sure she ain’t getting into another fellow’s car, don’t I.”

Chancy sighed and folded her arms, not wanting to go back through the horrible fight they had last week when Elvis had found out that a boy called Virgil from History class had dropped her at home because it was raining. He would have preferred her to be soaked through and then wrung out with pneumonia rather than accept a ride from another boy, even if she was not the only passenger in the car.

“Don’t pout,” he said, smushing his lips into her cheek and giving her lip-smacking kisses as he pulled her arms away from her waist. “I know I promised I weren’t gonna bring that up again.”

“Really, though, honey, you can’t keep getting into trouble over me. What if they fire you?”

“They won’t fire me, Cha-Cha! I do my work, I write out the paperwork good and I help out without complaining, even when I get all dirty and it damn near ruins my clothes. Besides, the way things are going with Scotty and Bill, we none of us’ll be needing our day jobs much longer.”

“You really think so?”

“I really knows so,” he returned, poking his tongue out at her playfully. “Big things are gonna happen, baby, I can feel it.”

Big things didn’t necessarily mean good things, Chancy reflected, and the foreboding cramp in her stomach seemed to agree with her. As much as she wanted Elvis to succeed, because she loved him desperately and knew how important his music was to him, she hated the thought of not being able to see him after work, and of those lonely weekends when he was away stretching into the weekdays.

Giving her one last noisy, wet kiss on the cheek, he started up the engine and pulled out into the traffic. When he was driving, she had more freedom to stare at him without him noticing, appreciating the way he watched the road so carefully, a little crease between his brows as he negotiated the traffic, his long fingers tapping rhythm to the music only he could hear.

“Hey, uh, you know, if we do come across anyone from work, you should probably duck down though, just in case,” he said, giving her a sideways look. She sighed and nodded.

Without looking, he reached across and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to him like they were on a date rather than cruising around town in his work truck.

“I think the first thing I’m gonna do when I make it, after I pay off the bills and get Mama and Daddy a present, is buy you a ring,” he said casually, his eyebrow twitch belying his calm expression. “How’d you feel about diamonds, sweetheart?”

“I like diamonds,” she nodded, playing along. “They’re supposedly my birth stone.”

“Is that right? Huh. What’s mine?”

“Garnet,” she answered, far too quickly to pretend she hadn’t already looked it up. The smile that lit up his face as he noted that made her embarrassment almost worth it.

“Maybe we could find a ring that has both,” he said, shrugging and quickly extricating his arm so that he could shift gears. ”Me ‘n’ you together.”

“Forever,” she finished with a shy smile. He replaced his arm around her, squeezing her to him, and she gave him a playful nudge, not wanting his dirty overalls rubbing over her clothes. Though it was a hardship she’d endure for the warmth of him seeping through her skin.

“You gonna get all dressed up for me tonight, baby?” he asked, glancing at her as she rubbed at a dusty smudge on the shoulder of her blouse.

“For what?” she asked. She wasn’t going to make it easy on him, not when he hadn’t even asked her to come.

“For what,” he echoed in a high-pitched voice. “You forget about our show tonight?!”

“No, but I wasn’t invited so I didn’t realise I was going.”

“Cha-Cha, I don’t need to invite you!” he retorted. “You should want to be there!”

“I do, Elvis, but if you don’t invite me then I don’t know that you want me there!” She could hear her voice getting higher, turning her into a cartoon character that could be laughed at and dismissed, and her face flushed with anger. He didn’t reply, his gaze fixed on the road ahead and his jaw set. All of a sudden, getting to watch him drive wasn’t as much as fun.

“Damn, there’s Mr Tipler, get down, Cha-Cha!” She was already dropping as he pressed his hand on the back of her neck, holding her head against his thigh. She adjusted her cheek against a crease in his pants and held her breath. A couple of minutes passed.

“Is he still there?” she asked, trying to turn her face against the heavy weight of his hand.

“Mmm hmm.” He sounded muffled and his hand flexed against her neck as she stretched it, trying to move her head along his leg to get more air. Another couple of minutes.

“Elvis, is he-” His hand was shaking. No, his whole body was shaking, convulsing almost with the force of his silent laughter. Mortification flooded through her as she realised that she was the source of his glee.

Rigid with fury, she slapped his hand away, swatting at herself in the process. She rose and slid back along the seat, her back smacking into the passenger door. Elvis reached out to her, but he was laughing too hard to apologise, or say much of anything at all, which infuriated her more.

“You tricked me!” she cried, hurt and embarrassed. “Now, why you gotta be so mean?”

“Baby, I- I was just playing!”

She smacked away his hand and he hastily pulled over, the truck bouncing against the kerb as he misjudged the distance, eyes barely watching what he was doing. A woman in a dark blue shirt-waist dress and matching cardigan jumped back from the edge of the sidewalk and gave them a dirty look.

Elvis grabbed Chancy by the waist as she opened the truck door and tried to scramble out.

“Baby, baby, no!” He was still laughing! “C’mon, I was just kidding around!”

Chancy slapped at his arm, finding that it helped make her feel a little better. When he grappled with her, pulling her back against him, she slapped a little harder. As he tried to turn her towards him, she raised her arm again and his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.

“No more, Cha-Cha,” he said firmly. Something in his eyes made her lower her hand, though she still didn’t yield to his grip.

“Look, I really thought I saw Mr Tipler,” he promised, his eyes shining with unspent mirth. “But then having your face in my lap like that-” A tinge of pink spread across his cheeks, emphasising the blue in his eyes. “-It just felt so good.” She inhaled sharply as he dove forward and pressed his face into the groove where her legs met beneath her skirt. She had no idea that people did such things to each other or why it felt so good. When he started shaking his head from side to side, her stomach clenched so hard she thought she might throw up or pass out.

“See how good it feels?” he asked shyly, his blush a deeper, dark red now and his hair falling from its very structured, carefully constructed style. She couldn’t look at him as she nodded brusquely.

