In Real Life

by Jessica Love

  Before I could think about it too much, I typed

  I KNOW YOU WERE DRUNK LAST NIGHT AND DIDN’T MEAN WHAT YOU SAID, SO WE CAN FORGET IT HAPPENED, OK?

  and hit Send.

  Whew.

  He didn’t reply right away, which was odd because I got his earlier texts almost immediately after sending mine. It took about five minutes before my phone buzzed with a response.

  OK was all he said back.

  After that, just like Barstow, it was like it had never happened.

  And just like that, I started living a lie.

  CHAPTER

  10

  It takes about twenty more minutes, two more drinks for Grace, and three panic attacks for me before it’s time for Automatic Friday to take the stage. I wrap my hair up into a bun and then shake it back out about seventy-five times, and I practically chew off my thumbnail. Lo and Grace, in an attempt to distract me, make up dirty stories about almost everyone in the place, and I try with every ounce of self-control I have not to look at the stage, run out the door, or cry about all the ways my most treasured friendship is now ruined.

  It’s damn near impossible.

  My main focus is getting myself out of this situation. I’ll watch the band play one song, then I’ll tell Grace and Lo I drank too much or ate too much or whatever, and I’ll cab it back to our hotel. I don’t need to have this girlfriend conversation with Nick in person. And certainly not with her standing right next to us, big boobs all in my face.

  Nick and I do everything else online or on our phones. This can happen there, too.

  I’m trying to craft the perfect exit strategy when the lights dim and the cheesy pop-punk music shuts off mid-song. The crowd whoops halfheartedly and my phone vibrates in my back pocket.

  I look at my text as the band takes the stage. It’s from Nick.

  I AM SO SORRY GHOST.

  Sorry for what? For the weirdness? For Frankie? For keeping her a secret? I shove my phone back into my pocket in disgust, annoyed with the sight of his name on the screen for the first time ever.

  My fingers drum my thigh as the lights go up onstage, and I feel a rush of excitement despite myself. Yes, I’m mad at Nick, but this music has been the soundtrack of my life for the past few years, and a thrill rushes through me at the thought of seeing the band perform live. Jordy the Player at the front; I recognize him right away from his tagged pictures on Nick’s profile and the band’s YouTube videos. He’s wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off to showcase the tattoos all over his arms, and a grin spreads over his face as he licks his lips and scans the crowd. He’s loving this. There’s Oscar with his bass draped over his shoulders, toe tapping the pedal at the end of the stage, ’80s hair pointing everywhere. Nick was so right about that. On drums is their new guy, Drew: short, chubby, and not in with the rest of the guys quite yet. Then, on guitar—

  “That’s Alex.” Grace grips down on my arm so tightly, I think she touches bone. “You didn’t tell me Alex was in this band.”

  Sure enough, the guy plucking on the guitar isn’t Nick. It’s Alex, his older brother.

  If I hadn’t seen Nick already, if I had walked into House of Blues right as the band took the stage, I probably would’ve thought Alex was Nick. Same build, same height, same brown hair, and he’s wearing a trucker hat pulled down low over his forehead, hiding the details of his face in the semi-dark, and a leather motorcycle-style jacket, similar to the one Nick is wearing, hiding the tattoos on his right arm.

  But it isn’t Nick playing the guitar. It’s his brother.

  The band launches into one of their faster-paced songs. Despite all the tats and ripped T-shirts onstage, their music is surprisingly mellow. They sound great live, and Jordy’s gravelly voice totally pops in this small club. They’ve slightly changed the arrangement of the song “In My Head,” one of my favorites, just enough to make it different from the recorded version I play in my room on repeat when I’m alone.

  But what happened to Nick? Why is Alex onstage in his place?

  “They sound killer, don’t they?”

  Somehow Frankie sidles up next to me. She holds a small tablet in her hand and a huge camera dangles from her neck. She’s not looking in my direction, her focus is totally on the tablet as she taps on the screen, but I know she’s talking to me because she’s pretty much screaming in my ear.

