by Eli Lang
I shook my head again, slower this time, unsure.
“Yeah.” He nodded back instead, encouragingly. “It’ll be fun. Come on.”
He was smiling, but it was softer, more serious than the grin he usually wore. He looked like he wanted to prove something to me. Or to the two of us. And I couldn’t say no again, although I was pretty sure I was going to embarrass myself.
I took Nicky’s hand and let him pull me off the couch, and I followed him back into the drum room. He glanced back and forth between the two kits and brought me over to the larger—and in my mind, more intimidating—one. I’d never been intimidated by an instrument before. They were what I dealt with day in and day out—them, and the musicians who played them. One drum set was much like another to me, although I did know all the pieces, how all of them should go together, exactly how Ava wanted everything. But I didn’t understand the different sounds wood or plastic shells made. I didn’t know why Ava used one type of drum head for recording and another for live stuff. And I didn’t know why Nick had three drum sets here. All I knew was that this one had more drums around it, and more cymbals, and it was bigger, the drums wider, than the kit he’d let Josh play.
“Hang on a sec.” He dropped my hand and moved over to the kit, pushing stuff around an inch or two and fiddling with the throne. “Okay. Try that. You’re not much shorter than me, so I don’t know how much of a difference it’ll make.”
I walked over and sat on the seat, tentative. It was harder than I expected, to get myself behind the kit. I had to carefully squeeze my leg in front of the seat, to spin around and face the drums, because there was stuff in the way. Stands and pedals to get tangled up in, and the snare, right there, practically in my lap when I finally got settled.
Nick moved around me, continuing to push and pull things, frowning in concentration. He also pulled out some round, black pads, which he plopped on top of each of the drums. “For the sound,” he explained. “I don’t want to wake Josh back up.” Then he stepped back and stared at me, taking me and the drum set in together. I was bizarrely self-conscious. Sitting behind Nick’s kit made me feel inexperienced, naïve. Uncertain and a little bit off-balance.
“How does that feel?” he asked me after a second.
I raised my eyebrows at him. “I have honestly no idea.”
He flashed me a smile, then walked to a pile of drumsticks on the floor. I’d thought maybe he’d have more of a place for those, like a box or a bag, but they were just . . . piled. He grabbed a pair that matched. They were somewhat worn, splinters coming off the ends, but when he put them in my hands, the part my palms gripped was smooth, silky almost. Worn soft by Nicky’s fingers.
“Okay, so.” He crouched to one side, almost under the high-hat, and took one of my hands in his. “You want to hold the stick near the end. Don’t choke up on it. This is your fulcrum.” He held up his own hand, and pressed his thumb to the middle of his pointer finger. On my own hand, my thumb pressed the stick into that spot on my finger. “Let your other fingers flop for a second.” I did, and when I moved my wrist, pinching at the fulcrum he’d showed me, the stick moved up and down.
He reached out again and curled my fingers gently back around the stick. “Keep it loose. Don’t grip too hard. Curl your pinky around the stick. It’ll keep it from slipping. Wrist straight, or pretty straight. The back of your hand up to the sky.” It was awkward. I hadn’t ever realized there was so much to holding a stick. I figured you just grabbed it and held it however you liked. But when he’d gotten me adjusted, it was comfortable, and I could see how this would make every move after easier, more fluid.
He stopped, like he realized how into this he was getting. “Sorry.” He quirked his mouth up in a half smile. “It’s important. So you don’t hurt yourself. But it probably doesn’t matter right now.”
I shook my head. His fingertips were still resting on my wrist, the touch light. I swallowed hard. This was all fun, I reminded myself. Everything we did. Yesterday and today and this, right now. Just fun, and I couldn’t ruin it by saying any of the serious, sappy things running through my mind.
I wanted to, though.
I choked all those responses back and made a joke instead. “Now what, O Wise One?”
Nick laughed, and it broke the tension building between us. But he was serious as well, about the drumming. I could tell, even though he kept sending me those bright smiles, and I wanted to be serious about this too. For him.