“Forgive me?” he asked lightly, sitting up and cradling her cheek with his hand. “For all of it? I shoulda invited you, Cha-Cha. I thought I did, I swear.” Her face had already started to soften, it had no choice. “’Course I want my little baby out there in the audience looking up at me with her pretty little eyes-“ He pressed his lips softly against each of her brows. “And her pretty little nose…” He pecked the tip of her nose. “And her soft, pretty little mouth.”

Oh, his kisses. She felt him melt and become boneless in her arms as his lips kneaded hers, leading her by example as she sighed and succumbed to his wheedling. Every time she felt him sigh, she fell a little further in love with him, always dropping deeper into this never-ending hole.

A sharp tap on the window made them both start, teeth clashing, and they scrambled back from each other. A police officer was standing on the sidewalk, an ironic twist to his lips. He nodded his head slightly, telling them to move along. Elvis swallowed loudly and lifted his hand in acknowledgement as Chancy straightened her skirt over her legs and tried to smooth her hair back into its ponytail.

Back on the road, Elvis reached over and clasped her hand, squeezing it in a question. She squeezed it right back, because of course she forgave him, for the mean trick and the forgotten invitation. She forgave that, and everything that he would ever do, she imagined. That was the depth and breadth of her love for him. Didn’t mean that she wouldn’t make him suffer a little bit first though.

Outside her apartment building he left her after a brief, chaste kiss, mindful both of watchful eyes that would report straight back to her grandmother and that he should have been back from his delivery long before now. He told her that Scotty’s wife would be picking her up, which reassured her that he had apparently had it all planned, seemingly thinking that he had invited her.

A few hours later, she was waiting at the window when the glow of headlights lit up the flowery curtains she had made in Home Ec the year before. A second later, the horn blared. Chancy grimaced, knowing that Grandma would be complaining that all her friends in the building would think she was raising some loose woman the way that no one ever knocked on the door like respectful folk who were raised right.

The flinch in Grandma’s face as she skipped down the stairs in her tight new dress was all the confirmation she needed that she looked good. She clung to the bannister as she slipped on her heels, checking with her what time Mr Presley was picking her up. Usually, whenever she and Elvis would go out on a date, the Presleys would sweetly invite Grandma over for the evening to make sure she wasn’t lonely by herself. She got along well with Elvis’ grandmother and his mother, but had some reservations about his father which she expressed by saying nothing much about him at all.

Bobbie Moore smiled at her as she slid into the backseat and sweetly complimented her dress and hair, before going back to her conversation with Evelyn Black. The ladies were both older than her and had known each other longer. Chancy felt a little apart from them in the way that Elvis was a little apart from the band, except she didn’t have the benefit of being of any use to the women the way that Elvis, with his talent and front man good looks, was to the men.

“Oh,” Bobbie said over her shoulder during a lull in conversation, “Elvis told me to mention that he asked me to give you this ride last week. He said he set everything up but forgot to actually ask you to come to the show?”

“That’s what he says,” Chancy agreed with a closed-mouth smile.

“I’d be impressed he arranged anything,” Bobbie smiled. “He’s always going off at a hundred miles an hour, it’s a wonder he can get anything done. I swear Scotty has to wrangle him like a cross between a child and an excitable spaniel.”

The two women giggled in the front, but Chancy couldn’t quite muster a polite smile, it felt like a betrayal. Bobbie evidently noticed and quickly made a comment about how much he seemed to care for her.

The high school didn’t look much different from her own, same array of multi-paned windows across the front and pillars at the main entrance. Same yellowing lawn out front with worn tracks showing the most efficient footpaths to the external doors.

They melted into the throng of teenagers moving in waves towards the building, the air filled with the scent of aftershave, perfume and hormones. Chancy let the older women do the talking as they tried to find their men, feeling very young and strangely at home amongst the teenagers calling to their friends and talking loudly so that everyone could see how much fun they were having.

“Oh, thank God,” said Scotty when he caught sight of them coming down the corridor they had been directed to. “Tell me you brought the extra strings?” Bobbie rolled her eyes at the other women and fished a brown paper bag out of her purse.

“How’d you break a string before you even go on?” she asked, following him to the empty classroom they had been given as a dressing room.

“Not me,” Scotty muttered.

Chancy’s eyes fell on Elvis pacing at the back of the room, his back to them as he stared out the blackened windows at the lawn below. He glanced down at the floor, ran his hand down the back of his neck and then strode off in another direction for a few steps, before spinning and returning. It made Chancy’s blood bubble in sympathy at the anxiety he was exuding.

“Hi,” she murmured, weaving between the desks. He glanced up, eyes wide and mouth open in a way that made her heart clench, before smiling faintly.

“Hi.” He seemed paralysed in his loop and it wasn’t until she reached his side that he grabbed hold of her like she was his life preserver.

“You break a string?” she asked gently, trying to keep his attention on the room and not the swathes of people moving closer outside.

“Broke three. My fingers were shakin’ so bad I had to play that much harder to make a noise and, well, you see how that went.” She flattened his hand between hers, trying to press her faith in his ability into him, soothe him, but he couldn’t accept it. After a couple of seconds, he had to be on the move again too.

“The atmosphere is really good out there,” she told him. “They seem like a good crowd, they’re gonna love you.”

“Don’t-” He winced and stopped. “I got this pain up in my throat, Cha-Cha. What if I get up there and my voice is all but gone? I keep having that same dream over and over again, that I open my mouth and nothing comes out and everyone starts yellin’ and hollerin’. You know how sometimes some of my dreams come true and they happen-”

“It ain’t gonna happen,” she told him.

“But how d’you know?”

“Because I keep having a dream too. That I’m sitting in the audience at a show and we’re in some enormous auditorium, bigger than anything in Memphis, and you are on stage singing. Everyone in the audience is just crazy about you, cheering and clapping like you’re Frank Sinatra and Perry Como combined. And there’s little ole me sitting at the back, thinking about how I used to know you.”

The corner of his mouth lifted and he pulled her into his side to kiss her temple. She could see his skin glistening with sweat already and feel his body trembling.

