All the Best Nights

by Hanna Earnest

  “That’s what I like about Iowa, thank you very much. It’s predictable. Exactly as I left it. I can’t wait to get back.”

  “Kind of early for Christmas?”

  “I’ll be traveling most of next year on tour, so I’m taking some time off first. And I want the full holiday experience. Cutting down the tree, stringing lights, not just showing up for twelve hours to open presents.”

  “Can you have it? Now that you’re Nelle?”

  “Of course. It’s a small town, they all know me already. Nobody bothers me there. It’s home.”

  Bran cleared his throat. “We played a show in Des Moines, pretty sure. And then I convinced the guys to pilgrimage with me up to the Field of Dreams—you know where—”

  “Dyersville. I know. Never been.”

  “You gotta go. It’s incredible. Except—and this is a business idea worth millions, so don’t steal it—they need to be selling hot dogs at that place. Or corn at least. All those stalks, green and swaying in the breeze. Imagine them roasted, unshucked, buttered—but I never wanted a hot dog more in my life. I would have paid top dollar for one. And not a fancy food truck hot dog with duck fat or whatever Cormac would put on it—but char-grilled by someone’s kitschy-apron-wearing relative, you know?”

  That was one of the things people loved about Bran Kelly—the way he used detail to draw a moment, an emotion. Nelle could see it immediately. She could see home. “Some little girls setting up a PBR stand and selling packets of ketchup—”

  He shook his head, that one loose strand shaking side to side with the force. “You don’t put ketchup on a hot dog. Hot dogs need mustard. Best-case scenario: pickle, peppers, tomato, onion, celery s—”

  “You’re describing a salad. Not a hot dog.”

  He looked over at her, incredulous. “You’ve never had a Chicago-style hot dog?”

  “That’s the line you should be using to get girls in bed.”

  His tongue touched the corner of his mouth as he played along. “It’ll change your life.”

  Nelle’s fingers pressed into his leg. “Big talk.”

  “Big—dammit!” Gravel from the road’s shoulder clattered against the car’s undercarriage with the rapid percussion of a snare drum. Bran swerved back across the white lines.

  “You need to watch the road!”

  “It’s hard.”

  “Is it?”

  He laughed. “With you distracting me.” His hand left hers to turn on the radio, spinning the tuner until it picked up a signal from a local station. Familiar notes filled the car and Bran groaned, twisting the dial again.

  “Hey! That’s one of my favorite songs.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Go back.”

  “You’re really going to make me listen to my own band?”

  “I am. I love ‘Fly Free.’ I used to—” Nelle clamped her mouth shut. Why was she about to tell Bran Kelly that?

  “Words fly off the page,” Bran sang on the radio, while he sat in resigned silence next to her.

  Nelle tried to listen. But she couldn’t stay quiet. She knew the song too well. The lyrics on her tongue forced themselves out and she harmonized with the voice coming through the car’s speakers.

  “Birds free from the cage, a flutter plenty heard, pen my own twenty-third.”

  She’d always wondered what it meant, and she turned to ask Bran, seize her chance to find out. He had gone stiff next to her, a pained expression on his face. She’d been a guest judge on an episode of Supermarket Star and knew firsthand how excruciating it was to have to bear witness to someone butchering your music.

  The song ended and Nelle’s face flushed. She took her hand off his lap under the guise of adjusting his jacket. The air in the car had become stuffy, unbearably heavy. She tried to joke through the embarrassment. “This must be some classic rock/oldies station.”

  To her relief, Bran eased his tense grip on the wheel. “I’d be offended if you hadn’t just implied the lasting, timeless quality of my music.”

  “My songs are still current hits,” she replied, hoping another tease would dispel the rest of the awkwardness she’d created.

  He checked his watch, despite the glowing time on the dash in front of them. “Tell you what. J99 is about to count down their top requests—their nine at nine—and I bet you a million dollars ‘Touch Her Back’ ranks higher than ‘Under Water.’”

