TIME

by Penny Reid

  Mona was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke next her voice was more serious. “You know what? Fine. Okay. I see your point and it’s valid. The idea of trying new things with each other, discovering each other sounds really, really good. But, two things.”

  “Okay.”

  “You should know, I have an IUD to prevent pregnancy, but I’ve never had sex without a condom. Even so, I’ve been tested for STDs and I’m negative, for all of them. How about you?”

  Her candor, honestly, turned me on. I loved this about her, how direct she was about things that mattered. So fucking sexy.

  But being turned on and tired meant I had to really concentrate on what I wanted to say. “Uh, so me: I’ve had sex without a condom, once, and regretted it. She didn’t get pregnant and she didn’t have any STDs, but I never did it again.”

  “Did you get tested after?”

  “For STDs? Yes. I have none.”

  “But were you tested for HPV?”

  “I was vaccinated when I was a teenager, so I don’t think they tested me for that.” All this clinical talk of STDs and HPV actually did help with my concentration.

  “Okay. Good. Next question. When we have sex, will we use a condom?”

  And, just like that, all the blood rushed south again. I’d never thought of myself as someone with an active imagination until Mona and Aspen. But every time she brought up sex between us, as though it was a forgone conclusion, I saw it. Vivid flashes of imagery, sights, smells, sounds. It was like describing a ten-course meal to a starving man. I could almost taste it, taste her.

  I had to clear my throat before speaking. “Mona, if you want to use a condom, then we shou—”

  “I don’t. I don’t want to.”

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

  A spike of unadulterated longing shot down my spine. I had to press my hand against my dick. I hurt. Now I needed a cold shower. All this talking about it with her on the other side of the world was hugely, hugely frustrating.

  She continued, “But if you want to, then you have veto rights. I guess what I’m saying is, we both have veto rights.”

  “Yes. Makes sense. Can I think? I’ll let you know later?” A subject change was desperately needed if I was going to sleep at all tonight.

  “Yes, yes. Absolutely. One more thing, before we move on from our planned sexual activities.”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck! I bit back a groan. She was killing me. Killing me dead.

  But then she said, “I have hard rules, lines you can’t cross. And I think, when you’re not so tired, we should definitely talk about those.”

  Coming out of the lust fog, I said, “Yes. Perfect.” This was definitely a sobering topic. “Tell me those. We can talk about it now if you want.”

  “We can talk later, but I just want to be really clear.” I heard her take a few deep breaths, like she was working up to something. “Abram, pushing me about these lines will not be appreciated.”

  She couldn’t see me, but I was shaking my head. “I absolutely do not want you to do anything that crosses your lines. I will never, ever push you on your lines. I consider them sacred. I respect you, deeply, and agree that discussion of boundaries is unquestionably important. And I’ll tell you mine.”

  She released a relieved-sounding breath. “Good.”

  “But! Keep your favorites a secret, until I discover them. Then and only then, order from me like I’m a menu.”

  “Okay,” she said softly, sounding a little shy. “I will. It’ll be like a sexy scavenger hunt.” I sensed she was pleased, excited, but maybe also a little uncertain.

  The uncertainty concerned me, and I didn’t want us to hang up until she felt certain. “I hope you know, you can always, always tell me, when we’re together, or at any time, if anything I’m doing isn’t your jam. My hope is that I’ll be able to read you by your reactions. But if I don’t, or can’t, tell me. I will immediately stop, completely if you want, or move on to something else if you prefer. If things aren’t spectacular for you, Mona, then—I guarantee—they’ll be shit for me.”

  She laughed. “Spectacular, huh? I like the sound of that.”

  “Yes. Spectacular.” I swallowed, closing my eyes against the imagery assault of everything that conjured, and my voice gravel, I added, “Let me discover you. Slowly. Over time.”

  11

  Failure of Galilean Transformations

  *Abram*

  Zero months.

  Zero weeks.

  Zero days.

  Fourteen Hours.

  And then, finally.

  “Why’re you always in such a bad mood?”

