by Bromberg, K
I organized them according to a standard drum set and then I put my headphones on and set up my playlist. If thinking about Amy made my mind turn into a whirling confusion of emotions I had no right to harbor after four and a half years of what I did to her, then drumming could sort out all the pieces and put them in their rightful places.
As I started with a low, quiet beat and then built up to the next level, my shoulders relaxed, the lump that had formed, built of anger and muscle, of betrayal of my own agitation clearing as well. As the song progressed, the tempo carried me out of my mind, away from linear thought.
I became my hand muscles, my forearms, my thighs, and yes, — my cock.
Everything turned on, narrowed into the beat, the change, the measures, the chorus, the solo — whatever the music demanded of me, I gave it.
It was a relationship. I could make love to the drums with my hands in a way that got out the hunger, the pain, that made me slide away from fucked up Sam, and turned me into a flow of nothing but beat.
Feet flying, legs moving, arms pumping, neck anticipating where it needed to be next, my eyes floating from space to space, my arms knowing exactly what to do in the right moment, seconds before they needed to do their magic—it was like communing with another body.
Amy’s face popped up behind my closed eyelids. The touch of her lips, how close we’d been, and how stupid I’d become so quickly. How can everything good, righteous, abysmal and horrible, happen to you in the same hour?
One hour. You get one hour of your life to experience it all and to make a decision that blows it all to smithereens.
What would these same hands be like running along the soft inner curve of her thigh? What beat would my fingers find, sliding up her ribcage to the swell of her breast? How could these forearms lift her above me, nude and skin glistening in the moonlight that shines through the windows at the perfect moment that we commune?
As I buried myself in the stronger songs in our set, every muscle was rigid, every tendon was primed.
And every note I played was for her.
Chapter 3
A week later
Amy
New show. New location. Same old Amy. Once Liam invited me to the gig, I couldn’t get it out of my mind.
As I sat there at my little table in the back, hiding and trying not to be noticed, I realized Joe wasn’t there. Some new guy was setting up the bass.
This was a nicer place than most of the joints Liam had described them playing in, on and off over the years. There had even been a higher cover charge, which had taken me by surprise—ten bucks is ten bucks when you’re a student, but I paid it, gladly, if it gave me a chance to just sit back and watch.
I brought my tablet with me and waited, reading through Maya Banks’ latest in her trilogy, wondering about all of these relationships that lived in books I read. Sam was onstage, quiet, purposeful as usual and he said something to the new guy, who just nodded.
New Guy looked like a scruffy, fairer version of Joe Ross—without the perfection.
“Hey, whatcha readin’?” said the most annoying voice ever.
I looked up with a jolt. Darla. Darla the groupie who slept with all the guys.
“Books,” I said, biting back a nasty response of Have you heard of them?
New England is different from other parts of the country—there’s a coldness to people, a reserve that seems normal if you’re raised here, but when you spread your wings a little and travel around, you realize that everyone else thinks we’re just a bunch of uptight Massholes.
Maybe they’re right.
Darla had that wild, loose, overly friendly manner that would make an old Yankee cringe and stare her down.
So I did.
“I know you’re reading books, silly,” she said, her voice going a bit hard. “I meant what book are you reading?”
Without waiting for the answer, Darla leaned over and read the title on the top of the page. “Maya Banks? Who’s that?”
“She writes romance novels.”
“Like Her Highlander’s Heinie?”
“What? No, I don’t read that kind of romance novel.”
“What kind do you read?”
“It’s more Fifty Shades.”
“You’re into bondage.” Darla nudged me with her elbow and said it in that robotic text-to-speech voice
Something inside me tightened and snapped. “I’m into reading. That’s what I’m going to do for a living.”
“You’re going to be a reader?”
“I’m going to be a librarian.”
Darla’s eyes softened and there was a new respect in her face that caught me off guard. “My uncle was a librarian,” she said quietly. “Good on you.”
“Thanks,” I said, the conversation taking a turn I hadn’t expected. You’re still angry with her, I told myself. I didn’t want to like her.
Why did she have to be so likable?
“But I don’t think that they kept that Fifty Shades stuff in our library. Least not in Peters, Ohio. Maybe one of the bigger cities would let you check that out but where I’m from, some preacher would come up with some boycott and the next thing you know there’d be no library and there’d be a, you know, Dunkin’ Donuts there instead.”
She rambled and I tuned her out. It was remarkably like conversing with my mom. My eyes darted to Sam.
Darla’s eagle eyes followed mine. “You got a thing for him, don’t you?” she said.
That made my blood run cold. “Who I have a thing for or don’t have a thing for is none of your business.”
“It is when it’s with the band,” she said.
I snorted. “Why, because they’re all yours?”
She pulled her neck back, frowning. “No, they’re not all mine,” she said.
The emphasis on the word ‘all’ made me shoot to my feet. I was shaking and I had never in my life been this close to reaching out and slapping someone.
Instead of making a fool of myself, I turned around and marched off to the bathroom.
