Keep the Beat: A Band-Com for Romance Geeks

by Kata Čuić

  He really is my best competition. I’ve grown fond of all the other drum majors, but none of them have shown the level of dedication to the band that Jimmy’s just shown me.

  Suddenly, all of Emily’s fears about challenge Thursdays have become my own. “I have to compete with you again then. I have no choice.”

  “We have a choice.” He pulls the balls from the cups and positions himself to strike. “I’m not going to challenge you to beat me anymore. I’m giving you the motivation you need to be at your best game.”

  Like he did with my Sing Out idea. “You’re changing the rules.”

  “Not really. Just modifying to suit our needs better.” He grins and sinks his first ball. Thank God we’re practicing with empty cups. If I had to drink as much cheap beer as required for this game, I’d be sicker than the night with the laxative. “For every ball I sink, you have to answer any question I ask. For every ball you sink, I’ll reveal a finer point of this game to you.”

  “Why don’t I get to ask you a question for every ball I sink?”

  His expression darkens. “Because you’re not really sure you want the answers I might give you. But you are sure you want to be the best you can be at everything. Even beer pong.”

  I nod. He’s right.

  “You love band. Why didn’t you ever join ITK? It’s the most popular organization we have.”

  I close my eyes and answer honestly, following the new rules, “Because I was wild and crazy in high school, and I knew I couldn’t keep doing that in college. ITK is all about drinking hard and partying harder. I didn’t want that life anymore.”

  He nods, not seeming surprised. “Your turn.”

  I miss again.

  He doesn’t. “Do you regret it?”

  “Not joining ITK? Cleaning up my act? I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

  “Do you regret the night we spent together? The night that made you want to clean up your act?”

  I take a deep breath that feels like inhaling water, and then … “Yes.”

  He closes his eyes and hangs his head. I’m not sure why he seems so disappointed.

  His chest heaves before he raises his gaze. “I don’t.”

  There’s no way I can aim accurately when he says shocking things like that. I miss.

  He sinks another. “Is that why you started hating me when we got here? Because you regretted me? Regretted having to see my face nearly every day until now?”

  “I didn’t hate you when we first got here,” I admit, lining up my shot.

  I channel the sting of rejection I felt when he refused to even glance my way to fuel my sailing arc. The ball makes a hollow sort of noise when it lands in the cup.

  His surprise matches my own. “Nice!”

  “Well?” I prompt. “Give me a finer point.”

  He leans against the table like he’s about to deliver the holy grail of information for how to win this game. “The next time you play, this basement will be packed with bodies. Distractions everywhere. Your fiercest opponents will be much more skilled than you in drowning out everything except their singular focus.”

  “Nothing about what you just said is particularly groundbreaking news.”

  He smirks. “Your best bet is to be the sort of distraction they can’t possibly ignore.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Flash ’em your titties.”

  “Pig!”

  “What?” He laughs. “It works!”

  “I’m not doing that.” I don’t particularly want to see other women doing that. I hope Emily isn’t tempted to do that.

  He makes another shot. “What would it take to get you to flash me right now?”

  “Nothing!” I make another shot.

  He grins. “I think we’ve found the winning formula.”

  “So, I’ll always lose unless I’m playing you?” I bat my eyelashes and smile sweetly. Damn. He’s sucked me back in with hardly any effort at all. “No one else makes me feel this way … James.”

  I absolutely should not have said that.

  His pupils swallow the lightning blue of his irises, and he clears his throat. “If you’re ever uncomfortable with an opponent, you always have the option of asking to play in teams.”

  Oh. “That is a very good pointer. Thank you.”

  He seems to return to normal, shaking his head. “No, no, no. Don’t thank me. To win, you have to be pissed off. Even if you’re not playing me, just imagine me jerking off to fantasies of you flashing me in this basement. That should do the trick.”

  He lands another shot. “How much do you hate me?”

  I roll my eyes. “It’s not a constant level. It fluctuates. And depends entirely on you.”

  My shot bounces off the wall behind him.

  He taps the ball on his lips after he retrieves it. Gross. This entire basement must be coated in years’ worth of germs. “You’re going to have to dig deep then. Only think about the bad times. The worst times.”

  The first time will always be the worst.

  “I did hear you shit out your lungs last weekend. How about that?”

  Every muscle in my body quivers with the memory. “It’s your turn.”

  He shakes his head. “We already know I can play this game better than anyone else. I don’t need any more practice. You do.”

  “Afraid to ask me more questions?” I taunt. “Not sure you want to hear my answers anymore?”

  He sails another ball straight into a cup with such force that it falls over, spilling the ball out onto the floor. The sound echoes with one, two, three, four bounces before silence descends.

  “Could you ever love me more than you hate me, Sophie?”

  I toss a ball up and down several times like he did, testing its weight, feeling its smoothness, imagining it doing exactly what I want it to do.

  I make another shot.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Earth to Sophia! Come in, Sophia!” Shannon waves her hand in front of my face.

  I can barely focus, even with that kind of intervention. “What?”

