“What did she send the eggs back, three times?” I laughed, remembering how furious she’d looked, how outraged at the insult and injury from an improperly cooked meal.
“Seriously, mate. Four times.” The room broke out in laughter.
“No.” I didn’t think it had been four times. Connor liked to exaggerate. But maybe he was right? I couldn’t really remember the details, all I knew was he was nailing it in his impression.
“Do you call this an egg?” Connor drew himself up to his full height, not more than 5’6” but he worked it. Pursing his lips and waggling his index finger, he had her down.
Later, much later, I stumbled my way into the kitchen. Some water would probably be a good idea. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind I thought I recalled something about leaving early the next day. As in the day it now was. So probably in a few hours. That might not happen.
Stooping over the faucet, I let the water run as I stared at it. Interesting thing, water. At least when you were drunk.
Bumping up against a counter, Conner lurched in after me. He looked like an extra from a zombie movie, his shirt torn at the bottom, his hair wild and his skin deathly pale with a faint tint of green.
“You look like shit,” I informed him.
“I’m fresh as a fucking daisy!” he insisted in an exaggerated Irish brogue, then attempted to dance himself a wee leprechaun jig. It didn’t go so well. Tripping on his own feet, he crashed into the fridge and then landed down on his ass with a loud thud. We both started laughing so hard we could barely stop.
“You OK, man?” I managed once I could.
Sprawled out on the kitchen floor, he shook his head. “Not at all.” But somehow that devilish smile coupled with the accent made everything sound like he was taking the piss out of me. He looked like he had one foot in the grave, but you could never really tell with Connor. Just when you’d think he was down for the count, he’d jump up and catch you with a mean right hook.
I gave him my hand and helped him up. “Thanks, mate.” He clapped me on the back, then joined me in filling up a glass of water at the sink. “So, where you been, Ash?”
From the serious turn his voice took, I figured he wasn’t just talking about the last couple of days. But I decided to go for the easiest answer, anyway.
“We got snowed in up here.” I gestured out the window, though with no lights on outside you couldn’t see a thing.
“Yeah, I figured. But where’ve you been the past month. It’s like you”—he clapped his hands together, then brought them up like a magician after a trick—“disappeared.”
I winced and scratched the back of my head, uncomfortable. I didn’t feel all that drunk anymore. At least not drunk enough for this conversation.
“I’ve had a lot going on,” I tried. “I’ve been dealing with this Mandy Monroe shit.”
“Seems like more than that.” Connor suddenly seemed sober as a nun. Where was a bottle of Jamison when you needed one? I fidgeted like I was in the principal’s office instead of talking with my best friend. That made me feel even worse.
“I miss you, mate.” He looked up at me, all rumbled and sad.
“Yeah, me too.” And I did. I missed how it used to be, how much fun we used to have. Back when we were just starting out, it had felt like we’d gone from outcasts to the most popular kids in school overnight. Or like we’d gotten away with a multi-million-dollar heist, walking away scott-free with the profits. Together, we’d been unstoppable. When had that changed?
“It’s been a rough couple of weeks.” He looked down at the floor. I realized I had no idea what had been going on with him, none at all.
“What’s up?”
“Tandy’s in rehab again.”
“Aw, fuck.” His sister had been in and out for the past few years. I knew it was hard on him. They’d relied on each other for so much growing up.
“She swallowed a needle and her lungs got infected.” Connor’s voice broke and he raked a hand through his hair like he wanted to rip it out.
“I’m so sorry.”
“She almost didn’t make it.”
“Christ.” I shook my head. I still remembered her when I’d first met her, over break the first year Connor and I had met in school. She’d been nine or ten, all chubby and round-faced and completely in love with me. She’d been a cute kid. Last I’d seen her, she’d been skin and bones, her hair hanging in lanky strands.
“Where’ve you been?” he asked again. Oh shit, Connor’s voice shook and nearly broke. He looked like he might cry any second.