“What do you think of the suit? It’s new.” She eyed the black jacket with pink lapels and cuffs and the baggy, pleated black pants with a pink stripe at the sides. Even his shoes had a small pink buckle.

“It’s real flashy,” she smiled. “It looks good on you.”

“Yeah, well,” he ducked his head, shaking his legs to adjust his pants leg, “I gotta wear something that gets their attention, you know. Especially after they hear me.” She wrapped her fingers around his arm, trying to hold him still.

“You look real handsome,” she said emphatically, her cheeks throbbing. “I’m gonna have to keep an eye on all those girls.”

They turned as Scotty called over. Even without looking at him, Chancy felt the electricity fizzling through Elvis, it made her own skin tingle. She squeezed his bicep hastily before rushing to join Bobbie and Evelyn as they tried to find their way through the labyrinthine halls to the school auditorium.

The auditorium had been covered in streamers and glittery decorations. There was a harvest theme with straw bales for seating and a big, painted, slightly blue moon that twinkled in the stage lighting. She wondered if that was how the boys had been booked, because of their name, and their record ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’ so high in the country charts. She knew how those girls on the committees loved a theme.

Some high school kids who thought they were The Crewcuts were just leaving the stage after a mediocre cover of ‘Earth Angel’ and there was polite applause rippling about the space. Chancy clutched her hands together, imagining Elvis in the wings vibrating with adrenaline.

A young man, obviously popular from the catcalls and cheers from the audience, strode up to the microphone to introduce the group, calling them a ‘big up and coming act from the city that’s been driving the kids crazy’. There was a healthy level of applause and cheering as Elvis bounded out in his usual loose-limbed way, Scotty and Bill following. For a second, Elvis stood poised behind the microphone, looking up at the ceiling. Chancy glanced up, wondering what had caught his eye, but there was nothing but ceiling tiles.

“Well, have you heard the news, there’s good rockin’ tonight!”

It echoed around the hall like a siren. Chancy watched the looks on the faces of the kids as they started, they squinted, they frowned at the young man on the stage. There was a kind of pulse that was emanating from the stage and you could clearly see it rippling through the kids, who quickly began drifting closer, packing themselves together like they were drawn together by magnets.

By the time they got to Scotty’s first solo, some of the girls had begun to giggle and cry out, clutching at each other as if they couldn’t quite understand what was happening to them. The applause at the end was stronger and accompanied by a thick hum of murmuring. Chancy surveyed them with a small smile, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

With ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’ it was the same thing all over again, since this song sounded so country that it threw the kids that thought they understood what they were watching. The girls got bolder and Chancy noted, ice beneath her skin, Elvis’ eyes darting down to the foot of the stage where they were congregating, his lip lifting into a gleeful sneer. But then she saw him as they did, this dangerous rockabilly rebel standing astride the stage above their heads, glistening like a god, and deigning to notice them. That look of adoration they were giving him, that unfocused want that was rising like steam from them, it just made him more beautiful, more otherworldly. They didn’t get to have him, because he was hers.

It was like a feedback loop, the more Elvis sang, crooned, and at one point growled, the more the girls shrieked and giggled. The more his legs shook and his baggy pants fluttered about his groin, the more the crowd bounced. It was always more, more, more. Chancy had seen it first, that vein of magic in him, and she felt vindicated now watching the realisation dawn in so many other eyes.

“Every time we see them it’s always a little wilder,” Bobbie remarked, gaze still on the stage. She definitely wasn’t looking at him like he was a cross between a child and an excitable spaniel now.

Chancy hesitated and then made up her mind, skipping towards the stage and ensconcing herself in the back of the close knit throng. She put her fingers to her lips and gave a whistle, joining in and adding to the chorus of screams that made Elvis’ smile spread wider as he bounced joyfully to the rhythm.

When he whirled off stage after the fourth number, half of the audience emptied out too. Chancy shot a look of astonishment at the other two, and they exchanged a glance before hurriedly following the tide.

Out in the parking lot, they found Bill and Scotty packing up while Elvis was held fast at the side of the car by a crowd of girls. He was scribbling autographs, hastily trying to keep up with demand and beaming. Some of the girls had little brownie cameras and Chancy snorted when she watched his smile drop into a sullen scowl as soon as they started to pose, doing his best James Dean impression.

Eventually, she drifted over to Scotty and Bill and their wives where they all muttered about who was going to be the one to break up the communion so that they could go and get something to eat.

After a while, Bill told the girls to head off to the diner because he was going to round up their errant singer and meet them there. As she settled herself in the back seat, Chancy watched Bill sail into the throng, a grin on his face as he reached over and mussed up Elvis’ hair. She winced and was glad that she wasn’t going to be around to see the outcome of that.

At the all-night diner back in Memphis, Chancy had already eaten a plate of fries by the time the bell tinkled and the boys entered in a bubble of loud talking and recklessly flailing limbs. Elvis’ hair was now falling over his face and he had Bill in a headlock, while Scotty was smiling faintly with that look in his face that he sometimes got, like he’d just like five minutes of peace and quiet away from the zoo.

“Where’s my food, woman?” Elvis demanded in a deep voice as he stared at her empty plate. Standing behind her, he grabbed at the front of her throat with his hands in a pincer. “Why, you good for nothin’-” She reached back and smacked the side of his thigh to get him to behave.

Bobbie rose with a sigh to go over to the counter to order more food, leaving the chair next to her empty. Elvis slid into it before she had even fully risen, goosing her a little. Chancy glared at him, even as he shrugged innocently, and Scotty raised unimpressed eyebrows. Forcefully ignoring their annoyance, he sat, his leg jiggling outrageously and making the table vibrate so hard that the salt and pepper shakers clinked against the napkin dispenser.

Chancy reached over and tried to rearrange his sweat soaked hair, but he batted away her assistance, pulling a comb from his shirt pocket and miraculously finding a shiny surface to use as a mirror like he had a built-in radar.

Once he was satisfied, he put away the comb and grabbed her hand off the table, examining her nails and fingers like he was about to be tested on them.

“See something interesting?” she asked.

