Blame it on the Tequila

by Fiona Cole

  “Ohhhh,” he said, laughing. “So, you’ve checked?”

  My face would be permanently twisted in a wince of regret if I didn’t think before speaking. But the truth was, I checked more than I liked to admit.

  Again, I thought of Sonia and how I never failed to glare at her picture like it would make her any less gorgeous. She even had good taste in shoes, which made me equally envious, and also want to ask her where she shopped.

  “I mean, it’s hard to miss,” I said flippantly, trying to backtrack.

  “Mmhmm,” he responded with disbelief.

  I had some disbelief of my own. He didn’t even hesitate when I asked him about dating, but he seemed awfully close with Sonia when she pressed her lips to his in the photo. They looked awfully close in every photo they’d been in over the last year. It’d been on and off with others mixed in, but still. Interviewers always implied that his love songs were about her, but he never confirmed or denied it.

  Had I read it wrong? Was he really single?

  Did it matter?

  “So, what about you? Any guys in your life?” he asked, pulling me out of my inner revelry.

  Warmth bloomed in my chest at his curious tone. Part of me wanted to lie and say yes, but I resisted the petty urge. “Just me, my van, and my girls.”

  “Anyone serious before? In college?”

  I paused, noting this question held more weight—more than conversational curiosity.

  “No. Maybe a boyfriend or two, but no one serious.” Just someone I gave my virginity to and another I wasted six months on. My most serious relationship was with my porn collection I’d take to my grave.

  “Cool.”

  A silence lingered, and I connected Orion’s belt thinking over what to say next. “Is your dad still in New York?”

  “Back in Chicago, but visits New York a lot. What about your mom? Is she still in New York?”

  “Yup.”

  “And you?” he asked softer. “Are you still in New York, or is home somewhere else now?”

  “Yeah. I’m still there,” I admitted like I expected him to narrow down the addresses in all of New York and pop up at my tiny apartment. “Just a small home base.”

  “Yeah. I have a home base there, too.”

  My heart skipped a beat, wondering how far he was from my apartment.

  “Upper East Side. Nothing big.”

  I laughed, imagining his nothing big was a whole lot different than my less stylish, nothing big, in an up-and-coming neighborhood.

  “I’m sure it’s a shack,” I said dubiously.

  “Everything is a shack in New York.”

  “Very true.”

  “Either way, it’s a good enough place to rest my head and write some music in my downtime.”

  “You still write the songs?” I asked.

  “Almost all of them.”

  That made more sense than I wanted it to. I thought back to all the angry songs from their first album that I convinced myself weren’t about me. Seems like maybe they were.

  I wrote more than my fair share of angry songs at the same time. The difference was that I sold them to other bands rather than sing them myself. One of my many business ventures Aiken wanted me to combine with my Instagram business to build a brand.

  The thought of everyone knowing the songs I wrote left me anxious thinking about them hearing the lyrics and getting a peek inside my soul. It left me exposed and naked.

  I currently used a private LLC to sell my music through online avenues. I took every precaution to protect my identity. Before I left high school, I deleted all my social media, only starting up the Instagram I had now because I wanted to share my art and travels, and someone told me I could probably start selling art on Instagram. I made sure to never show my face and used another LLC for that too. I didn’t want to be in the public eye—especially with any connection to the music world.

  I’d done that before, and it had been the worst experience of my life.

  The one that had pulled me away from Parker Callahan when I’d needed him most.

  The one that had left me yearning for a man who stole my heart and ran away to a life I could never be a part of.

  “At least I used to write our music,” he grumbled, interrupting my melancholy.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve…” His exhale carried so much weight even I could feel the pressure of it through the phone. “I’ve been in this writer’s block.”

  “Shit. That sucks.”

  “Tell me about it. We’re supposed to be working on an album soon, but I don’t have any lyrics to sing. I highly doubt our fans will be thrilled with a purely musical album.”

  “Probably not,” I agreed. “Why are you pushing making an album while touring? That seems awfully crunched, and I’m sure it’s not helping the stress.”

  “Aspen, our manager, has built us up to this point. It’s our year to take everything we worked hard on and shape it into something epic. And that means constantly pushing out product.”

  “Wow. That’s a lot of pressure.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I have no doubt you’ll get there.” It was on the tip of my tongue to offer to help, but I bit it between my teeth, holding it back, not wanting to tie myself to him anymore. When we’d written music together before, it’d been intense and intimate. Putting myself in that position sounded a lot like asking for more hurt and pain.

  “Yeah,” he sighed, not sounding convinced. With another deep sigh, he changed the subject. “Where are you tonight?”

  “In the Smoky Mountains, skirting the Tennessee border in Georgia. Where are you?”

  “What? Not keeping up with our tour schedule?”

  “Yeah, right,” I scoffed. “I wouldn’t know if you were in Seattle or Miami.”

  “Mmhmm,” he said doubtfully. “We’re in San Diego right now.”

  “Good ole California.”

  “Have you been?”

  “Not yet. But I want to. I’d love to hike the Sierra Nevada.”

  “You’d love it,” he agreed.

