Slower

by Deana Birch

  “I knew you wouldn’t have the balls to admit it.” Shane’s eyes traveled out the window. “I tried to convince myself that you would, but deep down I always knew you wouldn’t.” When he looked back to me, his eyes were equal parts disdain and disappointment. “Fucking pussy. I told you, Phil.”

  My hands slapped my face. Shane Murphy was more fucked up than I had ever thought. And I had seen him being really, really, really fucked up. And Phil was a fucking traitor. He’d spent so much time telling me to play nice with Shane.

  I couldn’t believe what he’d invented, and I had to set the record straight. “Shane, that was an orgy. Everyone fucked everyone. Jesus, I thought you of all people would understand that.” And while I had experimented sexually, I didn’t identify myself like he did. I wasn’t interested in a romantic relationship with anyone other than the girl I’d ruined it with.

  The color fell from his face. “Then why did you spend all that time with me? The gym, the basketball games—you took me to your parents’ house.” His words came with a pained stare.

  “Because I thought we were friends. Jesus Christ. All this time you thought I was secretly pining away for you?”

  “Jesus Christ,” John said, barely above a whisper.

  I’d heard of people “deflating” before but had never witnessed it until that moment. Shane Murphy positively shrunk.

  “I thought if I could just get her out of the way, you wouldn’t need to use her as a cover-up anymore.” His voice shook. “We should have been together. You should be with me.”

  His unraveling just kept getting worse. When I’d first joined The Spades, a lot of my musician friends had warned me about Shane Murphy. But there had never been anything concrete, no E! True Hollywood Story. But fuck me if those people hadn’t been right. He had to understand this was all in his head.

  “There was no cover-up. I love her. You know that. I fucking told you that countless times.”

  “Yeah. I know. And I was sick of hearing it after the first time.” His stare, his pleading stare. How dare he? Shane had invented a certifiably mental scenario of us.

  I rubbed my cheeks and chanced a glance to the other members of The Spades. Both sets of eyes bounced from me to Shane, waiting for our next move. Phil’s head stayed down. At least he had that much sense.

  “I don’t believe you.” Shane perked up as if he’d found new hope. Jesus, he really was walking the line of sanity. “You wrote that song about me.”

  “What?”

  “ ‘Faster’ is about us. That night, I said ‘faster.’ ”

  Christ. He had. I knew he was right. But I was done with the details.

  “Maybe you did, and maybe you gave me the idea for one fucking lyric ...”

  I could see him skimming the lyrics he had sung thousands of times in his head.

  “No.”

  “Jesus, Shane. You ruined my life.” My eyes were unable to focus. I got up and steadied myself with the table. “And you.” I shook my head at Phil. “You held his fucking hand as he did it.”

  Sam and John were still standing by the door, eyes wide and mouths agape.

  Fuck. This was insane. But I had to say the words. I had to leave this mess. There was no recovery or kumbaya moment in our future. “I’m done.”

  “Fuck you, Riley,” Shane spat. “You’re a fucking moron for leaving at the height of our success.”

  “And a double fuck-you, Murphy. You ruined my life and career. Thanks a lot, douchebag.”

  Triple fuck. I had to leave Sam and John behind with this shithead. But mostly Sam. He had to keep playing with them for the money. Affording to be selfish had never tasted so bitter.

  “I’m sorry.” I bowed my head as I passed them. I was unable to swallow the rock in my throat. It was shitty leaving those two in the lurch, and I was going to seriously miss making music with them, but Shane Murphy was level twelve fucked up, and he had taken everything sacred from me.

  And at the same time, he hadn’t. He’d only shed a light on what was truly inside me. What I was capable of. All of my mistakes had involved drugs. Was I really going to be that musician? That man?

  I stumbled to the parking lot, climbed into my Jeep, and called my dad. His level head and even tone guided me back to Hollywood, through the grocery store—where I bought two bottles of Fern’s favorite wine and two cases of my favorite beer—and finally to Louana’s apartment complex. I didn’t feel much better as I parked in my old spot and headed around to the front gate, where Fern buzzed me in.