She didn’t follow.
Sam
Amy was here again.
Something was different about her. Her body language said that she couldn’t stand one more second of talking to Joe and Trevor’s woman.
Darla didn’t seem to get it, plowing through and talking to Amy in spite of all of the obvious signals.
Then again, that was Darla—she was the same way with the rest of us. At first, it was infuriating but after a while, it grew on you.
Nothing was going to grow on Amy, though. She was pissed and I wondered why. What had Darla done to her?
Amy turned her head and ran an angry hand through her hair, setting pearls dancing on the silver hoops in her ears. The light caught on a matching necklace, a perfect circle of silver, dropping a line of smaller pearls from her collarbone to her cleavage.
It wasn’t my fault my eyes were drawn to her breasts. Blame the necklace.
Something womanly about Amy had always been intriguing. She wasn’t one of the athletic girls with boyish bodies and abs so tight you could roll a joint on them and have plenty of room left. She was more like a woman from the movies, one who was older and wiser, with a pinup girl’s kind of savvy.
Amy snubbed Darla and turned away. And now it was Darla’s turn to be pissed. Whatever was going on over there made Amy angry, focused, and passionate.
I wanted to tap into that. What was Darla saying to trigger such a hot response?
Something in me melted, as if a hard core of steel had been driving me forward, tinged with anger and coated with regret. My heart began to beat faster and hope slammed itself repeatedly against my chest wall.
What if? What if? What if? was the beat that ran through my head and, as Darla walked away shaking her head slowly, mystified, I felt the same way.
From a completely different angle.
“Hey, Sam!” shouted Tyler, the new bassist for the group. He was filling in while Joe was at orientation
for law school at Penn. “Help with this amp?”
“Sure,” I said and stood. My eyes broke away from Amy for a few seconds. When I turned back to look she was chatting with Liam. He had a way of holding his body like he was the only man in the room. He was the dude.
Liam needed to be the only guy in the room—and when I say need, I mean need. It was his weakness.
There was something about the fight in him and the constant arrogance that made him equally fascinating and annoying. It got tiring to pull him out of fights, or to pick him off of a girl’s wrath. Most of all, it got tiring because if you have to repeatedly prove your manhood —
Maybe it’s not as strong as you think.
Amy
From the Ladies’ Room door, I watched Darla march off, finally taking the hint. Anybody who was passing herself around the band like a tray of appetizers...
Not the kind of person I wanted to be friends with.
I watched her walk up to the stage and grab Trevor like she owned him. A tug of envy pulled inside me. Not that I wanted Trevor—but I wanted that.
I wanted a man to touch me, to own me with his hands as if nothing else mattered in the world.
Trevor pulled back, whispered something in her ear, and she tipped her head back and laughed. It was an intimate moment, one I felt privileged to watch, despite feeling disgusted by the easy way she traveled from man to man on that stage. I wanted to be that close to a group of people.
I wanted to be part of something so edgy, fun and intense.
Instead, here I sat in the back of the bar, nose buried in a story. Alone.
She stepped away from Trevor and touched Sam. He reached for her in a friendly hug and I knew, from the body language, that there wasn’t anything going on.
Just like that.
All the air in me whooshed out in one big, relieved sigh at the same time that I imagined myself her, that his palms were wrapped around my shoulders, that his cheek touched mine, that the friendly, quick embrace was nothing like what Darla and Trevor had just shared.
Sam pulled back and said something to her. Whatever it was, it seemed kind. Darla smiled. A single tear travelled down her cheek, then disappeared past her jawline and under her shirt.
The shine of Kleig lights made it possible to see everything. Sam’s face softened, the compassionate look making me wonder what on Earth they were talking about.
As if on cue, an all too familiar voice said from behind me, “If you stare any harder they’ll turn into stone.”
I whirled around to find Liam, wearing a ratty t-shirt, jeans that fit every part of him perfectly, with hands tensed and ready to perform. He grabbed the chair next to me, twisted it around and straddled it, crossing his forearms over the back.
“You’ve still got it bad, don’t you?” he said, pointing at Sam.
It was a flick of a finger, nothing obvious, but it made me burn inside.
Something about Liam made it impossible to lie.
“I know. I admit it.”
“You see the new bass player?”
“Yeah?” I asked. “What’s going on? Where’s Joe?”
“Joe left,” he said with a tone of intrigue.
“Left? You mean left for good?”
“He got into Penn. He’s at law school orientation but we had to get a new bass player because he’s not going coming back that often.”
“Is that why Darla’s crying?” I asked. “One of her fuck toys is gone?”
He flinched. “Your claws are showing, Amy.”
“Nice of you to acknowledge that I have them, Liam.”
His eyes narrowed and he studied me. I could feel that look crawl over my forehead, hair, eyes, nose, and mouth, traveling down, down, down until I was breathing so hard. I imagined when he got to my chest it heaved like some heroine in one of those cheesy bodice rippers Darla was just talking about.
