by Quinn Nolan
Reagan snorts before dissolving into giggles. “That’s not something I’d brag about.”
Teresa swats her, but I’m not entirely sure why. She’s making a joke, but I can’t figure out what’s so funny. “He’s easy to talk to. You wouldn’t think he would be, but he is.”
Teresa claps her hands together, elbowing a still-giggling Reagan. “I know! Why not just date Everett?”
“Because—” Because he’s a famous rock star. I press my lips together to keep from saying it out loud. That’s why I’m not supposed to talk about him. I signed the NDA—he’s supposed to be incognito here. I sigh, shaking my head. “It’s complicated.”
Teresa’s eyebrows scrunch. “I thought you just said things weren’t complicated with him.”
Reagan straightens suddenly, face serious. “Wait. If shit’s about to get meta, I’ma need another drink.”
As she refills our shot glasses again, I lean forward, pressing my face into my hands. Maybe that’s the complication: I’d rather be with Everett than Graham. But I can’t be with Everett. In addition to the whole famous-rock-star thing, there’s also the in-Michigan-for-a-few-weeks-only thing. If I raised the latter concern with the girls, I know what they’d say: It’d be a helluva few weeks. But is that all I’d want?
No. Despite the fact that I’d been willing to go home with Everett the first night we met, that’s not the kind of girl I am. Sometimes I wish I were, but it’s just not me. I want a relationship—something with the potential of being long-term. And Everett just isn’t that.
No matter how much I’d like him to be.
Chapter Fourteen
Everett
It’s Tuesday before I hear back about the songs.
At first, I don’t even hear the high-pitched whinny my phone makes when someone’s trying to connect me for a video call—I’m too busy working on another song. The lyrics are going well, and I figured out a cool riff for the background, but I’m still not feeling it. It’s catchy, moderately complex, easy to sing along to, and—
Derivative.
No matter how many times I try to wipe Ashlyn’s critique from my head, the word keeps sneaking up on me, waiting in the shadows for everything to go quiet before jumping up into the forefront of my thoughts.
The second time my phone starts whining, I hear it, but by the time I pick it up, it stops ringing. The missed call notification confirms my suspicions: It’s Somer. He’s the only person I know who insists on chatting exclusively through video calls.
I lay my guitar across the teak table on the house’s back porch. I’ve found I like composing out here the best. There’s something about the sound of the water, the glint of sunlight on the waves.
And, if I’m completely honest, there’s a part of me that wants to catch Ashlyn outside while she’s performing her grounds keeping duties. In my head, she’s busy doing something—weeding or spreading mulch or whatever kinds of tasks she has to perform—when she hears the song for the first time. She hears it and stops what she’s doing, completely captivated by the music and lyrics. She’s drawn to the back of the house, where I sit, oblivious to her presence, lost in the song. She creeps up until she’s standing right in front of me, lips parted as she listens to the end of the tune. When I finally realize she’s there, it takes her a few seconds before she can speak, but when she does, she expresses in every way possible that the song was the most amazing thing she’s ever heard.
But that hasn’t happened. Not even close. In fact, I haven’t seen her at all since Saturday when she was with Graham.
The phone starts in again with its high-pitched squeal and I accept the call, knowing full well Somer will already be grumpy because I didn’t answer the first or second time. I hitch on my best casual smile as the video connects.
Somer’s holding the phone closer to his face than usual, so all I can see in the background is white. His brow is furrowed. “Ever, good. I was beginning to think you’d never pick up.”
“Sorry.” And I do mean it. “I didn’t hear the phone ring because I was working on some tunes.” I pause, giving him the in to give me the news, but his eyes flick away from the screen and a muffled shuffling pops over the speaker.
“Excuse me—sorry—could you just... Yes.” Somer’s arm covers the screen for a moment as he reaches for something. Then he’s looking at me again, as if no time has passed. “Good to know you’re hard at work on some more songs.” He pauses again and the background behind him changes from the nondescript off-white of an office to the blazing blue of the L.A. sky. His image washes out as the phone’s camera struggles to deal with the extra light. “Tell me—are they anything like the ones you sent?”
