by Elle Bennett
“Can you stop bitching so we can play the damn song?” Ken asked.
I let out a loud huff and walked over to the keyboard, where Andrew had set up a microphone for me.
“I’m doing this because I like the song, and because of that damn bet. I’m not comfortable with any of this. Get that in your heads right now. I can’t have any of you thinking any differently,” I said.
“Understood,” Andrew said.
He picked his guitar back up and we sang through the rough version together, just Andrew, his guitar, and me. When we finished, the guys looked impressed. Chad even smiled, and he rarely did that.
“I like it,” Doug said. “It’s definitely rough right now, but it’s damn good.”
Ken and Chad nodded in unison.
After Andrew showed them their individual parts, he moved over to the keyboard and handed me some sheet music. It was handwritten, ripped out of a notebook.
“The piano part is simple. I didn’t want it to be too intense, or overwhelm you,” he said.
“Too late,” I said.
I studied the sheet music for a minute before I placed my fingers on the keyboard. I played a few scales to warm up my hands and took a deep breath. I played the first few chords and my fingers jumped off the keyboard, gripping the charm on my necklace.
“Go on,” Andrew said. He looked at me like I was a startled woodland creature he was trying to instruct to eat out of the palm of his hand.
I took a deep breath, willing myself not to burst into tears and run away from it all. I wondered for a moment if it would be worth it to never see Andrew again if that meant I didn’t have to see the piano again.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t run away. I was stuck at the piano he’d brought in specially for me, and I knew I had to do it. So I placed my fingers back to the keys and I let myself get lost in the song for a moment.
It was like being reunited with a long lost twin. My other half, my soul mate.
I didn’t want to admit it, but it felt great to play again. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the feel of my fingers gliding over the keys, feeling like the music was a part of me, a part of my soul. Playing a keyboard wasn’t quite the same as playing a piano, but it still felt like home. I’d missed the feeling down to the depths of my very being.
I felt raw. I felt real. I felt alive.
I hadn’t felt like this since the last time I played. After that performance, Cassidy had taken me out to dinner, she had said it was to celebrate our reunion. But that wasn’t who she really was. She didn’t celebrate anything that involved someone else’s talent or happiness. That was the last night I saw her. It was when she told me, “I don’t know why I bothered coming back to see you. You’re as worthless as your father.”
My fingers lifted off the keys. I took another deep breath. I ran away when I was fifteen, and I felt my legs itching to do the same at twenty.
“April? You okay?” Andrew said. I shook my head. “You sounded great for someone who’s rusty, if that helps.”
My fears began to melt away as he smiled at me. He walked over to me and placed a kiss on my forehead.
“Play with us for a bit longer?” he asked.
With a gulp, I nodded. I played the piano as the guys played their parts, and I watched the image of Cassidy dissolve from my mind, back to the hole of despair she normally resided in. I let myself get lost in the music. I didn’t let myself think about anything at all. I just played the piano and dived in headfirst, hoping I wouldn’t drown.
For the first time since I’d met the band, since I joined them on their tour, I felt like I’d belonged. Like I was more than just the girl that Andrew fucked regularly. I felt wanted, needed. I felt like I was a part of something that I loved. And in that moment, the idea of playing the piano and singing with my favorite band didn’t seem like the worst idea in the world.
Once we finished playing the song in its entirety for the first time, I asked, “Where’s your next concert, anyway?”
“Noir,” Doug answered. “Beginning of October.”
And just like that, horror swooped back down into my gut. Noir wasn’t exactly a small venue. It wasn’t a stadium, wasn’t a place that Like, I Like That would play, but it wasn’t indie-local-band-audience small, either. Either way, I wasn’t sure I could handle playing to that many people.
“I’ve gotta go,” I said, stepping away from the keyboard, away from the band. “I need to go job hunting, and um. Walk my dog. I need to eat dinner.”
“April, we haven’t even started on the lyrics yet,” Andrew said.
“But I have to go. We’ll work on it another time. Bye,” I said. I gave him a quick peck on the lips, then rushed out the door.
When I got home, my dad was sitting on the couch, drinking a beer and watching some old sitcom rerun. I wanted to yell at him about the whole piano thing that happened with Andrew, but I didn’t have the energy to fight with him. So I decided to let it go. I had bigger things to worry about.
I went to my room, where Pigeon was sitting, waiting for me to get home. I gave him a scratch on the head and opened up my laptop to check my email. One of the guys, I assumed Ken, had posted a new status on Peristerophobia’s various social media sites.
“We have a show at Noir Theater on October fourth! There’s going to be a special guest, so be sure to come and check it out!”
Special guest. Me. What the hell.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I’ve never felt like this before
I don’t know if you’re leaving
Or if you’re the one leading
All I know is that our hands are clasped
And this is our path
“Empty Picture Frames,” Peristerophobia
Andrew and I were fooling around on his couch a couple of weeks later. As he trailed his lips back up to my mouth from where he’d been worshiping my breasts, he gave me a smile. Then he pulled away, though he kept his fingers inside of me, moving at a steady pace.