“It’s just I’m so damned hungry,” he mumbled. “And they look so delicious…” He yanked them towards his mouth and she shrieked, writhing in his grip. He managed to get a sharp nip at the knuckle of her middle finger before she wrenched herself away.

“Behave yourself!” she hissed, but unable to stop grinning as she looked over to the counter.

“Baby, I can’t help it, I’m all keyed up. I wanna… I- Well, I don’t know what I wanna do, but whatever it is, I wanna do it bad!” His eyebrows quirked as his overly wide eyes zeroed in on her neck and he dove forward just as Bobbie returned with food.

Somehow, he managed to swerve at the last minute and he fell upon his burger and fries like a starving man. Bill, who was only just behind Elvis in the amount of mischievous energy he was exuding, tried reaching over to grab one of Elvis’ fries and got himself an elbow in the groin for his trouble.

The food settled them a little and they were able to analyse and reflect on the show as Chancy and the wives gave feedback, talking about what they saw in the crowd, the reactions of the girls and what was being said about them in the restrooms.

“We need to get some more photos, we’re nearly out,” Scotty told the other two men. “And it wouldn’t hurt to have more copies of our record. I had two people tell me that they couldn’t get it from the record store.”

“Goddamn it,” Elvis muttered, shoving fries sideways into his mouth. “What we gotta do, pay these chumps to put our damn record in their stores? Isn’t this why Sam’s always travelling around, trying to talk these… these fools into using their brains.” Chancy slid her hand onto his thigh and rubbed it comfortingly beneath the table.

“They don’t know what to do with it,” Bill shrugged. “It’s too hot and original for their tiny little minds to comprehend.

“Sam’s focusing on the next one,” Scotty reminded them. “We’re only as good as our latest record and he’s been all over the South pushing it with all his contacts.”

“Fat lot of good that does if no one can buy it,” Elvis snapped. He opened his mouth to continue, but was interrupted by the sound of himself wailing out, ‘Well, that’s all right, mama…” They turned to the jukebox where Bill gave them a ‘ta da’ gesture and a grin.

“You know, that’s him,” Bill told the disinterested cook behind the counter, who eyed them with yellowing, cloudy eyes. “Don’t s’pose we can pay our bill with an autographed picture? Up and coming star right here, I heard it on good authority from a high school kid all dressed up in his daddy’s suit tonight.”

Elvis threw one of Scotty’s fries at him and ducked down, unable to disguise how his face and neck had coloured up. He leant in, nudging Chancy’s shoulder, trying to hide in the crook of her neck.

After their food, they split up, Scotty, Bill and their wives took Bobbie’s car, while Elvis and Chancy were in the Lincoln. She prayed they would make it back, her dress was not cut for pushing cars.

Elvis was still twitchy, but he had quietened down, back to being regularly fidgety and nervous rather than like he was about to take off into outer space. He tapped his fingers along with the radio, even when the reception cut out and it was just static. Chancy dozed next to him, starting every time he swatted her thigh to wake her up.

When they reached the door of her apartment, Chancy hesitated. Despite how late it was, she didn’t feel it was time to say goodnight. She had barely had him to herself for more than a minute all night.

“You know,” she began, watching him touch the brass numbers on her door, scuff his shoe against the worn tile and shake his leg slightly, all the while tap tapping away on his thigh with his fingertips.

She tried again: “You know, Grandma is probably fast asleep by now. If we’re quiet…” His eyes snapped to hers and she would have betrayed her grandmother’s trust a thousand times over for the wave of joy that passed through her body.

“Yeah, I-I-I should probably check and make sure everything is on the up and up for you ladies. I mean, you can’t be too careful, could be monsters under your bed, spiders in your bathtub... What kind of man would I be if I let my woman face all these dangers alone?”

“You coulda just said yes, you know,” she returned, shaking her head. He nuzzled her in answer, forcing her to try not to squeal as she oh-so-carefully unlocked the door.

Clutching each other’s hand like nervous burglars, they crept through the tiny kitchen and into the narrow hall. Chancy paused at her grandmother’s door, but heard nothing.

It felt borderline criminal closing her own door, hiding them from sight. Whenever Elvis visited, ‘Grammy’ as he called her, insisted on being able to see them at all times.

“He’s a nice boy,” she had told Chancy after she recovered from the flashy clothes and the truck driver’s haircut. “A real nice, polite boy, but there’s something else about him, some touch of mischief that I just wanna keep my eye on.”

Eyes adjusting to the moonlit shadows, Chancy watched him cautiously approach her bed and pick up the framed photo on her nightstand. Not the one of him that Mr Neal had arranged to be done for publicity and that Elvis had given her a copy of with a secret message scrawled on the back. No, he picked up the blurry, worn picture of a man in a white suit with his arms around a dark-haired, shapely woman. Their faces were almost as featureless and white as milk with wear and Chancy’s faded memories could no longer fill in the blanks.

Elvis replaced the frame reverently and then turned back to her. The moonlight glowed in his eyes and smile. He bent down and checked under her bed for monsters.

“All clear!” he informed her in an exaggerated whisper. Then his eye caught something else that he reached down and swiped up. Chancy’s cheeks flushed.

Grandma was old fashioned and thought that music and movies were sent by the devil to distract impressionable minds from the Lord. She allowed Chancy to go to the movie theatre on dates and to own a few records, but there was strict accounting going on, weighing the devil’s distraction against church and bible study.

“What you got this hidden down here for?” Elvis asked, looking confused. He flicked through the movie magazine as if looking for clues, but returned to the front cover where Eddie Fisher was posing politely with a telephone as if he had just been interrupted taking a call. “Eddie Fisher?!” He raised an eyebrow like he was teasing her, but he wasn’t smiling. She rushed over and tried to snatch the magazine from his unyielding hands.

“Grandma don’t like me having movie magazines,” she whispered in a rush. “Elvis, give it back!”

“How long has this thing with Fisher been going on, huh? Does Debbie know?”

