by Finn, Emilia
“I was twenty-five. It was a gift to myself.”
I smile nostalgically. “And I was in college. Came home that summer and you nearly wet your pants with excitement.”
Part frowning, part smiling, his eyes follow my movements. “I didn’t nearly wet my pants. That wouldn’t be cool at all. I was… blasé about telling you.”
My shoulders bounce with silent laughter. “I didn’t realize people who were blasé about something clapped their hands.”
“Shut up.” He slides onto the stool and lets out a breathy groan that does weird things to my stomach.
My mind conjures an image of me sitting with him. Letting him teach me with as much care as he taught me to shoot.
I imagine sitting on the piano, perhaps lying down while he plays me just as skillfully as the instrument.
Stop it!
His eyes come up. “Huh?”
“Nothing.” A blush burns my face and forces me down from the tile platform before I make a fool of myself. I hurriedly move across the room and busy myself looking in empty drawers and peeking into the stocked fridge.
Beer, wine, chocolate. Loads of overpriced stuff that sounds amazing late at night when there are no other options to fix a sudden hunger. Bags of chips and pretzels are displayed on top of the counter, and a corkscrew beside that.
To keep myself from staring at Ang, I study everything intently, like it’s important I remember every inch of this room, but when the soft strains of something beautiful winds its way through the room, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and my lungs freeze mid-breath.
“Oh my God.”
He plays the song by memory; he needs no sheet music or a clip on the internet. I turn to watch him play, and am amazed and weirdly satisfied to find he doesn’t even need to look at the keys. “Smile.” My lips quiver. “You’re playing Smile?”
He lifts his chin in invitation. “Charlie Chaplin might have written the most heartbreaking song in the history of the world. It’s both healing and devastating.” When I’m close enough, he misses notes to grab my wrist and pulls me down so we touch from knee to shoulder. “It speaks of smiling, even when everything sucks. Smiling, even when everything hurts. It speaks of bravery and love.” His eyes come to mine without releasing my hand. “I think of you a lot when I hear this song. When I play it.”
I push my anxiety away and simply lean into his strong body. Friends can lean against friends. It doesn’t have to be weird.
“Do you play it often?”
He resumes playing, and though I’m tempted to close my eyes and float away with the music, I’d rather watch his skilled hands.
Broad.
Strong.
Ropey muscles that stretch along his forearm, and leather bands on his right wrist.
“Yeah.” He slides his hands along the ivory keys and bumps his arm against my side. “I seem to play it every day lately. I play for the band; that’s work, they’re songs we write for the club or whatever. The crowds want something to dance to, and though you can dance to this, it’s not what they’re asking for. They want hot and fast, so most of the good stuff we write stays at home.” He looks down through long lashes. “It’s a shame, because we can write some really beautiful stuff. Some record companies buy our music… they bought the song Scotch wrote for Lily.”
“That one was nice and slow.”
Nodding, he inches his way up the keys. “That was a good song. It’s nice to hear the quality stuff on the radio, because it gets a little dull playing the same old shit at the club.”
“You still like it, right?” Frowning, I think back on my life. “I don’t have a single childhood memory that didn’t include the band. I don’t just mean you, or Luc, or Marc, or Scotch. But I mean all four of you, together, the band. It would be weird if you broke up.”
He grins. “We wouldn’t break up. Jesus, there’s just no way that would happen. We’re family for life, and that’s completely separate to the band. But maybe we’ll slow down on the Club 188 gigs.” His shrugging shoulders bump against mine. “Life is different now; we’re not in high school anymore. Scotch has a wife and family. Marc’s getting hitched someday soon, and they’ve got a baby taking up their time. Luc can only practice every second week because of work, and when he’s off, I bet he’d rather hang with Kari. Things are just different now, ya know?”
He speaks of the rest of his friends settling down, and yet, he’s single. Childless. He has no attachments that take up his time.
I’ve taken up an awful lot of his time lately…
“Anyway.” A soft smile plays over his face. “I have to play a certain set for work, and though I enjoy it, I don’t love it like I used to. But at home, I play for me, and when it’s just me… this is the song that keeps coming up.”
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. “I really like this song. It reminds me of me a little bit, too.”
“Yeah?” The soft strains come a little louder as he reaches the higher notes. “How do you mean?”
“Well… Sonia, my…” My pulse thrums. “My therapist.” I turn away. “I know, I’m a crazy person who needs a therapist. But she’s really–”
“Hey.” The music stops so his hand can drag my jaw around. “Nobody ever said you were crazy, least of all me. I’m Ang, remember? I’m safe. I don’t judge you.”
I swallow the tears that want to come to the surface. I haven’t cried in a few days, and I really don’t want to start now while I sit in an opulent hotel with a nice guy and a beautiful piano.
“Okay. Sonia’s actually really cool. She’s old and looks a little too nice, you know? Like maybe she could be pushed around. But the second she speaks, you realize you’re wrong. Nobody pushes her around, and I kinda love that about her.” When he’s sure I won’t run again, his hand leaves my jaw and goes back to playing my song. “Around my fourth or fifth session, she suggested something she dubbed smile therapy. It’s so obvious, it’s dumb, but she was saying how no one ever thinks of it.”