He stepped back and stared at me, scrutinizing me, and I tried not to squirm. “Feet on the pedals. Press your high-hat down enough to keep it closed.”
I followed his instructions. I was barefoot, my shoes at the door because I’d been afraid of what I might track onto his pristine white carpet. The metal under my foot was cool and grooved with the pedal’s brand and number, rough and slick at the same time. I slid my foot up it until it was comfortable, then I pressed down. The high-hat shut with a crisp snap.
“Good. Now the bass. Don’t press down. Just rest your foot there so you could if you wanted to.”
I stepped on the bass pedal. The beater thumped softly against the drum head before I pulled back enough. I looked back at Nick. He was grabbing another foam pad, and he slipped it down the back of the bass drum, between the head and the beater.
“Almost forgot. Probably we can’t play on the high-hat, either. That’s okay.” He gave a small shrug and pointed at the biggest floor tom. “We can use that. But for now put your sticks over the snare.” He nodded when I was positioned correctly.
I was pretty sure I’d never felt more awkward than I did sitting there, legs splayed, hands held carefully in front of me so I didn’t accidentally make a sound.
“’Kay. Now we play.” Nick took a breath. I couldn’t quite hear it, but I could tell how deep it was with the rise and fall of his chest. “Do ‘one, two, three, four,’ on the snare. Just tap. Right, left, right, left.” He mimed the pattern with his hands on his thighs, almost like he’d done for Josh. But this pattern was much simpler. Only four beats, evenly spaced. Simpler than what he’d given a two-year-old. That was okay with me. Simple was good. Cautiously, not really sure what I was nervous about, but sure I was nervous, I copied him, tapping the tips of the sticks in the middle of the snare. Right, left, right, left.
“Good, okay. Now do it on the tom.” He pointed at one of the middle toms. “Same pattern.”
I did, and he had me go around the kit that way, hitting the four toms, and then, very gently, so the sound was slight, the crash, the ride, and the China cymbal he had set up. It was simple. Just a display of different sounds.
“Now go back to the snare and do it again.”
I did.
“Now play it really hard.”
I hesitated, then walloped the sticks down in the same rhythm. It was . . . fun. God, yes, it was fun. I couldn’t hear it much, with the pad covering the drum. It was only a whumping sound. But it was good to feel all those muscles in my arms straining briefly with the exertion. Cathartic, even that small amount.
“Now soft.” His voice went softer too, lower, more gravelly. I looked up, and our eyes caught for a split second. The gaze held, and then I turned my face back to the drums in front of me. There had been something dark and intense in his expression.
I played softly, like he’d asked. There was something about following his instructions, doing only as he said, that was soothing when everything about this was strange and new and uncomfortable.
“Now go around the kit like before.” His voice was still low. He was walking toward me, one slow step at a time. He circled the kit so he could come up beside me. “It’s only evenly spaced beats. You can play them wherever you like. On the drums or the cymbals. You can split them up in different groups. You can play soft or hard or in between.” He gave a small laugh. “Don’t play the cymbals loudly, though.”
I swallowed and nodded. At first, I was too self-conscious to do anything more than move around the kit i
n a circle, four beats to each instrument, medium loud. It was as if every sound I made was a way of flinging some bit of me out into the space of the room. Like I was making myself loud. Like I was shouting through the drums, but I wasn’t sure what I was saying, or if I wanted anyone to hear. But Nick didn’t reprimand me for playing it safe. He didn’t urge me to do more. He waited, and let me go around again, and again, until some of the uncertainty slipped away, and I actually listened to the sounds I was making with the sticks. The sharp pings and sandy clashes of the cymbals. The brassy gong-like whoosh of the China, even when I only tapped it gently. The thumps of the drums themselves, snappy and rattly on the snare, and then deeper and deeper with each floor tom, even with the sound muffled, so I imagined I could feel the last one in my bones.
I stayed on the biggest floor tom for a while, playing those same beats, changing how hard I struck, listening for what sounded good. Then I went backward instead of continuing the same circle around. Then I hit the things I liked the best, the things that made the most pleasant sounds to my ears. I experimented. I played—not like playing an instrument, but like a kid playing, exploring. I got lost in it for a handful of minutes.
