by Eli Lang
Which didn’t mean I never listened to older stuff. But when there was so much to take in, all the time, sometimes the albums I loved the best got left behind for a while. That was probably for the better, since it meant I wasn’t listening to them until I was sick to death of them, either. But when I heard one after so long, like this one, it brought back . . . everything I associated with those songs. A visceral, overwhelming rush of feelings and memories and smells and sights, emotions welling up, like being transported back in time.
I remembered when this album came out. High school had ended a few weeks before. I’d listened to this in the summertime, while lying in my mom’s backyard, the grass tall around me. I’d put on headphones and stared up at the sky and watched the clouds and gotten lost. I’d been trying to figure out, then, what I wanted to do with my life. My mom had urged me to go to college, and I’d taken a few courses, but I’d already known that probably wasn’t for me. Not then. It had been a weird time, stuck somewhere between pleased and thrilled at being an adult and scared out of my mind, confused and concerned about what would come next. But for a while, I’d let myself escape into music, let my mind work out things without pushing them.
That fall, at one of the courses I was taking, I’d met Tuck. We’d hit it off, for whatever reason. He’d told me he was in a band, and that they were looking for someone to help haul their gear around when they played local shows. I’d told him I was looking for a job. I’d been with them ever since. What had started as part-time, something to do while I searched for other, steadier options, had become full-time, my career, and any ideas I’d had about finding what I really wanted to do with my life had disappeared. This was it. It definitely wasn’t everyone’s idea of a dream job, but it suited me. I was good at it, and it made me happy. I didn’t think there should really be anything more to a dream job than that.
And all of that, somehow, had gotten wrapped up in the twelve songs on the album we were listening to. Hearing them made me remember. Or not remember, but they made me feel for a few minutes like I was in both places, both times. Scared and secure. Young and not so young. Confused and sure. Just starting out, and comfortably settled into my life.
Beside me, Nick was quiet, listening. He was holding the album cover between his hands, like he’d held the record itself, the edges balanced against his palms. He’d been reading the lyrics printed on the inside. But I didn’t think he was anymore. He’d gone still in the way that meant tension or deep thought or emotion.
I turned to him, just enough so I could see him. He glanced up at me and smiled, but the smile was tight and lopsided.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” I asked. “Hearing it. Like . . . you’re in two places at once.”
He nodded, and ran his fingers up over the edge of the album cover. “I didn’t think my life would be like this.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked, so soft I wasn’t sure if he’d hear my voice over the music.
His smile went slightly wider, and it lost that tightness. “Good. I think. Yeah.”
He set the cover down on the floor in front of him and twisted around to face me. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad . . . I got to see you again. I know you maybe aren’t. Maybe you wanted whatever happened between us to stay in the past. But I wasn’t . . . I wanted to see you again. Talk to you. And I’m happy this worked out like this.”
I took a deep breath. “I didn’t want it to stay in the past. I didn’t . . . want it to be over. It just . . . was.”
He didn’t move, but something about the way he was focused on me felt like he had turned to face me more, like he had opened himself up to me. “And now?”
I shook my head. “I don’t . . . I don’t know how anymore.”
“Oh. That’s simple.” He leaned forward, resting his weight on his hands, braced against the thick carpet, and kissed me. It was soft and easy, undemanding, but he didn’t pull away quickly, either. He kept going, let his lips move slowly and gently against mine. And I kissed him back.
I’d thought about kissing Nicky. I hadn’t actually imagined it would happen again, but I’d daydreamed about it. I’d tried to remember the way he’d tasted, how his hair had slipped through my fingers. This wasn’t the same. And it wasn’t the same as the last time I’d kissed him, either. This was all new, like we were different people now, and everything we’d learned about each other before had to be relearned. There was a hint of awkwardness in the kiss, and uncertainty, a holding back, like we were both trying to figure out what the other wanted. But mostly, after the hesitancy, under the caution, the kiss was just good.
Nick pulled back after a minute. The kiss had gone on longer than I’d expected. We weren’t quite out of breath, but Nick’s lips were plump and red, and I was probably flushed. I could feel the heat rising up in my face. I’d tucked my hands around Nick’s jaw, my fingers behind his ears, so his hair fell over them, and I couldn’t quite make myself let go.
He smiled at me, lazy and sweet. “See? It’s simple.”
It was. It was so simple. So easy. It would be the easiest thing in the world, to lose myself for a little while in this man. To let him take everything away.
“I . . .” I flexed my fingers, pushing them further into his hair, and he arched into the movement like a cat. His eyes flickered closed, and it was . . . sexy, but more than that, it was intimate. Not a gesture a hookup or a one-night stand made. It was almost like a surrender, something personal, all contained in that simple tilt of his head. I let my fingers trail down, along the slope of his jaw, down his neck, and he tipped his head back to let me. God, it was only fingertips on skin, and it was startling in how close it made me feel to him, in the way it turned me on, to watch him react to being touched by me.
“I don’t . . .” I tried again, but I didn’t know what I was trying to say. “I don’t know how to do this.”
He reached up and caught my hands, and brought them down to rest on his crossed ankles. His eyes blinked open and he stared at me.
