In the Absence of You (7 page)

Now I’m really worried. Did he get a spare key from the receptionist? If anyone could do it, it’s Emil. I fumble for my clothes on what would be Emil’s side of my king-sized bed and get dressed in a hurry. I’ve got the chain attached, but with a key, my door could still slide open by an inch. I’d be forced to have an uncomfortable conversation with a horny, drunk Emil and his lay for the night.

The squeak of a door opening jolts me upright. I hear him clearly, but the sound of his voice doesn’t get louder. “Welcome to my cassstle. Ladies first,” Emil husks, and the girl titters, breathless with excitement, and that’s when I realize they’re next door to me.

My eyes dart to the door by the desk. Oh God, I’m so close, that door is the only thing separating us.

His bed creaks, and muffled talk seeps through the wall. I want to turn the TV back on so I don’t have to hear them, but I’d call attention to myself if I did that. I rummage in my overnight bag for my headphones. They’re not with me. They’re on the freaking bus.

I get up. Tiptoe to the bathroom. She’s already moaning in there—he must be going down on her. Emil… is really good at that. My stomach hurts.

I turn on the shower and get undressed. I jump in and draw the curtains, but I can’t bear to shut the door to the hallway. It’s okay. I don’t hear them anyway, with the shower rushing hard over my head and body. With a finger, I slide lavender soap through my folds, tentatively testing my own response, and I tingle even though Emil’s nearness isn’t with me.

So twisted.

In the morning, I remain in my room for as long as I can, skipping breakfast. When Troll calls, ribbing me out for acting like a lead singer, I tell him he doesn’t have to worry about me. I’m not hungry, and I’ll be on the bus ahead of time.

We stop at a fast-food joint for breakfast twenty minutes later. I have no appetite, but Emil is hung over and pale and needs nutrition. I’m not a band member and shouldn’t be the one interrupting our travel day later, so I realize that I should eat too. Still, I can’t make myself sit by Emil’s window table.

He’s uncharacteristically quiet. He hasn’t interacted with anyone since he got on the bus fifteen minutes after the set departure time. A livid Troll read him the riot act, but even that didn’t make him smirk and apologize. Now, he’s shoving hash browns into his mouth with eggs and toast. I don’t welcome my need to brush his hair with my fingers.

Troy’s shadow interrupts my view for the second it takes him to sink down in front of me. I glance up and register how the golden chocolate of his skin makes his eyes glimmer olive green. Strong drummer’s fingers hug a takeaway cup, and he doesn’t drop my gaze while he sips his coffee.

It’s strange with Troy. He’s peaceful. Balanced. Even with the fire inside me, with my constant disquiet, I don’t feel the urge to keep a polite conversation going with him.

“Are you okay?” he asks, voice low so the other tables won’t hear us. “I know they gave Emil the room next to yours last night.”

My lips start to quiver.

“Shh,” he says. A quick look at Emil reveals him oblivious to anything besides the parking lot filled with trucks and buses. Troy reaches for me and dries the tear slipping to the corner of my eye.

“I’m not going to tell you how unwise it’d be to get invested in something with Emil. I’d be insulting your intelligence. You’re a grownup. Right?”

I bob my head, biting off a piece of my sandwich so I can flush my need to cry with it.

“But you’re a sweet girl. We all love to have you with us, Aishe, not just Emil, and I hate to see you suffer.”

I roll my eyes to downplay the sting of tears. I can’t speak while I chew another flavorless mouthful.

“Which is why I wanted you to know that he and I fought last night. Over him wanting to bring a girl into our room and me being too tired to deal with it. It’s why he got a separate room. And he wasn’t lucid enough to realize that it was next door to you.”

I haven’t seen Emil take a groupie up on her offer for weeks, and I hate that he didn’t come to me instead. Still, the ache eases a little knowing that he wasn’t intentionally cruel.

“He must have heard it though, when I got the room. He was right there with that slut.” I don’t know why I call the girl a slut. Troy seems to understand, his eyelids lowering in acknowledgment.

