“Exactly!”
“It’s loud!” Paige shouted.
Lennox chuckled. “That’s because they’re drums.”
Paige stuck her tongue out at Lennox.
“Paige, you have to focus,” Lennox said.
“Then can you not breathe on me?”
“From where I’m standing, I can see down your shirt. Do you think it’s easy for me to focus?”
Paige smirked. “You’re peeking. Tsk tsk.”
“Focus.”
“I’m focusing,” Paige said.
“The wide cymbal to your right is the ride cymbal. Like the hi-hat, you can continuously tap it throughout a song, or, ride it,” Lennox said.
“Wait! I have a question,” Paige said.
Lennox turned her head to face Paige. “What?”
“When do I get to ride you?”
Lennox’s cheeks became a dark shade of pink.
Paige grinned. “Ha ha. Got you back!”
“Pay attention,” Lennox said.
“Oh. I am.”
“To the instruments,” Lennox said.
“Fine.” Paige stared at the drumset.
“Okay. Next, look at the drum by your left knee. That’s the snare.” Lennox held onto Paige’s left hand and placed it on the snare drum. “Now, keep hitting the hi-hat with your right stick, and with your left, hit the snare when I say ‘go.’ I’m going to help you. Okay?”
“Yup.”
“Go!”
Paige hit the snare.
“Go!” Lennox called.
Paige hit the drum again. “Woo! I’m doing this!”
Lennox held Paige’s arms still. “Stop.”
“Why? Did I do it wrong?” Paige asked.
Lennox kissed Paige’s cheek. “You’re doing great, but Callie’s parents will be home soon and we have to make our way around the set.”
“Ahhh.”
“Alright. Take a look down. That’s the bass drum. Put your right foot on that pedal. When the mallet strikes the drumhead, it makes a boom sound. Try it out and kick it.”
Paige stepped on the pedal a few times. “I like this one.”
“I do, too.” Lennox smiled. “It’s used to mark time. Now, the cymbal hanging over it is the crash cymbal, which is hit at intervals in a song, oftentimes to finish off a drum roll.”
“Ooo. Will I get to roll?” Paige asked.
“We’ll see,” Lennox said. “Last, there’re the two drums above the bass, rack toms, and that larger drum on your right is the floor tom, which is the most resonant drum. All of these drums, or several of them, hit in succession are what you know to be a drum roll.” Lennox tightened her grasp on Paige’s arms and moved them expeditiously from the left side of the drumset to the right. Then she lifted Paige’s right arm up and smashed it against a cymbal hanging above the bass drum. “Alright! You just did a drum roll!”
Paige laughed and held the sticks up in the air. “Yay!”
“And finally, you’re going to do a basic beat,” Lennox said.
“Something tells me this isn’t going to be basic.”
“It is. I taught myself how to do it,” Lennox said.
“Right. Justin had told me that.” Paige’s shoulders sagged.
“Paige, do you want to talk about Justin?” Lennox asked.
“No. Thanks, though.”
“Okay.”
“So your dad wasn’t your music instructor?” Paige asked.
“He gave me pointers, sure, and nurtured me as a musician, but it was just sort of in me. Like I would pick up an instrument and know what to do,” Lennox said.
Paige smiled. “You’re a prodigy.”
“No, I wouldn’t say that.”
“Hmm. I don’t know if you’re cuter when you’re being modest or when you’re gloating,” Paige said.
“Whoa! What are you talking about? I don’t gloat.”
“You do too.”
“When?”
“Every time you’re being saucy,” Paige said.
“You think I’m saucy, do you now?” Lennox smirked.
“See? There it is.”
“Does it make you hot for me?” Lennox asked.
Paige laughed. “Absolutely.”
“Well, kissing’s not restricted.” Lennox smiled. “Just saying.”
Paige swerved around in the stool and glanced up at Lennox. “But kissing ‘zealously’ is out?”
Lennox bent down, her gaze even with Paige’s. “Yes.”
“That could be dangerous for you,” Paige said.
Lennox raised her eyebrow at Paige. “Why?”
