by Piper Lawson
Comedy Palace is smaller than Leo’s, and Rae scans the foyer as if she’s looking for her three people even now.
We find a table at the back. We’re barely seated when two hands land on my shoulders and I whirl in my seat.
Beck grins down at me. “Hey, ladies.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask, feeling the smile pull across my face already.
“We were invited.”
Before I can ask who “we” is, my gaze lands on the guy next to him, and I stiffen.
Tyler’s dressed in jeans and a dark-blue button-down that makes his chocolate eyes look even darker.
But the most surprising part isn’t his presence—it’s how not disappointed I am to see him.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but by who?” I ask lightly.
Tyler looks between me and Rae, who picks at her leather jacket innocently.
Every combination of people has its own sense, its own chaos.
Apparently, Rae liked our brand of chaos enough to recreate it.
The guys grab chairs and pull them up to our table. Tyler’s forced to tuck his in close to mine so Rae can still get out and head for the bar.
“You want?” she asks Beck, jerking her head.
“Yeah, sure.” He follows her.
“Did you tell Jax and Haley you’re at Vanier?” Tyler asks me when Rae’s gone.
His bluntness has me straightening. “No.”
“You’re going to have to.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because I care about you.” Something flickers behind Tyler’s eyes. “And I care about them,” he goes on.
Before I can argue, Rae and Beck return, and the house lights dim. The first performer is a guy who talks about his pets for the entire time.
Elle’s the second performer. We cheer as she takes the stage.
“Here’s the thing about being twenty in New York—everyone assumes you came from some piece-of-shit city to be an overpaid trader or an underpaid actor. I take offense to that. I came from the country to be an unpaid comedian.”
The audience chuckles as she strolls across the stage, the lights following her.
“I have three younger brothers, but my dad died when I was ten.”
My stomach falls, but she continues.
“So, I had to keep my mom laughing. Because them wetting the bed every night wasn’t doing it.”
The backs of my eyes burn as I think of our exchange in the hallway earlier about my dad, how I gave her shit for making him sound better than he is.
I’d asked her about her baggage once, and she said it was too much to talk about.
I duck my face to swipe at my damp eyes, and my gaze finds Tyler’s, holds it.
He’s feeling what I am—compassion, sadness, understanding, and I’m glad he’s here.
I force myself to focus on the rest of Elle’s set, then the remaining performers, and the heaviness gives way to laughter.
Everyone has their own pain. Elle uses it to connect people, weaves the hard times in with the good ones.
When the houselights come up, I pull out my phone to text Elle, but Rae grabs my arm. “Don’t. This wasn’t about us.”
The crowd outside is laughing and tipsy as we wind our way out to the street. I fall into step next to Beck, behind Tyler and Rae.
“Let’s get something to eat,” Beck decides.
We find a diner a block away. I hold the door for Rae, and she shakes her head, holding up a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket.
Before the three of us can find a booth, Beck’s phone rings.
He checks the screen and starts toward the door. “Order me a Coke,” he calls. “I’ll be back.”
Tyler and I slide into the booth across from one another.
There are people of every kind in the restaurant. There’s an elderly couple across from a young couple, and I wonder what they’re talking about, what their lives are like, if they act brave in the daylight, if questions they can’t answer start to circle their minds when the lights go out.
“I know I have to tell him,” I blurt, turning back to find Tyler watching me, impassive. “But I want him to understand why I’m doing it. I want him to see that I’m good enough to make a career at this. Last year, I was so focused on getting into Vanier. It was this singular thing I could picture. I told myself everything would be easy once I was surrounded by people who got what it meant to want this life, to be on the stage. But now that I’m here, it’s not easy. Maybe it never will be again. Do you ever feel that way?”
My voice is just audible over the chatter and clinking cutlery and plates. I sink my shoulders back against the booth.
I feel more vulnerable than when he found my Polaroids, than when I stood in front of him naked, because this it the truth—the thing that haunts me, that I don’t have an answer to. It’s not my past, it’s my future.
“More than you know.” Tyler shifts forward in his seat. His shoulders are tight under his button-down. “When I left Dallas for New York, I had a contract with a label. Was supposed to start in the studio a week in. But my third day here, I got a call from Philly. My dad wrecked his car driving drunk and was in a coma in the hospital.”
My body goes cold, but he continues before I can process. “I went back to Philly. Stared at his face for two days, couldn’t decide whether I wanted to save him or pull the plug—because the prick listed me to make those decisions, after all we’ve been through. In the end, I told them to do everything they could. For a week, they did. He died anyway.”
My gut twists tighter, until all my organs are one giant knot of sadness and rage—sadness for Tyler and what he must have felt, rage for knowing he went through it alone.
“I took care of arrangements. Got a loan to cover the funeral.” He grimaces, shoving a hand through his dark hair. “I figured I’d pay the medical bills off with money from my contract. But by the time I got back to New York, I’d been gone two weeks. Zeke was calling, I wasn’t answering, and when I showed up at his door, he was pissed.”
“He must’ve understood when you told him,” I murmur.
