by Anthology
Besides, if he was interested in me, wouldn’t he have already made a move?
I shove the thought away and the resolve I had to finally tell him how I feel fades as he pulls me against him and squeezes tight. He smells of sunshine and ocean, and I’m taken back to that first night we met.
* * *
4 years ago
“Whiskey on the rocks, huh?”
I jolt at the sound of the voice. There’s no use trying to hide my half full glass or the bottle of whiskey partially hidden by the leg of the table where I sit on the front porch outside my pretty crappy apartment.
And frankly, it’s been a rather shitty week so the last thing I want to do is talk to someone I don’t know. My misery is no one else’s business but my own.
“It’s been that kind of week.” It’s all I say as I take another sip and close my eyes as it burns its way down my throat. I fight back the urge to cough at its god-awful taste and make a fool of myself. But the whiskey was all my roommates had left behind before they left home for the holiday, and I’m too damn broke to buy something I actually like.
“Let me guess,” he murmurs while I try to place his familiar voice. And of course, he sits down in the chair beside me without an invitation to.
Can’t a girl just be left alone?
“Let’s not guess,” I mutter.
“Holiday blues got you down? Everyone left town to head home for Thanksgiving and you’ve got no one to go home to?”
His words make my throat burn more than the alcohol did. Tears threaten but I sniff them away.
I finally put two and two together. He’s the guy who lives across the way in Apartment 34C. The one who plays music all hours of the night and who sings loud enough for all to hear.
“Go away 34C,” I mutter.
“No.”
“No?” I cough out the word and then it falters when I turn to look at him for the first time. Holy shit. 34C is hotter than hell. I’m met with storm cloud gray eyes that are framed by thick lashes. One of his eyebrows is quirked up as he stares at me while his lips are curved at the corners. His shoulders are broad, and his dark brown hair is a little long where it curls at the base of his neck and over his ears. Tattoos mark his biceps but are hidden by the cuffs of his old school Nirvana T-shirt with a hole near the collar.
I’ve seen 34C from afar, heard his voice way more than I’ve actually laid eyes on him, and boy is that a travesty. Staring at him might have just made living in this shitty apartment tolerable.
“No,” he reiterates, that smile of his widening with the acknowledgment that I was checking him out. “You look sad and lonely. Left behind, actually. And—”
“You don’t know shit about me,” I argue, embarrassed to be caught feeling sorry for myself.
“You’re right. I don’t.” He shrugs. “But I know it’s Thanksgiving tomorrow, and everyone I know has left to go home, hang out with family, watch football games, and do who the fuck knows. They’re all going to be there while I’m stuck here feeling sorry for myself that I don’t have any family to go home to.”
“Oh.” I stutter, surprised by his candidness and selfishly feeling happy that I’m not the only one left alone. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to be. You’re in the same boat, right? Stuck here alone?”
“Um. Yeah. I guess.”
“You either are or you aren’t and by the way you’re sipping that drink and looking miserable out here, I’m thinking you are.”
My sigh fills the space between us as I pick up the bottle by the leg of the table—the one I put there so I didn’t look like a drunk stealing sips during the afternoon—and pass it over to him. “Do you want to share in my misery?”
The smile he flashes is so bright it’s blinding. “Lyric Evermore,” he says and holds his hand out to shake my free one.
I stare at it for a beat, almost as if I’m confused over how this man is suddenly in my space, and I’m perfectly okay with it. And then I burst out laughing.
“That can’t really be your name, can it? I mean, it’s a stage name, right?”
“What’s wrong with my name?” he asks, brows furrowed like a little boy, and I suddenly feel like an ass.
“Nothing is wrong with it. In fact, it’s pretty damn cool for a musician to have that name—”
“Ah, so you listen to me rehearsing then? You know I’m a musician.” His cocky smile does things to my insides I don’t want to admit to. “And you like it.”
I stare at him and give a little shake of my head. “You have a good voice. I’ll give you that.”
“Why so stingy with the compliments?” I just stare at him with a blank face, caught off guard by his comment before he barks out a laugh and says, “I’ll take good voice. It’s better than some of the rejections I’ve gotten. But let’s get back to the matter at hand—why are you making fun of my name?”
“I’m not. It’s just—” My cheeks flush. “How does a singer end up with a name like Lyric when no one could know he was going to have a voice good enough to sing to begin with?”
He purses his lips and nods, his eyes never leaving mine. “You have a point there, one I may have pondered before myself, but I assure you, it’s my real name. Ironically. Supposedly my parents were really into music. And drugs.” His expression falters for a beat before the smile returns full force to cover up the sudden slip of emotion. “But that’s a story for another day. So . . .” He sticks his hand out to me again. “Lyric Evermore. Hopeful rock star with a fitting name. Singer who you’re stuck listening to rehearse. Guy who’s stuck here this weekend without anywhere to go.”
I laugh, my cheeks hurting from smiling so hard, as I take his hand. “Annie McIntyre. College student who’s broke as hell. Girl who has nowhere to be this holiday.”
“So, see? It’s official,” he says and cringes when he takes a sip straight from the bottle.