My lips part, but no sound comes out. His tone gives away nothing. Do I tell him the truth? That they are similar in style to the ones I just sent, similar to the tracks on the first album? Or do I lie, telling him I’m going in a different direction? One answer is the right one, the one he wants to hear, but which one is correct depends entirely on whether or not the studio likes the ones I sent. “They’re—uh... I think you’ll like them.”
He stops, repositioning the phone and squinting, like he’s studying me to see if I’m lying. “I’ll take that bet. The last batch you sent? I love ’em. The studio loves ’em. That Michigan air must be doing you good—these songs are gold, my boy. Gold.”
I release a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Yeah?” This is good news, and I try to smile, but the expression feels forced, wrong. Why am I so surprised by his reaction? This is what I want, isn’t it? For the label to be excited about the new record? For them to be happy with the songs I’m writing and not to hire an outside writer? Then why does it feel like I’ve been sucker-punched?
Because Ashlyn didn’t like them.
I shake my head to dispel the thought. Who cares what Ashlyn thinks? She’s not in the music world. She doesn’t know the business and consumer trends the way the execs do. If they like it, that’s what matters. “That’s fantastic news,” I manage finally. “I’ve got another song almost done. It’s got a similar feel. Then I’ve got a melody for another one—”
“Good, good.” Somer’s on the move again. The blue sky is obscured by palm leaves. “Can I expect them by Friday?”
“Sure,” I say, because I know it’s what he wants to hear.
Somer smiles. Although he’s not too much older than I am—maybe ten years—I can’t help thinking he looks like a dad when he smiles like this. Like a dad proud of his son’s accomplishments—like the smile my dad gave me the first time I brought home money from a gig. That was the first time my dad made me feel like I could do music for a living. “I had my doubts about this whole hiatus, but I’m glad we went through with it. These tunes—they’re so much better than the ones you were writing before you left. It’s like you got your head back on right.” His eyebrows pull together. “Whoops—another call. Gotta take this. I’ll touch base with you again soon.”
Somer’s face disappears from the screen and I set the phone beside my guitar. I should be over-the-moon right now, giddy. The label likes the stuff. Somer says it’s better than what I was writing before I left, that I’m back to my old self.
Then why don’t I feel that way?
Chapter Fifteen
Ashlyn
To his credit, Graham doesn’t give up on me. Despite the fact that I stopped texting him Sunday night and didn’t even get out of bed until after noon on Monday, he doesn’t write me off as a lost cause. Even though I had to pretend to be interested in someone else for him to notice me initially, it seems now that he has noticed me, he doesn’t want to lose me.
I won’t lie: It’s good for my ego.
On our next date, I can’t figure out why he’s pursuing me so intensely. I tried talking to Reagan about it, but she just brushed me off as having low self-esteem, as still seeing myself as the too-young, too-bookish high school and college student, the one with too little time for socializing and too much
on her plate for anyone to ever notice her. But that’s not it. At least, I don’t think it is.
Instead of going out to a restaurant again, today, Graham insists we go for a picnic at Stoney Creek, a metropark about half an hour’s drive from my house. He parks in one of the many lots scattered along the winding road. “You wanna eat first, or you wanna walk by the lake?”
I opt for a lake walk. No matter how much time I spend by the water, I can’t get enough of it. Sometimes, when I’m doing grounds work, I just stop, watching the way the sunlight glints off the water, the way it moves ceaselessly back and forth. It’s always the same and always different at once.
He yanks open the sliding door to the van and pulls the lid off a cooler, revealing a smattering of bottles chilling in ice. “One for the road? I thought about bringing wine, but I know you like beer, so...”
