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“Thank you.” I lowered myself into the car.
I remembered Drake’s car had always been spotless apart from chewing gum wrappers. He’d had a bit of a habit, and sometimes, it felt like I’d waded through them, especially on days when he’d been working on a song. He could have gone through ten packs on a day like that. He literally bought them in bulk from a wholesaler. I’d thought at the time how important gum must have been if he spent time upon moving to a new city to find a source for chewing gum.
But he’d cleaned his car for tonight. There wasn’t a speck of déjà vu coming my way. Maybe he wasn’t as comfortable with me anymore.
Or maybe he wasn’t writing songs anymore. A pang hit my heart thinking that maybe Jay had vacuumed all the inspiration from his soul. A lawsuit could do that.
He got into the driver’s side, and I realized that all this time, I’d been thinking of myself and my own desire to have him in my life again. I hadn’t stopped very long to consider how hard this all might be hitting him. The gum wrappers missing meant a shift in Drake. We developed or broke habits in extreme times.
When he turned to reverse, his arm around my seat to site out the back windshield, his face was a little ashen. To top it off, there were subtle dark shadows under his eyes. He was still drop-dead gorgeous, but drop-dead tired, too. He’d always seemed invincible to me. A deep ache cramped my core thinking of him lying awake at night.
When people were down in the dumps, it could be hard to know if you should distract them or crack them open so they could let the contents seep out. After such a long time not talking to each other, it seemed more right to choose the former route.
“I’ve never been to the Santa Monica Pier before, you know.”
He watched the road. “Seems like it would have been a hangout spot for Malibu kids?”
“It was. I just wasn’t like that.”
He glanced in my direction. He might be tired, but his energetic smile wasn’t. “Well, I hope you’re like that tonight. Otherwise, the next few hours might be a flop.”
I giggled. “I’m more open-minded now. Funny how we all decide what’s cool when we’re thirteen then one day realize everything can be cool, it’s what we make it.”
“Ha. Some people never do come around to that.”
“True.”
It all felt so natural, so quickly. I almost hated how good it felt to be sitting in a car next to him again. I couldn’t believe I’d almost risked losing this forever.
I also knew Drake hated small talk. So maybe this conversation didn’t feel as good for him as it did me. I tried more meaningful distractions. “How’s your mom? You said you’ve been in Seattle?”
“Yeah, actually, I’ve been there quite a bit since the end of touring. I’d planned on just living there again for a while, till everything blows over. If everything blows over.”
If. Had he said it like he didn’t believe it would? Had he said it simply to be humble?
“It will. It’ll more than blow over, Drake. Hunter isn’t good, but he won’t be the one at RI with the final say.”
“He really is shit, isn’t he?” Drake smiled incredulously.
“Yeah, I’m not the only one who got in on a favor at RI.”
Drake watched the road but shook his head. “But you’re good. And deserve it. And even if you didn’t because you hadn’t had the smarts or skills, you’d use industry and hard work to someday to deserve it. That guy doesn’t even try. He’s lazy as hell.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten serious yet. Maybe we should just have fun tonight. But almost before I thought about it, my mouth asked, “Is he the reason for the dark circles under your eyes?”
I tried not to sound worried, but I was. Even at Uyu when we hadn’t slept more than a few hours a night for days on end, I’d never noticed Drake look drained.
Drake blew a puff of air out of his nose. He furrowed his brow and waited a beat.
“In two hundred feet, turn right.” The satnav announced.
It would have been easy for Drake to ignore me as he searched for parking. But he didn’t. “I’m actually sleeping. I don’t know why I look like shit.”
“Au contraire, you don’t look like shit. It’s impossible for you to look like shit. I didn’t say that.”
Drake parked the car. He took a quick glance at himself in the rearview mirror. “Maybe I’m just getting old. I’ll be thirty later this year.”
“Thirty isn’t old.”
