All the Best Nights

by Hanna Earnest

  But her brow furrowed. “Why aren’t you writing, Bran?”

  He shrugged.

  “You love music. You love to perform.” Nelle moved her hand to his knee. “I think that’s the only time you don’t mind asking for support. When you’re with an audience, you open up. You let your guard down.”

  She was asking him to do it now. For her.

  “Why aren’t you writing?”

  He looked up to drink in the whiskey of her eyes, to absorb a bit of her courage. “Nothing’s coming.”

  “So? Go get it.”

  “It’s not that easy. I can get...” He searched the ceiling for a word. “Overwhelmed.”

  “And you think I don’t? Have you listened to ‘Under Water’?”

  “That’s why I listen to ‘Under Water.’”

  He started the first few notes of the song. Nelle clamped her palm around the guitar’s neck, dampening the sound.

  “No. I want to hear BK2,” she said.

  “There is no BK2.”

  “There has to be something. People like us always have something we need to get out. If we try to keep it in, we explode.” Her mouth shut too quickly, holding something back.

  Now he pressed for answers. “What happened in Barcelona?”

  She nodded, like she’d been waiting for that question. “Nothing happened.” Bran opened his mouth to call bullshit, but Nelle was still explaining. “What almost happened in Barcelona was me quitting. Confessing to Mina that I couldn’t do this, I didn’t have it in me.”

  “But you know that’s not true.”

  “Obviously. I was upset about my dad. Unaligned. And I thought I could fix it, if I gave something up. If I rebalanced the excesses of prosperity in my life.”

  “Is that how the universe works?”

  “That’s how desperate people think. Don’t tell me you haven’t considered heading down to Georgia and bargaining with the devil to get a song out of it.”

  He rubbed a knuckle into his eye. She was so close to being right. He had traded his soul for the possibility of a song. But not to the devil, to her. He’d tried to get a song out of her infectious light only to realize he was losing himself to her instead.

  “How the universe works is you have to trust, to love more than you’re afraid. Fear blocks flow,” she said.

  “And what am I afraid of?”

  Nelle waited for Bran to fill in the blanks. What was he afraid of? No Nelle. It was the second time he’d had the thought today. He reached for her hand, weaving their fingers together, backwards so their palms didn’t touch, only their knuckles, with gaps of space between. That’s how it had to be. It wasn’t their secret he needed anymore. He needed this. The secret allowed him to have Nelle, one night at a time. The silence pressed at him. He had to say something that was on his mind, without giving away too much. “Maybe creativity isn’t a renewable resource. Maybe you get what you get and when it’s done, so are you.”

  Nelle wrinkled her nose. “Or maybe I can help.” And then she was rearranging them, fitting between him and the guitar. Her back warm against his chest and her hair falling soft on his shoulder. Her slender fingers curved around the string board. She nodded to the body.

  “You pick.”

  “How will that work?” He tried strumming as she pressed chords into the guitar’s neck. It sounded like someone’s first time holding an instrument, not like two accomplished musicians working together.

  Bran laughed, lifting Nelle and the guitar. His hand dropped away and she pulled it back.

  “Play with me. Just sing something. Whatever you’re thinking.”

  Bran let his hand rest on the Taylor’s familiar face. Then he rolled his wrist and swiped his fingers up and down over the strings. Their timing was better, sound recognizable as a tune vibrating from the instrument.

  “I want you to stay,” he said quietly, but with a hint of rhythm.

  She sang back, her voice lively, teasing a duet out of him. “To fill your fridge with crudités?”

  “So you can’t?”

  “I’ve got plans.”

  “How long for?”

  “Six whole months on a sold-out tour.”

  He kissed her cheek. “You deserve it, by the way.”

  “Thank you.”

  He moved her hands on the neck of the guitar. “Chord change for the chorus.” This time, he sang instead of speaking. “I think tonight was the best night of my life.”

  “Was it winning Cleffies, or the anal with your secret wife?”

  Bran dropped his hand from the strings. “You’re too good at this.”

  “I know, it’s probably making you feel worse.” She rolled over, flattening herself under the guitar, the smooth wood at her back, her chest flush with his. “That part about the best night of your life was nice.”

  “It was trite.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.” She was going to ask again about BK2, he could tell by the way her lips pursed. He adjusted his eyes up to the ceiling and waited. She rested her head on his chest and said nothing.

  Best night of his life. And now it was over. The best was behind him. That’s exactly the feeling he was trying to wash away in the shower. And Nelle had brought it right out into the open and left him with it.

  He could grasp both ends of the guitar with her like that, and he did, surprising himself by playing the scrap of song Arlo called “drowning in paint.” He used to do a thing when he was learning the guitar, where he’d play something six times, six different ways. In case he ever played six nights at the Capital Theater. It was how he used to write a song, when he was a kid, he’d play with it first. He’d try to find room in the melody for possibilities, explore the nuances, make sure he picked the best one. Because only the best songs would earn him an audience, keep him onstage.

