All the Best Nights

by Hanna Earnest

  “What about...” Cormac mouth Nelle over Fei’s head. “She needs to hear what you just wrote, B.”

  “She will. In January, when the album comes out.”

  “And if that’s too late? What if you have an opening now? A chance?”

  “I don’t. She’s done. She told me last night.”

  Arlo bent his head towards the phone fisted in Cormac’s hand. “Show him.”

  “You show him.”

  “Show me what?”

  “The bling cam.” Arlo jutted out his chin and Cormac held out the phone to Bran. Queued up on the screen was a clip of Nelle on the red carpet. Kara Robins admired Nelle’s manicure—nails shellacked in a thick, glossy, unmistakable kelly green. The camera zoomed in for a close-up.

  Arlo watched over Bran’s shoulder, describing one of three stacked rings on Nelle’s left hand. “Simple, silver, kind of—” He drew a V in the air.

  Bran tried to swallow around the newly lodged lump in his throat. Last night he’d tagged Nelle in, but he wasn’t sure if being an ass before he did it disqualified the move. Now she’d surprised him. Again. What did it mean? What did she want him to do?

  He’d have to figure it out on the way there. He thanked Fei and headed for the car, confused when his former bandmates crammed themselves into the little speeder with him.

  Arlo wedged himself next to the guitar case in the back, while Cormac hunched over his knees in the passenger seat. “We’re coming with you.”

  “You guys don’t have to—”

  “Yes, we do. We missed you win two Cleffies, we’re not going to miss you win back your girl.”

  Bran pulled the car onto the road as Arlo shifted uncomfortably in the rearview mirror. “I need to note that metaphors likening women to prizes aren’t really—”

  “Fuck that, Arlo. She’s a catch. And he’s a catch. They are equal—that’s straight feminism.” Cormac braced for a turn.

  “I’m not winning her back,” Bran clarified. “I’m going to debut my next single and hope Aya doesn’t cut my balls off and use them for a PopSocket.”

  But the idea took root inside him, growing as he drove, pushing old hopes to the surface.

  Aya was waiting for them outside the theater. She marched them through a side door and into a dressing room, pausing only to reassure a PA that Bran would be ready to go on as planned. When the door closed, she held out a hand to stop the outburst of explanations. “I don’t care. You’re here. You’re ready to play?”

  Bran nodded.

  “I told them you didn’t need to rehearse with the band because you’re doing it acoustic. They weren’t happy not to have a sound check but I said we couldn’t have the song leak before tonight. So we’re fine. You’re doubling my Christmas bonus.”

  “Aya.” Bran spoke her name with longing meant for someone else. His voice changed the energy of the room, charging it with his presence, his penchant for impulse. “What if I didn’t sing ‘Midnight’?”

  “You’re singing ‘Midnight.’”

  “Nelle’s heard ‘Midnight.’”

  Aya swore at the track lighting. “I should have known this was about Nelle. You didn’t get close enough to the fire last night? Yeah, I heard about that, Kelly. Is she worth—”

  “Yes.” Bran’s absolute certainty left no room for argument and silence filled the small space. His gaze fixed on the guitar case.

  Cormac spoke first. “It’s just him and a guitar and a stool. What are they going to do, cut off the broadcast?”

  “Aya?” Bran asked, needing to know if it was possible.

  She pinched her chin. “What would you sing?”

  Cormac was ready with a video of Bran in the studio performing the new song. Aya watched it all the way through, giving no reaction.

  But Bran didn’t need one. Nelle was a gesture person. He didn’t know how to make her breakfast, couldn’t inspire her to be better—she was already the best. The only thing he knew how to do, the only thing he could do for her was prove that he heard her. That he was working to reach her level, be someone she could trust. He wasn’t blocked off, he was trying. The song said it all, and with Nelle in the audience, she’d have to hear it. She’d have to hear it, and then she could decide to say yes too.

  Tonight was his chance to show no fear.