  “I’m playing their Jingle Jam tomorrow night. I’ll destroy you.”

  Bran stretched his hand across her body for her to shake. “Willing to wager on it?”

  Nelle slipped her palm into his, their matching calluses scraping together. She had no doubts about winning. He might be feeling lucky, but the universe had her back. “Double or nothing I’m number one on the countdown.”

  His solid grip squeezed her knuckles together. “Deal.”

  Bran let go to change the station. The DJ’s exaggerated persona blared out at them and Nelle winced. “Hey, hey, hey—we got that nine at nine starting right now with your girl—”

  “Nelle,” Bran finished.

  “No way am I ninth.”

  “—Miss Charma with ‘Drop It Down.’”

  The DJ ticked off the songs, playing each one after announcing its position. Nelle bopped along with them all, confident from the get.

  “Time for the number number number, two two two, most requested song of the week. You know this one—one of the hottest singers out there, and I do mean hot, it’s Santinoooo!”

  Bran scoffed. “Is he the guy with the face tattoos? That guy’s number two?”

  “You have to admit this song is catchy.”

  “It’s synthetic.” He sat up straighter, smiling as he told her, “Let’s turn this off. Forget the whole thing, I don’t want to have to take your money—”

  The song ended and Nelle pumped the volume up as the DJ returned.

  “No surprise here, folks, that the number one slot goes to an artist you can catch tomorrow night at the Jingle Jam if you’re lucky enough to have tickets—listen all day tomorrow for the final giveaways—” Bran beat a drum roll on the wheel “—but now it’s ‘Under Water’ by Nelle!”

  Nelle raised her hands in triumph as her song blasted from the speakers. She couldn’t wait to play this one live—see the thrum of it capture her fans, let it wash over her too. She was so proud of the album she’d written, inspired by the last few years, the mix of amazing and heart-wrenching things that had happened to her. She’d written in hospital rooms with her dad and flown to NYC and London to get in the studio with some of the best producers in the business. This album represented every kind of triumph she could think of, especially over loss and uncertainty. But this song told the story of what it felt like to go through it.

  She tapped in to the music, the intentionally overwhelming sound expanding behind her vocals. There in the car, she let herself be transported to a vivid future where an entire crowd of people were connected together through her words. She didn’t notice Bran singing next to her until the song was almost over. She stared openmouthed. It was almost as inconceivable as the rest of the night, that he’d know her lyrics, that she’d get to hear him sing them.

  Bran’s shoulders rocked along to the staccato hook. He took his hands off the wheel to clap as her voice faded out.

  Nelle shut the radio off. “You owe me two million dollars.”

  Bran stopped clapping to guide the car through a curve in the road. “It wasn’t a fair contest—”

  “You came up with it!”

  “But my stuff has a different sound, J99 doesn’t cater to indie folk—”

  “‘Touch Her Back’ is not a folk song.”

  “And ‘Under Water’ is not a pop song.”

  “What’s wrong with pop songs?” She bristled at the words. “It’s like an
ything made primarily for young women has to be downgraded—that’s ingrained nonsense. That’s misogyny.”

  “Hey, I don’t care what they call my music or who listens to it—as long as someone is listening to it. But before production, your song was something else.” He sang again, unaccompanied, and Nelle’s eyes drifted shut to better memorize the sound of it. “Ebb and flow, e-e-ebb get low. You work with Charlie, right?”

  Nelle’s eyes popped open. “You know Charlie?” Charlie was Nelle’s writing partner, they always collaborated together, it was one of Nelle’s favorite parts of the whole process, bringing something to Charlie and discovering what they could pull out of it.

  “Charlie’s great,” Bran agreed. “They really know their stuff. But what did you write, before that get-low hook? What was the original lyric?”

  “That was the original lyric.”

  He paused, his mouth pulling wide and flat. “Oh.”