“Hey, do you want to play ‘Spackling’ with me at Cranberry tonight?” he asked. “I think we should test it out there. Gauge the audience’s reaction, see if we need to make any changes before we debut it officially.”
I swear, I went from wet to dry in two seconds flat. I grabbed my tank top off of the floor and jumped off of the couch, pushing his hand away from me. I shoved the shirt over my head and let out a noise of frustration.
“Are you fucking kidding? I don’t want to go back to Cranberry. The place is probably still smoking from all the bridges I burned.”
He stood up and wrapped his arms around me, whispering “please” into my ear before he began to kiss my neck again, sucking on my clavicle in just the right spot. He was playing dirty, and we both knew it. And just like that, I was wet again.
I pushed him away.
“I just want to see if people like it. I mean, our opinions matter, but the audience’s opinion matters too,” he said.
I let out a sigh and looked at him directly in the eyes. He put his arms back around my waist and I wrapped mine around his neck.
“Okay, sure. But can we go somewhere else? I really don’t want to go to Cranberry.”
Andrew shook his head.
“Cranberry is the only good place around here for open mike nights. And it’s important to me. I used to sing there back in high school. Every single Friday night that I hadn’t lucked into a gig, I was there with my guitar. Before Peristerophobia, it was my stage. It’s a huge part of my past, and it would mean a lot if you’d sing with me there. It’s a big part of us, too. I mean, it’s where I found you.”
I nodded. It clearly meant a lot to him, and the look on his face was a combination of desperate, hopeful, and loving.I couldn’t say no to him.
“Okay, fine. I’ll do it,” I said, clutching the flower charm on my necklace.
“Get your undies on and let’s go!” he said, lightly smacking my ass. He slipped on his boxers and ran a hand through his hair,
making it even messier than it was before.
When we got to Cranberry, it was only a couple of hours before closing time. There was a guy wearing a cowboy hat sitting in front of the microphone, wailing about how his heart had been broken ten times over the course of one year.
“Yee-haw,” I said to Andrew.
Just seeing the guy at the microphone made me miss working at Cranberry. I missed the mockable prospects that came along with the open mike nights.
Andrew chuckled and I looked around to see who was working. Calvin sat at the counter, staring at his order pad. It was pretty slow for a Friday night, which I assumed was because there wasn’t really anything good that came out in the theaters that week. The bored expression on his face said it all.
I kind of missed the guy. I hadn’t seen or talked to him since I left my job, and aside from Erica and the guys in the band, he was the closest thing I had to a friend.
I missed Cranberry a lot, honestly. I didn’t regret my decision to go on tour, but sometimes I regretted losing my job. If I got another job that I loved that much, I probably wouldn’t make the same decision if Andrew asked me to go on tour again.
As much as I loved touring, having a job I loved was more important. A tour didn’t exactly pay. At least, not for me.
“Hey, I’ll be back in a minute. I’m going to go say hi to Calvin,” I said.
I noticed Phoebe was nowhere to be found, but there was another girl working the table. This brunette perky girl, bouncing around like there was nothing but puppies and flowers and rainbows in the world.
Andrew gave me a wave as I walked away. He sat down at a table close to the stage, where the country singer was still crying about his heartbreak.
“Hey, if it isn’t the punk rock princess,” Calvin said as I sat down at a stool in front of the counter. “Decided to finally come back to the old stomping ground?”
“Yeah, Andrew basically begged me to.”
“So, I take it that lover boy is here with you? Playing a song for you again?”
“Playing a song with me, actually,” I corrected him. “I mean, I’m singing with him. Not playing with him.”
Calvin grinned.
“No way! So I was right, you are a punk rock princess.”
I rolled my eyes at him as the cowboy finished his song. Once I heard a final twang, I stood back up.
“Feel free to boo if I suck,” I told Calvin before I walked back over to Andrew. “Be a rebel.”
I pulled a chair from the table where Andrew had been sitting and dragged it over to the microphone on stage, since there was only one chair there.
“Wait,” I whispered to Andrew as he adjusted the guitar strap on his shoulder. “I just realized - we can’t play this song here.”
“Why the hell not?” he whispered back.
“Because, if we say ‘fuck’ in a song, they’ll kick us out.”
“Fuck,” Andrew said, still whispering. He looked distressed for a moment, then his face broke out in a wide smile. “We’ll say ‘frolic’ instead, then. It’ll work.”
He spoke directly in my ear. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. Goosebumps covered my arms. With a turn back to the microphone, he scooted his chair closer to the audience.
“Hey there, Cranberry,” he said, speaking loudly. “It’s nice to see you guys again. Um, for those of you who don’t know me, I’m Andrew Washington. I usually play with a band called Peristerophobia -” a random cheer came from the corner of the room “-thanks. Anyway, this is April O’Connell. And this is our radio-friendly version of a song called ‘Spackling.’”