  Aya shook her head and paced to the door.

  “Aya!” Bran said. “I’m gonna do it.”

  She glanced back at him. “I know. I’m going to get ahead of it. And you just tripled my Christmas bonus.” She left with her phone cradled to her ear.

  A long hour passed as Bran waited for the show to wrap up. He was the final performance. Arlo disappeared and returned with minutes to spare, carrying three tumblers of amber alcohol. “They tried to give me plastic cups.”

  Bran sniffed his. “You think this is a good idea?”

  “Thought it might help with the nerves.”

  “I’ve performed before, you are aware.”

  Arlo knocked glasses with Cormac and shot his back. “Yeah but. New song and all. Different stakes.”

  New song. Bran inhaled again, smoky flavor filling his nose. He knew what Arlo meant. He’d be singing alone. Nobody would be mouthing along with him. There’d be no rush of voices joining his. People would be listening. Not shouting at the top of their lungs, bolstering him.

  But that didn’t make him nervous. The singe of energy in his gut was excitement. He let the glass dangle from his fingers, his other hand wrapped around the guitar’s neck.

  A PA led him to the stage, and Bran settled himself on the top step facing the audience. He set the glass next to him and rested the guitar on his thigh. He scanned the front rows as stagehands set up a mike in front of him, racing the commercial break.

  And there was Nelle. Straight ahead. Twelve o’clock. Staring at him as he stared at her.

  It was just like he’d imagined in the booth before recording. The rest of the room faded away. Behind the camera, someone counted him off and Bran hitched the guitar up. Nelle was watching him. Nelle was listening. This was the moment he’d been waiting for, to tell her what he hadn’t gotten to say. He wanted her. He wanted all of her. He wanted to be hers. A song was his until the first time he sang it. He wanted this one to be hers too. He played the song for Nelle.

  “You carry it all with just one finger, you make it look so easy.

  In the flashing lights and the long, dark nights, you’re the only one who sees me.

  Licking your thumb, a taste of grease, a stain that bleeds through clear,

  On the note I wrote then tucked into my coat, words I know you want to hear.

  ‘This one’s for you,’ I’d say before I sing some—

  There’s no point now in making that distinction—

  Cause they’re all for you,

  Every last one, everything new,

  It’s all for you.”

  Chapter Thirty

  The door slammed shut behind Nelle. Bran’s back was to her as she landed in his entryway in her full Besties look, crisp white palazzo pants and a matching crop top. He stood facing the wall at the end of the hall, between the openings for the kitchen and den, his guitar case open on the long table under a large blue painting. She hadn’t taken the time to change, to explain, to do anything but get here.

  There had been a moment, when the lights had blazed back on and applause for Bran had turned to general post-show chatter, that Nelle had doubted whether the performance had really happened. She’d seen Bran on the stairs, guitar in his arms, drink next to him, casual as iced tea. But she’d transposed him somewhere else: to a wooden porch, where a warm breeze rustled the tall leaves of a corn field and a slow sunset blushed across the sky. She’d imagined him home.

  But it had happened. Everyone was talking about it. She’d needed a reason to kee
p her head down, not feeling ready to stand, so she’d slurped the last sip of wine from a straw in a red Solo cup and checked her phone.

  Flawed man sings perfect song, Benj had texted, PUT IT IN MY VEINS.

  And then: Score from the Greek judge?

  10/10, Nelle had typed, would forgive again.

  And then she’d frowned reading the dropdown message from Mina, Was that what I think it was?

  And the one a second later from Santino, You okay?

  She should never have started this again. Should never have put that ring back on. Should have known they couldn’t go back to the way it was.

  “I knocked,” she announced when Bran didn’t turn. “You didn’t hear me?”

  At the sound of her voice, he tensed. He rocked his head side to side to stretch his neck and turned. “You don’t have to knock to enter your own house.”

  “It’s not my house.” She took a step towards him, her hand out, palm down. “We can’t do this anymore.”

