Best to forget about all of it, put my head down, and focus on my career like I’d intended to when I’d moved out here. No matter how much I wished I was still in that back room with Jayson, with his hands playing across my skin.
“Even after they’re done dealing with Carter, they’re going to have to break down the whole stage and everything,” I pointed out. “That’s going to take a while.”
Piper frowned for a moment, but something about her expression told me that she knew exactly what I wasn’t saying. She looked sympathetic. I looked away from her, not wanting to see any of that.
“You can stay if you want,” I said, shrugging one shoulder. I faked a yawn. “But I think I need to get home. Sorry. This has been fun, but I’m still kind of a grandma.”
Piper laughed and shook her head. “Come on, let’s go, then. We’ll catch them another night.”
“Sure,” I said, even though I knew I couldn’t let myself keep doing this.
I wasn’t one of their groupies. I never would be. That was the whole problem.
It felt like each time I saw Jayson, I got more and more entangled with him. We were getting closer, and I was losing my heart to him. But that was such a huge risk. I couldn’t handle dating a musician who was trying to break into the big time. This just wasn’t my scene—the long nights, the parties, the women.
That wasn’t the kind of lifestyle I could realistically be a part of.
I looked around the bar one last time on the way out. No one was looking at me, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were all judging me somehow. Like that blonde groupie, they all knew I didn’t belong.
I wished I could talk to Piper about it, but I didn’t know how to tell her what I was feeling without betraying just how much of a country bumpkin I was.
Instead, I kept my thoughts inside and later spent the night tossing and turning, I kept thinking of what it would be like to start a relationship, but then eventually, I would come around to remembering that I couldn’t be with him. I didn’t know why I couldn’t seem to get him out of my mind.
I didn’t know why I was so disappointed when I didn’t hear him come home.
19
Jayson
I listened to the guitar die away into silence. For a moment, none of us said anything. Then, Mark threw a fist in the air, letting out a little whoop. “That might be perfect,” he said, grinning ear to ear as he turned toward me.
I nodded. “That was pretty good,” I said cautiously. But I couldn’t help grinning as well. “Better than pretty good, I guess,” I corrected. “We might be able to put that one on the album.”
It had been a few weeks, and we were in the studio. To be honest, I hadn’t expected that this would ever happen. And even if it did ever happen, I hadn’t held out any hope that things would actually work out this well.
Something about Leah yelling at Mark in the middle of the bar seemed to have struck a nerve. He still liked to chase after women whenever he had a chance, which was pretty frequently considering that we were only in the studio for a limited amount of time each day. At the same time, he was really putting some effort in, in a way that I hadn’t expected from him for a while now.
It wasn’t just him, either. Once Mark started to put himself back together, Carter had seemed to take a cue. Or maybe it was just the fact that the rest of us sat him down and told him that if he didn’t chill out with the drinking while we were in the studio, then we were going to find someone to replace him with.
Mark had actually led that charge. I still credited it all to Leah’s intervention, though.
Working on new songs, putting together some different tunes, felt amazing. I had forgotten how good it felt to hear something come to life, to be honest. It was creating life; it was furthering our dreams.
Not only that, but the things we were putting together now, these new songs, were our best work yet. By far. I couldn’t wait to show them to the world. The first person I wanted to have hear them outside of us, though, was Leah. It was all because of her.
It wasn’t just that she had gotten my bandmates to shape up and put the work in; it was also that she had inspired me to push myself as well. She really seemed to believe in us. She really seemed to think we could make it. But in order to do that, we were all going to have to work harder, myself included.
The lyrics I had put together for the new songs were way better than anything I had put together before. They felt relevant. They felt like the kind of songs people would resonate with. They felt like the kind of songs we wouldn’t regret if we were still singing them five or ten years from now.
Somehow, when Carter sobered up some, his guitar playing was better than it had ever been before. I didn’t think he had been practicing all that much, but he surprised us, pulling out some new riffs that none of us could possibly have expected. It amped up the pieces, even as it sounded forlorn and haunting. There was a hopeless, transcendent quality to it that worked well with the lyrics I was writing.
We had all come together for this one, and it sure sounded like magic.
This could be our ticket. I felt goosebumps go up my arms as we listened back through parts of it.
Things still weren’t finished yet. We were still missing a song or two, and I think we could all feel that. Still, we were getting closer, and I had a feeling that by the time we ran out of time at the studio, we were going to be at least well on our way, if not fully finished. I hadn’t felt this excited about anything for a long time now.
Except that there was one thing that had gotten me to this level of excitement, but I hadn’t seen Leah since the night she had yelled at Mark, and it was bumming me out. I didn’t know how to see her, though. I mean, sure, she lived next door to me, but I didn’t know how to approach her.
I didn’t know what she was thinking; that’s what it really came down to. I had thought that things were going well after the concert she’d been at. Or at least, she certainly hadn’t been complaining when we were together in the back room. If Luke hadn’t interrupted us, I didn’t know where things might have gone.