“Ha, ha.” Elvis was glaring at the picture, studying it like he was sizing up his competition. “Really now, I am not gaga over Eddie Fisher. The only boy I have eyes for is a much better singer, and dreamier too.”

“Oh god, who now?! Wait, you are talking about me, right?”

She shoved him as he grinned smugly, but he grabbed her hands and pulled her down with him onto the bed. They were entwined and kissing as easily and as quickly as gravity.

Elvis’ body, its hard planes and soft curves, still felt like foreign territory no matter how many times and how many ways she ran her hands over it. Even his dark blue eyes, when they devoured her with that fierce hunger, sometimes seemed like they belonged to a stranger. It was exciting and terrifying all at once. When he told her, as he did over and over, that he loved her, she understood that he meant it and still didn’t believe him at all.

Straddling his lap as she knelt on the bed, she shifted her weight to get leverage and then ground down onto him, eliciting that helpless boyish moan from him that always got her in the gut.

Too late, she pushed her palm against his mouth, breathlessly whispering for him to be quiet. He groaned a hot, muffled protest as she rolled her hips again and she could feel him, hard and eager beneath the pleats of his pants. He grabbed her hand in his, pulling it away from his mouth as he pressed his soft lips into her palm.

“Wait, baby, wait. We gotta stop… We should stop,” he whispered. He was right of course, but it didn’t mean that she wanted to hear him or listen. She kneaded her lips against the flickering of his pulse in his throat, smelling the faint remnants of his cologne, soap and the haze of his Vaseline hair oil. It was a heady mix of ‘Elvis’, the best smell in the world.

“Hey!” he snapped, hoarse but still quiet. “You ain’t being fair! You’ll get me all heated and worked up and then you’ll tell me to stop. And one day I ain’t gonna be able to stop!”

Chancy shivered and wished, through clenched teeth, that today would be that day. Her grandmother was wrong, that glint of mischief that she saw in Elvis was just a tiny reflection of what radiated from Chancy herself.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, forcing herself to stay still in his lap, fighting the urge to swivel her hips and press into him. “Forgive me?” He clenched his jaw, gritting his teeth, and squashed her cheeks between his palms.

“You drive me crazy, you cruel baby, but I forgive you. I’ll always forgive ya.”

“Not always,” she refuted. “How about if I went off with another boy?” He was quiet for a moment and, even more unnerving, still.

“No, you’re right,” he said in a small, uncomfortable voice. “God, why’d you even put that in my head?”

Chancy knew why, because she always needed to push the limits, see how far love and acceptance would stretch until they snapped, and they always snapped.

“I don’t know, it was stupid. And it’ll never happen.” She clasped her fingers together at the back of his neck and turned his head so that they were looking directly into each other’s eyes. “I would never do that, because I love you more than anything else in the world.” His small smile made his cheekbones curve in a delicious way.

“More than Eddie Fisher?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“Eddie who?”

“Eddie who better be right!” He squeezed the back of her neck as he kissed her with a dramatic, almost aggressive flourish, and then shoved her sideways off his lap and onto the bed. It creaked so loud that it should have woken up half the building, and they froze, staring at each other with wide eyes.

They waited a full, endless minute for sounds of movement or a light being turned on in the hall. When it didn’t come, they dissolved, giggling as they curled up together on the mattress.

At first, Elvis spooned her, the cradle of his hips fitting perfectly against the curve of her backside and his arm pillowing her neck. She could feel the bulge of him poking her in her butt cheek and it took all her willpower not to push back. After he had complained in a whisper about her hair tickling his nose, and had ground his groin apparently involuntarily against her, he huffed out a soft ‘Goddamnit’ and almost threw himself onto his other side, his back to her. She only had a second to miss the warmth before he was reaching back and tugging her arm, pulling her against him.

“You have to leave before Grandma wakes up,” she said directly into his ear, grinning as he shuddered and pressed in her hand that he was holding to his chest. “Elvis, y’hear? I mean it.”

“I hear ya, I hear ya.” She forced herself to relax, listening to his breathing as she simultaneously felt it against her hand. His heart was a steady, reassuring thump.

After a while, she pressed a little closer to him and whispered:

“Imagine being able to sleep like this every night.” Her heart felt swollen and tight with love for him, so much so that just thinking of forever made her eyes sting with hopeful tears. “Elvis?” She tried to loosen her grip on him in order to prop herself up, but he wouldn’t release her, just murmured and squeezed tighter.

Just imagine, forever.

Chancy woke in a start, feeling the panic before she even came to. Morning. Grandma. Elvis!

She tried to sit up, but the hands encircling her waist were determined, and all their focus was on holding her in place. She was so busy trying to free herself that she didn’t notice what else was going on until a warm, throaty moan tickled her ear. She froze.

Elvis was like a wall of heat behind her, making her clothes damp and creased as he pressed and rubbed against her. Her stomach clenched and roiled with panic and desire and she tilted her hips, catching his groin as he rolled into her.

“Baby, you awake?” he whispered hoarsely, adjusting his grip on her, grabbing at her hipbone so tightly that she knew it would leave bruises.

“What time is it?” she mumbled, squinting at the curtains, trying to determine whether the halo around them came from the moon or the sun.

“I-I don’t know. God, baby, I-I need you so bad. Can- can I?”

Chancy was not certain what he was asking, but just his tone made her skin ripple with goosebumps. She turned in his arms and found that looking up into his face was a revelation. His cheeks were deep pink and his lips looked swollen and red, hanging open as he stared at her; thick lashes drooping over his half-open eyes. She had never seen him with messy hair, he spent so long fussing over it, combing it if even one tendril fell out of place, but now it fell over his forehead and stuck up in spikes at the side and he didn’t seem to care.

Chancy gasped as he ducked down and kissed her, fiercely mashing his lips against hers. She didn’t recognise this boy, this shaking, dishevelled man writhing in her bed and wrinkling her sheets. His long-fingered hand slid down her blouse, unfastening the tiny buttons with an ease that shouldn’t have been possible. He pulled her against him, the button on his shirt pocket scraping her nipple even through her cotton bra, but his hands didn’t stay at her back for long, scrambling down to fuss over the folds of her skirt, tugging it up.

