Page 6 of Strum Me

“Well, we’re it! We’re your pals! Your very own double escort service, I mean…not that kind... erm, yes. It’s not safe for a handsome man like yourself to be wandering the courtyard on your own. So we were waiting for you as we are your very own bodyguard service to get you to your fifth-period English class, safe and sound. You. Are. Welcome. Come along now… we’re late.” Brad takes a few steps forward and calls out to me, “You take up the back end there, Butter. Can’t have Mr. Harris teach-napped under our watch now, can we?”

Mr. Harris stares at Brad, mouth agape.

“Um, after you, Mr. Harris.” I smile sheepishly and try to hold it together just long enough for him to shake his head and follow Brad, now a good fifty feet away.

“By the way, Mr. Windsor, that better be your own homework you’re holding in your hand there! I expect that handed in as soon as we get to class!” Mr. Harris shouts to my mischievous best friend.

Unsurprisingly, Brad suddenly takes off and disappears around a corner, leaving me to “pal” my English teacher all on my own.

***

“You are a dead man.” I point and narrow my eyes at Brad as soon as I catch up to him in the courtyard after class. He’d conveniently found an empty seat in the back of the class to avoid my glares and had hightailed it out of there as soon as the bell rang.

“Oh, whatever do you mean?” He plays innocent and my eyes narrow into such thin slits I can barely see him through them.

“You left me alone with Old Man Harris and fucked off after your whole pal-pal speech! I had to explain that I don’t think you’re certifiably insane, but we can’t be sure until you get tested next week!”

He finds this hilarious and laughs as he drops his ratted old excuse for a school bag onto the ground and sits on it. “By the way, thanks for the homework notes. I’ll owe you.”

“You already owed me.”

“Oh, so this one’s a freebie?”

“No. Oh no, Windsor, you will pay. Mark my words, one day, you will pay.” I shake my finger at him, and he pretends to cower.

“You can have my first born.”

“If it’s anything like you, no thanks.”

He starts to say something, then he stops, and a shadow crosses his face. “Incoming.”

“Hey babe,” a deep voice whispers against my ear, “how’s my girl?”

My boyfriend’s hand comes up to wrap around the back of my neck and he pulls my head closer for a kiss.

“Hey Silas.” I lean in and press my lip against his and then squirm, hating the feel of his hot sweaty hand against my neck.

“Oh, sorry! I forgot, the princess hates her neck touched.” His voice has a mocking tone and I know he’s still pissed from our fight last night.

He pulls away and I face him, my eyes scanning his features, reading his expression. After a year and a half together, there isn’t much I don’t know about him. I certainly know enough that me hanging up the phone halfway through our argument last night was not going to sit well with him and that the radio silence since then was meant to express his discontent rather than an agreement to disagree.

But it was a disagreement that was a long time coming.

He’s made it clear he wants to go to the US to pursue his music, with me in faithful tow, and I want to stay in London and pursue my writing. The years at Guildhall School of Music have been wonderful in stoking my passion for music, but my talent has limits and I know that I’ve reached them. It won’t stop me from being surrounded by music; it would just be in a different capacity. What I do know is that that capacity isn’t as a groupie, which is what I’d be if I let Silas’s dream eclipse my own. He is good. But so am I.

A clear and logical mind would tell me the right thing to do, but the heart’s never been accused of such practicalities.

“Hey,” I tug gently on his hand and give him a crooked smile. His frown softens and I know that he’s as frustrated about our impasse as I am. He pulls me in for a hug and I can’t help but lock eyes with Brad over Silas’s shoulder as we embrace. The look on Brad’s face is tense, and I know he can sense that everything’s not all right between Silas and me.

I roll my eyes to lighten the mood, but he just stares back. Despite being friends since elementary school[JD1], lately they haven’t had more than two words to say to each other, and I’ve managed to keep the two relationships separate. There’s just so much room for gigantic egos at one time.

“Yo, Bradley!” a voice yells from across the courtyard and I see Jez, Sebastian, and Marius, Brad’s best friends and bandmates making their way toward us. He grins and jumps up, brushing the grass off his ass. “Gotta run! Nice seein’ ya, Silas. I’ll call you tonight, Butter.”

We barely have time to answer before he grabs his bag and is sprinting away to meet up with his friends. Not for the first time, I wish I could follow him.

“Babe,” Silas’s voice turns my attention back to him.

“Hmmm?”

“I thought we were going out tonight.”

“We are.” I nod, kissing him gently on the cheek, hoping to break the ice between us.

“Then why did Brad say he’d call you tonight?”

“I dunno,” I shrug. “Force of habit I guess. He knows we’ve got plans,” I say in reassurance.

“Good. As long as he remembers you’re mine and mine alone.” There’s a warning in his voice, and I brush it off as sheer possessiveness. Something that I’ve never really enjoyed but have tolerated in him. I’ve never given him reason to doubt my loyalty, and I wasn’t going to start now.