  Archie went apeshit when he saw me, doing laps around the pool and attacking my face with his tongue. It offered a quick reprieve to the anguish. God, I had missed that beast—and his old lady, too.

  Fern took one look at the booze and said, “You wanna talk about it?”

  “Not today, Fernie. Not today.”

  With Louana away, Fern’s fridge was empty enough to fit all our liquid lunch. We sat next to the pool, toasted to new beginnings and started our gentle descent into inebriation. Maybe it was wrong to get wasted when I’d had the most sobering moment of my life. But what else could I do? The one person who could glue my Humpty Dumpty-broken ass back together wasn’t there.

  My phone rang non-stop, and a tipsy Fern played secretary, telling my mom I’d call her later and Phil to fuck off—she actually said it—and go through my lawyer. I just wanted to sit by the pool, throw the ball for Archie, take pulls off my beer, and listen to Fern tell me stories of her life.

  And wait.

  For her.

  28

  LOUANA

  * * *

  The early-summer heat mixed with the pollution and brought me right back home. I rubbed my eyes and searched for my name on a clipboard.

  Once I’d finally handed over the bulk of my luggage, I reached for my phone to text my mom that I’d arrived safely in Los Angles. But the second it powered up, it exploded with text bubbles.

  * * *

  Gina: Jake quit the band and isn’t talking to anyone. Something to do with Shane. Do you know anything? Sam is devastated. PS. Your sheets are clean, and fridge is full. I’m gonna miss Archie and took Boom Boom home with me.

  * * *

  Casey: O M f’ing G. Gina just called me. WTF!!!??? Call me ASAP

  * * *

  Maman: Hope you had a safe flight home and a nice time with Stella, let me know when you get in.

  * * *

  Stella: Merci pour la visite! Bisous

  * * *

  Gina: Just a heads up, there are reports of heavy drinking by your landlady and ex-boyfriend. Most likely at your apt. Hope you had a safe flight.

  * * *

  So much for all the recharging in France. I knew the minute Jake found out about Shane, he would quit the band. What a terrible mistake. Jake would never find the same level of success—alone or with a new group. He was a fool to throw it all away, even if Shane was a meddling prick.

  Part of me considered not going home, but it would only have been delaying the inevitable. Now that Jake was off the road and he had found the final piece of the puzzle he had so desperately wanted to complete, he would be relentless. I knew it and told the part of my heart with the shit-ass grin to shut it. Jake was a cheater. I would not take him back. And I would not repeat the same mistake of letting him fall so easily between my sheets. My libido folded its arms and frowned at me in anger.

  The car dropped me at the front gate of the complex and Gina’s warning manifested in front of my eyes. There they were, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, laughing it up with the spoils of their day spread out around them.

  Archie noticed me first and came running up with his tail wagging. I couldn’t deny him his greeting, no matter what the backdrop. I leaned down, scratched him behind the ears and fake-scolded him for letting the two humans go to hell in a hand-basket.

  Jake and Fern gave me two very different expressions. Fern looked like I had caught her hand in the cookie jar, and Jake stared me down with hunge
r, regret, and uncut lust. The beverages of the afternoon seemed to have only helped his confidence.

  I returned his stare as blankly as I could. The only sound they would get from me was the rolling of my suitcases to my door. As far as I could see, Fern was a traitor—who had already been forgiven—and Jake was a stalker. I let myself in and closed the door behind me. I didn’t have the energy to deal with them.

  Ever thankful for the dog walker we’d hired Fern and feeling relieved that she wouldn’t need to stumble through the streets, I decided not to worry about Archie and I turned my shower on to warm up the water. I ignored the tapping on my front door, the two-four rhythm a dead give-away about my gentleman caller.