“Elvis, honey, wait!” she gasped when he finally released her mouth to catch his own breath. “We can’t, we-“

“We can,” he murmured, unravelling the material wrapped around her legs. “Baby, we should. I-I-It’s time, it’s time.” She was trying to push down her skirt even as he was lifting it, tangling his legs with hers.

“You said we should wait,” she pleaded, quickly losing her fighting spirit as he nuzzled and breathed hot and heavy against her neck. “For when we’re married.”

“We’re gonna be together forever,” he insisted. “We already know it.” She giggled; his words were slurred and mumbled like he couldn’t quite think straight and his addled mind was pouring out syllables, hoping some of them would be useful.

It made her feel powerful to have brought him to this level of mindlessness. No one else, not the girls that screamed at the foot of the stage, not the beautiful singers that sometimes toured with him, or the experienced girls with their heavy make-up and tight, revealing clothing that somehow made it backstage and always knew which motel he was staying in. No, no one else, just Chancy.

“Okay,” she whispered, cupping his face. “Okay.” He stared at her intently, looking almost lost, before he seemed to register what she had said and gave a little nod.

In one fluid movement, he was on top of her, the weight of him pressing her into the mattress. The bed creaked ominously and Chancy froze, not least because Elvis was leaning on her hair.

“Ow, Elvis, you’re-”

“What? Oh, sorry.” He lifted his hand, not realising the hand he now had all his weight on was also on top of her hair.

“Oh my- Oh God, Elvis, my hair!” He hastily drew back onto his knees, straddling her and looking sheepish.

Realising that it was all going terrible wrong, she stared back at him, flooded with disappointment and consternation. There was a beat before they both broke, sniggering and blushing at their awkwardness.

“Oh damn,” he grinned bashfully into his palm, running his tongue over his teeth. “Great job, Elvis. Real smooth.”

Chancy ran her hand up his thigh, her fingers trembling over the taut muscle.

“Honey, we could still-“ she began, even as he shook his head.

“No, no, you were right what you said, baby, we should wait. It’ll be better if we wait. Special.”

“Maybe I’ll get my haircut for the wedding,” she mused dryly, trying not to focus on the disappointment settling in her stomach.

“Don’t you dare!” He leaned forward, practically on all fours over her, and wrapped her dark hair around his finger. “I show up at the church and don’t see all these curls, I’m outta there!”

“You think I won’t have someone there ready to lock the door as soon as you show up?” she teased, reaching up to smooth back the hair above his ear.

“Hmm, cruel woman,” he murmured, eyes dropping to her lips and telegraphing his thoughts. “You think you don’t already have me locked up? I- I can’t think of nothing else but you, baby.”

“Aw, that sounds just awful,” she smirked, stretching up to catch his lips. “Forgive me?”

“Always,” he mumbled into her mouth.

Spring 1973

The phone was ringing. Chancy threw out a hand to grab at the receiver, but her hand only waved about in the air because she wasn’t in her own bed. She opened her eyes, waiting for her vision to unblur. The phone stopped ringing and immediately began again.

“Hello?”

“Thank Christ! I was beginning to wonder if you were alive!”

“Joe?”

“Yeah! Two thirty wake-up call, remember? Least it was fifteen minutes ago.”

“Sorry, Elvis gave me a pill.” She wiped her hand down her face; it felt numb, foreign.

“Okay. Get up.”

“What?”

“You need to get out of bed. If you don’t, you’ll go straight back to sleep the minute you hang up.”

She lifted the receiver from her ear and peered into it as if Joe would be able to discern that she was not exactly in a situation when she could leap out of bed. Elvis’ head was tucked under her chin and his arms were wrapped around her. Even her feet were entangled with his legs.

“Uh, okay.” Then she was glad that he was not able to see through the receiver, because she had to slither and writhe to free herself, tumbling onto the floor with zero grace. “I’m out of bed.”

“Good. I’ll be there to get you in forty-five minutes.”

“Wait, what do I do about Elvis?”

“How d’you mean?”

“How do I wake him up?”

“Hit him. Hard, but don’t leave a mark, ‘specially not on the face.”

“Helpful, thanks,” she said to the dial tone.

Chancy started off light, shaking him, but it barely registered. So, then she patted him, getting progressively harder until she was hitting his shoulder with a closed fist.

“Oh, Lord,” she murmured. The clock now said two fifty-five and she hadn’t even started dressing. She tapped his cheek and, finally, his face flickered. Emboldened, she did it again, but there was no reaction this time. Out of options, she slapped him with her fingers, hard enough to make a noise. His face creased up and he squinted at her through dark, slitted eyes.

“Why are you hitting me?” he asked, or at least that was the vague sound that came out with some half-enunciated words.

“Oh, wakey wakey!” she trilled. “Time to wake up, sweetheart!”

He let his hand drop onto his face and grunted as he tried to pull himself up into a seated position, managing about halfway. Chancy waited anxiously to make sure the red mark on his cheek would fade away.

By three fifteen, she was dressed and washed, though not exactly looking her glamorous best. She had pulled her hair into a loose bun and just darkened her eyes to try and look more awake. It wasn’t like hospitals had a dress code.

“You slapped me round my face!” Elvis said accusingly as she emerged from the bathroom. He was still sitting up in bed, though he seemed closer to consciousness than not.

“No, you must have been dreaming,” she replied quickly. The mark was gone now and she had a new appreciation for Ricky’s skills.

“That ain’t something I’d dream about,” he returned, throwing back the covers. He eased himself up carefully and she paused, wondering if she should go to his side to make sure he didn’t lose his balance or stumble. She tried to seem casual as he fumbled and felt his way to the bathroom door.

“Um, baby? Joe’ll be here in a bit. You want me to get you anything before I go?”

“Go? I’m coming with you,” he replied, frowning at her as though she was speaking a different language.