“It’s just a room number, Aishe. And when you’re as drunk as he was last night, it’s hard to—”

“Why do you defend him?” I interrupt, my voice louder than I intend. I instantly bow into my seat, covering my mouth. Emil looks up, meeting my stare for a second before returning to his food—like he’s a loner, like he’s not the most social person I know.

Troy leans in, lower arms gliding toward me on the tabletop. “I’m not making excuses for him. Emil’s a good guy, but ever since he messed up with Zoe…” He shrugs, shoulders heaving under his dreadlocks. “He still refers to her as the love of his life, okay? Listen. It would be sad to have you hate him for acting like an asshole, but even worse if you thought someone was consciously disrespecting you. I’m damn sure that’s not what happened.”

My eyes fill with tears, and I can’t remove my hands from my face. I’m in plain sight in this small establishment with white walls, white tiles, and the sun reaching me through tall glass panes with merciless morning rays.

We’re in tight quarters. Of course everyone is aware of what occurred last night—me in one room, Emil in the next with a girl. Like everyone else, Troy could have overlooked my pain. I’m grateful, really grateful, that he took on the discomfort of talking with me about it.

Eyes calm on me, Troy waits until I can speak. When I do, I’m in control of my voice again. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“Always.” He rises slowly, stretching and in no hurry to leave.

He crosses his arms, broad shoulder tipping forward enough to showcase a solid upper back as he swings. All he does, every day, is bang on those drums. No wonder the man is fit.

Four bites of an egg salad sandwich constitute a fine breakfast when all you want is to crawl into your bunk and shut your eyes. We’re ten hours away from the next show, and there’s nothing expected from me until I’m there. Maybe I should do that: take a Benadryl and sleep until we arrive.

“Say, Aishe?”

“Hmm?” I peer at Troy over the plates I’ve just shoved out of reach. From the door, his focus shifts to me before he jerks his head toward the outdoors and leaves.

Emil shifts when I get up. I dig my teeth into my lip as I watch
him
watch
me
. My chest expands again, absorbing oxygen I’ve skimped on since last night. I count seconds.

In the four seconds I wait, I see no sign of remorse, no sign he’d like to talk to me. Hung-over limp, Emil is expressionless, and I exhale so deeply it feels like my entire torso deflates. I exit with his stare following me until the front door slaps me with its fast kickback.

There’s a small nook at the entryway, all wooden beams and plants, and I halt there to let the plague reign freely on my face. This is a face I can’t show anywhere—a face I don’t want to see myself—but I’m not strong enough to stop it from cracking through.

The plague.

The plague.

The love fire.

I. Am. Inflicted.

I turn and peer through the window, seeing Emil’s profile. Again, he’s lost in the ugliness of the parking lot. God, my insides simmer and burn. They shouldn’t be simmering and burning. Scorching love is not good, I know this, and yet I’ve allowed my embers to be teased by someone I deemed safe.

Oh I am stupid.

I need to talk with Shandor. Maybe we should leave. I have never been so close to becoming my aunt, my grandfather, my grand-aunt, my… sister.

I’m crying when Troy’s hands cradle my face and raise it. I’d left the restaurant to find him, but I took too long. He must have returned for me. “Girl, come on. Don’t cry. Please?”

I nod fast, knowing I need to keep it together in this world. In my community, we rage, we dance, we cry and love and laugh and howl, not what normal people do—
Normal
is what I broke out for, and out here, no one would understand.
Normal
is soothing, sweet, helpful to me, a Band-Aid on a heritage I desperately need to lose.

Shandor and I haven’t discussed it, but it must be why he broke out too.

For an instant, the musical lilt of Troy’s accent makes me catch on to the layers of a different people than mine. I want to smile at him, but I can’t just yet. “I’m not crying.”

When I meet his eyes, he doesn’t avoid my tears. He stares right at me, unafraid and examining, compassion deep in each feature.