I smile, this one natural and not forced. It’s a sweet gesture. I edge forward and peer into the cooler. There are a couple IPAs, which I’m not a fan of, and a couple wheat beers. I opt for one called Dirty Blonde. Graham grabs an IPA and he pops the tops before we head toward the beach.
Graham takes my free hand as we walk, continuing his conversation from the car. By day, he works at a local guitar shop, and today he’s full of stories about customers. Apparently there are a handful of regulars who show up at the same time every day, sit down and play guitars for hours and leave without buying anything. He and his coworkers have nicknames for them.
“Today, Beanpole came in and was like, where’s that strat I was playing yesterday? When I told him that someone bought it, he got pissed. Like he couldn’t believe we’d, you know, actually sell the thing.”
He pauses and I take my cue to say something. “Doesn’t he realize you guys are a store? Or does he think you’re the musical equivalent of a library?”
He smiles appreciatively, like he’s grateful I understand. “Right? These people—I just don’t get it. I mean, like, don’t they have their own instruments they could play? I mean, I get the appeal of playing something that’s out of your price range, but, come on. To do it every single day? It’s like, get a life, man.”
We’re at the beach now and I pause to kick off my sandals. Graham follows suit, slipping out of his flip-flops. He squints, peering down one side of the beach and then the other, as if weighing the relative merits of each. To the left, the beach ends pretty rapidly, a tangle of trees edging close to the water. I bet the trees don’t go all the way up, though, and I wonder what might be over there. It’s a bit secluded and mysterious, and something about it screams romantic. To the right, the beach stretches out much farther, the sand dotted with a few dozen beach towels and groups of people—some sunbathing women, some mothers with small children. There are a half dozen shirtless guys playing Frisbee. It’s busy and bustling—no romance at all.
But when Graham tugs me to the right, I’m strangely not disappointed. The secluded part to the left would be more romantic, sure—but only if he managed to stop telling me anecdotes for long enough for the space to work its magic. And Graham is not one to allow long silences.
But, since we’ve started spending time together, he has gotten better at letting me talk, which is both a relief and a burden. I never know what to say. Besides music, I haven’t found many overlapping interests. I tried bringing up television—mentioning the drinking game that Reagan, Teresa, and I were playing this weekend—and he actually snorted when I told him what show we were watching. While I’m the first to admit Soul Shift is cheesy and, in many ways, aimed toward teenagers, it’s the kind of show that’s perfect as a guilty pleasure. Graham is of the opinion it shouldn’t even be on TV because it takes away airtime for serious shows. So far as I can tell, to Graham, serious has to involve either drugs, zombies, international intrigue, or some combination thereof.
All I can think is we’ll never be able to settle on a movie to see together, let alone snuggle on a couch watching on-demand.
But that’s okay, I try to convince myself. I always thought that going to see a movie was the height of lameness as a date, and couch-snuggling can occur when listening to music instead of watching TV. It’s okay.
We pass by a pair of sunbathing women, both laying on their stomachs with their bikini tops undone to avoid tan lines. Graham’s eyes brush their figures but don’t linger, and he follows his earlier track of conversation, talking now about the forty-something bass player who frequents the store and critiques younger players—whether they’re looking for it or not.
My eyes stray to the water on my left. Is this what dating is? Spending time with someone and listening to him talk about his life, occasionally telling him about yours? Or is this just the getting-to-know you phase? Will things change in a week? A month? Not for the first time, I curse my lack of expertise in the area. In my whole life, I’ve had two boyfriends—and the first one doesn’t even count, because it lasted three weeks and was in the seventh grade. The second relationship was in college with Scott Gatlin, a guy I met when we were assigned to a group project in our argumentation class. A social work major, he and I hit it off immediately. We already had common ground—similar classes, interest in working with kids. Because we got to know each other during our group project, by the time he asked me out, we’d moved past that part of dating. We moved, instead, to discussing our post-college plans, the kinds of jobs we hoped to have, the area we wanted to live. The world was ours and we talked about all the changes we would make in it, how we’d leave our mark. He even had a nickname for me—he called me Ashes because that’s what he thought I said the first time I introduced myself. At first, I thought it was a little creepy, especially if he’d say it more than once to get my attention—it sounded like the lyrics to “Ring Around the Rosie”: ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
In fact, it sounds like someone’s singing that song now. I blink, turning away from the water, my ears perking up. It wasn’t just because I was thinking about it—someone is calling out ashes, ashes. And there’s something familiar about the voice...