  He was tempted to try it now. Play the line again and again until it sounded just right. But he didn’t. He didn’t want to work at it, like he’d had to as a kid. He wanted it to just come. He was an award-winning performer now. He hated still feeling like he was that kid, unable to escape the dark shadow his father cast over his life.

  He played “Bird Song” again instead.

  Nelle listened with her head on his chest. Her eyes closed and her breath evened. Bran put the guitar in the bed next to them and turned off the lights with his phone. His hands threaded behind her back and he took in the scent of her hair. She may have thought the guitar belonged in his arms, but he was happier to wrap them around her. It was easier than holding on to something that felt like it was tugging away from him.

  Transcript of Tonight with Tony:

  Tony: You’ve been in New York all week, getting ready for two sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden this weekend. [Audience cheering] Bran Kelly has also been spotted around the city this week.

  Nelle: Oh, yeah?

  Tony: You know there’s speculation about a feud between the two of you. First he interrupted your Jingle Jam tribute, and then he didn’t clap for that Note Awards performance that brought down the house. And of course there’s the meme.

  Nelle: I use the gif regularly.

  Tony: [laughing] But have you heard about the fan conspiracy theories?

  Nelle: That we hate each other?

  Tony: That you love each other. The Clever and Cleavage podcast tweeted the “real” reason he’s in town at the same time you are.

  Nelle: Oh, I did see this. They said he’s here for my concert. I can’t blame him, it’s going to be a great show.

  Tony: They said you guys got married—

  Nelle: Over the weekend, right? [laughter] Sorry to disappoint.

  Tony: So he’s not your—

  Nelle: Husband of four days? Also untrue.

  Tony: I didn’t think so. Sounded like a pretty far-fetched scheme. But the feud
between the two of you? Is there truth in that? You were overheard calling him a Cleffy-nominated dickhead.

  Nelle: And I need to amend that—he’s a Cleffy-winning dickhead.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Bran had arrived in a box.

  A big black tour trunk with stenciled white letters. Nelle had thought it must be costumes, mistakenly sent to her hotel room instead of the venue. Then Bran had texted her a cardboard box emoji.

  An aesthetician had hold of one of her hands, painting constellations on her fingernails, and Nelle had to wait and thumb a one-handed response telling him, “dob’t die.” She’d eventually gotten him out of the box and into her, and had been panting, pinned to the wall when Mina knocked in her sharp “time is of the essence” way. Bran had been shoved into the bathroom next and Nelle had gone about her schedule, which included shooting a segment for Tonight with Tony. A segment that had just aired.

  The hotel couch was shallow, yet Bran had managed to tip back into it, taking himself away from her. His arms were folded, and his eyes remained locked on the screen where commercials played soundlessly.

  Nelle turned sideways to look at him. “You’re mad.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  She slipped a bare leg out from her robe and under the matching one he wore, her calf on his thigh. When Bran didn’t untwist his arms and take hold of her foot she kicked at his leg.

  He let go of his elbows. “What?”

  “You’re mad.”

  “I’m not mad.” But he tugged his hair forward and didn’t push it back.

  Nelle rested a bent arm on the back of the couch and threaded her fingers together. “What did you want me to say? I thought my makeup was going to melt off, I was so flustered.” Her neck had been hot, her hair unbearably heavy.

  “You really want them to think we have beef.”

  “I don’t want them to know we had a cheeseburger and decided to elope. I thought we both did. That’s the point of this secret, right? To keep it to ourselves.” She didn’t want to doubt his motives—not again—but his reaction to her subterfuge made her stomach spin. “Unless you don’t care if they find out—”

  “If I didn’t care, would I have shipped myself across town crammed into a goddamn tour trunk, Nelle?” Bran stood, pacing to the bed and turning back to the sitting area. He flattened his hair and nudged the trunk with his toe. “A dick in a box,” he muttered.

  Of course, with that kind of stunt, she couldn’t doubt his commitment to keeping their secret. What she really wanted to know was if he’d felt the shift from being together to have a secret, to keeping the secret to be together? Like she had.

  Even when they were apart, they didn’t act separate. Since February, Bran had been texting her. He’d send a photo of his feet up on the ottoman in his den, a blurry baseball diamond on the TV in the background. Or he’d snap a picture of the wallpaper samples Cormac was considering for the single-user bathrooms at the restaurant. Bran Kelly’s official Instagram had been stagnate since his tour ended when Aya (she assumed) had stopped posting professional shots from each show. But Nelle had access to a private feed—push notifications On—and her phone was vibrating with the kind of stuff his fans would die for. Everyday moments that proved Bran was more than a rock star, that he was a guy you could know, someone you could fall in love with close up.

  She was getting used to her backstage access to Bran Kelly. At one point she’d resigned herself to knowing she would have to give it up, but the thought seemed impossible now. Against all the odds, despite all the paps that crowded her every move, they hadn’t been caught. Wasn’t that the universe’s way of giving its blessing? Wasn’t this working better than they’d ever expected? Couldn’t they try to make it last...and last?

  Nelle wasn’t ready to open that box. The box filled with questions she couldn’t answer, like: Is teenage infatuation a healthy place to start a relationship? Can you fall for someone you’ve only spent four nights with? When is the right time to tell your husband you might actually love him?