I was used to a lot of drama from Connor. High and yelling at the top of his lungs while standing on top of a table? I’d seen it many times. Connor messing around with three girls at the same time? Sure. Connor coming up with a bloody genius guitar lick in between doing shots of tequila? That was the Connor I knew like the back of my hand.
But this Connor, looking scared and vulnerable in the kitchen? He scared the shit out of me. His hand trembled as he brought it to his head. I didn’t know if I’d ever seen him cry before. I didn’t think I could take it if he did.
“Are you going Beyoncé on me, mate?” he asked, thank God lightening the mood though I could tell he had a dead serious question in there. “What am I, Destiny’s Child?”
“Don’t go chasing waterfalls.” I brought my hand to his shoulder, trying to laugh it off.
“That was TLC.” He looked at me with disgust. “So now you don’t even know your R ’n’ B girl groups anymore? Who are you?”
“Sorry, sorry. My bad.” At least he was teasing me now. That, I could handle. But he wasn’t done yet.
He looked at me, serious as the grave. “I miss you, man.”
No, that was a fucking tear at the corner of his eye. Aw, no. Not a tear. It hit me right square in the middle of my chest like a fist. Fuck. Connor, whom I’d known since I was 12. Connor, who’d jumped into a fight to help me out when I was a 120-pound weakling getting my ass kicked. He’d gotten his ass kicked right alongside of me. We’d bled together. And now he stood there next to me choking back tears.
“I’m sorry.” I snuffled out, feeling like a grade-A asshole.
He nodded. “S’OK.”
“No, it’s not. I guess I have been pretty wrapped up.”
“We’ve always been in this together. It’s always been you and me. And now it’s like you think I stink. Like you don’t even want to be in the same room as me.”
“No, no, man, that’s not how it is.”
“You remember last New Year’s?”
I scratched my head, squinted, tried to make the hamster spin that wheel in my brain. Nope.
“It was the fuckin’ bomb, man. That’s how we do.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He went on, pulling out a couple more memories I didn’t admit to him that I didn’t even have, myself. I went on feeling like shit.
The worst part of it had to be the fact that I didn’t even want to be standing there talking to him. Even as I stood there and reassured him that I was going nowhere, that nothing was changing, my mind kept darting back to the bedroom. I wanted to be back there in with Ana.
She’d be in bed, naked and warm. I wanted to wrap my arms around her, pull her down on my chest, listen to her breathing so content and peaceful. That’s where I wanted to be.
But guilt was a hard thing to fight. It kept me nailed right to the floor, nodding and laughing along. Because in my heart, I knew Connor was right. I was moving on. I hadn’t even fully known it until he named it. I probably needed to take some time off from the band. That was going to be a fun conversation to have with everyone.
And it wasn’t a conversation I was going to have half-drunk in the middle of the night standing in a kitchen with my former BFF. No, right then I took the easy way out. I stood there with stupid words tumbling out of my mouth.
“No, man, nothing’s changing. Yeah, can’t wait to get back to the way things were.” And the more I protested an
d denied that anything was changing and insisted on everything going back to the way it was, the more I knew that would never happen.
CHAPTER 8
Ana
When I woke up, I had no idea what time it was. I did know that my head hurt like I had a bad hangover, even though I’d had nothing to drink. I guess I had gone to bed in a high dudgeon. Anger, resentment, spite, those weren’t great emotions to tuck in with for the night. I must have brewed in them as I’d slept, steeping myself in all that yuck, and now I felt like hell.
Sitting up, I got my bearings. And realized Ash wasn’t in bed with me. Was he mad? He might be.
Had I over-reacted last night? Maybe. Damn it.
I padded into the bathroom and splashed a little water on my face. It was still dark out the windows, so it wasn’t really time to wake up yet, but then again I’d gone to bed early. Really early. Maybe they were all still up?
I looked at myself in the mirror. Plain, no makeup, wearing an old T-shirt. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail. So here I was, the woman who’d been gallivanting around with the world-famous Ash Black. I didn’t look like anything special.