“If you think Darla’s being passed around like a piece of meat, you’re dead wrong. She’s Trevor’s and Joe’s. That’s it.”
I couldn’t help myself. I was so weak. “You mean she’s not... Sam’s?”
Steely eyes the color of a bright blue sky reflecting over a pure Caribbean sea stared back at me. “You’re safe there,” he said in an assuring voice, one that changed from calculating and judging to inclusive and compassionate. “But Amy, whatever you feel for Sam, you need to let him know.”
“I did let him know,” I insisted. “Four and a half years ago.”
“I know you did.” He reached out and touched my hand. It felt brotherly, yet had an edge. “But it’s been four and a half years and you’re here, sitting in the dark with a thousand books on that little machine, in a bar where one of the hottest bands in the Boston area,” he chuckled, “in the world if I do say so myself.” He squared his shoulders and shot me a cocky grin. “Where we’re playing and you’re hiding back here like a church mouse. Go for it. Tell him what you think. Tell him what you feel.”
“Speaking of going for it,” I said. “How is Charlotte?”
His grin snapped shut like it was spring loaded.
“You’re like a sniper with perfect aim,” he said, his jaw clenched and off centered, tight and restrained.
“No. Just a champion debater,” I whispered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He frowned and I took that as my moment to get out of there.
Fate had other ideas, as Sam strode over to us with a determined step, body all sweat and muscle, eyes intense and focused. My heart slammed into my throat and Liam followed my look.
“Hi, Sam,” Liam said, his face morphing to an impish grin as I steeled myself for the first chance I’d been given to finally – finally – say what I’d wanted to say all these years to Sam.
I miss you.
Those were the first words that popped into my head? Struggling to maintain a neutral face as Sam’s eyes found mine, the roiling chaos inside me churned so fast.
Not I miss you. I couldn’t tell him that, even if it were true.
Especially because it was true.
Sam
Darla came over and gave Trevor a hug, then surprised me with one. She was warm and soft, and hey—I’m a guy. It felt good.
But her jaw trembled against my neck and I pulled back, catching her eyes and finding tears in them.
“Upset about Joe?”
She swallowed hard and nodded. “Nothing will be the same.”
“Penn’s a great school.”
“But I’m a great lay,” she whispered.
That made me laugh, and she joined me, a sad smile twisting her lips.
“It’ll be fine.” The words were just an impulse. Were they true? Hell if I know.
Tyler asked me yet another question about the audio equipment as my eyes rocked with disbelief when I took another look into the crowd.
There was Liam chatting up Amy again.
It was bad enough they kissed onstage. It was worse to watch the two of them back on Boston Common, but again, here? Was she coming because of him? Or was she coming because of me?
This was going from stupid to stupider. Her reaction to him pissed me off. I was supposed to be the guy standing over there talking to her. I was supposed to be the one who reached out and touched her hand.
And I was supposed to be the guy who saw no one but her.
Except, instead of being that guy, I was the guy who completely screwed her over four years ago.
Which guy was I going to be right now?
There was definitely something between the two of them.
Her hands played with something on the table when he wasn’t reaching out and touching her, the way her lips moved when she talked to him—all the non-verbal cues told me that there was a history.
There was something more than just being neighbors.
She said something to him, her mouth moving in rapid fire in a way that made me want to kiss it and make it stop. And then, Liam shut down. Amy’s debater tong
ue had just conquered Mr. Arrogant.
The four and a half years of silence yawned between us. Was that really all that was holding me back? The fact that I had been such an idiot so long ago? As if the seconds ticked into minutes, hours, days, then months and years, and the accumulated weight of all of that meant that I had to keep my mouth shut, and keep keeping my mouth shut because I’d made a dumb decision four and a half years ago?
Was my stupidity really that powerful that I had to keep carrying it around?
No. No fucking way.
I stood up, walking toward my future because it was the only way I could escape my mistakes from the past. The distance between the stage and Amy’s table was the distance between Earth and Mars.
At least, that’s how it felt.
And yet, I crossed it effortlessly.
Every muscle moved with purpose, my eyes focused on the two of them. I had no idea what I was going to say, and no idea what I was going to do.
All I knew was that I needed her to pay attention to me.
I needed to be the only guy in the bar for her. Not Liam, not any of the other dudes sitting around, me.
Me and only me.
There was one other moment in my life where I felt this internal plume of anger, desperation, and hope all mingle inside me at once and push me forward into a trajectory of no return. The last time I did it, it was all aimed at my dad.
It was all negative. It was about pulling away, about pulling apart.
This time, it was about coming together.
I found myself standing in front of them.
Liam looked up, eyebrows raised, face amused. “Hey, Sam.”
I ignored him. Amy took me full on and looked up, face blank, a debater’s stare of challenge. She didn’t shy away, but the look in her eyes was calculating.
“We were just catching up,” Liam continued.
“Catching up on each other’s tongues?” I challenged.
“Huh?”
“I saw you kiss her. The entire crowd did.”