Chancy’s reaction to that was complicated. She was touched that he wanted to, but knew there was no way that he would be ready to leave the room in fifteen minutes. Then there was the logistics of it. How could Elvis Presley walk into a hospital in the middle of nowhere and not cause chaos and mayhem? What seemed like a simple trip to the doctor had suddenly turned into a production.

“That’s really sweet, honey, but you don’t have to do that,” she said, crossing the room to him. His intense gaze followed her, so that by the time she was in front of him, she was feeling a little warm.

“It ain’t a negotiation,” he returned, his mouth stumbling over the syllables. “You ain‘t going without me.”

Joe knocked at exactly three thirty, but seemed completely unsurprised and unperturbed when she said that they had to wait for Elvis.

“I always allow a cushion of at least twenty minutes when I give him a time,” he revealed with a grin.

“You knew he was coming?” Chancy asked.

“Sure. I think it’s pretty obvious by now that he doesn’t want to be anywhere you’re not.”

Chancy’s stomach clenched with apprehension at that observation. It gave her too little power and too much responsibility. She was an idiot in relationships, and she bumped into people’s feelings blindly and repeatedly. Nowadays, she liked her freedom too much and suffocated under the expectations of others. She was too much like her father, who had broken so many hearts without even knowing. Now here she was being presented with the most fragile heart of all. No, not presented, tossed it without warning, and she knew her butter fingers were going to fumble it no matter how carefully she tried to cradle it.

They were exactly twenty minutes behind schedule when Elvis emerged from the bathroom clad in black, the jacket of his karate gi showing underneath his coat, and wearing dark tinted sunglasses. While she was dressed to do a chore, he looked like he was prepared to go on TV, which was the way he always looked when he left the confines of his room. She had long ago stopped musing on how irritating and time-consuming that must be for him, to know that he always had to look his best even if he was just going to a doctor’s appointment.

“Morning, Boss, how you doing?” Joe asked, rising to open the door for them as Elvis came to Chancy’s side.

“Well, my day started with being belted round the face, so I’m hopin’ it’ll improve,” he returned, shooting Chancy a sideways look. He seemed more confused and amused than annoyed, but Chancy could still feel her cheeks heating.

“I still say you dreamed that,” she said.

“And I still say you’re full of shit,” he returned, sliding his fingers between hers. He hissed softly, swearing under his breath.

“What is it?” He grimaced and lifted their clasped hands so that she could see the back of his. His knuckles were grazed and split, and the skin around them was swollen dark from where he had been punching the wall the night before. “Oh, baby.”

She tried to release his hand, but his fingers tightened around hers, so she raised their hands to her lips and pressed them lightly against the sore area.

“Well, at least we’re heading to the right place!” Joe observed. She wondered if he was really as unflappable as he made out and, if so, what kind of craziness had he seen to make him so.

It felt a little like heading for a show. They rode the service elevator down to the kitchens and made their way out of the rear entrance of the hotel where a car was waiting for them with a driver and Red sitting in the passenger seat. Two or three people were waiting at the entrance of the car park and, as they emerged from the building, Chancy heard them yelling:

“He’s here! He’s here!”

“No, he ain’t,” Elvis mumbled under his breath, before raising a hand and waving to them as they got into the car.

“What would you do,” Chancy asked out of curiosity, “if you went somewhere and no one blinked an eye like you were just a regular person?”

“It happens,” he returned, a defensive edge to his voice like he thought she was making fun of him somehow. “It’s not like I expect it all the time.”

“The worst times are when we think it’s okay, but then one person notices he’s there and raises the alarm,” Red interjected, half turned in his seat. “Happened once when we went to a karate tournament. Whispers started going round, people started getting out of their seats to ask for autographs and what have you. And I’m sitting there sweating bullets thinking I gotta keep him safe in a place filled with fucking karate masters.”

“Remember that theatre in Florida when we were there shooting that movie?” Joe put in. “We went to see a show one night and during the intermission, we got swarmed and the fire marshal had to shut the whole place down. Called it a health and safety hazard.”

“The point is I don’t go out looking for it,” Elvis insisted to her, as if they hadn’t spoken. “It’s not like I need it for my ego or anything like that.”

“Okay,” she murmured softly, nodding to show that she understood, because he seemed very intent on making that clear to her.

“Hey, remember when we thought we got away with it in Hawaii?” Red laughed, breaking the slightly awkward silence. “Went to a restaurant and no one blinked an eye. Order our food, nothing. Ate and hung out without a murmur. Then, when we got up to leave the entire restaurant damn near gave us a standing ovation. That was weird as shit!”

“Have you guys ever asked someone for their autograph or got starstruck meeting someone?” she asked the other two men, since Elvis was staring out of the window and chewing on his thumbnail, not exactly inviting conversation. She wondered if she had prodded a sore spot with her question and if so, how to soothe his hurt feelings.

“Don’t know about starstruck… You start to realise pretty quickly that famous people are pretty much just people,” Joe mused.

“Some can be complete asses, right, E?” Red remarked. “Remember Brando?” Elvis blinked and pulled a face like he smelt something disgusting.

“Aw, don’t remind me about that sonovabitch. Broke my damn heart.” He looked down at her, his eyes warm and intimate again, reassuring her. “You remember how much I dug that cat- We must have seen his movies fifty times a piece. Knew all the lines.”

“’Well, what d’ya do? I mean, do you just ride around or do you go on some sort of picnic or something?’” Chancy recited in a breathy voice, making her eyes wide. His smile grew and he poked his tongue between his teeth.

“’A picnic? Man, you are too square…’” He dipped down, pressing his nose to hers. “Anyway, we met him one time. I think in 1958?” He raised an eyebrow at Joe, who nodded in confirmation. “And he was just the rudest, most condescending motherfucker. Acting like he was hot shit and we were hillbilly hicks ruining his day. I swore to myself I weren’t ever gonna be like that.”

“Well, who was the nicest star you ever met?”

“Tom Jones was pretty friendly right from the off,” Red reflected.

“Sammy Davis Jr is a cool guy,” Joe shrugged. She looked to Elvis, but he shrugged and demurred, saying most people were okay. There was something about the offhand way he said it that let her know there was something he wasn’t saying.