And last night, when his closest friends and some fans of the band had arrived at the cabin, I’d basically thrown a tantrum. The way I threw tantrums, at least, getting all withdrawn. The angrier I got, the quieter I tended to become.
I’d gotten real quiet last night, and then I’d sulked myself off to bed. When one of the girls had told me I needed to loosen up, I’d practically hissed at her. But maybe she was right?
At the very least, it wasn’t Ash’s fault that they all came up here. He tried to explain it to me, that the band all owned the cabin together. The place belonged to Johnny and Connor as much as it belonged to Ash. And Ash hadn’t seemed any happier than I had about the intrusion. Maybe I should have tried a little harder, at least had a beer or two, instead of popping my head under my shell like a freaking turtle.
Johnny their drummer actually seemed kind of nice. He struck me as a good guy, friendly. He didn’t give me the creeps. Johnny wasn’t the one I had a problem with.
It was Connor. He gave me the willies. There was the aggressive way he’d come on to me, of course, but really it was more than that. There was a wild, unhappy electrical current charging through him, driving him, pushing him past normal limits. I could see it in the way he goaded others around him. He was a manipulator. And he didn’t like me in Ash’s life, I could tell that, too.
And then there was the fact that someone had slipped something into my drink New Year’s Eve. I had no proof that it was Connor. It could have been anyone. That drink might not have even been intended for me. And Ash said it was Connor who’d found me passed out—in a good way. Like Connor had been trying to take care of me.
But that just didn’t ring true. I hadn’t sensed a caretaking bone in Connor’s compact, wiry body. He seemed as selfish as they came.
But, then, I didn’t know him. Not like Ash did. He’d explained that they went way back. I’d always trusted first impressions with people, that gut feeling you got about someone when you first met. But maybe there was a lot more to Connor than I’d seen? And if I really cared for Ash the way I thought I did, I needed to give his closest friend more of a chance.
I thought for a second about putting on some makeup, then decided against it. What did it matter, really? If they were up, they’d all have to be so shitfaced by now it wasn’t as if I needed to impress. There’d be no photographers up here. And Ash had seen me in a state of complete undress for days on end, no styling, no nothing. And he seemed to like me just fine.
Giving myself a smile to boost my self-confidence, I turned out of the room. I’d go find them, and if they were still hanging out maybe I could at least spend a little time with them as well. I could let Ash know I didn’t blame him for them arriving up at the cabin they co-owned. It would feel good to let go of the anger.
In the main room of the cabin, a girl lay fast asleep on the couch. She had a blanket over her and she looked peaceful. And young, younger than me. How old was she? Did her parents know where she was?
OK, I took a deep breath. I needed to try to relax. This was a whole different scene than what I was used to, but that didn’t mean I needed to fly into a panic. She looked over 21. Probably. And she looked fine. I saw no sign of the others, but then I heard some voices in the kitchen.
“Thought I’d lost you, man.” That was Connor, I recognized the light Irish brogue that seemed to come and go. Sometimes he laid it on thick, other times not so much. I wondered if he calculated when it would have the right reaction. But, see, there I was again getting all judgmental and bitchy. That wasn’t how I supposed to be feeling right now, so I tried to tamp it down.
“No, no.” Ash was in the kitchen with him. Ash. I loved hearing his voice.
“Thought you might be about to quit the band!” At Connor’s words, I froze. This suddenly seemed like a conversation that I maybe shouldn’t intrude upon. Maybe he and Ash were talking through something important.
“No,” Ash protested again, and I could almost see him shaking his head, though I stayed outside the room, unseen.
“It seemed like you might be thinking about it,” Connor insisted. He kept his tone light, but I could tell that he was dead serious. “Seemed like you were about to head out to the suburbs with that librarian. Bang out five kids and start working in some sort of a shop.”
That librarian? I stopped breathing. Connor was talking about me.