  I moved my eyes to Charlie, watching him slip inside the green room. Beyond the open door, I spotted Stan. He lifted his chin in greeting, I lifted mine.

  Stan was the security guard who’d been assigned to stand outside my door and was part of the team for the stadium. On our first day here, he and I had bonded over pinochle. We both played it. His landlady had taught him, my mother had taught me.

  Last night, he’d brought his landlady to the stadium, I invited my mom, and we made a game of it over pizza from Giordano’s. Best night I’d had in a long time.

  Charlie closed the door, cutting off my view of Stan and reducing the noise emanating from both the stage and backstage. Lifting two bottles of champagne deftly in one hand, he grinned.

  Drummers.

  “Come on. Celebrate. We’re in our hometown.” He set one of the bottles down in front of me, right next to my feet propped on the glass coffee table and began removing the foil of the other bottle. “I brought the good stuff to get you started.”

  One and a half months. The last time I saw Mona in person. I’d been sick with the flu. She’d come to LA for twenty-four hours. I’d been delirious when she arrived, but only half-delirious when she left. Her visit had made all the difference, but the missed opportunities—to spend actual quality time together—haunted me.

  “Nah, man. I’m good.” I strummed three chords on my Dreadnought, the opening to “Hold a Grudge,” but in D minor.

  One week. The last time we’d spoken on the phone. Thirteen minutes, a quick call in the middle of the night, her time. She’d been so tired, I hadn’t wanted to keep her up when she needed her sleep.

  “No. Man. You are not good. You’re depressing as shit. Ever since Las Vegas, you’ve been a real wet blanket. When are you going to get over that shit? Everyone thought it was funny but you. Come on, that woman was gorgeous.”

  Keeping my face carefully impassive, I shrugged, because by now I’d realized Charlie wasn’t ever going to share my ire about the situation in Las Vegas.

  It was our first show after I’d recovered from the flu. After the concert, we were all backstage with the VIP ticket group, and this woman who I’d never met grabbed my dick and offered to give me a blow job. Since most people were drunk at this point, her offer spurred others to make similar offers until they started to sound more like requests, and then demands.

  And that was the last VIP session I attended. My label was pissed. I told them to eat shit. Attending VIP sessions wasn’t in my contract. Getting groped and propositioned by drunk fans, no matter how attractive they were, wasn’t either. It didn’t fucking matter if she was gorgeous. But everyone—Charlie and the crew who’d been present—made it clear that I was the strange one. I was the one who couldn’t take a harmless joke. So, I kept my mouth shut.

  Charlie popped the cork, sending bubbles cascading over his hand and onto the carpet. Shaking his fingers of the excess, he licked the back of his knuckles. “This one is for you. Here.” Charlie held out the bottle.

  I leaned forward. I took it. I set it on the floor under my legs. “Thanks.”

  Two days. The last time Mona sent me a candid picture. I kept opening it. A shot of her with one of my CDs at a music store in Geneva sent while I was asleep, giving me a huge smile and a thumbs-up along with the words, I’m so proud of you!!

  And then I would scroll throu
gh all the pictures she’d sent, taking my time with each. My favorite was still her in the white bikini. But a close second was her in a lab coat, the front of it slightly open, just enough to show me she had nothing on underneath. The night after receiving that photo had been a long, frustrating one.

  He grumbled, saying, “You know, I’m supposed to be the dark, broody member of Redburn.”

  “Oh yeah? What am I supposed to be?”

  “The sexy one.”

  I cracked a smile though I felt no humor. “Maybe we’ve switched places.”

  Ten hours. The last time she’d sent me a text message.

  * * *

  Mona: We see each other in just twenty-four hours!! AHHHH!!!! If I get out of here on time, I’ll text you to see if we can talk before my flight. I miss you.

  * * *

  I thought about the nature of those words, I miss you. Three words that fell colossally short of conveying the truth of their sentiment.

  I miss her. I miss her. I miss her.

  Charlie was right. I was depressing as shit and it was just getting worse.