  “Yeah.” I shake Grace’s hand off my arm and shoot a look to her and Lo, both of whom are staring, confused, at the stage, exactly as I had been a second ago. “So, uh. Where’s Nick?”

  She places the tablet between her knees and squeezes them tight while she holds up the camera, snapping photos of the band in action. “Oh, he’s out doing merch. The usual.” She drops the camera so it hangs from its strap and picks up the tablet again. “Do you mind if I hang out here for a sec? You have a rad view of the stage, and I have so much crap with me tonight.” She scoots in toward the girls. “Hey, I’m Frankie.”

  “Uh, this is my sister, Grace, and my best friend Lo.” We’re still screaming at each other over the music from the stage.

  “Wait. Nick always does merch?” Grace asks Frankie.

  But I don’t even need to hear her confirmation to know it’s true. I think some small, hidden part of me must have known all along.

  Nick doesn’t play the guitar in Automatic Friday.

  Nick sells the T-shirts and sets up the drum kit.

  That’s what his “sorry” text was for. Not for Frankie or the awkwardness but for another lie. For telling me he was in this band when his brother is the one on the stage.

  Without even thinking, I bolt from Frankie and the girls and weave through the people watching the band. Automatic Friday has now moved on to their second song after a loud “How you doing tonight, Vegas?!” from Jordy and an apathetic mumble from the crowd. I push through the people who are paying no attention to Jordy’s earnest vocals, and I apologize for knocking into their drinks. I rush up the stairs, through the door, and out to the front of House of Blues, where Nick sits on a folding chair behind the merch booth, a pile of Automatic Friday CDs and Moxie Patrol T-shirts arranged on the table in front of him and a crumpled piece of paper that says TIPS APPRECIATED! THINK OF US AS BARTENDERS WHO GET YOU SHIRTS INSTEAD OF DRINKS! taped to the wall behind him.

  He stands up when he sees me, but his face falls as soon as we make eye contact. “Ghost.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  He flinches like I slapped him. “Hannah, please.”

  I know I told him not to call me Ghost, but my real name sounds so foreign coming from his mouth. Hearing him call me Hannah hurts almost as much as the lying.

  For the first time since he coined my nickname, I don’t want him to use it. But I don’t want him to use my real name, either. I don’t want him to call me anything.

  All I want is answers, and then I want to leave Las Vegas and never look back.

  CHAPTER

  11

  “Were you ever in the band?” I point to the door that leads down to the stage, where “Free Fall,” another one of my favorite Automatic Friday songs, is blasting, Jordy singing my favorite lyrics. But knowing Nick has nothing to do with any of this music makes it seem so far away, like a bad cover version. “Was it always Alex?”

  “I am so sorry.” His hands cover his glasses and run their way up to his sloppy hair. “I suck at guitar,” he says. “I’m really terrible. At bass and drums and singing, too. And life.”

  “So why did you tell me you were in this band?” I struggle to keep my voice under control, but I can hear it wavering.

  “Well, I never really told you. I said one time I was going to band practice and you sort of assumed.”

  “That’s not my fault, Nick. You should have told me.”

  “No, it’s not your fault. I didn’t mean that.” His voice shakes in a way I’ve never heard before. “I know I should have told you. I’m sorry. I just didn’t know what to say.”

  “Say, �
�Hey, Hannah, my brother is in a band, not me.’ Say, ‘I sell their T-shirts’ not ‘I play the guitar.’ It’s not that difficult. God, no wonder you would never play the guitar for me. Did you laugh at me every time we talked about this? Did you think I was that stupid?”

  “Oh my God, no. It’s not like that at all. I’m so sorry.” He leans forward, flattening his hands on the merch table “Actually, there’s something I’ve been meaning to—”

  I shake my head and put up my hand to stop him. “You know what? No. I don’t want to hear whatever it is you have to say right now. Just … don’t.”