  “You’ve done it?” I asked, jealous but excited to hear his story.

  “We did a small hike one day to an alpine lake. Oren and Brogan apparently wanted to skinny dip in liquid ice.”

  “Oh, man.” I laughed, imagining it. “Did you do it?”

  “Hell, yeah, I did. It was a long-ass hike.”

  “I’m so jealous.”

  “I’ll take you there someday,” he promised softly, like maybe if he said it too loud, I’d run. And honestly, I kind of wanted to.

  His promise sat like an anvil on my chest, choking the air in my lungs. We could avoid talking about anything from the past, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t there, making itself known with the simplest of words. His statement was easy—something anyone would say but came with a wrecking ball of meaning, knocking down the veneer of lies I tried to hide behind.

  “It’s a beautiful night tonight,” I whispered, changing the subject.

  “Now I’m jealous,” he joked. “I’m stuck in a hotel, and it’s raining here.”

  “Ew.”

  “Tell me what you see. Tell me about where you are,” he requested. “I’m gonna lie back on the bed, close my eyes, and imagine I’m in the van with you.”

  Another anvil. This one lighting a fire up the back of my throat.

  Like I had a million times before, I closed my eyes too and imagined his weight dipping the mattress beside me. How many nights had I looked up at the sky and wished he’d been right beside me? How many moments had I closed my eyes to imagine him there, sharing the life we painted when we were kids?

  Too many to count.

  More than I wanted to admit.

  And to have his voice in my ear, it was the closest my dreams came to reality. I just didn’t know what that reality came with. Being faced with it now, I worried it came with more hurt than anything else I’d imagined.

  With a deep
breath, I swallowed back the fire and opened my eyes to look up at the stars.

  “You can see everything. Without the light pollution, you can see everything.”

  “Tell me,” he pleaded, almost desperate. “I want to be right there.”

  I wanted him to be right here too, I admitted to myself, and that terrified me. It scared the hell out of me how quick these feelings came roaring back and how quickly I wanted to pretend they were all that existed. I knew better. I knew life was more than the fantasy we wanted to believe—more than what lay on the surface. Yet, there I was, only wanting to see this moment and nothing else.

  Two minimal conversations over nothing, and Parker managed to shine a light on the gaping space I’d tried to cover. He found a crack in the flimsy wall and pulled loose a brick covering the place in my heart he’d made for just him years ago.

  Fire tried to climb its way free, but I refused. I refused.

  I swallowed it down, and I forced my eyes open—forced myself to keep pretending the hole wasn’t there. “You think you know how many stars there are, but until you’re here and the sky is almost completely covered with them, you have no idea. And the Milky Way? We learn about it all through school. We know it’s out there, but until you see it, it’s kind of like Neptune. Just an idea. A picture we’ve been shown. But Parker, I see it every night, and it’s beautiful.”

  “Yeah?” he whispered, matching my quiet tone.

  I wondered if he heard the double meaning. That so many nights I’d looked up, and I saw him—I saw us. Something that had been surrounded by so much youth and lights that we hadn’t been able to see it for what it was. I hadn’t been able to see or understand how much I’d loved him until he was gone and took something vital with him.

  “A glowing cluster like a fading cloud with a dark vein running through it,” I continued. “One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I had no idea. Living in the city teaches you a lot, but it doesn’t teach you this. The city is full of art, but this…I’d never be able to match this.”

  “You already do,” he said almost too quietly for me to hear.

  “Parker…” I whispered, almost pleading. Pleading for him to not do this. Pleading for him to stop.

  “We should see each other,” he stated. “Meet up so you can’t ignore my phone calls again.”

  Yes.

  My mind worked overtime imagining seeing him. How many times had I imagined running into him, smiling, and running into his arms to feel the hug I’d missed so long? But just as quick as that yearning came, the reminder of why we parted—how he put his career first and left me alone smashed it apart.

  The mix of emotions swirled even more violently with him so close, with his voice in my ear. Each thought bombarded me until I feared losing myself altogether.

  I want to see him.

  I can’t see him.

  I miss him.

  He left me.

  I love him.

  I hate him.

  One freaking phone call and look at me—a mess.

  What would I look like if I actually stood before him? What would I be willing to sacrifice just to have a piece of him? I wasn’t willing to find out.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I-I…I just can’t, Parker. I’m sorry.”

  Silence. So much silence until I feared he’d left me, but I knew he was still there when I heard the occasional huff of air. I chewed my lip, struggling to let him process but knowing I had no other words to give him. I didn’t want to explain how seeing him would be too real. I didn’t want to explain that if I saw him, I wasn’t sure I would want to leave. I didn’t want to explain because I wasn’t even sure I could explain it to myself.

  We hadn’t talked for five years, and yet here I was on the verge of crying because…because…

  I bit back my groan of frustration, irritated with my inability to put it into words.

  But that was Parker. Always stirring emotions deep within me like no one else ever had.

  “Can we talk again tomorrow—actually tomorrow?” he finally asked.

  I breathed a sigh of relief that he dropped it and answered vaguely. “I don’t know if I’ll have service, but I’m heading home soon for an interview.”

