“Want to go for a walk with me? I wanted to visit a couple of old haunts,” he offered while I used the opportunity to appreciate the brilliant blue of his eyes.
I knew that if I went home and sat alone for a few hours, I would undoubtedly replay yesterday’s events in my head. After doing that for most of the sleepless night I’d just experienced, I was ready to be done with self-loathing.
“Sure. Let’s meet in the lobby in an hour or so?”
Ezra insisted we drive in his Jeep with the top down, so I left my car in the gym parking lot after he promised to drop me off there when we were done. It was around noon, four hours until my shift was due to start, and the air was filled with the smell of honeysuckle and the indescribable scent of the sun.
“Perfect weather, that post-workout feeling, and a beautiful woman by my side. Could this day get any better?” he joked and shot me a mischievous look as we sped onto the highway.
Pleasure surged through me at his words, but I tried to play it off by swatting him on the shoulder. “No flirting, or Abel will feel it with his sixth sense.”
Ezra laughed, and the sound was nearly swallowed up by the wind. “You’re probably right. If he calls, we can ignore him.”
“He can’t yell at us to get back to work on the weekend,” I added.
“I think he’s just jealous at how easily someone like Cole can get people to like him.” Ezra shot me a curious look, “And are you falling for Cole’s charms?”
“Please, I’m your coworker. I’m immune,” I joked, feeling blood rushing to my cheeks. I wasn’t about to tell him that I was falling under the charms of all kinds of people.
“Hmm, share your secret with our roadies, because the immunity certainly never extended to them.”
Lucky roadies.
“I don’t want you to think Cole is some kind of a life-long player,” Ezra rushed to add. “I’ve known the guy since we were kids, and I’ve seen him settled down before.”
It was hard to imagine. Cole had this wild streak in him, that defied being tamed. Whoever the girl was, she must have been very special.
“Oh yeah? Was it serious?” I knew I was being nosy, but I couldn’t help myself. I was growing more and more curious about all of them with each passing day. What events in their lives had led them to grow into the men they were now? The desire to discover more had only intensified after I’d told them about my parents. It felt like we had crossed into the deep end that afternoon, and I wanted to spend a bit more time there before swimming back to safety.
Ezra sucked on the inside of his cheek in thought. “Yeah, you could say that. But she wasn’t right for him. It blew up in the end, but it was for the best.”
“And what about you? Any serious girlfriends?” I asked, not feeling right about prying further about Cole.
“Not really. It’s hard to maintain something real when we’re constantly on the move. We don’t know where we’re going to be next year, fuck, next month, even. There aren’t a lot of women who understand what it’s like to be in a successful band and the sacrifices we have to make to continue making good music.”
We took an exit labeled “Crossbow Drive,” and a memory from two years ago popped up in my mind.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Gravehurst Park. My old high school, Middlemar, is just on the eastern border, and Cole and I used to come here almost every day after school to hang out. It’s beautiful in the summer.”
We pulled into the parking lot and got out of the Jeep. To the left of us was an ornate stone arch engraved with the words “Gravehurst Park” at the top and marred with pink graffiti tags on its sides. Once we passed through the arch, a concrete path ran a dozen or so feet ahead of us before veering off to the left.
“You’ve never been here before?” Ezra asked, looking at me over his shoulder.
“Not in this part, but my parents are buried in the cemetery to the north,” I admitted.
Ezra’s arm landed around my shoulders, pulling me into his firm chest as we continued to walk. I usually hated these sorts of comforting gestures at the mention of my parents’ deaths, but then he said, “So is Charlie,” and I understood that maybe the touch was as much for him as it was for me.
He let go of me after a few minutes and pointed toward a bench nestled between two enormous oaks just off the path.
“Cole and I smoked our first joint on this bench. Years later, we came back after our first tour and scratched the initials of the band on the back. I wonder if it’s still here.”
We walked around the bench and kneeled side by side to examine the wooden panels. After a moment, I spotted the faded letters.BM.The paint covering the top hollow of the B had peeled off.
“When you guys started, it was just you and Cole?” I asked as we started back on the path.
Ezra nodded. “Cole and I grew up together. Our families knew each other, and we were in the same class all through grade school. We met Silas in high school, after his family moved into town, then Abel in twelfth grade. He’d hopped between foster families for years and could’ve easily been placed in another shithole, but it was like the universe conspired to bring him here to us just when we were looking for a singer.”