  It was the tour.

  Every concert, the rush, the adrenaline, the energy of thousands of people singing my songs, chanting my name. And then afterward, nothing. The emptiness of praise that sounded like white noise, an ocean of bodies, people I didn’t want, standing where she should’ve been.

  In a way, I was glad Mona wasn’t touring with me. I wasn’t quite myself after a concert, after the last encore. A high like no drug I’d ever tried. I wanted . . . things, from her, only her.

  But all would be better soon. I would be leaving tonight right after the concert, taking a direct flight to London. We would have three days. Three days. Just us, together for three days.

  Thank God.

  Since our phone call about sex and likes and dislikes, the conversations and texts weren’t helping anymore. They left me unsatisfied and surly. I wanted to touch her. I wanted it so badly, my mouth went dry every time I thought about it, which was all the fucking time.

  But I still wanted to talk to her on the phone when she called. Even if I was frustrated, and even if it felt more and more like a punishment, I needed to hear her voice.

  I miss her. I miss her. I miss her.

  “Nope.” Charlie patted his lean stomach, making a show of sticking it out. “You know how I like that ice cream. I’ve never met a flavor I wouldn’t eat a carton of. Besides, you’re already on all those billboards in your designer tighty-whities. Too late for me to take that crown.”

  “Hmm.” I nodded distractedly, glancing again at my phone where it rested next to me on the couch.

  Recently, if Mona was able to talk, it happened about an hour before our central time concerts, 5 AM her time, 10 PM mine. But sometimes she was stuck at CERN, pulling an all-night shift, and she wasn’t reachable. Even during the day her availability was spotty. Too many meetings, conferences, time with the instruments and resources and people she needed was difficult to secure. Too many variables as she called them. If she could make the call, she’d let me know with a text. Any minute now.

  Charlie huffed, sitting down hard in the chair directly across from me. Leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his eyes large and expectant, he shrugged.

  “Well?”

  I mimicked his shrug. “Well, what?”

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? Nothing? Come on. We’re on a world fucking tour. We’re about to play Chi-fucking-cago. Do you know how many celebrities, Hollywood actresses are out there, dying to meet you before the show? We missed out on LA, so they all came here.”

  “We didn’t miss out on LA. We tacked it on at the end of the tour. We’re still doing LA.”

  “You know what I mean. Come meet some beautiful people.”

  I shrugged again, my eyes flickering to the phone. No messages.

  “But you won’t, because you’re in here, waiting for a phone call.” He didn’t sound disgusted or exasperated. He sounded perplexed.

  “That’s right.”

  “Fine.” He tossed his hands in the air, leaned back, and crossed his arms. “I’ll bite. Who is she?” “Come on, Abram. Who is it?”

  I smirked. “You know I’m going to say your mom.”

  Charlie squinted at me, his grin more like a baring of teeth. “You’re fucking hilarious.”

  “Fine. It’s your sister.”

  This joke was only funny to us, and only because Charlie has no siblings.

  “Fuck you.”

  “No thanks. She already did.”

  “You know. . .” Charlie shook his head, looking reluctantly amused, but a second later, his stare turned thoughtful.

  I said nothing, opting to instead quietly strum my guitar.

  “It’s not Leo’s sister is it? I mean, the genius. Not Lisa.”

  I stopped playing, moving just my eyes to his.

  He made a face. “Am I crazy? I only ask because you guys had that argument in Aspen, and then both of you skipped out on dinner the last two nights. It seemed like, uh, something was going on there.”

  Taking a deep breath through my nose, I considered my friend. We’d known each other for a long time. Yeah, he could be a real dick sometimes, but he’d always had my back. The truth about me and Mona was going to come out eventually. Maybe it was better if I preemptively told him.

  Before I could figure out how to start, he said, “You should know, in Aspen, she told me she was hung up on some guy.”

  “Some guy?”

  “Some guy she’d been with in college, I think.”

  “In college?”