“What’s official?”
“This. Us.”
“Excuse me?” I choke over my own sip and his laughter floats through the empty complex.
“Yeah. Our own Evermore-McIntyre-Thanksgiving.” He takes another sip and uses the bottle to motion to the space around us. “We’ll drink some, laugh some, order takeout from that taco shop right down the street that has a sale running.”
“One should never eat from a place running a sale on their food.”
“Let’s be daring Annie McIntyre. I mean, it’s better than being alone.”
I stare at him and shake my head. “Who said I wanted to spend Thanksgiving with you?”
“Women don’t say no to me. It’s easier to just realize that now and save us the time.”
“Save us what time?” The man may be gorgeous but he talks like I already know what he is talking about.
That and he’s arrogant. A usual turn off for me, but there is something about him—a playfulness mixed with that boyish grin—that has my complete attention.
“The time it’ll take for you to argue with me, pretend you’re not interested, and then grovel as a means of making up when you realize you really are.”
“You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
“Always.” Another blistering grin that has me smiling in response. “So what do you say we make our own tradition? Whiskey and rolled tacos from the taco shop down the street and no mention of how somewhere along the way we lost our family in some way or another.” He taps the neck of the whiskey bottle against the edge of my glass. “Sound like a plan?”
* * *
I smile as I hold on to Lyric a little longer and think about that first Thanksgiving four years ago. How I told him about how I was fumbling blindly through my first year of law school and how he talked about his plight as a struggling artist, bumming the couch of a friend to sleep on, while he tried to get his demo tapes listened to. We talked about our nonexistent families, our likes, our dislikes, and when the weekend was over and our friends returned, how we made a promise to one another to meet again next year regar
dless of where life had taken us by then.
Lyric
God, she smells good.
I hold onto Annie a little bit longer and just breathe her in. A small piece of normal in my crazy, chaotic world of touring and groupies and everything in between. A world I fucking love but that I need a break from every now and again.
And she is the perfect kind of break.
Someone who has no problem putting me in my place, who doesn’t lap up my every word because of who I am, and who knew the poor, pitiful Lyric Evermore before the world did.
“You look good. Great.” Beautiful. With her dark hair, the flash of freckles across her cheeks (I know she hates them), and her light eyes, Annie McIntyre is anything but ordinary as she so often claims.
“So do you,” she says and pulls up one of the cuffs on my black t-shirt to look at my biceps. “New ink, huh?” There’s disapproval in her tone and I love that it’s there. She wouldn’t be Annie without it.
“Yep. I got it when the guys and I were in Tokyo.” I shrug at the Japanese letters and think of that night. Way too much saki, a little homesickness, and an odd urge to call her when typically, we don’t talk for weeks at a time.
“Let me guess . . . you had too much to drink? Does that imply you don’t remember what it means?”
I give her half grin. “Something like that.”
But I know exactly what they mean and who I was thinking about as I had the word love tattooed on my arm. It was generic enough that the internet sleuths could decipher it and not think anything of it, while deep down I could keep its meaning to myself.
My own whiskey is slid across the bar top toward me. I let the burn of the first sip hit me before I speak again. “So tell me what’s new? Any intriguing cases you’re working on? Any guilty clients who are actually innocent? Is the legal world still thrilling you? Fill me in.”
* * *
3 Years ago
“Cheers to our second annual Annie-Lyric-Thanksgiving taco fest.” I hold my whiskey up and tap it against hers. “This time without the discounted tacos that made us get a little bit sick.”
“Cheers,” she says through a laugh. Her smile is shy, but her eyes are warm as she meets mine again. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to show.”
“What do you mean you weren’t sure if I was going to show? Of course, I’d be here. Isn’t that the promise we’d made each other?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean . . .”
Annie averts those gorgeous eyes of hers down to her glass and hides them behind her thick lashes. Why the sudden shyness?
“It’s only been two months since I moved away. Are you going to tell me you thought I’d forgetten about this tradition? About you?”
“It’s technically not a tradition until it’s been done a few times so . . .”
“You and your technicalities, Annie.” I scoot my chair next to hers, grab her into a bear hug, and press a kiss to the top of her head. “Of course, I’d be here. This is our thing. This. Us. Remember?”
When she looks up at me, I swear there are tears welling in her eyes and as much as I hate the sight of them—the understanding that she thought I’d flake on her—I also love seeing them there too.
That means I matter. That this matters.
“Ok. Yes. This is our thing.” A ghost of a smile graces her lips followed by a resolute nod of her head. “I’m glad you’re here.” Her smile widens a little bit more.
“Me too.” I clink my glass against hers again. “Now I’ve got something I’ve been waiting to tell you in person.”
“What?” Her head startles, eyes growing big.
I fight the grin on my face but it’s useless. “I did it, Annie.”
“No way.” She squeals and claps her hands together and wiggles in her seat before jumping up and throwing her arms around me. “You’re serious?” She pushes against my chest and looks up at me. I love that she knows what I’m talking about without me having to say another word. “You are serious. Oh my god. It’s really happening, isn’t it?” Tears fill her eyes this time but out of pure happiness.