“Yeah, right.” Ash laughed in derision, like the whole idea of starting a life, a family with me was a preposterous joke. I brought my hand to my mouth, unable to stop a slight gasp, though it didn’t seem as if they heard. I felt like I’d been kicked in the teeth.
“What size do you wear?” Now Connor’s accent sounded more British as he pretended to be someone working in a shop.
“Seven and a quarter,” Ash replied, also in a British accent. Laughter flowed through both of their voices.
“I think we have that,” Connor replied, the helpful shop assistant. Then they both broke into hysterics, cracking up like school boys.
“Aw, man,” Ash said. “Spinal Tap. Always so good.”
“The best.”
Spinal Tap? I had no idea what they were talking about. Maybe they were quoting a movie or something. But I did know what they were doing. They were making fun of me, and the kind of life Ash would live if he were to choose to be with me.
“Good to have you back,” Connor said, full of feeling.
“Good to be back,” Ash agreed. My heart sank straight down to somewhere below the floorboards.
Connor continued in a whisper, but I still heard it. “I think she went to bed at six o’clock last night.”
Ash chuckled. “No, it wasn’t that bad.” But his laugh said otherwise. He thought I was ridiculous, laughably lame.
“Seriously,” Connor insisted. “The sun had yet to set.”
“C’mon now.” More laughing.
“Hey, how about the tits on Kristie?” I knew I should leave. I didn’t want to hear Connor ask about some woman’s breasts, and I definitely didn’t want to hear Ash’s response. But somewhere along the way I’d lost my power to move. I stood, stone still, engulfed with shame and sadness.
“Was that her name?” Ash asked. “I thought it was Stacie?”
“Does it matter?”
More laughter. I winced and wished I could vanish, somehow transport myself right out of that cabin Harry Potter-style. But when I opened my eyes, I was still just a Harry-Potter-loving nerdy librarian standing in the hallway overhearing people make fun of her. Still overhearing things I shouldn’t.
“So you’re heading back to S.F.?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Ash sounded reluctant.
“Leaving at the crack ‘o dawn today? That’s in about an hour.”
Ash groaned, “Shit.”
“Right?”
“That’s not gonna happe
n.”
“Ooh, the librarian’s gonna be pissed.”
“Shut it,” Ash responded, but he was laughing as he said it.
“You’re gonna be in trouble!”
More laughter, more muffled giggling. They were talking about me like I was the school principal. The buzzkill.
“You’re my boy, Blue,” Connor declared. I heard some scuffling and I could picture a sort of chummy wrestle/hug. The kind of thing guys did to express affection without really engaging in a warm embrace.
“Good to have you back,” Connor said.
“Yeah, sorry I’ve been—”
“Such a wanker?”
“That’s not exactly what I was going to—”
“A pansy? An asswipe?” Conner had a full supply of insults. Was I the only one who could hear how angry he was at Ash? I could hear such jealousy and venom in his joking tone.
“Thanks for that.” But Ash still sounded like he was laughing.
“OK, how about MIA?”
“Yeah,” Ash agreed. “Sorry I’ve been MIA. This whole Mandy Monroe bullshit has been driving me crazy.”
“Mandy set you up.”
“She did. And now Lola’s been all up my ass.”
“Bitch be crazy.”
“Bitch be crazy,” Ash agreed, throwing his PR rep right under the bus. “She’s had me on this tight schedule.”
“With the ball and chain.”
Ouch. I winced again, standing alone in the hall. But Ash agreed without missing a beat and kept right on complaining. About me. “It’s been rough. We’re here. We’re there. Got to get all the right shots from all the right angles. It’s sucked.”
Oh shit. I now wished more than anything that I hadn’t gotten out of bed. Or at least I wished I’d knocked over a lamp or something in the living room when I’d walked through it. That would have alerted them to my presence and they wouldn’t have started having this conversation. I wished I were anywhere other than standing there hearing Ash describe the last three weeks with me as rough. While I’d been looking at him with stardust in my eyes, apparently he’d been counting the minutes until it was over because it sucked so much.
Undone, Volume 3 Page 13