I smiled nervously and made a mental note not to slip up and say “fuck” instead of “frolic.” If I did, Andrew and I would be blackballed from performing at Cranberry. Since the place was so important to Andrew, I figured it probably wasn’t a good idea to get him banned.
He began to play the guitar, and I felt my stomach jump. With a deep breath, I reminded myself to have fun. There were people way worse than me who had taken this stage in the past. I knew that for a fact. And no one was allowed to boo me or throw things at my head if I sucked.
For the first time since I walked into Cranberry, I was grateful for Karen’s open mike night rules.
Andrew began to sing, and at the sound of his voice, my nerves melted away.
“Life without you would be nothing, I’m glad you came along,” he sang.
I took a deep breath, looked at Andrew, then turned towards the microphone and closed my eyes. I pictured Andrew’s face and tried to sing only to him.
“All you had to do was sing me a song. You had me from that moment on, all it took was a song. Let me have your heart, I promise I’ll be gentle, I promise not to crush it.”
“You are my crutch, my one, my only, my heart. Your smile brings me to my knees, your eyes take me to paradise. Let me take you to paradise,” Andrew sang.
I could feel his eyes on me, but I kept mine closed. God knows what would happen if I opened them. He strummed his guitar harder, practically slamming each string with his pick, and we began to sing louder together as we hit the chorus.
“You are every kiss I ever wanted, you make me regret every frolic I’ve ever wasted. You are every kiss I ever wanted, you make me regret every single frolic I’ve ever wasted,” we sang together.
Not laughing when I sang the word “frolic” was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. If Andrew ever purposely put the word into another song, I would know he did it to mess with me. I would both hate him and love him forever for it.
“You are the one I needed,” I continued to sing, “to break out of this shell. Before you, my life was a living hell.”
“You are the one I needed to learn how to care for one, just one, you’re my only one, my love,” Andrew sang.
My eyes were still closed, but I could hear the intensity of his singing, and I knew his face had to be bright red at that point. Mine probably was too, but that had more to do with my tendency to blush than anything. Andrew, however, was simply putting everything he had into the performance, like he always did. He meant every word he sang.
“You are every kiss I ever wanted,” we sang together loudly, passionately. Our voices were stronger together than they could ever hope to be when they were apart. “You make me regret every frolic I’ve ever wasted. Every frolic, every single frolic I’ve ever wasted. Help me pick up these shambles, move on from the darkness of the past. Tangled sheets don’t have to mean broken hearts, broken lives. Put your hand in mine, follow me down this path, and I promise we’ll be fine.”
“You’re the one,” I sang alone, softer than before.
“The only one,” Andrew sang.
Our voices blended together once more as we finished our song.
“You’re the one kiss I ever wanted, you make me regret every single frolic I’ve ever wasted.”
Andrew’s guitar playing slowed down, stopping only a few seconds after our voices had been silenced. I opened my eyes back up and I saw Andrew smiling back at me. I smiled back at him.
There was some applause, and I could feel my face going bright red. But I still kept smiling.
I moved the chair back to the table and Andrew followed. He sat next to me and took my hand in his. My heart warmed at his touch.
“You were amazing,” he said.
I smiled at him.
Calvin walked up to us right as I was about to tell Andrew how scared I’d been, and how I doubted that I did a good job at all.
“Wow,” Calvin said.
“I know, I know. I haven’t sung in front of a crowd in a really long time. I’m super rusty. I probably shouldn’t have even agreed to -”
“Hey, no,” Calvin said, interrupting me. “You sounded great.”
“No, I didn’t. I was shaking. You could hear it in my voice,” I said. I saw Andrew roll his eyes. “Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Andrew said.
“You didn’t have to. But
you’re a musical prodigy and I’m just like, this little groupie wannabe who got a chance to sing with you. It’s not fair to the truly talented people of the world.
“Now you need to shut up,” Andrew said. “You are talented.”
“You’re just biased because I’m the reason you get laid regularly.”
He chuckled.
“Yeah, I’m biased. But that doesn’t stop me from seeing your talent. And I don’t just mean on stage,” he said with a wink.
I widened my eyes and looked over at Calvin, who looked extremely uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation.
“Andrew, Calvin is right there. Come on.”
Calvin cleared his throat and said with a smile, “I always thought you had a lovely singing voice.” He looked down at his notepad. “Would you guys like to order something?”
“When have you ever heard me sing before?” I asked.
“Sometime. Along with the radio. I don’t know. What do you want to order?” he asked again.
“Are we even staying now that we finished the song?” I asked Andrew.
“Nah, let’s head home and finish what we started earlier this evening,” he replied.
I blushed, remembering exactly what we were doing when he had the idea to come to Cranberry. I definitely wanted to finish that. He grabbed his guitar and I saw him glare at Calvin as we walked out of Cranberry. I swear I saw him shoulder-check him, too.
“God, I can’t believe I just performed in Cranberry. I mean, I’ve seen hundreds upon hundreds of people get up on that little stage, but I never thought I’d be one of them. Shit, that was scary. It was nice to see Calvin again, though. I miss that guy.”