“You’re so nice,” I whisper.

“Aishe. You have a friend on this tour, okay? One that accepts who you are and what you want no matter what that is. I’m your friend, not your cousin or brother or father. Anything you need, from hugs to trips to the movies to brawls with assholes that treat you badly. Got it?”

The muscles in my cheeks support smiles, it turns out. I feel it when the corners of my mouth curl upward, crinkling my eyes too. I bob my head. “Sweet,” I manage. “Can you take me to the hairdresser’s?”

EMIL

I
f I don’t count singing,
life’s a crack whore dragging me into shit I don’t want to deal with. Who cares that it’s sunny outside and people are fucking beaming around me? The beaming is no surprise with Nadia around. Bo and she together are contagious, leaving everyone rosy-cheeked and on their best behavior, apologizing and offering assistance with random crap from the moment they step out of their bunks in the morning.

How much longer?

At least I’ve wised up; beautiful Aishe can’t end up in my bed again. Most of the time, I operate from within a bubble where others’ responses sound muffled. Their anger and joys are hushed elevator music to my senses. Maybe I’ve been tricking myself from the start or maybe something changed, but the hurt in Aishe’s gaze after I slept with a groupie was the decibel distortion I needed to grasp her state of mind—this girl, she isn’t a detached motherfucker like me.

There’s a bunk between us on the bus, but her scent shoots up to me whenever she shifts on the mattress. She’d be my number one choice for oblivion, which is my problem now. I’m trying to muster the willpower to
not
be the guy who takes advantage of the situation.

She’s not Zoe.

No one fucking is.

I know I need to forget my baby. My love. The love of my drab-as-hell life. I know. I know. Bo tells me all the time. Troy too, whenever I give him the chance. But it’s hard when all I want is to get her back and I don’t like to breathe without her. If only Nadia didn’t keep visiting us on tour.

Show nights are my absolution. The stage is a purge. I sing, scream, shout out the lava boiling in my chest. I don’t know where I would be if it weren’t for my fans. It’s crazy to keep this heartbreak imprisoned in my head.

I don’t do drugs. I’m not an alcoholic. Since Zoe left, I’ve kept warm on the after-show chicks, but now there’s this special girl in a bunk beneath me.

With its rounded sectional and big TV screen, the back lounge is the preferred hangout for video games. In a corner, there’s Troll’s makeshift office desk, and toward the back wall, two bunk beds hide behind thin, sliding doors camouflaged as wallpaper.

I’m splayed out on my back with my elbow covering my face. I’ve been lying like this for a while. Everyone has left. Maybe I’m the reason, not sure, don’t care.

“Emil?” Nadia’s voice reaches me from the doorway. “Sweetheart, let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

This is old news. It’s been four months since Zoe sent me packing. I—

I just can’t—

“Never mind, Nadia. Go enjoy your time with Bo. I’m not redeemable.”

Bullets. Round and smooth like women’s breasts. Orange brass tipped with shiny silver. And what about when they explode?
Pow.

I stretch my arms, touching the back cushions with my head bent backwards. What would it do to Clown Irruption if I vanished? Bo’s the real songwriter here, and his voice is damn good too. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t upgrade from backup vocals because of my role in the band.

His style is different from mine. Bo can’t copy others’ voices, but then again, most professional singers can’t. It makes no sense to do what I do anyway, because the fans prefer one recognizable sound.

It’s just me being weird; David Bowie’s voice should remain on his records. A
ndrea Bocelli’s got nothing to do at our rock concerts, and though my latest noodling with a few Adams out there—Adam Ant, Adam Lambert, Adam Levine—left the audience awed, my friends were in stitches at the bizarreness of the gig.

Zoe loved my imitations. No one could ask for a more supportive girlfriend than my Zee—not even Nadia could beat her. She was jealous though.

Zoe and Nadia worked at the same restaurant, but Nadia left her job at Bo’s insistence. Dude’s following Nadia’s ex’s lead, making sure she gets the education she dreamed of in high school. Veterinarian.