“See,” Nicky said when I finally slowed to a stop. “You made something that was your own, there. If you didn’t have any creativity in you, you wouldn’t have been able to do that.”
“It was just noise,” I said, coming back down off the odd high of having made such a racket. I let my hands, still closed around the sticks, drop to my lap.
Nick shrugged. He’d moved so he was standing almost behind me, but I could still see him out of the corner of my eye. “That’s really all music is. Noise in a pattern, fitting with other patterns.”
I couldn’t argue that. And, more than that, I didn’t want to. I wanted him to be right. I didn’t think I was ever going to be artistic in any way, not like he was, or Bellamy, or Tuck or Ava or anyone in Rest in Peach. But what I’d done had been . . . fun, and freeing in a way I hadn’t quite imagined. I didn’t really think music was quite so simple. But part of me wanted him to be a little bit right.
He stepped fully behind me, and bent so he could cover my hands with his. His chest pressed against my back, and I could feel him breathing on my neck. Without saying anything, he picked up my hands, and I let him guide me. The tempo was slower this time, so he could move us both. But he danced us around the kit, my hands moving over the drums and cymbals wherever he put them, bending my elbows to hit here, or there, to make this sound, or this one. He didn’t change the dynamics too much—I doubted he could, playing like this, with me in the way—but he broke those evenly spaced beats up into different chunks, twos and threes and eights and then back to three, then five, so the sound was always unexpected—syncopated and strange and melodic in the most incredible way. And there were patterns in it. Patterns that were hard to pick out, patterns that were nearly invisible if you weren’t searching for them. Patterns I couldn’t always decipher. But he had all those movements ingrained in his muscles, and all he had to do was call them up.
When we stopped this time, he let my hands go, but didn’t pull away from me. I listened to him breathe, the rough sound of his breath a perfect counterpoint to the last lingering ring of the cymbals we’d hit together. I was breathing quickly too, although none of it had been a workout. None of it had been difficult. But there had been that catharsis again, and the sense of . . . opening myself up to something vast. And Nicky had gone with me that last time, and it had made it so incredibly good. I didn’t think what we’d done counted as making music together, since I hadn’t been in charge of the noises. But it felt like it, in a way. It felt like we’d made something together, and released it, and now it was a thing, floating in the air between us on those last notes.
I didn’t want this, whatever was between us, to end this time. It hit me like a crack of lightning. Like the sharp sound of the stick against the snare. The snap and then the lingering echo, this feeling that chased all the way through me. I had agreed to only right now, only these weeks together, but I didn’t want only that. I didn’t think I was good for more than that, not truly. But this wouldn’t be enough, and I had probably known that, honestly, from the start.
I leaned back, enough to press against Nicky. And he moved forward the same amount, holding me, pushing back, giving me something to lean on. I dropped the sticks. Just opened my hands and let them go, and they clattered to the floor, bouncing off the metal legs of the snare stand, the high-hat pedal. When I turned around, Nicky was already reaching down to cup my face, his thumbs sliding over my cheekbones, his fingers brushing behind my ears, into my hair.
He dipped his head and pressed his mouth to mine. The kiss was a lot like the ones we’d had the night before. A rush of want, a heady need, and gentleness, tenderness, a certain care, like we both wanted to be easy with each other. But there was something deeper in it too, something that seemed to connect us further, at least to me. Maybe it was because it had been a long day and we were both tired, or maybe it was because Nicky had just shown me a piece of myself I hadn’t known existed. Maybe it was because Nicky was feeling the same things I was, right at that moment. Either way, this kiss was different. More serious. More demanding. More all-encompassing.
I stood up, stumbling to get myself untangled from the kit and the throne, and moved Nick back. He went, until he bumped up against a wall, and it was like déjà vu. But then he laughed against my mouth, so I could feel the puff of his breath and the curl of his smile, and pulled away enough that he could talk.