“I didn’t tell him. It was my problem, my shame, my decision.” His voice fills with grief, and every part of me wants to reach across the table and hold him even though I know I can’t.
“There was only one person I wanted to see.” He shifts back in his seat, exhaling hard, and those beautiful eyes deepen with an emotion that has my heart kicking in my chest. “It was the middle of July. I’d been keeping my distance from you, telling myself you’d be better off and to give you space. But I couldn’t do it anymore. I needed to know you were okay, that something I cared about was right in the world. When I got to Dallas, I saw you outside the library with some guy”—the disbelief in his voice has me aching all over again—“looking like you didn’t have a care in the world.”
I swallow, trying to process even a tenth of what he’s giving me and failing. My fingers trace the placemat in front of me, across the bottom, up the sides. “He worked with me,” I offer at last.
“He made you smile. And that was what I wanted for you. I didn’t want to intrude, to make you suffer more than you already had. So, I left.”
My throat closes up. Of all the reasons I’d considered why Tyler hadn’t called, that wasn’t one of them.
I’d been feeling like shit that entire summer, was devastated to feel alone—truly alone—for the first time in a long time.
But now I understand how hard this was for him, too.
Tyler’s hands fold in front of him on the table, but they’re tense.
“Zeke terminated my contract. Told me to figure my shit out. I had a contact at Vanier and was able to get in last minute. So, I figured I’d take classes until Zeke changed his mind.
“The thing is, when I was here, I wasn’t really here. My music had lost something. That’s the problem when you start depending on other people. Like my dad blamed me for interfering with his music by
existing.”
I trace the top line of the placemat with my finger, and when I get to the center, a few inches of cheap countertop is all that keeps our hands from brushing.
I swallow the urge to bridge that distance when he continues.
“There’s a difference between caring for people and ignoring your responsibilities,” I say. “Working with people, relying on them… it’s a beautiful thing.” I cut a look over my shoulder toward the door. “Like you and Beck. He’s so loyal to you, and I can see you’ve earned it.”
His heavy gaze meets mine, and the lump in my throat expands until I can’t breathe.
“I need you to know something. That day you saw me in Dallas,” I go on, “I might’ve been smiling, but it hurt. Every smile for months was like swallowing glass. I understand why you left, but if you think for a second it didn’t tear me up, you were wrong. I wish you’d said goodbye.”
Tyler tugs on his hair, eyes squeezing shut. “Nah. See, if I’d said goodbye, I wouldn’t have gone.”
This time, I can’t stop myself from reaching for his hand. His skin is warm under mine, and his chocolate gaze finds me.
I’m living for the feel of his skin on mine.
“When I saw you walk past that rehearsal room at Vanier last spring,” he says roughly, “I thought I was hallucinating.” Tyler’s hand tightens on mine, his lips twitching with self-mocking. “I thought I wished you here. And you can hate me all you want, but I’m glad you came.”
His words slam into me. “What about the girl you were with?”
“She was a friend. We were more for a little while, but…” Tyler shakes his head. “She wasn’t you. No one’s ever been you.”
I’m drowning in emotions, and I can’t pick one out from the rest or figure out what this means going forward.
The one thing I know is that the story I told myself about how we were, how we ended, was wrong. Our past isn’t the story I told myself.
Maybe our future isn’t either.
Tyler’s eyes warm on mine, and I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing.
Beck drops into the booth, and I pull back my hand.
“Got an audition,” he chirps.
I glance toward the front door to see Elle and Rae walk inside. Elle looks startled when she sees all of us.
“You were great tonight,” I tell her when she pulls up next to the table.
Her lips curve, embarrassed. “Thanks. I didn’t know you guys were going to be there.”
“What can I get you?” the waitress asks when I shift over to let my roommate and friend in. The waitress goes around to Elle and Rae and Beck before coming to me.
I turn the question over for a long moment before answering. “How’re your cheese fries?”
“They’re great,” she answers with a smile.
“I’ll take a small.”
“Make it a large,” Tyler says smoothly, and I sneak a look at him under my lashes.
His expression is filled with an intensity that steals my breath, but for the first time this year, it doesn’t leave me feeling tortured.
It leaves me hopeful.
The waitress leaves, and my friends start to talk about one of the other performers from tonight’s show.
I train my attention on Elle’s animated face, but I’m only half listening when something brushes my leg.
Tyler.
His calf against my knee.
It was probably an accident. Even with the five of us in this booth, it’s not crowded.
Except he’s not moving. The single innocent touch has my entire body heating.
All it would take would be a tiny shift on my part to break that connection.
Instead, I stretch out my other leg and link my feet around his ankle so neither of us can move away.
9
“Where you going this early? Breakfast at Vanier?” Beck’s voice comes from the kitchen Thursday morning.
“Nah, I can make use of the now-functioning fridge,” I reply. “There’s some non-moldy cream cheese in there.”
I pack my guitar in its case and give myself a quick once-over in the bedroom mirror on the badly painted dresser that came with the apartment. My shirt is not only clean but ironed, and my hair’s doing more or less what I want.