“You cannot think of one non-beautiful non-female celebrity right now, can you,” she teased. He licked his lips sheepishly and grinned.

“My mind went blank,” he admitted, running his tongue over his teeth. “I panicked!”

“You goof! Okay, including the beautiful ladies, who was the nicest?”

“This ain’t a trick, is it? Already been slapped once today…”

“Don’t do it, man,” Red murmured under his breath. She raised an eyebrow and faked a scowl.

“Well,” he sighed as he arched his back and adjusted his belt buckle, “Sophia Loren was real sweet and Ann-Margret’s a darling; Nancy Sinatra… Oh! Cary Grant! He’s a nice guy.”

“Congratulations, you thought of one man,” she laughed. He nuzzled into the side of her head as if testing her word, checking she wasn’t mad. She rubbed his thigh in answer.

The car took a sharp right turn down a wide alleyway and pulled up behind a store that was most certainly not a hospital.

“What’s going on? You taking me to the vet instead?” she quipped, confused by Elvis’ little smirk as they all climbed out.

“I just gotta make a quick stop,” he replied, reaching for her hand again.

Red banged on the worn security door and a small window opened, before the door was thrown open. A small, slight, older man in a suit beamed at them, ushering them into the dark interior.

When Chancy’s eyes adjusted, she registered that they were in a jewellery store. An older woman in what looked like her best dress was standing by the register also beaming like she had won an award, which all store owners must have felt whenever Elvis Presley walked in.

“Hello, Mr Presley, it’s a pleasure to welcome you to our store,” the man said, sounding adorably nervous as he shook Elvis’ hand. “My name’s Len and this is my wife Phyliss.”

“It’s good to be here, sir,” Elvis replied, head on a swivel. “You got some fine pieces.” He stepped back to take Phyllis’ hand and give her a peck on the cheek. “Hi, dear. We can’t stay long, because we got an appointment, but I think I’ll be back here next time we’re out this way.”

Len nodded and gestured to the counter where he had laid out a black velvet cover on top of which lay a dazzling selection of gold and sparkling diamonds. Elvis stepped up, squinting as he removed his sunglasses, his fingers immediately reaching to touch.

“Cha-Cha, c’mere, baby,” he murmured. Holding out a hand without looking. “What d’you think? Anything that catches your eye?”

“Of course, it’s all really pretty,” she nodded, nonplussed.

“Okay, looks like we’ll just be taking all of it,” Elvis told Len, gesturing for them to ring it up.

“What, no!” she exclaimed in a panic. Vernon Presley would have her shot! Elvis laughed gleefully like a little kid and swept his hand along the treasures.

“Then pick something, you silly girl! You ain’t quite woken up yet, have you, honey.” She frowned at him and then down at the array, her fingers hovering over a ring with a large sapphire surrounded by diamonds.

“Are you sure?” she asked. He looked confused for a minute, then his face softened, and he reached up and rubbed the skin between her brows, smoothing her frown.

“What calls to you?” he asked quietly, intimately, like they weren’t being watched by a handful of people. She searched his face, looking into his murky blue eyes, trying to understand what she was saying to him if she did as he asked, what she was forgiving, and what she was promising.

“I told you I’d buy you diamonds,” he murmured, giving her a wink. Her heart dropped into her stomach and she was assailed by guilt and shame for immediately wondering how she was being manipulated instead of appreciating the gesture for what it was.

“You’ve already kept that promise several times over,” she replied, thinking of the expensive gifts and surprises he had bestowed upon her over the years.

“And I’m gonna keep on keepin’ it.” She was about to lay her hand upon the sapphire when something else caught her eye, not on the velvet, but in the cabinet below.

“Does it have to be one of these?” she asked. He rolled his eyes and muttered about awkward women.

“Why, what you seen, honey?”

She pointed at the glass at the small, tasteful oval garnet stone haloed by diamonds. Len immediately crouched down behind the counter and drew out the pillow it was sitting on. Chancy smiled at it, feeling Elvis’ eyes burning into her face as she tried it on. It was a little big for her ring finger on her right hand, but it fit the middle finger perfectly.

“We’ll take this, please, Sir,” Elvis murmured, before leaning across the counter and snatching up three or four other rings like he was collecting seashells at the beach. He caught her look and shrugged bashfully. “What? You can’t just buy one ring, your other fingers’ll get jealous.”

Well, that explained a lot, Chancy reflected. Elvis turned down the offer to wrap up the other rings, asking for the boxes to be put in a bag, but insisting on holding them in his hand.

Before she could turn to follow Red and Joe, he grabbed her good hand and turned her back, sliding a ring onto as many fingers as he could.

“Elvis, I can’t, I-“ She stopped herself, catching the uncertainty as it flickered on his face. “Baby, they are so beautiful, it’s a little overwhelming. Thank you!”

He wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her into him a little too long for a thank you hug. She relaxed, stroking his back and feeling him swallow against her shoulder. She could hear what he was asking, the way he always used to in his playful little baby voice. She gripped him as tight as she could in answer.

_____________________________________________________________

AN: A huge thank you to my alpha reader @thatbanditqueen, who makes all things better.

Shout out to the wonderful authors/LE detectives and prolific nighttime messagers @be-my-ally, @ellie-24, @vintageshanny, @missmaywemeetagain, and @from-memphis-with-love

A huge thanks to @lookingforrainbows for the baby elvis pic avalanche, you're a treasure!

@richardslady121, @dkayfixates, @c-rosenn, @fallinlovewithurlove, @notstefaniepresley, @heartbrake-hotel , @freudianslumber, @bbrtt777, @18lkpeters, @18lkpeters, @prompted-wordsmith, @literally-just-elvis-fics, @eliseinmemphis

#elvis presley #elvis fanfiction #elvis fan fic #elvis presley fan fic #baby big daddy elvis #70s elvis #elvis x oc #an enjoyable slide to oblivion #big daddy elvis #elvis fanfic #baby elvis #50s elvis #The flashback chapter no one asked for...

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