  The knocking hadn’t let up by the time I’d gotten out of the shower, dried off, and changed into pajama shorts and a tank top. With my towel on my head to dry my hair, I went to my fridge to see what Gina had left for me. The beats took on a new cadence as I made myself a sandwich and ate it on the couch. And they didn’t stop as I brushed my teeth and got ready for bed. Still tapping as I lay down and closed my eyes.

  Tap, tap. Tap. Tap, tap, tap. Tap.

  I threw back the covers, groaned, and got up. I stomped to the to the door and yanked it open.

  Jake popped up from his seated position on the ground.

  “Thank God! I have to piss like a racehorse.” He pushed his way through and ran to the bathroom. I didn’t remember inviting him in. Oh, right. He didn’t care about things like that. He was a bulldozer. I crossed my arms and waited.

  He swaggered out and plopped down on the couch. Realizing he wasn’t going to budge, I swung the door shut. Jesus, he was presumptuous.

  “Please. Make yourself at home.” I stepped closer.

  “This is my home.” His glazed eyes and dopey smile reeked of booze.

  “Jake, it’s 4:00 in the morning for me. I need sleep. Can you please stop the banging at my door and go home?”

  “As I said, I am home, and I could go for some other banging on the door. I seem to remember it was one of your favorites.”

  It wasn’t like him to be a cheeseball.

  “Please don’t. You are very obviously drunk, and I’m tired. I need to go to bed.”

  “Can I sleep next to you?” God, he didn’t stop.

  “No.”

  “Here?” He pointed to the couch with loopy arms.

  I closed one eye, the other hoping soon to follow. “Like you would be a good boy and stay there all night.”

  “You don’t trust yourself with me out here.” That merited the biggest eye roll of my twenty-six years.

  “I don’t trust you. Remember?”

  “Then let me redeem myself. I promise to sleep on the couch and keep my hands to myself all night, and tomorrow you promise we can talk.”

  Out of his mind. The man had quit the band and lost all sense. I’d given him one tiny inch by sending that video, and he had taken all the miles from Los Angeles to Marseille. “This seems like a win-win for you. What do I get out of this, exactly?”

  “I stop knocking on your door. And I’m prepared to go all night. Trust me, I know who to call to give me the assistance it would require.”

  A smug grin formed on his face because he knew he’d won.

  “Fucking bulldozer.” I huffed off to my bedroom.

  “Can I have my pillow?” he called from the living room.

  God, he was arrogant. I threw the pillow down the hall and slammed my bedroom door. I pleaded with my mind to turn off and forget about him just on the other side of the wall. It eventually worked, and I let the comfort of my bed and the exhaustion of my travels swallow me into slumber.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Not! “Were you trying to sleep?” I clanked another pot on my stove.

  Jake stood in the doorway of the kitchen scratching the stubble on his cheeks, his clothes from the previous day wrinkled from their night on the couch. Damn me all the way to hell if he wasn’t a sight for sore eyes, though. A huge part of me wanted to go over to him and wrap my arms around his waist. Let my hands travel under his T-shirt and pull him close, where his low-hanging pants and surely visible boxer briefs met.

  I hated seeing him shattered. And I hated myself for being the cause of it. If I had broken things off with him in the beginning, when my gut had been screaming that we would never work, he wouldn’t have given up his dream. But it was still not cool to bombard me the minute I’d set foot back in L.A..

  “Do you serve coffee with your noise?” He yawned.

  I grumbled my half-fake annoyance but moved to take out the coffee.

  “You already ran?” His eyes scanned my body, and I knew I wasn’t imagining them stalling at my ass.

  “Couldn’t sleep any longer. My internal clock is off.”

  “I like waking up and seeing you. Even if I’m not next to you.” His head tilted to catch my eye, and I shushed my heart from swooning. Jake and I would not be picking up where we’d left off.

  “Let’s be clear about one thing: I let you stay on that couch because A) you were too drunk to drive home and B) I was exhausted and didn’t have a fight in me. But I’m awake, rested, and done caving into your demands.”