  Her shoulders curved forward defensively. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Clearly not nothing.”

  “I just—did you come up with it or Charlie?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “That’s what it’s like working with other people, you know? You lose control.”

  “I like working with Charlie, the songs are stronger when we collaborate. We were both happy with it.” The December air seeped through the car’s steel frame.

  “But if you were writing it yourself, do you think you would have dug deeper?”

  “I did write it myself.”

  There had been a discussion. She had wanted to linger on the line, wasn’t sure it conveyed precisely the feeling she’d been struggling with, but she trusted Charlie. She trusted herself. The song was a hit. Even if it wasn’t up to Bran Kelly’s standards. Dug deeper. “Dug deeper?” she repeated, the words dry like ash in her mouth. “Like ‘Touch Her Back’ is deep?” Nelle monotoned the lyrics, “I wanna touch her back. Bend it low, lick it wet. I wanna touch her back. Every part of it, because she started it.”

  He raised a finger. “That song was inspired by the most base and consuming of desires. And the rest of ‘Under Water’ was too, I can tell.”

  She shouldn’t ask. Because she didn’t want to know. “But.”

  “But you didn’t get personal. In that hook. It might have been better—”

  “Better? It was good enough to beat you.”

  “Yeah, on the J99 nine at nine.” He finally looked at her and his smile fell, like he’d just realized she’d taken offense to what he’d said.

  Bran Kelly was amazing at articulating a feeling, sharing it, making it universal. And he’d just told her she’d fallen short trying to do the same. Nelle shivered and let Bran’s jacket drop to the floor in front of her.

  “You’re such a dickhead.”

  Chapter Seven

  Bran had been coasting. Now he released the gas to roll his ankle, his muscles cramping behind his shin.

  Were they fighting? It felt like they were fighting. He wasn’t a relationship genius, but he knew what it meant when a woman folded her arms, angled her knees away from you, and glared aggressively out a window seeing nothing.

  He’d been trying to compliment her. “Under Water” was good. Really good. That’s what he was trying to say. That she had something. All he’d wanted to do was offer a little advice about taking on collaborators, how they tried to push their own ideas on your music. He’d meant it as a heads-up, a warning, from someone who’d been vigilant, gotten through it without intervention.

  He replaced his foot on the pedal. Warning Nelle, though, when he thought about it, wasn’t entirely necessary—not once tonight had she revealed herself as someone easily pushed around.

  Buzzing sounded from the wheel well across from him. Nelle bent forward and pulled a vibrating phone out of her bag.

  She had to have a team. There had to be people wondering where Nelle was.

  “You can answer. I’ll be quiet.”

  She silenced the device, holding it facedown in her lap. “It’s just my mom. She wants to know if I want her to make baklava or galaktoboureko.”

  “Gala-what?”

  “Milk cake. It’s my favorite.”

  This felt like stuff he should be writing down. Her favorite flowers, her favorite foods, her favorite songs—his song—when she had been singing it earlier, he’d barely been able to move. Hearing her next to him had been exhilarating and—

  No. He didn’t need to remember her birthday or her parents’ names or her favorite anything. He had to remember that he only had tonight to get what he wanted from her. They were going their separate ways in the morning. It wasn’t like he had to prepare for a celebrity Newlywed Show. That was the opposite of the point.

  “So tell her. What you want.”

  “It doesn’t matter—she’s gonna make both no matter what I say.”

  He tried to catch her eye but she’d turned back to the window again, those yellow nails drumming against the hard case of her phone.

  Bran shifted in his seat; he was ready to be out of this car. Ready to spend the energy that had been collecting in his body for hours now. His foot ached and he let up the gas momentarily to spin his ankle again, bend his knee. Everything was starting to feel tight and he should have been relieved when the city lights came back into view, but that easy camaraderie they’d established on the drive was gone.

  Bran needed it back.

