“Oh.” The syllable is more a puff of air than a response.
Goose bumps rise along the surface of my skin, and suddenly, I’m too aware of how intimate this is. Ethan standing on the other side of a thin curtain while I shower. Ethan’s knuckles gliding against my wet skin as he passes me a dry towel.
“Not to mention…” He coughs. “When you have so many women beating down your van door, you have to be pretty selective.”
My laugh jumps out of my throat and breaks whatever odd tension had been building between us. “You’re delusional,” I scoff, but I’ve never been so grateful for the reminder that though Ethan ismyEthan, he’s also just a single guy I’d absolutely swipe left on if I ever bothered to redownload my dating apps.
“Do you think she recognized you?” I ask, wrapping myself in the towel.
Even from behind the curtain, I can detect Ethan’s flinch at the mention of the minor celebrity status he achieved from his former band’s only hit. “No. There’s this, uh, look people get in their eyes. ADid we go to high school together, or are you the guy that sang that one song that was in that one show that they parodied onSNL?kind of look. If I never have to hear someone request ‘Velvet Nebula’ again, it’ll be too soon.”
“Hey, don’t take it out on ‘Velvet Nebula.’ ” I scrunch my wet hair into the towel, careful not to elbow the shower curtain. “It’s a great song. I’ll never forget where I was when Sutton and River finally kissed during the alien invasion at the endof season two. Then the music swelled, and my buddy Ethan was singing about the cosmic beauty of some random chick—”
He interrupts me with a groan so loud, I have no choice but to stop my shot-for-shot recap ofAurora Falls, the teen sci-fi soap that featured Ethan’s song in a moment so beloved by girls that the world felt compelled to mock it ceaselessly in a way his band never recovered from.
It was the monkey’s paw of overnight indie rock band success. His band, Lemonface, had a number one hit…and anSNLparody skewering the now-infamous teen soap moment. The group bagged a People’s Choice nomination…and lost the award to Justin Bieber, who made fun of Ethan’s earnest lyrics in his speech. Lemonface was beloved and reviled all in one moment they could never escape.
After finishing their first tour as headliners, the band broke up. Ethan was able to extend his fifteen seconds a little longer than the others by dating a slew of gorgeous, slightly more famous women, but ultimately settled into the college performance circuit, playing “Velvet Nebula” over and over for the age group who still appreciated it, albeit ironically.
I swaddle myself in his towel. “I love that song,” I tell him, even as something deep inside me shrinks at the raw, romantic vulnerability of the lyrics and the idea of Ethan having someone significant enough to writethatsong about.
There’s a particular cruelty in being friends with a musician. The reminder that you’ll share decades of memories, secrets, and small, well-meaning lies, but all added up it’ll never reach the emotional magnitude of even a two-week whirlwind romance. Fifteen years of friendship will never scratch the surface of whatever he shared with the girl who inspired “One More Night in Fiji.”
Wrapped in the damp towel, I shake out my shiver and slip between the curtain and the glistening tile wall.
“Hey.” Ethan’s eyes widen with something like surprise, as though he’s realizing for the first time that I’ve been naked for most of this conversation. “Oh, you have a little…” He gestures at his own cheekbone.
“Is it puke?” I squawk, searching the spot above the sink where the mirror should be and finding nothing but fire-damaged cinder blocks. I inwardly grimace at the prospect of reentering a shower that smells of warm egg salad.
He smiles. “No, it’s dark, like eyeliner or something.”
This seems plausible. It’s highly likely I skipped the micellar water step in last night’s skin routine when I was clipping into a rowing machine half in its bag.
I swipe my fingers along my undereyes. He frowns at my cleaning efforts. “No, you’re missing it. Here.” He takes his thumb and gently dabs along the ridge of my cheekbone. His face is close enough that I can make out all the tiny muscles tightening around his eyebrows with concentration. I pick a freckle on his forehead and stare.
“I’m sorry I’m such a disaster today. I don’t normally, um, let loose like I did last night. Even after a shower, I probably still look like I got hit by a truck.”
“No, you’re always beautiful,” he says, his voice low and gentle to match the weight of his thumb on my cheek.
“Okay. Now I know you’re full of shit.” I swallow, feeling each second pass with our faces this close. “I’m sure Autumn would just love this,” I say, because the way he’s touching me is just so unintentionallya movethat not commenting on it almost feels like its own move, and I wouldn’t dare project anysort of romantic intentions onto Ethan. “You know she’s probably googling you right now.”
“It’s hard to google a name you don’t know.” He lets go of my face to rinse his hands. I keep my eyes on his forehead, hearing the rusty crack of the faucet handle, the splatter of water, and the high-pitched squeak of metal against metal as he shuts it off.
“Of course. She only knows you as ‘hot van guy.’ ”
“Oh yeah?” He winks. As a rule, I hate when men wink, but Ethan objectively carries it off.
“It’s funny,” I start, my voice not sounding as casual as I intend. “Rich always pretended he couldn’t remember your name. Or any critical details about you. He was always like, ‘Your friend Aaron who plays his keyboard at state fairs.’ ”
His fingers gently caress the sensitive skin under my eyes. “Dude, these days, IwishI could book the Minnesota State Fair. Could you imagine?”
I could. There was a time when his band headlining stadium tours felt inevitable.
“It was his weird power move, like there were things about me and my life he couldn’t make space in his head for.”
Ethan doesn’t respond. He just smirks.
“What?”
