Panic lines her face as she stutters out, “Uh, h-hi. This is, this is Aspen. I think you’ve been trying to get a hold of me. I thought I’d…I—” She snatches her hand back and ends the call. “What the fuck!”
I cover my mouth. “That was very smooth, baby.”
She slaps my arm. “I didn’t expect her not to answer! Not after she called me for weeks straight.”
“You mean in all your what if’s, you didn’t consider the fact that she might not answer?”
“Oh my god.” She grabs a throw pillow and smacks me with it. It does nothing to quell my laughter. My stomach pitches with it and eventually, she joins in. “I can’t believe I did that. Do you think you can erase messages?”
“For your sake, I hope so.”
That earns another bat of the pillow that I could easily dodge but let her continue. She’s laughing after doing something scary as shit, and that’s all I want for her right now. Any distraction is good.
It’s odd that her mother didn’t answer, but who knows what kind of life she’s living. I just hope that if she triescalling Penny back again, she’s still ready for that conversation.
“How about we turn our phones off, go shower, order food, and have a movie night tonight?” I propose. “I don’t feel like cooking, or doing a whole lot.” The last few days have been a lot of social time already. The desire to turn my brain off while watching a movie with Penny tucked into my side is enough to make me weep.
Her face lights up at the offer. “Deal! As long as I get to pick the movie.”
“Now I don’t know about that.” But before I can argue further, she’s off the couch and bounding upstairs. Guess negotiations will have to wait.
I get up to follow her, but at the base of the stairs I remember I wanted to turn our phones off. Don’t want to risk her mother calling back and interrupting my night with her.
When I approach the back of the couch, something catches my eye, and stops me dead in my tracks.
I look up to find Macaroni still sitting on the coffee table, glaring at me. “You little fucker scratched the back of the couch!”
Two days later,I find myself in Hayden’s newly renovated home studio. He and Carter have completely transformed their new house, with plenty of help from her dad. It’s a cool place, with a hell of a lot more character than his other house.
This feels like a home.
“Before we start anything,” Hayden says as we allunpack our instruments and get set up. “I think we should set the expectation that we’re not here to create an album, or even a cohesive song today. This is just to try it out, getting back into what we love, right?”
“Right,” Nikolai echoes. Walker and I both nod. He didn’t exactly greet me with enthusiasm today, but before we left Joshua Tree, he did apologize for insinuating that I used his sister.
I’d say we’re back on a decent enough path. We didn’t attempt playing music together while we were away. After the blow up on the deck, it didn’t feel right. Emotions were too high and getting music involved, even though it’s what brought us all together in the first place, wouldn’t have ended well.
But the itch is there. It runs through all of us. So Hayden called this morning, seeing if everyone could make it over. Nikolai picked me up, and we met Walker here.
“Do we wanna try playing one of our songs first? Just to dust off?” Nikolai scans the room.
I shrug. Walker and I are both used to being the driving forces of the group, but it seems we’re both trying to take a backseat today.
“Yeah. Anyone have any preference?” Hayden asks. He slips his white pearl bass over his shoulder. It hits me that it’s the one he wore for our final performance. The way he runs shaky hands over the body confirms it.
The studio is silent, almost deafening with the sound dampening that’s installed. I pop the latch on one of the two guitar cases I brought over today. My favorite electric blue one, and the acoustic that Penny once again let me borrow.
Walker twirls a drumstick, the piece of wood just a flash of neon green orbiting his fingers with the speed in which he flicks it around. “What aboutHold Onto Me?”
One of our first singles we ever released and a staple at every show we ever played in our career. I attach the strap to my electric guitar. “Good with me.”
“Same,” Hayden says.
Nikolai clears his throat with a sip of water. “Do we need a warm up?”
“Nah.” Walker shakes his head and strides toward the small drum kit Hayden set up in the corner of the studio. “Fuck it. Let’s just see how it goes.”
It does not go well.Nikolai’s vocals are flawless, but then again, he’s been the one still actively involved in music since we broke up. I fuck up the chord progression on the second verse, which throws Walker offbeat for a good thirty seconds. Hayden’s consistent with his bassline, but he lacks his usual confidence.