“My lips are magical.” Paige nodded along with her words.
“And mine aren’t?” Lennox asked.
“I was just saying.”
“I’ll tell you what. We kiss for ten seconds and whoever can’t retain their composure loses.” Lennox took her phone from her pocket. “We’ll clock it.”
“A make-out tournament?” Paige asked.
“Are you up for it?”
“The question is, are you up for it, because I will clobber you,” Paige said.
“I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you.”
“But you’re not me.”
“I’m setting the timer.” Lennox punched a few keys on her phone. “Ready?”
“To trounce you? Yeah. I’m ready.”
Lennox pressed another button on her cell. “Tick tock, Paige. Tick. Tock.”
Paige put her left thumb on Lennox’s chin and inched closer to Lennox. Painstakingly, Paige kissed Lennox’s upper lip, then her bottom one. Paige tipped her head a little to the right as her mouth slowly covered Lennox’s. Paige grazed Lennox’s tongue with her own, then withdrew it. She nipped Lennox’s lower lip and Lennox discharged a shaky breath. Paige smiled into the kiss and moved back to break it.
“Found something.” Paige’s voice was low.
The alarm on Lennox’s phone rang.
“Damn.” Lennox pouted. “Tease.”
“Uh uh uh. You mean winner.” Paige grinned.
“Wow. I’m on to you,” Lennox said.
“What?”
“You were procrastinating so that you didn’t have to do the basic beat.”
“Pssht. Why would I ever do that?” Paige asked.
“You’re gonna be sorry when I come at you with a vengeance,” Lennox said.
“Are you going to punish me, Lennox?” Paige asked.
“Mmm. I’m going to do a lot more to you than that. Just watch.”
Paige choked on her spit. “I was joking!”
“And I was not.” Lennox simpered. “We’re doing the beat now, Paige. You can’t evade it. Turn towards the drumset. Put each foot on their respective pedals and get a comfortable grip on your sticks,” Lennox said.
Paige whirled in her seat and got herself situated in accordance with Lennox’s directives. “Okay.”
Lennox stood in back of Paige again and wrapped her fingers around Paige’s wrists to facilitate Paige’s movements. Then Lennox placed Paige’s right hand on the hi-hat and her left hand on the snare drum.
“Ride the hi-hat with me in a consecutive tempo. It’ll go ‘untz, untz, untz’ and keep that going,” Lennox said and together, Paige and Lennox tapped the drumstick repeatedly against the cymbals. “Now hit the snare.”
Aided by Lennox, Paige struck the snare.
“Very nice,” Lennox said. “Next, kick the bass twice in a row and stay on the cymbals.”
Paige stepped on the bass pedal two times.
“Awesome! This is where we’re going to make a backbeat using the snare, the bass, and the hi-hat. Two kicks on the bass, then one hit of the snare. Your right stick doesn’t leave the hi-hat,” Lennox said. “The sound of the pattern will be ‘boom, boom, crack.’ Yes?”
“Um. Yeah? I think.”
“Okay. On my say so, we play the measure. Bass, bass, snare, over and over. I’m right with you.”
“Uh huh.”
/> “Go!”
Paige stepped on the bass pedal twice, hit the snare, and kept rapping her stick on the hi-hat.
“You’re getting it! Go!”
Paige replicated the beat.
“Go!”
Paige drummed again.
“Stop!” Lennox laughed and grabbed Paige from behind. She kissed the side of Paige’s neck. Lennox’s lips prickled Paige’s skin and the tiny hairs on Paige’s arm erected. “Paige, you’ve got it! You just drummed a basic beat!”
“Woo hoo!” Paige put the sticks down, stood up, and hugged Lennox. “So we had almost-sex?”
Lennox smiled. “We had musical sex.”
“And was it good for you?” Paige asked.
“Oh. It was hella good.”
“Did you finish?”
“I’ll never tell.” Lennox winked.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Thanks for walking me to my car,” Paige said to Lennox as they reached the driver’s side door of Paige’s vehicle.
“You’re welcome.”
“And thanks for the other thing, too.”