“Do what, Quinn?”
“What we had before . . .” I tightened my fingers around his, the movement reflexive, and he squeezed back. “What we were doing . . .”
He squeezed my hands again, and then let go. “We didn’t have anything,” he said. Gently. So gently, but it cut me right to the quick, because he said it in a way that made it the absolute truth. “We might have. But we went our separate ways before it could happen. Now it’s been a year since I’ve seen you. There isn’t anything left from that.”
I swallowed. “Nothing?”
I didn’t know why I was asking. I hadn’t let myself think about wanting this. Not after I’d as good as stood him up a year ago. Not when I was . . . messed up, my brain wanted to supply, but that wasn’t the right term. I wasn’t messed up. My brother had died, and I was slowly coming to terms with that, putting my world back together, and things were . . . okay. But they weren’t what they’d been before, would never be the same, and I was scared. Scared that I didn’t know how to do this anymore. Didn’t know how to be with someone, even like this.
A smile flickered over his mouth, enough to turn his lips up at the corners, to make his eyes crinkle. “Maybe not nothing. I did really want to kiss you again. I remember it being like this before. Always wanting to touch you.”
I leaned toward him. No conscious thought. I only wanted to respond to that, to what it did to me, in the most physical way. He didn’t seem to be adverse to the idea. He leaned with me, his hands sliding up my neck this time, to cup my head. I dropped mine to his waist. He felt so solid and so fragile at the same time, his bones and muscles shifting beneath my palms. I knew, from before, that if I pulled him to me, he wouldn’t feel small against my larger frame, but I would still have that odd, unfathomable desire to protect him, to cradle him.
He inched forward the last little bit, and we kissed again. It was heavier this time, mouths open, breath blending, the heat and warmth and closeness of it c
rowding out every other thought in my brain. We kept tugging at each other, moving closer and closer across the space of carpet that separated us. His knees bumped mine, and then he rose up so he was almost kneeling over me. In a distant part of my brain, I figured it probably wouldn’t be much time before he was in my lap. Before I got to feel that mix of his strength and grace pressed up against me.
There was a noise at the door, which I ignored, dismissing it as unimportant when I was getting lost in how salty and warm Nicky tasted. Then someone cleared their throat, sharply, and said my name.
I jerked back from Nicky, but I couldn’t really get too far from him with my hands all over him and him practically on top of me. I blinked up into Nick’s face, and then we both turned at the same time to see who had spoken.
It was Ava, standing almost like Nick had earlier, her shoulder pressed to the doorframe. Her arms were crossed over her chest, but she didn’t look angry. She looked amused, although I was pretty sure she was doing her best to hide the expression.
“Hey, Nicky,” she said, and I had to admire the way she made her voice come out normal.
“Hey.” He swallowed, but he didn’t move and didn’t take his hands off my shoulders. There was a deep red blush rising up his neck, but he stared right back at Ava like she hadn’t just caught him in a precarious position. Not that it was that precarious. I was pretty sure we weren’t the only musicians or crew who had had the urge to get busy in one of the studio’s back rooms.
“That was a really nice drum track you put down this morning.” She’d completely managed to get rid of any amusement. “Ty let me listen back. Really cool direction you went with it. I like your snare sound.”
He sat down a little, putting some of his weight on me. “You should come see the new kit I got. You’d like it a lot. You’ll want one for yourself.”
She laughed, full and loud. “Quinn’ll kill me if I want to start hauling a second kit around.”
Nicky laughed too, and any tension that might have been in the room dissolved.
“We’re gonna get dinner and bring it back. Ben said there’s some taco place that’s the best . . . You two want to join us?” She did a very good job of not staring at where my hands rested on Nick’s hips, or raising her eyebrow, or otherwise hinting that maybe we didn’t want to join her because we were very busy.
But the fact was, if I was going to fuck Nicky again, I was pretty sure I didn’t want it to be on the hard floor of a semiforgotten room in an underground recording studio. I was already getting a cramp from sitting like this. And anyone could walk in on us, as Ava had proven.
And I wasn’t, when it came right down to it, sure I wanted to fuck Nick again. Well, I did. I most definitely wanted him, in every way possible. But I wasn’t sure it was a good idea. I wasn’t sure . . . I could handle it.
I turned back to Nick and skimmed my hands down his thighs. Not intimate, only a caress, something that wouldn’t be uncomfortable with Ava standing there. I hoped the touch would tell him I wasn’t backing out, or saying no. Just that I needed a bit of space. “Should we head upstairs?”
He stared at me for a second, like he was studying me. Then he nodded. He bounced upright, the movement casual and easy and fluid, and I had to stare at him for a second, in awe and envy. Then he was reaching a hand down for me, like he’d done a few days before when we’d sat on the grass and I’d told him about Eric, and I took it so he could pull me up beside him.
Ava chattered away about music and drumming and what cymbals Nick was using while we walked back upstairs. Ava was . . . definitely not the most calming person I’d ever met. Her thoughts danced around at about a million miles an hour and were usually spilling out of her mouth before she thought about them. But there was something about her that was soothing. That made things comfortable. Maybe it was the ease with which she regarded her own awkwardness. She knew she wasn’t what people expected, and she didn’t care. Or she’d learned not to care as much. And knowing she was going to be herself made everything else simpler. So there wasn’t any weirdness, walking up to dinner, having just kissed Nick in a way that had definitely been leading toward more than kissing. Her chatter didn’t let anything like that touch us.