  “Please, I need to—” He must see something in my face that changes his mind, because he gives up mid-sentence and simply says, “There’s no good explanation. I’m sorry.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  My heart aches with regret over every choice I’ve made in the past twenty-four hours as I stare down at the T-shirts on the merch table, including the one Nick sent me that I’d been wearing yesterday. I’m sick over every single choice that led me here, every rule broken, but most of all, I regret letting myself think there could be something between me and Nick if I came here. I’d kept my feelings for him so under control, so locked away, for the past four years. But I have this one moment of weakness, I give up control this one time, and this is what happens.

  Disaster.

  “And Frankie,” I say, still focused on the T-shirts. “Three months? Why didn’t you—?”

  “I didn’t know what to say,” he says, his shaking voice barely audible over the music coming from inside. “I didn’t think you would care.”

  “Why wouldn’t I care? You’re my friend. You’ve told me about your girlfriends before, Nick. I told you about Josh.” I press my hands down on the merch table and look at him as I lean forward so I don’t have to shout it. “I told you everything about Josh.”

  Then, as I am feeling my most vulnerable, with the conversation about Josh hanging in the air between us, Nick comes out from behind the table. I think he’s going to hug me or comfort me in some way, so I brace my body. Flinch a little. But he doesn’t try to comfort me at all.

  He walks away.

  I prepare myself to run as quickly as I can back to Grace and Lo and drag them out of this venue, out of this casino, out of this godforsaken city. Before I can do anything, though, Nick is back, pulling a floppy string bean of a kid behind him. “Mo,” he says in a voice that leaves no room for conversation. “I need you to cover merch until Chang gets here.” This no-nonsense voice of his surprises me; I’ve never heard it before.

  Mo’s thin mouth twists up in confusion. “But I don’t know—”

  “You’ll figure it out. No one buys anything anyway.” He turns to me. “I’m so sorry. I can’t talk here. Like this. Can we go for a walk?”

  The urge to run is still strong, but I want to hear what he has to say for himself, so I nod. He starts toward the makeshift exit indicated by the ropes we walked through earlier, and he leads me along, through the groups of people walking into the show, by placing his fingers gently on the small of my back. That light touch, only the second time we have touched ever, sends sparks of electricity up my back, and I hate how my body betrays me like that. Stop that. He lied to us. We’re mad at him.

  My body doesn’t listen.

  We pass back through the spot where Grace, Lo, and I walked in, and Nick gives a fist bump to Scary Bouncer. “Hey, man, we’re going to be back in a sec. Is that cool?” Scary Bouncer looks me up and down and grins at Nick, giving him an affirmative nod.

  Walking away from House of Blues doesn’t mean it gets any quieter; we’re still on the casino floor. Slot machines ring and clang. Drunk people stumble back and forth between the doors to the Strip, the gambling tables, the bars and restaurants, and their hotel rooms, yelling and cheering and having no idea my life is falling apart around me.

  “Um. Can we sit?” He motions to the chair attached to a Wheel of Fortune slot machine.

  I lower myself into it carefully, and he flops down into the one next to mine.

  A tentative smile spreads over his face, and he leans closer to me. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  I glare at him. “Well, honestly, I’m sort of regretting it right now.”

  His smile drops away. “I’m sorry.” He does seem to look sorry, but I’m not as familiar with his looks. I need to hear the regret in his voice to be sure.

  “You said that already.”

  He makes eye contact and holds it. “I know. I just … I swear, I never meant to lie to you.”

  I do hear it in his voice. He means it. But lying isn’t something you do by accident. Why did he do it?

  “You know me, Ghost. You have to know that.”

  Goose bumps break out all over my arms, and I turn my focus to the elaborate, colorful pattern of the carpet. I open my mouth to say something—I’m not sure what, I just know the silence is killing me—but he continues before I can figure it out.

  “And Frankie. I don’t know. I didn’t know how to explain her.” His voice sounds sad, or maybe I’m imagining things. Although I know his voice better than I know anything else about him. “And after … Well, I didn’t think it would matter all that much to you.” He kicks the carpeted platform of the slot machine as he twists back and forth in the chair.

  My first instinct is to yell out, Of course it matters, you idiot! But I remember that phone call, and how I told him I never thought of him that way and I never would.