“What other thing?” Lennox asked.
Paige leaned her back against the sedan, taking Lennox by the hand. With a light pull, Paige lured Lennox closer. “The piece of you that you gave to me.”
Lennox pushed both their hands into Paige’s chest. “Safeguard it,” she said.
“I will.”
“I know,” Lennox said with a smile. She glimpsed up at the sky. “It’s dark out. Don’t you need to go home and write the horoscopes or what have you?”
Paige cringed and shook her head, the blackness of the evening camouflaging her blush. “You read those?”
“Yes, I do. Usually online, but how accommodating that they were in today’s school paper. And whose name should I see bolded at the bottom of the page?” Lennox’s eyes narrowed quizzically at Paige. “None other than yours.”
“Ugh.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Lennox asked.
“Because it’s not exactly something I want to brag about. It’s just for this semester and it’s not daily…it’s weekly,” Paige said. “Why are you even reading that rubbish anyways?”
“I don’t think it’s rubbish and I don’t think you do either,” Lennox said.
“What?”
“You went ballistic when I told you I was a Libra.”
“I did nothing of the sort,” Paige said.
“Paige, you made a getaway.”
“Fine. It weirded me out.”
“Why?” Lennox asked. “Because you uncovered in your groundwork that my sign is a romantic match for yours?”
“That could be it.”
“Well I did do some digging of my own after you wigged last night,” Lennox said. “I wanted to see for myself, so I Quested our signs and happened upon a website that says Aquarians, you, and Libras, me, are a perfect fit.” She smiled.
“Totally bizarro, right?” Paige asked.
“What’s bizarro? That we’re in sync both chemically and cosmically?”
“Yes!”
“No. It’s kind of on point, and you agree or you wouldn’t have been dismayed by your findings,” Lennox said.
Paige smiled ruefully. “Guilty as charged.” She took Lennox’s other hand. “Do you believe in that stuff?”
“Science?”
Paige gave a grimace of dubiety. “Astrology is not science.”
Lennox snickered. “I’m kidding with you. And the answer is that I think lots of things make up who and how we are, terrestrial and celestial, but what I believe in is our connection.”
“Yeah.” Paige nodded. “It is indisputable.”
“Exactly. That’s what I’m saying.”
Paige cast her eyes down at the sidewalk. “And that’s why I had to tell Justin.” She looked at Lennox somberly. “Because I had to be with you.”
Lennox let go of Paige’s hands and wrapped her arms around Paige’s waist. “Do you want to tell me what Justin said now?”
“He didn’t say much.” Paige folded back the left sleeve of her shirt. “He gave me this.” She touched the bracelet on her wrist that used to belong to Justin. “We each wore one. They symbolized our friendship. He scrapped his so that sort of speaks for itself,” Paige said.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I broke the oath with all those lies I told him. I had it coming,” Paige said.
“Is there a way for me to make it better?”
Paige tousled the longish, choppy bangs on the right side of Lennox’s face with her fingers. Lennox’s pulse quickened, vibrating from her temples into Paige’s fingertips. Paige studied the dip in the middle of Lennox’s bottom lip and the smile lines on the edges of Lennox’s mouth. With their eyes fixed on one another, Paige kissed Lennox softly for a minute that could have been an hour, a day, a lifetime. Lennox’s lips were supple and savory, fluently moving along with Paige’s. A warm tingle pervaded the pit of Paige’s belly, starving. Paige languidly pulled her mouth apart from Lennox’s and she pressed her nose against Lennox’s left cheek.
“Too much?” Lennox asked, out of breath.
“Uh huh.”
Paige moved her face away from Lennox’s. “Come home with me?”
Lennox smiled crookedly. “No.”
Paige put her hands behind her neck and stretched. “Aargh. Then don’t kiss me that way.”
“Hey. You kissed me.”
“Then don’t let me kiss you that way,” Paige said.
“Go back to the dorms, Paige, and put some ice on that.” Lennox smirked.
“Oh. And is that what you’re gonna do?”
“Nope. I’m going to masturbate,” Lennox said impassively.