“Can we make it to a bed this time?” He was standing on his toes, which made no sense, because it meant he had to lean down more than usual to kiss me. But when he spoke, he bounced up on them again, like there was an energy or excitement in him he couldn’t control. “I really . . . I liked what we did last night in the alley. A lot. But I want . . .” He closed his eyes and dropped his forehead to rest against mine, and took a steadying breath. “I want it to be like it was before. I want to see . . .”
I nodded. I knew what he meant, and wanted that too, even if I couldn’t put it into words. I wanted to know if we still fit in that perfect, oddly familiar way we had the one time we’d come together in bed before. I wanted to know if he still felt right when he was stretched under me, or when he was on top of me, leaning over me. I wanted to know if we were still good, if we still worked, when we were slow and careful, and not rushed and desperate.
My hands were around his wrists, and I tugged them down and took a step back. I didn’t let go of him, though. I didn’t want to do that. “Lead the way.”
He brought me to the other side of the house, and I was grateful we were as far from Josh as we could get. Obviously, lots of people had sex while their kids slept down the hall. But maybe I wasn’t used to the idea, because it made me pretty uncomfortable. When we got into the bedroom, Nick locked the door behind us. He laughed when he saw my raised eyebrows.
“He knows to knock, or call out, if he needs me. But I don’t want him walking in on us. He doesn’t need to see that.” He poked the tip of his tongue out. “Too many questions.”
It broke some of my nervousness, washed it away, and I laughed.
“Come here.” I caught at his hands again, pulled him toward me, and he pushed, so we ended up tumbling onto the bed. “How do you want me?” I asked, breathless and suddenly finding everything less funny and more . . . intense. His weight on me was wonderful, heavy and strong. He was so warm, the heat of him seeping into me. I imagined I could feel the pounding of his heart pressed to mine.
He raised himself up onto his elbows and kissed me again. “Like last time,” he said when he moved away. “Last time we were in an actual bed.”
I nodded, and sat up enough that he could reach down and take my shirt off.
It wasn’t at all like last time, really—or the last time before the alley. That time, we’d been flirting endlessly for weeks, with only a few stolen kisses betwee
n us. That time, when we’d finally gotten a moment to ourselves, we’d rushed into it, desperate just to come together. It had been dark, the moon new, only the hint of lights shining in through the windows, and I hadn’t been able to see him very much. We’d fumbled our way through it, and it had been perfect, and I wouldn’t have ever wanted to change it. But this time was different.
I could see him, for starters. He’d turned on a bedside table lamp, and it cast a low, warm glow that lit up his skin and made his eyes shine. I was glad for it, because he was beautiful and I wanted to stare at him forever. But it seemed to make us nervous too. Instead of undressing each other, we mostly peeled our own clothes off in a clumsy dance: Nicky getting caught in the wide arm holes of his tank top, which should be impossible; me hopping on one foot to shake my jeans off. When we were finally naked, we just stood there beside the bed, facing each other. Taking each other in.
He laughed, maybe at the absurdity of us standing there, naked and nervous, and it was infectious. I laughed with him, while I kept staring at him.
He really was gorgeous. Angular and sharp, all joints and bone. His stomach was flat and his legs were long and lean, corded with muscle. I wanted to run my hand up the back of his thigh and feel that, the build of him, the strength there. His laughter slowed, and he tilted his chin up like he knew what I was thinking.
I wasn’t gorgeous or beautiful like Nick. I was just this side of hairy, and I didn’t bother to keep it much in check or try to make it look good. It swirled around my nipples and across my pecs, then petered out, only to come back in force in the thick path that led to my groin. My skin wasn’t smooth like his, either. I’d had acne as a kid, and I had scars here and there to prove it, across my cheeks and along my shoulders. I was tan in odd places, from where I wore a tank top or a T-shirt, bands of different-colored skin, freckled and spotted, dancing down my arms and my torso. And I was big. Big all over, except in height, to the slightness of Nicky. Wider muscles, larger bones. More strength maybe, but maybe not, too.