Adam sat beside Eden and took her hand in his, his thumb gently stroking hers. The ring on his fourth finger glinted in the last gasp of sunlight, and I imagined his skin under that strip of gold was fish-belly white from lack of exposure. Lots of girls would be disheartened at his devotion to Eden, but I loved it. I wanted my heroes to prove they were worth looking up to.
“Are you raising Joshua both Jewish and Christian?” Maybe the beer had loosened me up.
Eden pulled herself back up to the table. “Jewish mostly. I mean, it can’t hurt him to spend time at my mom’s church, but I’m converting.”
“Really?” That was new to me. Twice in this one night, I’d come to realize that I didn’t know nearly as much as I thought I did about her. In a way, it made me glad. Maybe my obsession wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. On the other hand, maybe I’d been fantasizing about fictional people for the past decade.
“My mom doesn’t know yet.” She smiled. “But I think she’ll be glad I’m no longer straight-up heathen. And Adam will score another point with her.” She shook her head. “He can do no wrong. Saint Adam.”
Adam chuckled and laid his other hand on her arm. “Honey, we don’t have saints.”
The sun had fully set, and the purple-black sky shed no light on the company. The stillness blanketing the backyard seemed to drive everyone into their own thoughts. Conversation stalled while we sipped beer and listened to the crickets chirp. Eden sauntered into the house and returned with citronella candles.
Now faces floated, eerie, golden, and unfamiliar. As the beer settled into my veins, I relaxed and convinced myself we were all just regular people sharing a moment in time.
Adam and Shane started reminiscing about some inside joke, which led Shane to share a story about when his band first started out.
“Noah’s been drinking, so he’s over on the edge of the stage, playing his guitar and flirting with this girl at the same time. I’m back behind the drum set, you know. No girls coming around behind the stage to flirt, so I’m living vicariously through Noah, as usual, watching all this unfold.”
Adam snickered. “Ah yes, I remember the celibate life of the drummer well.”
Eden shushed him. “What happened?”
“You have to imagine this place. It’s this hole in the wall country bar with a massive pool table dead center. The barflies are all back there—” he flapped one hand toward the distant imaginary bar “—ignoring us. The pool sharks are ignoring us. There’s this one girl yelling out cover song requests over and over and sort of swaying and dancing in front of Noah.”
We all sat rapt. Shane in motion mesmerized me. A kaleidoscope of dramatic expressions crossed his face while he regaled us with his tale, all of them more adorable than the last.
“Noah turns back to grin at me like the arrogant prick he is, so he doesn’t see the man approaching as fast as a bullet. Micah’s center stage singing his heart out, eyes shut tight. Rick’s on the side, all honey badger and not giving a fuck about any of this, and I’m behind the drum set. I start to stand and yell a warning, but before I can, Noah turns around and his face meets the guy’s fist coming right at him.”
“Oh, my God.” I’d never heard this story before. Why would I have?
“Yeah, so the place erupts in a riot of pool sticks, and I start grabbing up my drumkit and packing it away as fast as I can because I can’t afford another one. Micah’s trying to extricate Noah from the fracas, and Rick just stands there and lights up a cigarette like we’re on a break.”
“Fucking Rick,” said Adam.
“Moral of the story—don’t flirt with the girls at the bar.” Shane snorted. “Or count on Rick to have your back.”
Adam shook his head, commiserating. “Beats that time we were playing some bar slash restaurant, and in the middle of our set, these patrons at a booth erupted in the Happy Birthday song. Seriously. Midway through one of our songs. Come to find out, some lady there is celebrating her eightieth birthday.” He widened his eyes in remembered disbelief. “I can tell you, we felt like edgy rock stars that day.”
I listened silently, absorbing everything and trying not to draw attention to myself—a fly on the wall—until Shane remembered I was there. “I’m sure this isn’t interesting to Layla.”
“No. It really is.” I couldn’t even begin to express how I could sit there the rest of the night, hearing them talk about anything at all. “My dad used to play in a small band, and he would take me to gigs with him sometimes. Not to bars, but I remember he once played a subdivision club house.”
Shane laughed. “That would have been an improvement from some of our early gigs.”
As an afterthought, it occurred to me I could have name-dropped an actual musician instead of recalling my dad’s adventures in rock. I’d grown up with Dylan Ramirez an aspiring pop star who now went by the stage name Dylan Black. But whenever I saw him back home, he was still just that ordinary guy who lived out on the farm and dated my best friend in high school. Other than the few times he performed at the local beer hall, I couldn’t honestly say I’d had much experience with his music. Meanwhile, I’d been my dad’s mandatory audience.
Adam focused on me with inky black eyes, like he saw me, like I mattered. “What was that like for you?”
It meant everything to me that he asked. “Weird. Kind of boring, though.”
Eden bent to pick up the baby. “Yeah. People don’t realize what a snoozefest a musician’s life can be at times.”
She was right about that, and I didn’t understand why I found rock bands so intriguing, but I hadn’t wanted to participate in my dad’s music at all.
“I’d bring my homework or a book to read while they set up. The funniest thing would be the older ladies who came to get away from their bridge games or whatever they did on a Tuesday night. They’d gush to me about how excited they were to see some live music. All I could think was that they were coming to see my dad’s band play ‘In The White Room’ which I’d heard approximately seven thousand times in our basement at home.” I heard myself and realized who I was talking to. “God, that sounds so rude when I say it out loud.”
Adam raised his bottle toward me. “You were a brave soldier.”
