I had no idea the last time he’d actually seen a woman who wasn’t his mom, his sister or his housekeeper.
I’d stopped asking about that a long time ago.
Like everything else that was too personal or borderline critical of his current living situation—if you could call this living—those questions just made him retreat into Hermitville.
“How are things?” he asked me, reaching to roll a joint on the table in front of him. Cary had never been much of a pot smoker, so I figured this was one of those things he did specifically to appear normal.
Just two buddies hanging out, smoking a joint in a music studio.
Normal as shit.
“Pretty good. I met with Brody yesterday, discussed my contract with the new band.” I’d already messaged Cary to let him know I’d officially joined the band. “We’re calling ourselves the Players.”
“Yeah? How you feeling about it?” he asked, because sure, he still asked me howIfelt about things.
“Good, I guess.” I hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to how I felt about it, actually. I just knew I wanted it, so in the end, despite my doubts and misgivings, I just went ahead and did it. “Looking forward to making some music with them next year. Hopefully record an album and get out on the road. We’re kind of in a holding pattern until Matt comes off the road with Dirty in June, though.”
“That’s cool. Gives you some time to switch gears, right? Maybe take some time off or something.”
“Yeah.”Or something. I really wasn’t sure what the fuck I was gonna do for another ten months of idle time until then. I didn’t really want any time off, but it seemed time was what I was getting.
I couldn’t really see myself crashing here for ten months straight, but I’d definitely be around to check in on Cary. Maybe we could get some kind of flow going, hang out more often…
One could hope, right?
“I’ve got nothing but time on my hands, so… if you ever need another set of ears to listen to what you’re working on, I’m around.”
“Yeah. You still in the poolhouse?”
“For now. Probably keep bouncing back and forth to my place. If that’s cool with you.”
“Yeah, of course. As long as you’re not in Courteney’s way.”
He looked at me then, his honey colored eyes so much like hers, and held out the joint to me.
I took it and smoked.
“No problem,” I said. Although it was a problem.
Courteney Clarke was becoming a giant fucking problem.
“She likes to have her girlfriends over sometimes, that kind of thing,” he added.
“Yeah. I can make myself scarce if they’re having a pajama party.” I handed him back the joint.
He didn’t laugh like Trey would’ve. He didn’t smile or say anything. He took a hit off the joint and just looked at me.
“Have you seen her much?” he asked.
“Not much. You?”
“Saw her the other day,” he said, breaking eye contact. “No… uh, actually it was about two weeks ago, I guess.”
And that was it. He said nothing else about her.
I knew him well enough to know the signs: he didn’t want to talk to me about seeing her or whatever they’d talked about.
“So, how’s the album going?”