I grab my Mac and pull up Zoe’s Facebook page. There isn’t as much going on here as there was a month ago. Some dude tagging her in a photo of her looking tired. She always wore perfect makeup, deep lipstick against soft skin and that super-coiffed blonde ’do of hers. I didn’t care either way—I loved her in the mornings, especially if she hadn’t removed her makeup, the scent of sleepy skin and old hairspray making me fuck her hard.

Her mouth. Zoe was genuine, kind, and super-bitchy. Nothing was hotter than to kiss that bitchiness off of her like lime from a toilet bowl.

“Emil, no! Don’t you see how small my butt is? Look. Stop it—
look
at me.”

Oh I listened all right when she bitched at me like that. My sweetest, bitchiest girl. Fuck. Fuck. She’s so fucking special. There are tons of not-bitchy girls out there. Tons of bitchy ones too. But the ones who are so genuine, so bitchy, but so sweet and mendable and bendable—

Most chicks seem to consider their boyfriends projects. My Zoe didn’t. Despite all of her objections, decisions, and commands, she never wanted me to change. She loved the fight.
I
loved the fight. And I loved
her
.

“Yes, Zee, dearie. Your ass is so small. You have a tiny, hot, firm ass—hold on. I’ll open it for you, ’cause I’m not sure how small and firm and hot it is on the inside.”

“You liar. How many times have you been inside me again?”

“Are we keeping track?”

“Of course we are. Say it.” She dropped to her back and opened her arms wide for me, stare steely and determined despite her open embrace. I dove in. Every time.

“Oh you’re so hot. I want to be inside you
now.
”

“How many times though? You can’t until you tell me.”

“How many?” I worked my cock against her opening, rocking back and forth, sliding in sweet juices. I could see her cut me off though. That was my Zoe. Whatever Zoe wanted, whatever her whim, she’d do it.

“No,
you
say it.”

“Sixty-seven.”

She stilled under me then. Surprised. “Emil, that’s a crazy good guess. How’d you do that? It’s sixty-six.”

“Nope. Sixty-seven.”

She was quiet while I worked over her, not responding with raised hips the way she usually did.

“Babe, gimme your pussy. Angle up for me? Don’t be hard on me now, pretty please?” I pulled back enough to pout my lip at her. She still didn’t laugh.

“Soooo. Which was the sixty-seventh time, then?” she asked, random as always, my Zoe.

“Yesterday night? Tonight?” I suggested.

She snorted, but at least she widened soft thighs so I could ease inside her. Oh holy mother of utter awesomeness. Her breath hitched at my intrusion, the best sound ever, and I instantly sped up the way we liked it, the two of us, fast, rocking my bed against Bo’s bedroom wall, building heat so thick and hot and delicious it was impossible not to groan out loud.

“Oh Emil!” she shouted.

“Ja, baby!” I replied, ecstatic too. Bo banged on the wall, that loser. Fucking quiet sex over there with Nadia. I didn’t get the two of them.

“Tell me,” she squeaked out even as we climbed together. It felt so good I had no idea how she could focus on former copulations.

“At the beach in Santa Cruz?”

“It… wasn’t all the way.”

“No? I. Ejaculated,” I staccatoed out, the only way to form words.

“That was on my skirt. It didn’t count. Wait!” she shrieked, commanding me to keep her from climaxing, but why would I do that? We both came, rocking hard against the headboard. Seconds later, Bo was at my door, telling me to open the fuck up, and I did, hell yeah I did. And my Zoe, she sat up in bed, curved her naked legs to a side, and covered her breasts with an arm as she waited for Bo’s head to poke in.

“What, stud muffin?” I said to Bo, furious from the door.

“Move that
damn
bed out from the wall so Nadia doesn’t have to listen to you two fuck. How many times have I—”

“Four,” I say.