“It is.” My own eyes burn with tears I push away. “I signed a recording contract last week. It’s with a smaller company but they have a great vision and plan for me and Evermore and—”
“Don’t you dare make any kind of excuses, Lyric.” She presses a kiss to my cheek. “You did it. You really fucking did it, and I couldn’t be more proud of you.”
When she meets my eyes again, it’s hard to swallow over the emotion lodged in my throat. I didn’t realize until just now how I wanted her to be the first person to know my good news. Hell, I didn’t even realize how much I looked forward to this—her, tacos, a tradition—until I walked in here tonight and saw her sitting by herself.
Now she knows.
And oddly, now I feel like I can breathe for the first time all week.
“Lyric.” She says as if she just heard my name. Shock and excitement etch the lines of her face. “We need to celebrate. Tacos and tequila and everything in between.”
So we celebrate. With food that’s beyond our budgets and with margaritas that are stronger than hell. We get tipsy. More than tipsy. We make up pipe dreams about how I’ll perform in Madison Square Garden one day, and how she’ll be on the side of the stage rocking out with me. We laugh till our sides hurt and talk like we only have tonight.
And later, when the drinks are had and the mood has chilled and we’re dancing around her vacant (and still crummy) apartment laughing like loons, I lean forward and press my lips to hers.
There are a few moments of freefall.
The kind where we stutter for a second at the shock of what I did, and then where we fall into the kiss. Where my only thought is the next taste on her tongue, the next feel of her lips, the next sparks that will fly from our connection.
The kiss is fast and furious and fueled with alcohol.
And just as quickly as it happens—my hands cradling her face, my lips branding hers—it ends when I break to draw in a ragged breath.
Realization hits.
Oh. Shit.
I’m kissing Annie.
I kissed Annie.
The girl who’s become my closest friend. The one I depend on to pick up the phone when I’m having a rough day. The one who’s not one of my throwaways who’s hoping to get into my pants on the off chance I become a superstar.
“Oh my god.” They’re the first words that pass over my lips. Did I just fuck this up? She knows I’m a player, does she think I just played her? Did— “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I—it’s the alcohol.”
Annie stares at me with eyes and mouth shocked open wide and I hate that I can’t read her expression. “It’s—it’s okay. It’s—”
But she kissed me back.
Didn’t she?
Or am I too drunk to know the difference?
Motherfucker.
Think Lyric.
Think.
Fix this.
“You’re my best friend.” Her face falls and the sight of it guts me. I feel like a floundering teenager here. “I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t want to ruin this. Us. Who we are.” I fall face down onto the couch, my last sentence muffled.
But I hear her chuckle as I opt to stay where I am—face planted in the cushion—now that the room is spinning.
It’s not till later when I wake up staring at the cracked ceiling, listening to her soft snores from her open bedroom door, that I realize the entire night was about me. That Annie let me have a moment to shine and live in it. I’ve never had that before, and of course, I went and ruined it by kissing her.
By taking the one thing I’ve wanted from her for over a year, when she’s showed no outward interest at all in me.
Leave it to me to fuck things up.
* * *
The memory hits me hard and fast as I stare at her from across the table. I’ve relived that kiss more times than I care to count over the years. Hell, I may
have even tried to find one to rival it in the many women I’ve kissed since then . . . but nothing has touched it.
Maybe it was the moment and the celebration that made it so special.
Then again, maybe it was her.
“So tell me, does your partner have you working on any exciting cases or are you still just doing the day-to-day stuff?” I ask, wanting to know what I’ve missed out on.
“Just the day-to-day. But Justin said—”
“Justin?” I ask, more than aware that it was Mr. Jenson last time I spoke to her and now it’s Justin.
“Yes.” She gives me an odd look. “The other associate lawyer I’ve told you about. Justin.”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I was thinking of Mr. Jensen. My bad.”
And so Annie McIntyre fills me on the details of her life. The details I want to hear despite knowing if that were my life, I’d slit my wrists from the boredom. But this is Annie. Steady-eddy, Annie, who loves routine and discipline, and everything in between.
My polar opposite.
And I wouldn’t want her any other way.
“Should we head over to the restaurant? I made reservations so we’d have a table.”
“Of course, you did.” I smile and just stare at her, lost in whatever this pressure in my chest is.
“C’mon. Let’s go. I made sure we’re in the back room so that no one bugs us for autographs or pictures from the rock star.”
“Rock star sex god. Get it straight,” I joke.
“Oh please.” She rolls her eyes. “Good to see your ego is still small and humble.”
“Never.” I laugh. “And that’s just how you like me.”
I throw some cash on the bar, wrap my arm around her shoulders, and head toward the chilly world beyond this cozy hole in the wall bar.
Annie
There is a slow hum to the restaurant. We’re seated in the back room, empty except for us. The light is dim, the atmosphere low key, and the food is killer.
Lyric caught the eye of a few people while walking our way over here. No doubt, that means that there will be paparazzi sitting outside waiting to take a picture of rock’s newest ‘it’ boy when we leave.