Dinner was fun and casual, like we’d been doing for the past few nights. Bellamy and Micah and Ben had gotten the tacos and sides and whatever everyone else had decided we needed to have, and it had all been put in the middle of Ben’s big table so we could fill up a plate with whatever we liked. Then we sat around the kitchen and the living room.
Nick and I didn’t sit next to each other. I didn’t think it had happened on purpose—I certainly hadn’t designed it that way, although I was a little relieved to let some of the heat and tension and want between us cool down. But Bellamy had snagged Nick when we came in, and I’d gotten caught in a conversation with Elliot and Danni, and sticking together hadn’t happened. I kept glancing over at him, though. I couldn’t help it. Even when I couldn’t see him, I could feel him. As if kissing him had restarted some internal tracker that was specifically designed to alert me to Nicky.
At least half the time, when I glanced up and sought him out, he was already staring back at me. We’d both look away. Embarrassed, maybe. Or simply wanting to be private. I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t hiding it from anyone, necessarily, but I wanted to keep this, whatever it was, to myself. For now. But the seconds during which our gazes held got longer, and longer, until the glances lingered, and it was like I could feel him on my skin, like his presence was a pleasant weight.
Nothing else happened between us. Just all that staring, and the memory of him in my lap. It got late and our miniature party broke apart. Bellamy and Micah disappeared into their bedroom. Ava went out on the back porch to call her girlfriend. Ty, Tuck, Ben, and Rest in Peach’s producer got involved in a discussion about the progression of recording over the years, how much it had changed. Eventually, Danni made them stop talking so they could go home—apparently Danni was Ty’s ride. Nicky was Elliot’s, so Nick didn’t stick around too much longer after that. They said their good nights, and Nick shot me one more hard, hot glance that felt like a promise, if I was being either hopeful or terrified. Then they all headed out.
The living room had gone quiet. Tuck was in a corner with a guitar in his lap. Ben sat beside him. Every now and then one of them would say something to pick their conversation back up. But mostly Tuck played and Ben listened.
I was listening too, getting lost in the random notes. Tuck was playing without pausing—snippets of Escaping Indigo songs, covers, and stuff I was pretty sure he was making up on the spot. I was considering how weird it would be to lean back against the couch and close my eyes—the answer was probably not weird at all. This was a music studio. No one was going to mind if I let myself drop into the sounds of a guitar and a murmured conversation. But then Micah came and sat next to me on the couch.
I glanced over at him. He was rumpled, but he definitely didn’t look like he’d been sleeping.
“I thought you were with Bellamy.”
“I was.”
I raised my eyebrow, and he raised his right back and smirked. I was going red, I knew it. Micah was an adult, I reminded myself. I didn’t need to take care of him. But it was still weird to think of a kid who—when I was feeling really nostalgic or mushy or whatever you wanted to call it—I considered almost like a brother, fucking someone down the hall. Or whatever they’d been doing.
My mind shorted out at that. Nope. I did not need to picture my friends in those kinds of private moments.
“Why did you leave him to come back out here, then?” I kept my voice low so I wouldn’t interrupt Tuck and Ben. They were in their own world and probably weren’t paying us the slightest attention, but still.
The smile slipped off Micah’s face. “I wanted to talk to you.” He paused and swallowed, and something inside me tightened. “I saw you . . . I saw you looking at Nick. I saw the way he looked back at you.”
&
nbsp; “Looked how?” I wasn’t sure where the words had come from, but I didn’t want to misinterpret this.
“Like . . .” He picked his hand up, flicked his fingers, and dropped it. “Like there was something electric between you. Like there was something between you.”
My throat had gone dry. “So?”
He raised both eyebrows this time and widened his eyes, tipping his face forward to stare at me. “So? Quinn. I sat there with you back when I was having a hard time with Bellamy, and you asked me about Eric, you asked . . . all those things. If I’d been in love with him. If he’d been in love with me. I told you so many things, about me, about Bellamy, and you didn’t think to maybe mention that you’re attracted to men?” He glanced over at Ben and Tuck, then back to me. “Are you? Attracted to men?”
I nodded.
His eyes went impossibly wider. “And you didn’t tell me? Why not?”
His voice had risen a notch. Not very much, but this wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have in front of anyone. I’d probably be fine having this conversation in front of Tuck, actually, but as cool as Ben was, I really didn’t know him. He didn’t need to hear my private stuff. “Stop. Come with me.” I stood up, and Micah followed me into the hallway. All the doors here were closed. The privacy was probably an illusion—if anyone was up, they’d be able to hear us if they listened. But it was good enough.
I tried to figure out how I wanted to respond to him, considered and rejected a dozen possible options, all in a second. My brain was short-circuiting and I couldn’t think. “I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t any of your business.” I hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but I hadn’t been able to stop the words tumbling out, either. It was the wrong way to say it, though.