“No, love, this is the fifth time,” Zoe interrupted from the bed. Bo’s stare flicked to her, until he realized she wasn’t all that decent. His eyes made a hasty retreat, so hasty it made me think of burns. How could he be burned by that beautiful sight? I turned to take her in myself.

“Fourth,” I insist. “Which was the fifth?”

“In Acapulco.”

“You gotta be kidding. You and I were on the balcony, and I think he was just orgasming next door with Nadia and it just
sounded
like he was complaining. Right, Bo?”

Equally interested, Zoe and I waited for his answer, because, come on—who won? She’d owe me breakfast tomorrow.

The fucker turned and walked off, and I grimaced at Zoe. Another non-formal bet lost. “I’ll ask Nadia,” she said.

I scoffed. “Like I’ll trust you unless I’m there. You get off on lying, babe. And if I’m there when you ask, she’s so uptight she wouldn’t even tell you.”

“You suck.”

“You
suck,” I countered.

“Okay,” she said and slid down my body to the floor, licking me nice and clean. Making me forget what we’d been talking about. Again.

AISHE

Over the last
few days, I’ve spent a lot of energy avoiding Emil. It’s hard when you’re on a bus together. He doesn’t seem to notice that I’m ignoring him, which hurts more than if he deliberately avoided me. I can’t say I’d kick him out of my bunk though, if he approached the way he did before.

Travel days go by with Troy and me playing board games at the miniature kitchen table. He makes a big deal out of my wins, alternating between praising me and mock-beating himself up over his losses.

Whenever Emil passes on his way to the kitchen, he seems deep in some musings and doesn’t focus on us. For some twisted reason, it makes me need him even more.

I watch him onstage, sexy joy personified, until he performs their new melancholy ballads. Then he’s so blue I want to hop onstage and press his face against my chest. The others accompany him, amplifying sadness with measured beats and whines from guitars. I think they should stop, that they shouldn’t do this to him, because there’s a limit to how long you can go on before losing your mind. This knowledge is ingrained in my people. It’s clear that it isn’t in theirs.

On the fourth night, I wait until all lights are out and people breathe evenly around me. Then I curl my bare toes around the edge of Troy’s bed and open the curtains to Emil’s. I reach out. Stroke his waist through the blankets. With his back toward me, he remains still, not acknowledging that I’m here.

I haven’t taken this kind of initiative before. Until tonight, Emil has been the one to sneak into my bed for moments of intimacy. I should leave, but I can’t take our distance any longer.

I make up my mind. Lift a knee and place it on the mattress. Next, I pull myself up. He doesn’t accommodate me, but his sleep must not be deep yet, because his exhales are silent. I straddle him to wedge myself in against the wall.

“Zoe?” he grunts, sleep-soaked surprise in his pitch.

“Shh, no, it’s me,” I whisper. I think it’s instinct that makes him shift outward, giving me some room. I stroke his face with the back of my hand, and it elicits a sigh that’s not relaxed, not relieved. There’s darkness and sadness in that sigh, and it jabs my heart to know I’m not relief to him.

I can become that though. I can.

My brain warns me, but I still ask, “I’m cold. Can I get under your blanket?”

“Baby, you should go back to your bed,” he answers quietly, warm air caressing me from his lips. But this is me, self-absorbed, doing what I need, and excitement whirls in my chest.

“You don’t want me here?” I tug on the blanket. He angles backward so the corner stuck beneath his body is freed. I wiggle until I’m beneath it, finding him bare with the exception of a pair of boxer briefs.

“I do. That’s not it. I just can’t keep you happy.”

We both think of me.

Guilt flares up and dies, and it’s the instinct of my body, of my hot-blooded heritage, that makes me slide a hand over tormented rock star skin. I locate downy hairs at the base of his ass. I wedge an arm under his torso and press my hands past the elastic of his underwear from both sides. Then I stroke, fingers wide, until I’m kneading his butt and he’s pushing against me, member hardening. I meet him, my pelvic bone providing the hard surface he needs to grind against.