But he had interrupted us, and by the time I had gotten done with the Carter situation, she was gone. I had thought that she might have just gone to the bathroom or something, and that she might reappear by the time I was done helping Luke tear down the equipment and load it into the van.
But she hadn’t come back and she hadn’t said goodbye. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
Of course, I had thought about going over there to thank her for helping us out. She had been a huge part of my personal inspiration, but she had helped to get the rest of them on track too. Not only that, but I still wanted to talk to her about us. That one night had been so therapeutic. It had felt so good to get things out.
She was the only person I wanted to tell everything to, good or bad.
There was something more to that, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to start examining it. Especially since I had a feeling that she was avoiding me again.
I had been worried about that before, but then she had shown up at my place. This time, though, nothing seemed to summon her over, not even a 3:00 A.M. drum session.
She didn’t want to see me. I had to be okay with that. Besides, she was probably just busy at work. I was busy with my music; I got how that went. Not only that, but I was trying to set a good example for Mark, not chasing tail, and Carter was still crashing at my place most nights. It was just a complicated time.
Still, I missed her. We had a connection; I was sure of it. I missed the way her body felt against mine. I missed the way she listened to me. I missed the way she stood up for what she believed in.
I was falling for her. I was ready to admit that. She was different from anyone I had been with before, and I couldn’t get enough of her. That said, I was trying to focus on my work. I had a feeling that that tension was part of why my music was better now than it had ever been before. It was another thing I wanted to tell her, but I was afraid she
wouldn’t understand it and would think I was nuts.
No, I needed her to listen to our music. But in order for that to happen, we had to finish up the album. We weren’t quite there yet.
“Alright, let’s break for the day,” I said to everyone.
“Yeah, we’ve got that show tomorrow,” Mark added. “I should rest my voice before that. And Carter, you should rest your fingers.”
“Yeah, sure,” Carter said, nodding.
We all packed up and headed our separate ways. There was no talk of vices. There were no plans to go out together that night. The truth was, things might be going better for us in terms of the band, but in terms of our personal lives, it felt like we weren’t even friends anymore. I knew it was going to take some time to rebuild those bridges, but it didn’t feel like anyone was even trying.
It felt like I was working with strangers. Like we might never reconnect again. At least we had a chance to make it again, but I still didn’t know if making it was worth the price of our friendship.
It was another thing I wished that I could talk to Leah about. Or even Luke. Instead, I let them all leave and then sat down at the drum set, wailing away for another half hour before I felt okay to go home. On the way, I stopped by one of my favorite bars. It was a place that Carter and Luke and Mark and I all used to frequent together. I guess I was feeling a little bit nostalgic.
When I went inside, I almost smiled to see Carter there. For a moment, I forgot about alcoholism or anything else. For a moment, it felt just like old times as I headed to the bar and sat on a bar seat next to him, flagging down the bartender to order a beer for myself.
Carter clinked his beer against mine, but he didn’t say anything still.
“Your playing was really good today,” I finally said. “Like, really good. You’ve added something to the album that I’m really impressed with actually.”
Carter hummed and took a sip of his beer.
I started to babble. “You know, part of what’s been influencing my songwriting lately has been Leah. She makes me work harder than I think I ever had before. How you doin’ bro?”
To be honest, we were all wondering what it was that had gotten Carter to shape up. I still couldn’t believe that it was just the intervention or the fact that Mark had started to pull himself together. I wished that Carter would let me in, that he would trust me enough to let me know what was going on in his life.
Carter’s playing was increasingly better, but there was something melancholic about it, a sadness I had never heard before. I wondered where that was coming from, but I hadn’t been sure how to ask, prior to now.
I was starting to realize, though, that I had been so absorbed in the band, in making it with them, that it had been a while since I’d really shown any of my friends how much I actually cared about them. Carter had been right to blow me off when I had told him that he needed to shape up. I had mostly been worried about him in terms of how it would affect the band. That wasn’t right.
Leah had broadened my focus some. Reminded me that the outside world existed and that it wasn’t all down to my drums and our shows.
Carter shrugged, his expression going dark. I could tell that it definitely wasn’t a relationship that was informing his playing. He wasn’t in love. So what was it?
Whatever it was, Carter didn’t let me in on it now. That shrug was apparently all I was going to get out of him. He didn’t want to open up. I wondered if whatever it was was the same thing that drove him to drink like he did. If the reason all of it was coming out in his playing now was because he wasn’t drinking so much, he wasn’t numbing that pain beneath the veneer of alcohol that had kept it hidden before.
I wondered if maybe not drinking wasn’t such a good thing if he wasn’t going to get help by other means so that he could actually deal with it.
