I went around and around what I might’ve done differently, what I could’ve, should’ve done differently. And what I might do now to salvage it, without causing a shit show with the band. Or fucking with their marriage.
Without it ending badly.
Without all of us ending up regretting that we’d tried.
* * *
A week after Danica sent me that pic, I was in their living room again.
We were drinking and playing our own twisted version of The Game of Things, along with Xander and poor fucking Taylor. This girl just kept getting dumped on by men. The latest guy to dump on her? Our record producer, Cary, apparently.
And once again, on a night that sucked for her, she seemed to flirt with the idea of hooking up with me to make herself feel better. For a matter of drunken seconds. But no way was I going there now.
When she was close to passing out—booze and emotional exhaustion—I put her to bed on the couch. Xander went home to Courteney. And Ash, Danica and I went into their bedroom.
Ash left the door open and sat with his guitar on the floor, so I sat on the floor, too. Danica lay on the bed, and she told me the whole story of how she and Ash met. How he’d met her twin sister, Daniella, first, then four years later he ran into Danica and thought she was Daniella. And how he’d gotten a tattoo under his balls while drunk, the night he met her sister.
I’d never heard the whole story before. I tried not to laugh, but they were laughing about it, too.
And I could feel it between us, as always. The connection.
It was the kind of connection I’d never felt with anyone. Not my best friends. Not my other bandmates, past or present. No other lover or pair of lovers. Not even the woman I was once engaged to.
And all the anger and the ugly tension and even the hurt just seemed to be gone.
Finally gone.
Maybe it was only a temporary reprieve, but I’d take it.
At some point, Taylor woke up and came in, bringing the vodka with her. She cried on Danica’s shoulder, and eventually I took off so they could all get some sleep.
But something had changed that night. Softened between Ash and me.
* * *
The next day, Danica called and asked me to pick her up at some home decor store down in Richmond, where she had a couple of giant shopping bags to haul home. Why she didn’t have Ash’s bodyguard driving her, or a car at all, I wasn’t sure. But I would’ve picked her up anytime, driven her anywhere.
I pulled up to the curb and she slid into my Audi, and I set about taking the very longest, slowest way back into downtown Vancouver through traffic as she thanked me profusely for coming to get her.
“Where’s Ash?” I asked her.
“Hanging out with Dylan.”
“They’re pretty close, huh?” I’d never asked her, or him, about that relationship. Everyone knew Ash and Dylan were best friends. But I’d definitely heard the gossip: that Ash had once been in love with Dylan, but Dylan had turned him down, ended up with Amber instead.
“Yeah,” she said simply. “Really close.”
“That bother you?”
“No. Why would it?”
“I dunno. Past feelings? Sometimes those get in the way of present feelings.” I glanced at her, realizing how that sounded. “Uh, I didn’t mean Ash’s feelings for Dylan. I meant your feelings. No one would blame you if you were uncomfortable with their relationship, I mean.”
“I’m not. I trust my husband.”
“I heard he used to have a thing for Dylan,” I ventured. “That true?”
“Yes. And I’m sure you heard the rest, and it’s true, too. Dylan broke his heart.”