  “What is wrong with you?” She glances around where the squads are taking water breaks between drill rehearsals. “You’re usually so on the ball when it comes to band, but tonight, you’re moving around like a slug and perpetually staring at absolutely nothing.”

  Oh, I wouldn’t call it absolutely nothing. It’s not like I’ve never noticed Jimmy is an extremely attractive man. Hell, I slept with him. But every time he takes a turn at getting on the tall ladder to conduct, I can’t stop staring. I’m staring at every fine muscle movement, even when he’s not the one on the ladder.

  “This might be the vilest thing he’s ever done to me,” I mutter.

  Shannon throws her arms in the air. “Goddamn it. I knew I shouldn’t have agreed to his private little initiation! What did he do to you? I’ll kill him and save you the trouble! But since I’m your best friend, I’ll still let you mutilate his corpse before we hide it.”

  Oh, I’m thinking about mutilation all right. The kind that results in sweat-soaked sheets, ultimate satisfaction, and bone-weary exhaustion.

  “Do you learn voodoo in ITK?”

  She looks at me like I’ve finally lost it. “Um … no. Why? Do you think he cursed you?”

  I nod, still seeing the muscles in his thighs flex as he supports his weight against the ladder even though he’s currently sitting in the middle of the clarinet section. One of the women lays a hand on his arm. He’s more muscular than he was before. A fully realized man instead of on the verge of it. I’ll bet all that weight bearing down on me would be delicious …

  He smiles at her like he’s grateful for her attention.

  Oh, God. I know his every expression.

  Worse, I’m not even jealous he’s receiving affection from someone else. Worse yet, I’m fully aware of how this scene would have sent my blood pressure skyrocketing in the past.

  “He did it,” I breathe as a weird sort
of peacefulness rolls over my body. It’s not a welcome sensation at all. Not when I’m simply giving in because there’s no fight left in me. I’m just succumbing to the inevitable. “He did exactly what he said he was going to do.”

  And with only a tiny little question. One I never even graced him with a verbal answer to. I simply turned away and walked back to my hotel. He didn’t dog after me, and it doesn’t even matter.

  I think I have loved James Fossoway for a very long time.

  “You look like you’re going to blow chunks,” Shannon states. “Maybe it’s time to call the game and let me take you to the health center. You’re probably coming down with something. Half the people in my Contemporary Lit class were out today with a stomach bug. It’s striking early this year.”

  She’s trying to make conversation, but I’m still thinking about it.

  I love him.

  How much do I hate him?

  Did I ever?

  Did I really?

  Is there room for love in all this hate?

  Am I confusing love for hate? I tried to pretend to, and now, it’s happening for real.

  Nate approaches. I see him coming from the left, but anything except my periphery is filled with Jimmy. The way lines form around his mouth when he smiles. How he laughs with his whole body. When he’s anxious, he ruffles his own hair. He doesn’t pull his hands through it the way most men do when they’re uncomfortable. Anyone he graces with a direct gaze feels like the center of the universe for as long as they have his attention. He is that focused on anything and everything he does.

  “You’re up, Soph.”

  “Huh?” No matter how much I blink, I can’t break the trance.

  “It’s your turn to conduct the next drill.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  Nate glances between me and Shannon with concern. “You okay?”

  I nod. “No.”

  “She’ll be fine.” Shannon waves him off. “You just need to get back in the zone. Remember all the horrible things he’s done to you. Remember how he acted like he didn’t know you.”

  A horrible thought attacks my odd tranquility. “Did he do that? What if I imagined it? What if I pretended not to know him because I didn’t know how to handle seeing my one-night-stand virginity eraser in a place I never expected him to be?”

  Shannon grimaces. “He really did fuck you up. You have become completely out of touch with reality.” She turns toward the field and lets loose a whistle. “Jimbo! Get your ass over here!”

  More than a few heads turn because it is completely out of place for a section leader to order a drum major around like that. And even more out of place for him to obey like a well-trained puppy.

  He quickly disengages from the campaign trail then jogs to us at the sideline. One look at me, and he glares at Shannon. “What did you do to her?”

  “Not me. You.”

  He winces. He knows exactly what she’s talking about. He bends to my eye-level, studying me. “Too soon?”

  I nod.

  “Need more time to slide into it?”

  I nod again.

  “Okay.” He straightens. “No problem. I can do that. I’ve waited three years. What’s a few more days?”

  My entire body twists in horrified rage. “Three years? You’ve waited three years?”

  Shannon’s eyes widen. She takes a step back.

  But stupid, stupid, stupid, fucking stupid Jimbo just taps my nose and grins. “Now, how’d I know that was gonna piss you off?”

  He walks away, whistling.

  The scream that tears out of my throat actually hurts. It feels so good. “I am going to murder you in your sleep and not even make it look like an accident!”

  The band is not relieved for things to go back to normal.

  Kim looks heartbroken. “You sleep together?”

  I scream again.

  Jimbo laughs. Loudly.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A rose lands on the table in front of me. Without looking, I throw it in the direction of the trash can behind my back.

