I could shoot back that she should stay out of my business, the same way she had to me. But tonight, I don’t have the energy for it, not enough blood left in me to bleed.
So, I tell her the truth.
“I was writing.”
My eyes are on her, however, hers remain fixed ahead.
She takes another pull from the cigarette, then extends her arm, offering it over.
I look out at the sky lingering over the lake, noticing the dusting of gold stars as they glimmer and shiver.
I move toward her, my hands turning slightly clammy. I rub them down the front of my jeans as I close the space, taking the smoldering offering, drawing on the pull, then passing it back. I step away when she taps the deck next to her.
“Sit with me?”
It’s a question, maybe even a plea because I hear her words wobble.
I chew on the inside of my cheek, knowing that I should step away, but my feet have already made the decision to betray me.
I take the seat, though leaving some space between us, drawing up my legs. Hanging my wrists over my knees, I pop my thumb knuckles and recline my head. I keep my eyes straight ahead, watching the trees in the distance, though at the corner of my eye, I can see her pushing the cigarette between her rosy lips.
“Lyrics?” she asks.
I nod.
“Shewould be happy you are writing; you have no idea how badly she wanted that for you. Always spoke about you becoming a rock star one day. The four of us, going to New York, like the pact we made.” Laiken laughs, then chances a glance toward me.
I try swallowing past the lump her words jam into my throat when her rueful eyes sweep down me. She bites her bottom lip,eyes seeking mine, and Laiken doesn’t speak again until I give them to her. “I don’t think you’ve ever quite let yourself realize just how talented you are, Chase Keller.”
I rake my hair from my face, pinching the cigarette from her fingers, taking a drag.
I hold the smoke in my lungs for a moment before rasping on my exhale, “Could say the same about you.” I blow the last breath out of my nose, chin to chest, eyes up, directly on her.
She shakes her head, her white-blonde hair moving with it, quick to divert her gaze.
“That night, in the car, when we, you know…sang together,” She pauses and turns to look at me, her eyes touching my lips, face blank. “That was a mistake.”
Her words hang in the air like a thick fog.
I scoff, then tsk my tongue at the back of my teeth. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
She flicks her gaze from my mouth to my eyes. “What’s that supposed to?—”
“Mean?” I finish for her, raising my brow slightly. “Itmeansyou’ve always been a piece of work.”
Silence falls between us, a rumble of thunder crackling in the dark sky above.
“You know what…fuck this,” she bites, stubbing the cigarette out, trying to get to her feet, but I latch onto her elbow.
“Sit your ass down, Laik.” My voice comes out firm.
She flicks me off her, but she listens, returning to the place she’d just departed, with a heavy breath and another sparked cigarette.
I take it from her, put it between my lips and speak around it, “Mistakes and I, we are well acquainted. So, I can assure you…that…wasn’t a mistake.”
Laiken pulls her knees to her chest, resting her chin on top, not looking at me.
“Yeah, well, we are going to have to agree to disagree on that one, big brother,” she says, crossing her arms and rubbing the chill from her triceps.