I’ll take it as a win.
“Yeah, but there’s nothing to put it on. Except an overripe banana.” Beck peers inside as I pass him, guitar in tow.
“Figured you’d be into that,” I say as I head for the front door.
“Overripe is a problem,” Beck says. “I prefer them young. Firm.”
“And I will never ask again.” I drop my guitar case and set my phone on the counter to grab my jacket.
The fridge has been fixed since Monday, but we haven’t gotten anything resembling groceries.
We’ve been busy.
Beck landed a string of auditions and even won a commercial. I’ve started working on my showcase audition in earnest. I have a song in mind, but I’m not satisfied it’s what I need to land the closing spot and score the visibility and ten grand that would put a dent in my dad’s hospital bills.
My phone buzzes, and Beck grabs it before I can. “Tyler: ‘Got a line on a rehearsal room at 8 a.m.’”
I shrug into the coat, his gaze cutting back to me. “Wait,” he says, “You not only scored a rehearsal room but you’re willing to share it with someone?”
I reach for my shoes. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Annie: ‘Long as it won’t cramp your style to practice with the competition.’” Beck hollers. “Oh, you’re trying to move in on my girl.”
One shoe on, I snatch the phone back. “I told you, she’s not your girl.”
“You’re so far into her it’s a wonder you can speak. Because your lips are glued to her ass,” Beck explains at my blank stare as I tuck the phone away and put on the other shoe. “Or other places.”
A week ago, Beck would’ve been right. I was fighting the attraction. Her dancing with me on Beck’s birthday—even if she did it to prove a point—meant I couldn’t fall asleep all weekend without jerking off to the thought of her.
But the night at Comedy Palace changed things.
“I understand why you left, but if you think for a second it didn’t tear me up, you were wrong.”
The way she looked at me, the way our hands brushed when we walked side by side on the way home, gave me something I haven’t felt in a long time.
Hope.
Since vowing to win back my contract, I’ve been running on determination, conviction, even a need for vindication.
I didn’t realize how dark those feelings were until I had something bright to compare them to.
“We’ve been texting all week,” I tell him. “And we’ve had lunch twice at Vanier.”
“Sounds serious.” He flutters his eyelashes.
“She’s the first girl I ever fell for.”
I reach for my bag, but Beck’s groan has me look up.
“Slow your roll,” he says. “I knew you knew her before this year. A high school girlfriend from Philly?”
“No.” I exhale hard. “She’s Jax Jamieson’s kid.”
His jaw hits the floor. “Well, fuck me. She’s the one who messed you up before you came here. I get it. She’s pretty fucking great.” His response has the hairs on my neck lifting. “But I’m not gonna go there, because you guys have some major unresolved shit.”
“It’s past tense.”
“Really? Because I saw how you looked at her the other night,” Beck says. “That wasn’t a ‘past tense’ kind of look. That was a ‘present perfect’ kind of look.”
“You don’t know what that means.”
“Sure, I do. You’d like to have been getting some for the last two weeks.”
I shake my head as I start out the door. “Just eat the banana, Beck. I’ll catch you tonight.”
Our neighborhood’s not the safest, but in daylight it’s fine. I don’t notice any of it t
his morning on my way to Vanier. Instead, I’m thinking of Annie.
Beck’s right. The past tense feelings are blurring with the present tense ones. The more I talk to her, the harder it gets to convince myself there’s nothing between us.
But just because I’m attracted to her doesn’t mean I’d jump into a relationship with her or that she would with me.
I have to think twice before letting someone in again. I fucked up my career when I moved to New York last fall and spun out, and while some of it was about what happened with my dad? A lot of it was about her.
I can’t afford to set myself up for that again.
I head to school, and an hour later, I’m in the rehearsal room running my audition song when a knock comes. I get up from my stool, guitar in one hand, and open the door.
My breath sticks in my throat.
Annie’s dark hair is piled up on her head, a few pieces loose from the bun I want to tug out just to see it fall in waves around her shoulders. Her cheeks are flushed. She’s wearing leggings and a denim shirt with the top two buttons undone, and the way her backpack straps tug on the fabric reveals a tantalizing glimpse of the curve of her breasts. A chain disappears beneath the clothes.
I want to follow it with my tongue.
“There’s a price to enter,” I say, my voice remarkably level.
She angles her chin up. “I’m not going to blow you.”
All the blood in my body goes south.
I take back every thought about wanting to rewind time, to get back the girl I knew a year ago.
I want this Annie Jamieson, the one with dancing eyes who says she’s not going to blow me as if she’s actually considered letting me stick my cock between those beautiful lips.
As if the right circumstances might make her consider it again.
Oblivious to my thoughts, she holds out one of two coffees. “My final offer.”
I take one with my free hand and let her in.
She crosses the room, dropping onto the piano bench. “I thought we could pause the competition thing for an hour. I could play my piece, and you could play yours. You know, give each other notes.”
I shift onto the stool. The rooms aren’t big, so I’m only a few steps away from her and the piano.