  He found Nelle’s hand in her lap, turned her phone over, and clicked the screen on to display the photo he’d caught a glimpse of earlier. “Are those your parents?” Nelle stood between a dark-haired couple, both of them kissing her cheeks as she grinned with her eyes shut.

  “Yeah.”

  “They couldn’t make it in for the show tomorrow?”

  She laughed, one syllable, to herself, not sounding particularly amused. “Mmm-hmm.”

  “They look nice. You’re close to them?”

  She nodded.

  He’d gone from a one-word answer, to nonverbal humming, to silent agreement. The next stop on that path was her ignoring him completely.

  “Nelle. Hey. I’m sorry.” He squeezed her knee. “I don’t know when to shut up sometimes. People scream my name. It’s an occupational hazard.”

  She wiggled the ring on her finger. Was she going to take it off?

  “That’s a very male privilege: the right to talk without thinking.”

  Bran exhaled slowly. Conversing with Nelle was like feeling his way along a tightrope. Blind across a never-ending drop. Like being back in school where he’d never done the required reading. But at least she was talking now, even if he didn’t know what she meant. “How’s that?”

  Nelle shrugged and they passed under a series of streetlamps, light to dark, light to dark. He’d almost forgotten the question when she said, “It’s always been your world, right?”

  He put his hand back on the wheel. Well, it looked like they’d be going their separate ways sooner than he’d thought. And he’d just have to deal with his energy himself. Certainly wouldn’t be the first time. He consoled himself with what he was taking from this night: the seed of a song buried in his jacket pocket and the knowledge that they had done something that would set off a media frenzy—and that no one would ever know.

  He’d have one memory secure again, when the rest were released into the wind. That was enough. Even if he’d been looking forward to the rest of the evening, locking himself in a hotel room with a woman who revved his dick like a sports car engine. Sharing this secret with Nelle was better than nothing.

  “Okay, so I’ll just drop you at the hotel then—”

  “You can drop me down the block and I’ll walk.”

  “I’m not going to—”

  “We can’t pull into the drive and go in together.�
��

  Bran whipped his head to look at her. “We’re still going in together?”

  “What? Bran, have you completely forgotten what’s happening here? We were never going in together. I’ll go up first. You check in and then come to my room instead.” She gave him the number and looked hard at him, waiting for him to get on board.

  “You still want to—”

  “I’ve got the rest of my life to think about what an asshole you are. I’m not going to waste time doing it tonight.”

  No, Nelle didn’t get pushed.

  The Ferrari sped over the river that divided Chicago north and south and Bran felt the internalized sensation that he had crossed sides, to the other team’s half. He curved off Lake Shore Drive’s exit ramp and pulled over a block away from her hotel in the heart of the Gold Coast. The sidewalk was lit but mostly empty, the temperature dropping low enough to keep people off the streets. “I can’t leave you here.”

  “It’s a nice enough neighborhood, Bran. That ATM dispenses cupcakes.” She leaned forward to shrug on her peacoat, hooked the bag handles over her elbow, and climbed out of the car. Bran swore, throwing the car into Park and jumping out after her.

  “Ne—” She turned, her eyes wide with warning before he finished shouting her name. Right. He had to get a hold of himself before he gave them up.

  “Take the car.” A shiver racked his body as a harsh wind swept down the street. She must be freezing in those thin tights. “I’ll walk. You drive.”

  Nelle considered the car behind him and stepped off the curb. “Okay.”

  He followed her back to the driver’s side door, reaching in to grab his jacket and his duffel bag. On the sidewalk he layered on his sweatshirt, while she adjusted the seat and tilted the mirror with those mustard-tipped fingers. The engine growled, and he caught her smiling as she swung the car into Drive.

  Something stirred low in Bran’s gut at the sight of it. He needed to get to that hotel room.

  It wasn’t just the December chill that set him walking briskly down the block. His hand ached, clutching the bag, exposed to the winter air, and he chugged along like a steam engine, his breath a white fog in his wake.