I knew better than to say anything like that, though. He wouldn’t welcome it, and it would only make our friendship more tenuous than it already was. Better to take the time and build things up between us again. Eventually, when we were on better terms, maybe he would tell me all about it.
Could we wait, though? I was afraid that if he kept everything all bottled up inside… I didn’t want to think about it. But then again, just because he wasn’t talking to me about things, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t talking to anyone. Luke listened better than anyone I knew, and Mark was going through some shit right now too. The likelihood was, Carter just didn’t want to talk to me about it. That was fine.
Still, I did want to put the work in to build up our friendship again. “Want to hang out tonight?” I asked. “Just kick back and watch some shit on TV or something?”
Carter raised an eyebrow at me. “Didn’t you just say something about a girl?” he asked, and the smirk on his face almost reminded me of the old days.
I laughed. “She’s out of town,” I said, shrugging, remembering her on the sidewalk with her suitcase the day before. “I’m bored as fuck.”
Carter snorted. “Sure,” he said. “Sounds like fun.”
“Just let me hit the head,” I told him.
“Sure, meet you out front,” Carter said.
I grinned as I headed off to the bathroom. Things were going well with the band, and soon enough, life was going to be back to normal. It was an incredible relief.
I knew I needed to keep my head in the game, not go mooning after Leah. I couldn’t afford to screw up or shirk my responsibilities.
I thought about Leah again and wondered why she was avoiding me. Was she really just busy with work and life, or did she realize that she didn’t want anything from me? I shook my head and tried to break my train of thought. Maybe she was just waiting for me to make a move. It wasn’t like I’d gone after her either. No, I needed to go see her as soon as she got home from wherever it was that she’d gone.
I was glad to have a little time to focus on my relationships with my friends.
Except that when I headed out front, Carter was nowhere to be seen. I even ducked back into the bar, wondering if he was still finishing his beer. But he was gone. My hands clenched into fists. What the fuck, man?
I frowned, heading home alone. I couldn’t help but wonder where Carter was. He hadn’t been noticeably drunk at the bar, but then again, I wondered if I would even notice if he was buzzed at this point. It was just a relief to see that he wasn’t falling all over himself or picking fights. That didn’t mean he was sober, that just meant that he wasn’t three sheets to the wind.
Yet again, I wondered at how blind I could be. Here I had been acting like everything was all better, ignoring all signs to the contrary. I wasn’t looking out for Carter at all, just for my own interests and the band. What kind of an ass was I?
I remembered how frustrated Leah had been the first night she came over to my place, yelling at me to keep it down. She was right—I really was self-absorbed. I didn’t care about anyone other than myself. Or if I did, my actions certainly didn’t show it.
I thought about Leah again. I wasn’t good enough for her, that was for sure. Not even close.
I unlocked my door, my eyes slipping over to her side of the duplex. Even if she had been there, I couldn’t go over there and tell her about my band woes. I had done that once already, and she had immediately jumped in and done her best to fix things for me.
It was time for me to start fixing things for myself. If only I knew where to start. At this point, the idea of putting us back together, of getting back to the way it had been before, seemed like an impossible task.
I sighed and flopped down on my couch, staring up at the ceiling.
20
Leah
I really hadn’t been sure what to expect from the work retreat, but I had to admit, I was really enjoying myself. It was just the accounting team, and I was enjoying the chance to really get a chance to know some of my coworkers outside the office. We were deep in the San Bernardino Forest, in a place that was sort of like a summer camp for grown-ups.
It wasn’t just the surroundings, though; the whole atmosphere was great. It was a total change from being in the office every day, but I already felt like we were sure to work more like a team from here on out.
I would happily have stayed for longer if we could.
We only had a few nights there, though. We had come up early on Friday, and we were leaving this afternoon. Most of Friday and Saturday had been spent on team-building activities and brainstorming exercises. There was a large lodge in the midst of all the little cabins which served as home base for us for the weekend.
We had done a little bit of everything. Nothing that had directly related to our work, but all meant to utilize the same skills that we needed to do our jobs. I had to admit, doing trust falls with people who had been my coworkers for such a short time was nerve-wracking. I just had to keep reminding myself that Piper had been at the company for longer than I had and still barely knew some of them.
In any case, I was game for it, and I felt closer to them all now. I was glad that I had come into the company at the time I had.
Now, it was early Sunday morning, and I was sitting out on the front porch of our cabin, sipping at some coffee, listening to birdsong, and waiting for the rest of them to get up. Most of them had stayed up a lot later than I had the night before. I felt like a grandma going to sleep as early as I had, but after staying up so late on Friday night, I wasn’t up for a repeat on Saturday, unfortunately.
I had been feeling tired a lot lately. I knew it was just my body getting used to my new schedule and my new environment. Not only that, but it needed to recover for those couple of nights I let Piper keep me out late or Jayson keep me up late.
The Boy Next Door: A Standalone Enemies-to-Lovers Romance Page 10