“Smile therapy?”
“Mm.” I lean back into his side and finally give into the pull of closing my eyes. When I cut off one sense, the others heighten, so now I hear his music better, I feel his strength beside me, I smell the ocean and his musky scent. “She said even if I don’t feel like smiling, I should do it anyway. Just smile, Laine. Move those lips and smile. Eventually, your body will catch on, and what may be a devastating moment could be downgraded to a mere annoyance.”
“Is that not something akin to denial?” He laughs softly. “She’s selling you denial?”
“No.” Bravely, I loop my arm in his until I hug it against my chest. “She never said I wasn’t allowed to think of the things that hurt me. She never said I wasn’t allowed to have a bad day. She simply suggested on those bad days to try and smile, too. Look into the eyes of the monster and smile.”
“Did it help?”
“I guess. Maybe. I cry less often now. I’m here, rather than at home in a hoodie that nearly kills me from heat. And smiling feels good, so why not, ya know?”
The song trails off, but he simply follows it with something new. Something soft and magical. “I know what you mean. I love seeing your smile.”
“You do?”
“Of course. It lifts your cheeks until they almost squish your eyes closed.”
I sway to his music and laugh under my breath. “Shut up.”
“I’m not kidding.” He bends his neck and rests his ear on top of my head. “It makes me happy when you’re happy. Like you said; you don’t have a single childhood memory without the band. Well… I don’t have a single childhood memory that doesn’t include you. I like knowing that you’re happy.”
27
Angelo
Dinner Date
As soon as the bathroom door closes and her scent no longer clouds my judgment, I snap back to the real world and realize I’ve turned into the guy I said I wouldn’t.
I wouldn’t be the next dude on
her doorstep. I wouldn’t be talking her into anything that even remotely resembles a hook-up or a relationship, and yet, here I am, sharing a beautiful hotel room with her for the next five nights.
How am I supposed to keep my sanity?
How can I watch her smile the way she does and not drop to my knees and beg for a chance?
How can I stand here and watch the other couple throw sex pheromones around like confetti, and not imagine that could be me and Laine?
Fuck the world.
Fuck Graham.
Fuck Kane and Jess for continuously tossing me and Laine together like it doesn’t hurt us. It hurts me, because I can never have what I so desperately need. And it hurts Laine, because men are despicable animals that she never wants to know in a romantic setting again.
“Angelo?” The shower stops, and in the single second it takes for me to process the fact she’s in the bathroom we’re sharing, naked and dripping wet, the bathroom door cracks open just half an inch and steam races out to mark the ceiling. “Ang?”
I turn on the piano bench and meet her eyes across the expansive room. “Hm?”
“I forgot my stuff. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Kill me now. I stand and move to the bags the kid from earlier brought up. I flip open the top flap and study her wild array of shoes, power cords, and denim.
Why do girls insist on bringing so many different things?
“What do you need?”
“There’s a little black bag in there, with gold spots. You see it?”
I push things aside with the tip of my finger and pray I don’t find anything that might embarrass her. “I see it.”
“That’s my toiletries bag. I need that for makeup.”
“You’re doing your makeup?” I straighten up and take the bag to the barely cracked door.
“Mmhm.” Wet hair is plastered back against her scalp, and her long lashes, dark despite her blonde hair, clump together with water. A drop sits on the tip of her small nose, but it’s not nearly as tempting as the drop on her plump bottom lip. “Kane said we’re doing fancy, so I’m doing myself up. I don’t think I’ve worn makeup since before Christmas.” She smiles. “It’ll be nice to get dressed up again.”
Why, when you’re already so beautiful?
“Okay. Suppose I better get my shirt out and see if it’s all wrinkled, then. I can’t escort you in a wrinkled shirt.”
She snickers and pokes her hand through the door. “Give it to me. I’ll hang it up in here, the steam will straighten it out.”
“Yeah?”
“Uh-huh. Grab a hanger out of the closet, and while you’re there, can you pass my garment bag? I’ll wear that dress tonight.”
I pass her the toiletries bag and move back toward our luggage, rummaging through to find the only button up shirt I brought along, before detouring to the closet to grab her stuff. The navy-blue garment bag is kind of heavy, heavier than I expect of a dress, but since there’s only one, I shrug and move back to the bathroom door. “Shirt. Hanger. Dress.” I pass each through the small gap and try really hard not to look down at the towel pulled around her torso.
“Thanks. What time is it?”
“Ah…” I lean back to catch a glimpse of the bedside alarm clock. “Twenty to seven.”
“Crap. I gotta hustle. I’ll be fast, I promise.”
“It’s okay. We have time.”
“Okay.” With her arms full of clothes, she inches the door closed. “Back soon. It’ll be like a time lapse video. This is what I look like now…” Smiling, she slams the door in my face and leaves her sentence hanging.
Chuckling under my breath, I move back to my bag and tug out a pair of jeans.
Glancing back at the closed door and hearing the roar of a hair dryer, I push my shorts down my legs and tug the jeans on before she can come out and find me naked in her room.