  Bran eased back, onto the credenza, listening but saying nothing.

  “It has to stop.” Her chest heaved with a frustrated breath. “Did you hear me?”

  His eyes flashed. “Yeah. I heard you. What do you want me to say?”

  Nelle pursed her lips. “Nothing.” It was better when he kept his mouth shut. When he couldn’t draft up images of a quiet life that lured her in, as seductive as they were impossible. “You’ve said enough. And I’m sure your album will say more.”

  “And yours won’t? We both played the game. We both made it entertaining.”

  She moved deeper through the hall. “Which is why it’s over. It has to be. People are watching us. They’re catching on.” Mina and Santino were just the beginning. Soon everyone would uncover the overlapping details in their albums, like landmarks on a treasure map. His song was more than the three audacious words of her hook. He pushed her, dared her, and she always stepped closer to the fire. It was why she’d said yes to this whole thing at the bar. Cut her hair. Replied to that tweet. Put the damn ring back on and pressed Repeat. When he’d shoved that coaster into her hand last night—felt the rush of realization and hope that curled around her heart as her fingers tightened over the warped totem—she’d wanted to do something big too. Now he’d countered and they’d keep on like that: gestures getting bigger and bigger until there was no stopping them. Until it was blazing out of their control.

  Bran squinted through the hall. “So what if they know? Let’s just do this. Quit the runaround.”

  Nelle froze.

  “Quit the rules and diversions. Quit all the bullshit keeping us apart. In a year we’ve spent four nights together—” Bran held up his fingers. “Four. I want more. Why not tell them we’re married?” He rested his hand against his abdomen. “You’re it for me, Nella.”

  Her eyes squeezed shut. She couldn’t see him like that, open and waiting, weapons down, and not surrender too. She wanted to bring her hands to her ears and block his voice carrying her name with such intimacy. If people knew about them, she would be the moon, her glow pale and reflective, characterized by her relation to him. How could she stomach a headline like Bran Kelly’s Wife Nominated for Six Cleffies? That wasn’t the story she wanted. How could she jeopardize the name she’d made for herself?

  The sound of shattering glass rang out from the kitchen and her eyes popped open.

  “What was that?”

  “Broken ice machine.” He reached behind him, into the guitar case.

  “That wasn’t an ice machine. That was a seismic event.” Nelle started for the kitchen like she wanted to investigate. She had to put some space between herself and the conversation that had gotten away from her.

  But Bran blocked her escape, standing in the door frame and holding out a little red box.

  The warning passed her lips on a whispered breath. “Bran.”

  His blue eyes wide and unguarded, Bran pleaded, “Say yes.”

  Nelle’s gaze shifted behind him, and she said more urgently, “Bran.”

  Fear gripped her, hurt winced across Bran’s face, and a man with a bat stood in the shadows near the dining table, one of the glass doors off the kitchen shattered and open behind him. “Nobody move.”

  His hands choked up the neck of the bat as he waited to see how they’d react to his command.

  Bran lunged for his phone on the credenza. And the man launched after him, swinging. Nelle screamed over the dull crack of impact to Bran’s skull—the discord of hands slammed at the high and low end of a keyboard. She tried to catch his fall and folded to the floor under his weight.

  The man loomed above her in a dark, frayed hoodie. He shook his head fast and the hood slipped, revealing a pale, gaunt face. He yanked it back up, one hand gripping the fabric atop his head, the other white-knuckling the bat. “The lights were off. No one was supposed to be here.”

  Nelle clutched Bran closer, his head against her chest, a wet warmth leaking from him, seeping into her clothes. Her eyes went to the bat, the broken glass embedded in the wood, Bran’s blood staining the shards. “He needs an ambulance.”

  “No—no—he got a safe?”

  “He’s bleeding!”

  “I don’t give a fuck.” He prowled towards her and tugged at Bran’s arm.

  “Stop it.” Nelle swatted at him, trying to keep pressure on the cut at Bran’s neck.