  “Or, uh, maybe in high school? I don’t know, man. Honesty, I don’t remember anything she said other than she was hung up on someone from her past. That trip is kind of a blur now.” He laughed, presumably at himself. “Plus, after she shot me down, I kinda zoned out because it was fucking freezing outside and she was talking too fast. I didn’t understand half of what she said. Something about dark matter and the space between planets? I couldn’t follow.”

  That sounded like Mona. “Was this when we all went sledding?”

  “Yeah. I asked her if she wanted to hang out and she just, like, started telling me all this physics shit.”

  “Huh.” Thinking back on that afternoon, I remembered that I’d suggested she try to let Charlie down by being honest. In her very Mona-like way, she must’ve taken my advice.

  “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, if it is her, if you two hooked up in Aspen and are trying to keep it on the downlow now, then you should know, as of January, she was still hung up on someone else.”

  Clearing my throat, I lifted an eyebrow, working really hard not to smile at that. “Thanks for the information.”

  “So, is it her?”

  “If it was her, would it bother you?”

  “No.” He shook his head, shrugged. “Why would it bother me?”

  “You seemed interested in her.”

  “Uh, yeah.” His eyes rounded. “I mean, she’s fucking gorgeous, right?”

  I smirked but didn’t answer.

  “But Abram, there’s a million gorgeous women. And that’s my point, man. The last thing you want on your first world tour is to be in a relationship with DJ Tang and Exotica’s daughter, unless you want to be under a microscope all the time. We might be famous, but that’s a whole different ball park. They’re level one billion famous, like in the stratosphere famous. People would go nuts.”

  “I think it’ll be okay. People might be interested at first. But then it’ll die down.”

  “Holy shit, man.” He reared back, gaping. “It’s true?”

  “We’re—” I began, but was cut off by the swelling sounds in the hall mixing with the Vicious Pixies in the middle of their set.

  Ruthie stood just inside, frowning at us both. “What are you doing?” She shouted over the ruckus. “Do you even know who is out here? Nico-fucking-Moretti! I s
wear!” She stepped inside, shutting the door, and made a beeline for the coffee table.

  “I know,” I said. “I invited him.”

  “You invited him?” Ruthie frowned at me, picking up the closed bottle of champagne and began working to remove the foil. “How do you know Nico Moretti? You two in the same underwear ad or something?”

  I felt myself grimace at her joke, just a small one. That stupid ad. “His wife is friends with my sister.” I’d had lunch with Nico and Elizabeth earlier in the day. In fact, we’d driven to the venue together after. They already knew I planned to leave right after the concert.

  “Huh. Well, you should go say hi. He brought his hot actor friends and has everyone laughing. We go on in less than an hour and you two losers are in here doing what?”

  Charlie lifted his hand toward me. “Abram is waiting for a call from—” he paused, studying me for a moment before deciding on, “His mystery lover.”

  “You mean your sister?” She twisted the wire holding down the cork.

  “That joke isn’t even funny. Fuck you.”

  “No thanks, your sister already did.” Ruthie grinned at me, wagging her eyebrows. “He falls for it every time.”

  I smirked, shaking my head, glancing at my phone again. Any minute now.

  “I’ll tell you what, Nico is hot. If I weren’t so into lady parts, I’d definitely be confused.” Ruthie braced the bottle against her hip, twisting the cork and indicating to me with her chin. “You know his wife? She is also hot. Some kind of doctor, right?”

  Nodding, I set aside the acoustic guitar and picked up the phone, touching the screen just to make sure Mona hadn’t texted while I’d been distracted by my bandmates.

  “See? See what I mean?” Charlie gestured to me again, and then let his hand fall to his knee with a slap. “He keeps checking his phone. Every night, it’s the same. Fucking hell, Abram.”

  Glaring at Charlie, I gave my head a subtle shake. “Why do you care?”

  “Because.” Now he gestured to Ruthie. “Ruthie broke up with her girlfriend after Aspen.” He pointed to himself. “I made sure to stay single. Even the roadies are unattached. Why would you do this to us?”