  Nobody was ready for that conversation.

  She lowered her head to her folded hands on the back of the couch. The angled ring dug into her chin and she spun the V to the underside of her finger. “I don’t know what else to do. With the exception of the Note Awards, we’ve been completely off grid. There are still rumors just because we’re in the same giant city. Maybe we can only see each other in LA—”

  “You won’t be back in LA until the fall. And Aya booked Super Saturday. We’ll both be in London in May.”

  “Maybe we should avoid each other—”

  “No. If I have a chance to see you, I’m taking it.”

  Her stomach twisted again, not with doubt, but from the truth in his words. He would see her. He had to see her. And she loved hearing the conviction, the need in his voice, even if he was talking to the wall.

  “But...” He faced her way, looking past her, his hands gripping his hips. “You’re performing.”

  She lifted her head. “Excuse me?”

  Bran nodded to the TV where Nelle danced, the lyrics of her new single, “Cosmic Order,” scrolling in black-and-white captions. “Leo rising, enterprising, uncompromising—she does it for herself!” On tour, her fans were going absolutely feral over that line. They’d scream it and jump as flames erupted behind her. It was one of her favorite moments every night.

  “That one must kill,” Bran said.

  “Yeah. It does.”

  He leaned a shoulder into the arch separating the two rooms of her suite. “If I wanted to sneak into your show—”

  “That’s out of the question.”

  His jaw bobbed like he was chewing something tough.

  On the glass table, her phone began to buzz, interrupting the silence with demanding vibrations.

  “My parents are calling.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “No—they call after everything. Your dad didn’t call after the Note Awards?”

  “He did. Asking for money. Said, ‘You used to give it to Mom, why not me? What’s the difference?’”

  “What is the difference?”

  “When Gran broke glasses it was an accident.”

  Her heart throbbed. “You didn’t pay him.”

  “No.”

  Nelle resisted the urge to shake her head as she sighed. Bran’s problem was that he had solutions, and he just didn’t like them. The night he’d won the Cleffies, he’d had a moment like this. He’d kicked a guitar case and sat with his back to her, his shoulders up and covered in goose bumps. But he’d shaken it off quickly enough, invited her in on a joke with his friends. He’d opened up to her.

  Nelle’s hand tightened around the shaking phone. It felt risky bringing a bigger part of her identity into the tiny bubble they’d formed around themselves—like maybe there wouldn’t be enough room, and the bubble would pop. But she wasn’t in the habit of making herself small.

  “My mom wants to take credit, and my father uses any opportunity he can to lament my piano playing.”

  “You didn’t play the piano.”

  “Exactly.” Nelle held a finger to her lips and answered the call, putting it on speaker.

  “Antonella?” her mother’s voice demanded.

  “Hi, Mama.”

  “What time is it? Why aren’t you asleep? You have a show tomorrow.”

  “Why are you calling if you think I should be asleep?”

  “A mother can’t call her daughter she just saw on television?”

  “You can always call me, Mama.”

  “Oh! Well, thank you for the permission.”

  Nelle rolled her eyes only because her mother couldn’t see.

  The woman paused and for a second Nelle worried she had seen somehow, but her mother had only been gathering breath to launch into her tho
ughts on the segment. “Well, you sang beautifully—of course—and you looked wonderful. Was that blue or black?”

  “Navy.” Nelle had offered, again, to fly them out. Her mother could have seen in person the color of her dress. But they still weren’t ready. It felt like they might never be. She’d started to worry she’d never see their faces cheering her on again. That was fear. So she let it go.

  Her mother hummed her approval. “We can wear dark colors, unlike your cousin Alex—I told you about his interview? I thought he was too pale for television but he’s going to be a correspondent for the morning show. I told his mother to get him sunscreen so he doesn’t burn under those lights. You looked flushed yourself when Tony asked about those rumors.”

  Bran had been standing still, but now his head lifted and Nelle regretted putting the phone on speaker. She tried to change the subject. “You were right last week, I need a haircut—”

  “Married, Nella. If only. Then I’d be one step closer to being a grandmother.”

  If her mother could see her now, she’d see another flush as Nelle avoided Bran’s gaze.

  “I’m nowhere close to having a baby.”

  “Not without a husband. Hold on, your father wants to say something.”

  “Antonella?” Her father’s voice this time.

  Nelle let out a sigh of relief. “Hi, Papa.”

  “Twelve years. I paid for twelve years of piano lessons, Nella. Not that anyone would know.”

  Nelle made hesitant eye contact with Bran, now that her mother wasn’t talking about real marriages and babies. She raised triumphant eyebrows and his cheek ticked. “You paid for dance lessons too.”

  “You didn’t need dance lessons. You take after me.” Her mother must have protested because her father’s voice faded to address his wife. “Yes, me!” Then he was back to explain, “We move with music. It’s natural for a Georgopoulos. You had to work at the piano, you should be so proud. Overcoming your mother’s meat hands. Ow!”

  Her mother took the phone back. “Your father has to go to bed. And so do you. But you play the piano for him soon. We’ll call you tomorrow.”