  The man tossed Bran’s bare wrist down with a curse. “He got any cash?”

  “He could be dying!”

  “Then you better find me something quick—” A knock interrupted him.

  Security Steve called through the door. “Mr. Kelly? The backdoor alarm pinged.”

  “Shit.” The man pointed the bat at her. “Not a fucking word.”

  Nelle’s pulse raced as the seconds ticked by. Help was on the other side of the door. And Bran was bleeding. Blood was spilling out of him. Too much and too fast. Every second she waited.

  “Steve!” she screamed. “Help!”

  “Bitch!” the man spat. He jerked a fistful of her hair. Pain shot through her scalp and she kicked, connecting with the red box Bran had dropped. It tumbled across the floor, drawing his attention, and he let go of her to grab it. Steve crashed through the front door as the intruder fled out the back.

  “Let him go! Get me towels—something—anything! And call a fucking ambulance!” Nelle’s raw voice surprised her. The voice she knew better than anything. How it went up and down, to get what she needed from it. And now it sounded unrecognizable.

  Nelle fought the desperate panic that swelled inside her as they waited for the ambulance. “Hold on, Bran. I got you. I got you.” She smoothed the hair off his forehead and blinked at the crimson streaks she left behind.

  The paramedics arrived, talking fast and asking questions. Nelle could only question them back. “He’s going to be okay, right? He’s going to be fine?”

  “Ma’am, you have to let go. Let us work.”

  Bran’s distinguished jaw disappeared under an oxygen mask and they hoisted his body onto a stretcher. Nelle pushed to her feet, her bloody hand slipping on the smooth floor. One of her shoes had come off under her and she kicked the other free. It didn’t help her balance. She stumbled, following the paramedics down the dark hall.

  She stopped in the open door, just out of reach of the porch’s floodlight. Standing at the edge of their private world, she held back while Bran was carried down the steps towards the red flashing lights of the ambulance. People swarmed the drive and Nelle pressed herself against the wall like she could hide.

  The dishcloths they’d pressed to Bran’s neck littered the end of the hall, stained with his blood. She didn’t know a person could bleed that much. The thought blared through her loud as the siren that kicked up outside, What if there wasn’t any Bran Kelly left? He’d be gone before she ever had the cha
nce to tell the world he’d been hers. Before she had the chance to tell him.

  Nelle struggled off the wall using her wrist, trying not to leave more bloody handprints. This was going to be news. It wasn’t something they could bury. Fear stalled her at the doorstep. If she walked out of the house now, there was no going back.

  The cement was rough on Nelle’s bare feet. One side of the ambulance doors slammed shut as she leapt from the bottom step. “Wait!”

  The paramedics didn’t turn, but an officer caught her around the waist, pulling her back. “He needs to get to hospital, ma’am,” she said.

  “I want to go with them!”

  “Only immediate family—”

  A paramedic reached for the other door. Emotion seized Nelle’s chest.

  “I’m his family! I’m his wife!”

  The arm at her waist loosened and she broke free, catching the second door before it shut. She hauled herself into the ambulance and forced herself to Bran’s side.

  “I’m his wife,” she told them. “I’m staying with him.”

  PHOTO: Hours After the Besties Nelle Arrives at Hospital Covered in Bran Kelly’s Blood (link in bio)

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Bran clicked it. Bran clicked it because he’d been in and out for two days and he hated feeling like a stranger to his own life. Things had happened to him: stitches, brain scans, transfusions. And through a haze of painkillers and blunt force trauma, he was missing pieces. Connective tissue between conversations with doctors, an early morning tinted-window drive, and waking up in his own bed to find Nelle watching him, headphones in her ears.

  He clicked it, simultaneously furious at the violation and eager to bring part of the last few days into focus. He had tried asking Nelle, but she’d been uncharacteristically evasive. He was desperate for answers, ready for clarity, even if that meant lowering himself to exaggerated clickbait.