Graham stops, turning and raising his chin at the guy jogging up the beach toward us. “Is he talking to you?”
I turn too, but the words to answer don’t find their way past my lips. Standing before me in a pair of green and white board shorts and a white tank top, his dark blond hair tousled by the warm breeze coming off the water, his skin a sun-kissed sweet caramel, is Scott Gatlin. I gape, too shocked to say anything, but my brain is screaming. How is he here? What’s he doing here? What are the odds of running into him at the exact moment he crosses my mind?
If Scott notices anything strange about my reaction, he plays it off. His eyes flick to where my hand connects to Graham’s before traveling to Graham’s face. He smiles, taking a step closer and offering his hand to Graham. “Hey, nice to meet you. I’m Scott Gatlin.”
Graham releases my hand, moving his beer from his right to his left before taking Scott’s. “Graham Jordan.” He glances at me, eyebrows raised, waiting for an explanation.
I swallow hard and force a smile. “Graham, I knew Scott in college. We dated for, what? A year?”
Scott nods, corroborating my recollection, even though I don’t need him to. I remember distinctly we dated for a year and two months. We broke up in March and graduated in May. He indicates the beer in my hand. “So, you drink now, huh?” He smiles and his tone is light—it’s obvious he’s not judging me, just making an observation.
Graham’s eyebrows pull together. “What, not a big drinker in college?”
I shake my head. “Wasn’t old enough.” It’s true—between skipping the eighth grade and taking college courses while still in high school, I earned my degree by twenty.
Scott grins, touching my shoulder familiarly. “Not that I was a big partier or anything, but even when we were at parties and she could have a drink if she wanted, she wouldn’t. Ashes was always serious about the rules.”
Graham’s brow wrinkles. “Ashes?”
“She was always serious about everything. Remember that paper on discipline you had to do for one of your ed classes?” He chuckles at the memory as my cheeks heat up. “You got mad when I said it sounded like you were going to run your class like a dictatorship. How did reality stack up to your plans? Do you rule your room with an iron fist?”
Despite the heat of the day, my insides go cold. Graham looks entirely lost by the turn in the conversation, and I can’t blame him—I’ve never mentioned my brief stint as a middle school teacher to him. Not that he’s asked much about my past anyway. Still, I can’t blame him for not knowing. And I don’t want Scott to see he doesn’t know. I force a smile I hope looks natural and shake my head.
“Um, I did. Believe it or not, thirteen-year-olds actually respond well to that kind of order and structure. And once they knew the rules, I could ease up a bit. But, ah, it didn’t work out—the teaching.”
Now it’s Scott’s brow that creases. “What? Couldn’t find a job? I’ve heard it’s been hard here. Have you checked out of state?”
My stomach twists. I don’t want to explain this right now. I’m not even sure how to. How do I bridge the gap between the person Scott knew and the one Graham does? What will Scott think of me if he knows how easily I gave up the dream I spent so many hours discussing? I open my mouth to start with my canned response about teaching being more about policies and politics than about actually instructing kids, but before I can get a word out, a woman moves to Scott’s side. She’s tall, like Scott, and blond, her tan a few shades deeper than his. Although half her face is obscured behind oversized sunglasses and her body is covered in a draping bathing suit cover, I can see enough of the curves of her face, her body, to know she’s gorgeous. She slips her right hand possessively around Scott’s bicep and casually-yet-strategically brushes an imaginary strand of hair off her face with her left, making it impossible not to see the glittering rock on her ring finger.