“Wait.” Flynn suddenly sobers, studying me with concern. “Did something bad happen?”
Now the asshole asks. It’s a fine time to suddenly be concerned about my well-being, when he’s the guy who left with two girls and told me to get Oleg to drive.
“No!” I throw my guitar pick at him.
He dodges it, his pirate grin stretching across his face. “Oh my God… you really like this guy!”
“No,” I scoff. I’m definitely not doing that. Not the relationship boomerang our mom subjected us to as kids. Falling in love. Breaking up. Grieving. Plunging into depression. Checking herself into mental institutions. It was an endless cycle of full and broken hearts. She and my dad separated and got back together nine times when I was little. When she finally divorced him because he was a cheating bastard, we thought things would calm down, but they didn’t. She recreated the same drama with a string of new men.
I’m not like her. I’m the opposite. I hang out with a guy. We hook up. Things get weird. I experience this inner nudge, this restlessness that tells me to cut things off before they go any further.
Flynn is a total man-whore. I’m not like that. I’m not just out for sex. I do crave real connection. I need to like the guy, to feel the spark, to find him entertaining and smart. But I don’t know, after a few months, I get itchy and feel penned in. I always find something that makes me want to end it.
Dahlia, our baby sister, is the only one of the three of us who seems to know how to be in a lasting relationship. She and her high school boyfriend went to college together in Wisconsin and are still going strong.
“Wait, so did something happen?” Flynn just won’t let it die. I seriously want to shove my boot up his butt right now.
All three of my bandmates stare at me expectantly. They’re not going to let me dodge this question.
“Yes!”
They all grin at me like goofballs.
“And?” Lake prompts. I’m pretty sure he and Ty have always wanted to hook up with me but know that I have no interest and also that Flynn would kick their asses all the way to Tokyo.
“Why are you guys being such girls right now?” I demand. “Since when do I share my sex life with you?”
“We’re being guys. This is locker room talk. You’re the one who hangs with guys, Story,” Flynn reminds me.
It’s true. Just by default of the amount of time spent together, these guys have become my best friends.
I really need to get out more.
And that thought instantly produces more thoughts of Oleg. Because he’s the one who changed up my rhythm. Threw me off my game. He left a sense of emptiness and longing in his wake that I’m having a hard time recovering from.
I did start to write a song, though. A hot, push me up against the wall kind of song. But I’m not ready to reveal it yet.
“It was hot,” I admit.
“No shit.” Ty tries to sound casual, but there’s a warble in his voice like he’s disappointed to hear it.
“Blister in the Sun,” I say to put the topic to bed and start rehearsal. I pick the start of the Violent Femmes song on my guitar.
“Hang on.” Ty scrambles for his drum sticks, almost missing the cue.
And then we’re into it. The music. The thing we all adore. It’s our addiction and our lives.
I don’t know why suddenly it doesn’t feel like enough.
Chapter 5
Story
He didn’t come.
I scan the Saturday night crowd for the eighth time, looking for my big Russian.
He’s not here. I can’t believe it.
“How are you all doing tonight?” I ask the crowd, faking my enthusiasm to be with them.
There’s already a decent crowd of our regulars here, and they cheer their welcome with over-enthusiastic vigor. “Story! We love you!”
I chuckle into the mic. “I love you, too.”
I don’t feel like playing the set list I put together. At Rue’s, we usually play a mix of covers and original pieces. We have enough of our own songs to do an all-original show, and we do when we get booked other places, but playing at the same place every Saturday, it gets old. People like to hear covers mixed in. They get excited about them.
My fingers play a few notes on my electric guitar.
Flynn laughs softly into his mic. He recognizes the song before I even do.
Fuck. It’s “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones.
I’m not that disappointed by Oleg’s absence. But the song choice says differently. I shrug and go for it even though the rest of the band won’t know what the hell we’re doing. The two of us grew up filling in with our father’s classic rock cover band. It’s why we have a huge repertoire to pull from.
Ty and Lake get on board fast enough as I take them through my version of the song, which makes our growing audience go wild—possibly because they can tell we’re figuring it out as we go along. People like to be a part of the show. Feel like they know you. Like we’re friends.
I stop myself from glancing at the table where Oleg should be. The one taken by a group of regulars I recognize.
I somehow knew when he left that he wouldn’t be here tonight, and yet his absence pierces me through the gut. He probably is still recovering. He’s too dizzy to drive. His head hurts too much for the loud music.
I know all those things, and they are perfectly reasonable explanations for his absence, but my emotions are haywire. They are not perfectly reasonable at all.
I’ve been raw and needy since he left. Worried for him. And now that I find he’s not here—the outcome I was sure I would face—I feel abandoned. This is exactly why I don’t like to rely on people. My parents taught me this lesson very well. They loved me, but they had their own demons. Showing up in the way I needed them to just wasn’t in the cards.
But Oleg… he was dependable. Like clockwork, every Saturday.
He told me he’d be here.
I know he couldn’t call. His phone is still in pieces in my bathroom trash. And he never asked for my number.
But that bothers me, too. He could’ve tried. Of course, he doesn’t type in English. I forgot that. Ugh! The fact that I’m using all this brainspace on this when I’m in the middle of my performance pisses me off.
I switch back to the planned playlist, and we get through the first set flawlessly. It all feels flat to me, but the audience doesn’t seem to notice. If anything, they are more boisterous than usual. There’s a festive, party-like atmosphere in the place, and yet I have an uneasy feeling, like I’m being watched. Not the pleasant Oleg’s watching feeling. Something more sinister. I scan the place and spot a guy with a scruffy beard and leather bomber jacket standing in the corner who doesn’t look like he belongs. He’s not smiling or talking to anyone. And he’s staring right at me in a creepy way. He’s the kind of guy I would never let in my apartment for a guitar lesson.
I find myself wishing Oleg was here to play my fake boyfriend again.
Real boyfriend, a little voice in my head murmurs, but I resist that notion. Because real boyfriends don’t last, and I want Oleg to stick around.
Rue waves me over from behind the bar as I walk off the stage to take a break. I met the mohawked owner through a mutual friend back when the Storytellers were just getting going. She invited us to play. Everyone had fun, so she invited us to play again. Pretty soon we were a monthly gig, then weekly. Rue’s transformed with us—our crowd became their crowd and vice versa.