  “Yeah? Where at? Are you going to settle down to that office job?” His laugh was fake, but we both ignored it, latching on to the reprieve.

  “Yeah, right. It’s just a freelance job. Writing an article for an online travel magazine.”

  “You’ll nail it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you’re the most talented person I know. How could they not want you?”

  “You do good things for my ego,” I laughed.

  “I do what I can.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  “Keep me updated. And send me a picture of you on a mountain somewhere.”

  “I have them on my Instagram.”

  “No. I want one with your face. I want to see you.” When I didn’t answer right away, he added, “Please.”

  “Okay,” I found myself agreeing.

  Because why not? Parker Callahan could always get me to do anything.

  Five

  Nova

  P A S T

  “Oh, my gosh,” a girl, whose name I think was Amber, practically squealed when she leaned beside my open locker. I froze, wide-eyed, alarmed, and wondering if she thought I was someone else. We’d definitely never talked before. “I had no idea Parker Callahan was your brother.”

  “Stepbrother,” I corrected on rote, cringing even over admitting that.

  “Yeah, when Dr. Brooks mentioned he had your brother in his morning class, I couldn’t believe it. How cool to have the same classes as your brother. You could totally study together at home,” she continued like I hadn’t spoken.

  “Yeah. Cool.” My interest in the conversation went from minimal to non-existent. It’d only been a couple of months, but she wasn’t the first girl to randomly approach me to ask about Parker. I could already play out the rest of the conversation, it happened so frequently.

  “I mean, he’s so hot. Not that you would notice since he’s your brother. Which is totally unfortunate because that would be like incest.”

  “Stepbrother,” I grumbled, knowing she probably didn’t even hear me, cringing over the incest comment.

  Maybe if I said it enough, I’d start listening because when I looked at him, he inspired anything but brotherly feelings.

  The flicker in my chest started over the summer before I was faced with public thoughts and queries like this one. It’d been easy to feed into the feeling growing in my chest because the situation made us more like roommates than family. Or friends that just happened to live together, and there was no harm in drooling over your ridiculously sexy friend. There was no harm in wanting to abandon your naivety and explore the heat he created in the pit of your stomach. There was nothing wrong with the thoughts I had about my friend.

  Until school, where people like Amber and Dr. Brooks reminded me at every turn that he was my stepbrother.

  “But still. You’re so lucky. He seems so cool. Caitlin hung out with the band last week and said he’s like the best kisser ever. I mean, those lips. I asked her if they went further, but she wouldn’t tell. I totally bet they did. I hear he’s slept with quite a few lucky ladies.”

  God, if you’re listening, kill me now, and please stop this fire blazing inside my chest.

  “Oh, my god, Nora, we should totally do a study group.”

  “Nova,” I corrected.

  “What?”

  “My name. It’s Nova.”

  She blinked, almost like she was seeing me for the first time. “Right. Nova. Silly me. So, how about it?”

  “You know, I’m pretty busy.” Liar. “And Parker is gone a lot anyway. So, we rarely study together.” Unfortunately, true.

  “Yeah, probably with the band,” she said slowly, like it was just hitting her.
“I should probably ask Caitlin what she did to hang out with them.”

  “Probably just talking to them would work,” I offered, my voice doing nothing to hide my desperation for it to be over. Not that she noticed.

  “Yeah, right. I need him to, like, notice me.”

  “Well, good luck with that.”

  “K, thanks, Nora.”

  “Nova.”

  But she was already gone. A bummer for her because less than a minute later, Parker walked up.

  “Ready to head home?” He replaced the spot she leaned against moments ago, and already my mood improved.

  With a smile, I closed my locker and followed him to the subway.

  Watching his broad shoulders part the crowd on the sidewalk, I thought over Amber’s comments and the others like it. All the daily reminders served to do was make this growing attraction feel more uncomfortable than it already did. As if the fear of my crush being outed wasn’t hard enough.

  But sometimes, I wondered…was my crush one-sided? Sometimes I noticed him watching me like I watched him. Sometimes, I noticed he could move away from touching me but didn’t. Kind of like he did then when he sat next to me on the ride home, and his thigh pressed to mine. He could put a seat between us or scoot over, but he didn’t.

  I knew we’d formed a friendship—but I wondered if maybe something more lingered under the surface. I wondered what the hell to do with it.

  Nothing. Because I didn’t know the first thing about being with someone like Parker. Hell, the whole friendship thing was new to me. I’d been pretty inexperienced, unlike him, who’d apparently hooked up with everyone like Amber claimed. I had no idea what having someone as intense as him focusing his attention on me would feel like. But I sure as hell wanted to know. He made me want to explore.

  When we got home, the apartment was empty, and without any words, we fell into our usual pattern. It’d been a couple of months, and this was our norm. Him working on his art while I used him as a muse for mine. Sometimes, he’d even prop up a canvas and join me as we listened to music, seeing who could guess the song before the other. Or we’d debate the merits and pitfalls of each song. Or we’d just sit in silence and enjoy the company of someone who got us.