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“Fuck,” I mutter, closing my laptop with a bang, I know I fucked it up this time.
Evan comes back after spending two weeks with one of his old army buddies. Although he and Frankie don’t speak, and stay clear of each other, things have sort of returned to normal at the house. After a lot of swearing they signed a truce, and promised to try and work it out.
Tonight Nina, Dallas, and I are planning on going down to Broadway to check out a new band.
“Y’all Boys” by Florida Georgia Line echoes through the bathroom while I’m applying my makeup. Locating my phone, I smile when Nina’s name pops up on the screen. I hit the speaker button.
“Hey, honey,” she drawls.
“Hey, Nin, what’s going on?” I ask, applying more mascara.
“Dallas is still at the office, so she asked me to reschedule our date,” she replies, sounding a little busy herself.
“Ah damn, I was looking forward to a girls’ night out. The boys are giving me a headache.”
“What’s going on?” she asks.
“You ready? So, Axl hired Bobby to be his new PA, and I’m praying that will work out.”
She snickers. Nina knows all about Axl’s track record on the road.
“Gunner is gone from sunrise till sundown, doing God knows what. Frankie and Evan are barely speaking, and Austin has probably been sulking and self-medicating these last two weeks on the road with the cousins and Axl.”
Staring at my reflection in the mirror, I think about Dallas. “Tristan sure is keeping Dallas busy,” I finish, laughing.
“From what she tells me, he is a pain in her ass,” Nina says. “I’m still at the strip club though. Some whale came in and asked specifically for me.” She sounds proud.
“Be careful, Nin. Before you know it you’ll be stuck with him for the night,” I say, grabbing my phone and taking a seat on the edge of the bathtub.
“I know,” she mumbles. “You know Austin came to Girls to say goodbye.” She hums in my ear.
“He did?” I ask, trying to feign surprise. I know Austin has a big crush on Nina after she patched him up when he got into that fight a couple weeks ago.
“He’s kinda cute with his piercings and tattoos. A little young for me though,” she says quietly, not sounding like her sure self.
“You’re only seven years older,” I counter.
“I know.” She pauses, taking a deep breath. “I gave him my number so we can keep in touch while he’s on the road,” she says.
We had promised to visit Austin and the guys in Bethel Woods for a tribute performance for Blind Faith in three months. Drifters will be playing there, along with a couple of other bands in honor of the guitar legends whose music inspired them.
“How’s it going with you and Navarone?” She teases.
“It’s going,” I tell her. And my heart rate kicks up as I think about Navarone, and the talk we never had.
“Hon, I need to go on stage. Text you later, okay?” she asks.
“Love you, Nin,” I tell her.
“Right back at ya, babe,” she says, ending the call.
When she says “babe” my mind immediately turns to Navarone. The last two weeks have gone by in one big blur. We didn’t talk about anything other than music when we were together. During our meetings with all the guys, we went over the songs, the lyrics, the chord changes, and nothing else. The album is almost finished, and every song is a possible hit. He hasn’t pressed the subject of us anymore, and I’m kind of disappointed. Fuck, my emotions are all over the place.
I grab the marble ridge for support. Navarone has changed; why didn’t I see that? The asshole in this equation has been me. He is trying. He isn’t the same drunken, out-of-control wild one. Then again, I have changed too. Anger doesn’t consume me. Sure, I am still sad sometimes, but something has shifted. The ways in which we talk and work together feel good. Like we are finding parts of each other we thought we had lost a long time ago. Everything is still there. It has been buried under a huge pile of anger, hurt, and miscommunication. We still argue, but it is different than before. We are slowly figuring out who we are.
Shaking my head, I stand in front of the mirror, taking in the woman staring back at me. Is it possible to get past all the drinking, the empty bottles that had been stashed everywhere in the house, in the tour bus, and in the cheap motel rooms? Him throwing up for the better part of the night, the yelling, finding him passed out in the bathtub? The drunken fights he got in with guys in random dive bars across the country? Finding the room trashed, empty whiskey bottles everywhere? His blackouts, our fights? I don’t know how many times I had to bail him out of jail. More than I care to admit.
He promised me he would change. After we lost the baby, I’d stayed in Los Angeles for months waiting for him. Hoping he would make good on his promise, and he never did.