  “Still in that mood, are we?”

  Jimbo tries to sit beside me. I quickly shift my backpack from the floor to the chair.

  “You can’t avoid this forever.”

  “Why not? You avoided it for three years. If you’re to be believed. Which you are not.”

  He leans against the table. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his ass molds to the surface. More like the surface is all too happy to mold to him.

  He sighs. “Look, I was a spoiled asshole. I know I was. The anti-football chip on my shoulder was no excuse to ignore you when we first got to State because I was a stupid little shit who believed you’d think differently of me when you found out Alex was my brother. You slept with me before you even knew who I was!”

  The band room is empty, except for us, but that could change any moment.

  “Watch it,” I hiss.

  “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for everything. But you just hated me so fucking much. Then, you went and got yourself a boyfriend, and I figured I’d just let sleeping dogs lie.”

  That blatant lie finally makes me lift my gaze. “You most certainly did not! You did not let sleeping dogs lie, you lying liar!”

  He bends down, so we’re closer to eye-level. “Fine. I didn’t. But that was because I liked your attention, and it was the only way I could keep it, no matter who you were fucking.”

  “Me? No matter who I was fucking?”

  He’s finally done it. He’s broken me. I feel my mouth moving, but no words are coming out because my brain has no other words. None.

  “Yes, you,” he insists. “You wanted to clean up your act, and boy, did you. Never came to any parties, turned your nose up at ITK, dug your heels into doing battle with me, and got yourself a nice boyfriend who took you on dates, brought you flowers, and never had sex with you.”

  I gasp so many times in rapid succession that it makes me dizzy. It’s not hyperventilation necessarily, but it is wildly unpleasant nonetheless.

  Jimbo keeps going because I still can’t find any words, “And when he dumped you because he wasn’t going to keep putting in that much effort and not even get any rewards, you knew exactly where you had gone wrong. So, you banged the next guy within an inch of his life. When he dumped you because he felt like he was being used for sex and nothing else, you learned another lesson and moderated. Third time was a charm. Everything was picture-perfect. But you broke up with him anyway, and you wanna know why?”

  He actually pauses, maybe to let me answer all his horrible accusations, but I’m still stuck on his blatant hypocrisy.

  “Because he wasn’t me. You wanted me, and you couldn’t have me. You wouldn’t let yourself have me.”

  That’s it. I snap.

  The sound of my open palm meeting his cheek echoes in the acoustically designed band room with perfect pitch and tone. It’s the most discordant, resolving chord I’ve ever heard.

  Jimbo never moves. Never even flinches. His determined expression remains unchanged except for the tears that spring into his eyes. Hopefully, from pain.

  The same kind he’s inflicted on me.

  “This isn’t going to happen, and you wanna know why?” I spit his words back at him. “Because this is what we’ve become. This is what the battle has done to us, and it’s impossible to rewind time.”

  He blinks rapidly but doesn’t say a word.

  “Don’t you see how fucked up this is?” I swing my finger between us. “What are you confessing, Jim? You stalked me? You spied on the private moments in my relationships?”

  “No.” He finally finds his voice, shaking his head, his eyes wide in denial.

  “So, what?” I know how his mind works. What he’s capable of. “You lured my ex-boyfriends to ITK parties, got them drunk, and then ran exit interviews to find out what had gone wrong?”

  “I didn’t,” he swears. “They came to me. Everyone knew all about our public feud, so they
must have figured I’d be a good choice to drink away their problems with and get some trash talking in, so they could walk away with their egos intact. They volunteered all that information. I never had to do a thing.”

  “But you did plenty.” A short bark of laughter sneaks out of my chest that sounds anything but happy. “You want to spin my relationships into something twisted and horrible, but I wasn’t doing anything wrong. You were the one who started sleeping with any woman who was willing to spread her legs, and that’s fine. For you. But I didn’t want that. I wanted stability. I wanted real. You’d taught me a hard lesson that I learned. I might have been a party girl in high school, but sex meant something to me. Only I hadn’t even realized that until you treated me like a toy you could throw away when you were done playing with me. So, yeah, it made me want to do better. To be better.”

  “I knew it was my fault,” he whispers, touching my cheek much more gently than I did to him. “I wanted to help you be better. So, I tried. I have always tried to be exactly what you needed me to be.”

  “You didn’t.” I step away from his touch, hearing tears in my own voice. “You never tried to be my friend.”

  “I couldn’t. You wouldn’t let me. Just like you’re not letting me now.”

  I swipe at my tearstained face when the flute section leader waltzes into the room.

  She takes one look at the scene between us and puts her hands on her hips. “What did you do? Did you make her cry, Jimbo?”

  He points at her. “You flutes give shitty advice! She did not think waiting in the wings for three years was romantic! I should not have confessed everything!”

  I gape at Lilah. “You think that’s romantic? You wouldn’t call that, oh, I dunno … more than a little unhinged?”

  “No way.” She shakes her head, seeming very confident about this. “I call that dedication.”