I close my notebook and grab my guitar.
“How does this need to work? Do you use the living room while I hang out in my room?” she asks.
I shake my head. I’m not exactly sure how it works, but I know her voice is part of the trigger for me. She’s going to have to be near me, chatting with me occasionally when I get stuck.
“Can you hang out in the living room with me? You could maybe…read there?” I offer. Izzy used to read all the time in high school—she even took a book with her on her first dates just in case she got bored. Not knowing if she still likes to read or not makes me realize just how little I know about the woman Izzy has become.
“Sure,” she replies, not picking up on the reflective journey my thoughts have taken. “I’ve got a book on my phone. You can have the couch since that’ll let you put your notebook on the coffee table. I can take the recliner.”
We spend the next two hours like that, Izzy with her legs draped over the arm of the recliner, reading her book on her phone, and me on the couch, lightly strumming different chord progressions as I work on a song about the heartache that comes when the people we once knew become people we used to know.
Any time I get stuck, I ask her a question. So far, I’ve learned she’s happy to share about the books she likes to read, her business, or her sisters. The past, however, seems to be filled with buried landmines, and after exploding the second one, I avoid our history—shared or otherwise.
It’s the best night I’ve had in a long time, and it’s certainly the best music I’ve written in the last year. My song for the Lupus Foundation is almost done and not a minute too soon.
Now, I just need to make sure I don’t fuck this whole thing up by ruining spice coaching on Thursday.
Chapter twenty-three
Izzy
“Nope,”Isay,myfeet suddenly stuck in place as Becca and I walk home from the office. I’ve spent the twenty-minute walk psyching myself up for day one of spice coaching, but I just can’t seem to wrap my head around it.
“Yes,” Becca says as she grabs my arm and continues to pull me toward the house. “What have you got to lose?”
“Nothing,” I say, repeating what she wants to hear. Except… “Or at least nothing but my dignity. Which clearly isn’t worth much to you.”
She continues pulling, so I give in, following her so slowly I think I might be impacting the space-time continuum.
“It’s Jaxon, Iz. If there’s anyone you should be able to relax around, it’s him. You two were practically joined at the hip for over a decade. I know things are different now, but really, all that’s changed is that you don't care what he thinks anymore.”
“What if it goes poorly?” I ask as we turn the corner and see Jaxon’s rental car sitting in our driveway.
“What does that even look like?” Becca asks. “I mean it, walk me through the literal worst-case scenario. I know you’ve thought about it. Tell it to me.”
“I lie there like a limp fish and then he does something that makes me giggle, at which point, I kick him in the face, breaking his teeth and his nose, maybe inflicting some damage to his windpipe, and he can never play music again because of me. He goes on daytime television to tell his story, accidentally drops my name, and I have to move to Alaska to avoid the public shame and fallout,” I say. “Oh! And while he’s writhing around in pain, a candle gets knocked over, and we burn down the entire street.”
Becca smiles. “I knew you’d have something good concocted. That said, we both know that isn’t going to happen, right?”
“Do you know the last time we checked our fire extinguisher, Becca?” I ask as we near the house. Jaxon must’ve let himself in this time because he wasn’t in his car when we walked by, and he’s not on the porch.
“I replaced them before Christmas with those fire blankets and the idiot-proof fire-sprayer things.”
“At least our house is safe,” I say on a dramatic sigh as we enter the house. “Too bad for Jaxon’s career though.”
“What’s happening to my career?” Jaxon asks, swiveling around on the island stool to look at us as we walk in.
Becca nods at me. “She’s spiraled about your afternoon activities and is pretty sure it’s going to end in her breaking your face and taking down your vocal cords with it or something along those lines.”
“Ahh, yes, the most likely scenario,” Jaxon jokes back.
I glare at my best friend and my ex-best friend. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?” Becca asks innocently as she shuffles around the kitchen, grabbing a cup of water and a chocolate chip granola bar—the good kind with the fudge coating.
I wave my hands. “This…friend thing.”
“I thought we were supposed to be pretending you two were friendly. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.” She does the actions while saying that last part, and her ridiculousness pulls a small laugh from me.