  God, what did I do?

  “She seems nice.” It’s all I can manage. My brain works overtime trying to process all these new discoveries about the person I thought was my very best friend. Every mental picture I have of Nick involves him being in this band. Just like anytime I mention him, it’s followed by, “We tell each other everything.” I need a minute to adjust to a life where these two unshakable facts aren’t true.

  He stops swiveling in the chair and pokes absently at the buttons on the slot machine. “She is, Ghost. I think you’ll like her.”

  I don’t want to like her. I want to punch her in the face. I want to make her disappear so I never have to look at her funky style and big ol’ boobs ever again.

  He opens his mouth to say something, but then he closes it and keeps poking at the slot machine instead. The weight of this awkwardness between us is suffocating.

  Our silences have never been like this.

  “Are you going to play that or poke it to death?” I can’t talk about Frankie anymore. I don’t know if I have the words.

  He shrugs. “Nah, I’m just—…”

  “You should play it,” I say. Play a slot machine, join a poker tournament, anything to change the subject. “You know you’re feeling lucky.”

  “Not that lucky. I gave Alex the last of my cash so he could get Taco Bell earlier.”

  “I know you won’t ask me for money since you just met me, but here.” I dig in my pocket, pull out a five-dollar bill, and hand it to him. “Slot it up.”

  “Thanks.” He smooths the bill out on his jeans before sliding it in the machine. “And, just met you? Please. We’ve known each other since middle school.”

  He’s probably trying to break through the Great Wall of Weirdness by bringing up our shared dorky eighth-grade past, but it doesn’t work. Instead we both watch in silence as the slot machine lights up and plays music. He pushes the large button on the bottom, and the three wheels spin around. BAR, 7, and the space between a BAR and a 7. Nothing.

  He continues poking at the slot machine, and I can feel it between us. The distance. We were good for that moment when he hugged me. When, for just a second, the rest of the world dropped away and we were just us. Normal. Like the usual Hannah and Nick, talking until the wee hours of the night. Best friends. But then Frankie and now the band and the lies and weirdness keep getting bigger and bigger. They have created this impossible distance neither of us can cross. I’m not sure what to do. Or what I want to do. Can I
still be friends with him?

  Do I still want to be?

  He’s laser-focused on the wheels spinning around inside the machine, and I’m so flooded with weirdo, conflicting emotions, I can’t even sit still. I shift to one side of the chair as I imagine myself punching him in the face and kicking him in the balls for lying to me, and then elbowing Frankie in the gut for good measure. I shift back to the other side as I picture myself reaching over right now and smoothing down his messy hair. I scratch the back of my leg with the toe of my shoe as I plot a way to quietly sneak away and have some time alone to figure out how I’m feeling, but the slot machine dings. He has some matches, and the number of credits on the screen in front of him increases. “I wish coins actually fell out the bottom like on TV,” he says absently, looking over at me with a smile that is small, but reaches all the way to his eyes under his black-framed glasses. “It seems so much more satisfying, don’t you think?”

  I don’t mean to, I don’t want to, but I completely melt at his little smile. One stupid smile and my stomach drops out from under me and I feel out of control, like I’m falling from a great height. God, I’m being so ridiculous. I’ve never lost control of my feelings over a guy like this before.

  “So, are you mad at me, Ghost? If you are, it would kill me, but I understand. I’d be mad at me, too.”

  I cringe.

  Grace gave me plenty of lessons about guys over the past few years, both directly and indirectly. She’d sit me down in her big-sisterly way and tell me, “Watch out for guys who don’t want you to hang out with their friends,” or “Never trust a guy who is more attractive than you are—you should be the hot one in the couple.” And I’d sit back and watch how things slowly went wrong with her own relationships and try to figure out why. I know it’s nerdy, but I had a list saved on my computer because I wanted to make sure I didn’t make the same mistakes she did. I didn’t get to see the slow breakdown of Grace’s relationship with Gabe, because she was away at school, but I feel like their matchy-matchy G names were the first hint of impending disaster.