I toss my tank to the floor, and pull out a can of deodorant. Spraying under my arms and throwing it back into my bag, I step up to the large mirror hanging on the wall and study my hair.
Still looks as good as when I left Caitlin’s salon.
I run a hand through the short stubble covering my jaw, and with a deep sigh when the hair dryer stops and drawers slam, I push the loose hair back off my face and press the heels of my hands into my eye sockets.
Way back then, when my mom was busy getting fat lips and my dad was busy helping her achieve that goal; back when I went to the Turner’s house on weekends for something to do and something to eat, they rented that movie based on Hercules’ journey. We sat in front of the TV, eating popcorn, and when he came on the screen and became the hero, with his long hair whipping around in slow motion, that was the day I decided to grow my hair long.
It was a silly hero worship thing in a world where I had no other heroes. It was something I would have outgrown just like most other kids, but one day, Laine Lenaghan mentioned how she liked it.
She mentioned how Luc always cut his hair short, and how Marcus always kept his styled the way he did… and she liked how I was different.
She liked that I didn’t care to be the same.
So I never chopped it off, because my Hercules hero worship transferred to Laine worship long before I should have cared what she thought.
I shake my head at the idiot boy that turned into an idiot man, and when the bathroom door opens a second time, I almost choke on my tongue when she steps out in a stunning little black dress.
“…and this is what I look like now.”
From wet hair, to flowing and straight.
From small freckles on her cheeks, to flawless makeup.
From water in her lashes, to eyes done up smoky and dark the way she used to do before Graham came along.
“Fuck me.”
Her lips – red and succulent – turn up into a shy smile as she drops her head forward and peeks through long lashes. “Looks good?”
“You look beautiful.” I clear my throat and remember belatedly that I’m only wearing jeans.
No shirt.
A problem she compounds when she walks closer, stops in front of me, then turns. “Can you zip me up? I can’t reach the zipper on this one, and normally we have a girlfriend around to help. But, you know… you’re it, tonight.”
“Yeah.” My hands shake so much, I have to draw in a deep breath and hold it. Her dress, tight around the torso, and loose from the hips, has no straps. It bows over her chest to create a heart shape, and in the back, dips enough that I want to smash my head against a wall just to think of something else.
I rest one hand on her back and hold the material together, and with the other, I grab the metal zipper that sits in line with two deep dimples that mark her back. Her spine bows in, and a single freckle sits in one of the ridges and draws my eye.
I wonder if she even knows it’s there?
Her lungs fill and empty to the same rhythm as mine. Full, almost to bursting, and when we can’t hold it any longer, it explodes out and we start again.
“Um…” I tug on the zipper. “It’s stuck.”
“No, you just gotta be kinda forceful with it. You gotta…” She reaches around and grabs my hand. “You just gotta…” She pushes my hand up as far as she can manage until her shoulder blade pops, then lets out a breathy laugh. “I’ve never had to explain it before. Girls just kinda know to grab on and yank.”
I don’t yank.
And I definitely don’t do anything that might hurt her.
But my finger slides along her spinal column as I bring the metal higher, and when I reach the top and brush a finger over the back of her neck, a brush that I know I’ll kick my own ass for later, her skin breaks out in goosebumps until her shoulders jump.
“Sorry.” I’m not sorry. Not yet, anyway.
“It’s okay.” Slowly, she turns and looks up at me. Her eyes flicker over my face, then down to my bare chest. Narrowing them, she leans in closer to inspect the chain around my neck.
As th
ough to ask permission, she brings a hand up, but stops before she touches. “What does the tag say?”
“Case dismissed.” When her eyes narrow in thought, I add, “It’s a quote from a movie I once loved. It was about a hero who proved his status not with muscle, but with heart. He followed the law when it was just, but when it wasn’t, he did what was right, even if that meant he would be sentenced to death.”
She tilts her head to the side. “So… He broke the law to uphold the good?”
I shrug. “Basically. He followed the law when it was right, and he broke it when it was wrong.”
“Like Kane and Jay?”
I laugh. It’s a desperate sound, a plea for mercy. “Yeah, like them, I guess.”
“What law did you break, Ang?” She drops my chain and stands on her toes to get closer.
It almost feels like an interrogation, and when her eyes narrow, Graham’s face flashes through my mind. Then my dad’s. Graham’s. Dad’s.
The letters carved into Graham’s forehead, and the fire that killed my father while I stood by and watched.
“What did you do that took heart, even if the law would disagree?”
Tell her, and become her hero?
Keep it to myself, and spare her new nightmares?
I place a hand on her bare shoulder, and push her back to flat feet. “Nothing, it’s just a quote. I really like your dress, by the way. It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah?” She grabs the skirt and fluffs it out for a beat, but when she looks down, she makes an ‘Oh!” and dashes back to the bathroom. A citrusy scent lingers in the air, and just as I take a deep breath, she reemerges with her new crystal necklace dangling from her fingers. She starts toward me, taking a few steps before turning toward her bag and pulling out a tall pair of black pumps.
She walks and pulls them on; one step, lift a foot and slide it on, another step onto higher ground, lift the other foot and slide it on. By the time she reaches me, she’s a few inches taller and her eyes are now in line with my nose.