Paige’s jaw slackened. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“Shouldn’t I?”
“You’re making this unbearable,” Paige said.
“This isn’t easy for me either, Paige.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed that,” Paige said.
“Well, guess again.”
“Why then are we—”
“You know why.” Lennox kissed Paige lightly on the lips. “Just wait for it,” she whispered.
“For you, I will,” Paige said.
“Good.”
Paige smiled. “In the interim, can I take you out on an authentic date?”
“That was my line.”
“I borrowed it,” Paige said.
“I’m glad you did.”
“Sooo yes?”
“Yes,” Lennox said.
Paige grinned. “Tomorrow at seven?”
Lennox chuckled. “Tomorrow, huh? That’s soon.”
“Not soon enough.”
“Band rehearsal ends at seven,” Lennox said.
“Hmm. How’s 7:15?”
Lennox nodded. “Alright. You’ve got yourself a date then.”
“Great. I’ll pick you up at your dorm.”
“Okay. Room twenty-seven.”
“I didn’t forget,” Paige said.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Paige knocked on Hanna’s apartment door for the third time. “Hanna, open up.”
The doorknob turned from the inside and Hanna stuck her head out a little. “Paige!” Hanna fumed through her teeth. “How’d you get up here without ringing the buzzer?”
“I held the front door for some guy with crutches. He let me in. Nice fellow,” Paige said.
“Leave,” Hanna said.
Paige blinked. “What? I just came to—”
“You have to leave.”
“What’s with the churlishness?” Paige asked.
“Why in god’s name are you here?”
“I have to talk to you. It’ll take a second.”
“No,” Hanna said.
“Please.”
“No.”
“It’s crucial,” Paige said.
Hanna rolled her eye
s. “Make it snappy.”
Paige glanced at Hanna’s unkempt, platinum hair. “Ooo. You have a guest,” she said.
“Chop chop, Paige.”
“Okay. This is it. I owe you an apology.”
“Why?”
“I used you,” Paige said.
Hanna’s brow wrinkled. “Say what?”
Paige exhaled. “You knew we weren’t in love with each other and in retrospect, I think I knew it, too. But I kept coming back. I was lonely and you were there. It was like I had this hole in me and I thought that having sex with you would fill it, only it didn’t. Still, I wanted you to want me. I needed you to because I didn’t want to know anymore loneliness. And then I’d blog about it because I needed the documentation. I needed to see that I had been with somebody and I needed others to see it as well…that I wasn’t just by myself. The readers, they gobbled it up. Then I didn’t care if you didn’t want me or not. They wanted me and I was going to deliver. As a writer, I had to have an anecdote. That’s what you and me and our liaison became, characters in a tale. I’m sorry, Hanna.”
Hanna nodded. “It’s okay.”
Paige’s eyes bulged. “What?”
“I let you,” Hanna said.
“You let me! Why?” Paige asked.
“Boredom.”
“Thanks a lot for that.”
Hanna smirked. “You were a good lay. I liked your company so I played along.”
“How’d you know?”
“It was obvious,” Hanna said. “And you’re very methodical. After our break-up, you’d come over, we’d do it, and you’d go home. A day later or something, there’d be a post about us online.”
“But the last few times I came here, you—”
“Sent you away. Yeah. I was done with it, Paige. I thought you should be, too. I want you to find someone,” Hanna said.
“Because you found someone?” Paige asked.
Hanna smiled. “I don’t kiss and tell. That’s your avocation.”
“Whatever. Anyways, I’m sor—”
“Hanna! Pooky, I’m waaaiting!” a woman called from within the walls of Hanna’s apartment.
Paige’s eyebrows twisted. “Pooky? Vomit.”
“Yoo hoo, Haaanna!” the woman called again.
Paige’s face suddenly became pasty. “That voice…”
“Bye, Paige.” Hanna spoke quickly and tried to shut the door, but Paige slammed her hand against the wood. She pushed it open just as Callie, wearing only a towel, stepped out of the bedroom behind Hanna and into Paige’s field of vision.
Never the Same Page 14