  He held up his hands to surrender.

  I gave him my best stink eye, which had the opposite of its intended effect and made him laugh. He took frustration to skyscraping levels.

  “I’m gonna shower and get dressed. After which, I will give you thirty minutes of conversation before you will leave my apartment, pick up the mess you made with Fern in the courtyard, and go home.”

  He gave me a salute as if I were his general in the military and removed himself from the doorway with a hop so I could pass.

  Fifteen minutes later, I came out to find an omelet waiting for me— and him at the table with it. I sat down, thanked him for the food, and waited for him to start.

  My plate was almost empty when he said, “I quit the band.”

  “That was stupid.”

  “Shane is the one who told you. He went behind my back.” He leaned into the back of his chair. “I was a fool. You can’t possibly know how sorry I am.”

  “What does that change?” I folded my napkin and tossed it next to my cutlery.

  “I still love you, and I want you back.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to remember the bullshit my yoga teachers always preached about taking that calm moment off the mat. I wanted to scream at him to stop pulling me back in. But I couldn’t, not when he was like this. I shook my head a slow no and hoped I wouldn’t have to hurt him more.

  He let out a frustrated groan. “I thought you had already cheated on me. Shane convinced me …”

  Shane and his warped games. I couldn’t imagine the shit he’d fed Jake when I wasn’t around to clarify. “Don’t bring him into this. It has nothing to do with him. We had passion, but we don’t work.”

  “And that’s it? No understanding? No forgiveness? You can’t even give me a fucking inch back? Especially because I know you still care about me. Why else would we have slept together the last time I was in town? Why did you send me the video of your grandmother?”

  Too many questions. Too many ways to cave in. “I mistakenly thought we could be friends.”

  “Like with him?”

  Proof positive Jake hadn’t changed. Still jealous, still his own worst enemy. This was it. The moment I could go for the jugular. The sentence formulated in my brain. I could say yes, like Dimitri, whom I fucked before breaking it off for good. It could come out of my mouth, and it would kill him. Then maybe he would be wounded enough to leave me alone.

  But my heart blocked the words. He had just lost his band; there was no point in making his life worse than it already was. So, I sat there with my lips pursed and nostrils flared, waiting for him to say something else.

  “It was much easier to negotiate with you when I could touch you.” He reached for my arm, but I pulled it away.

  “Yeah, well, you lost that privilege. So, y
ou’ll have to find a new angle.”

  Jake shook his head and looked at the floor, then back to me. His eyes would have made even Archie sad. “Answer me honestly: Do you want to be with me?”

  I searched the backs of my eyelids for words that wouldn’t expose my hard-ass persona—the one I was trying so desperately to sell him on—as fake. “I need to be with someone who I trust and who trusts me. Because that’s what it all boils down to. You didn’t trust me with Dimitri. And the less you trusted me, the more I hid, even though I was convinced it was innocent. I’m sorry, Jake. About us, about your band. I know you thought getting the truth out would change things, but it doesn’t. It’s like I said; we don’t work.”

  His eyes scanned the apartment‚ for what, I didn’t know.

  I hated to say it, but I had to. “Time’s up. You need to leave.”

  “One more question.” He finally looked at me. “How can I get you to trust me again?”

  I dropped my head back. “That’s like asking me how to solve a Chinese crossword puzzle. I haven’t got a clue where to start, and I’m not even sure it’s possible.”

  “But if I did it, if I got you to trust me again, you would give us another chance?” His eyes bore into mine like the claws he had on my heart.

  “I honestly don’t know how you would do it. I’m not going to go out of my way to see you just so you can chip away at me. I have a job—a life—and I intend to move on.”

  “Okay. You’re right. Time’s up.” He glanced at his phone for the time, and I noticed the log of missed calls and unanswered texts. He stood, grabbed his keys from the coffee table, and headed to the door.