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I shrugged and picked at the skin on my fingers to avoid his eyes. I could feel that heat of his impending rage radiating in the air, hovering around the both of us.
“When have I ever broken your confidence? Think about that before answering,” he answered, voice low and hard. My watched beeped and I took a breath. I forgot how quickly he loses his shit over this kind of stuff.
“Minnie, don’t hulk out on me,” I said, holding my hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean it. You’re right, you’re a good secret keeper. Forgive me?”
He was quiet for a moment as he continued putting things in his pockets. Please forgive me, I thought with an edge of desperation I couldn’t explain. Though we stopped being friends, though he seemed determined to change me, I could always count on him to forgive me no matter what. There is nothing unfixable, he said. There is always opportunity for grace and forgiveness.
After a long moment of hesitation, he sighed. Finally, he said, “Forgiven.” He added roughly, “Always.”
When Andrew finally finished getting ready, and I looked decent enough to leave the room, we packed up our stuff and headed toward the bus. Yasmine was giving someone orders when we got to her. She looked at Andrew then at me. “Sleep well?”
My face burned but Andrew replied smoothly, “Yep. Slept like the dead.”
Her mouth tightened a little bit but she kept her face neutral otherwise. “Good.” She turned back to the clipboard she held in her hand and made a note. “Head onto the bus. We have some things to talk about.”
Andrew and I looked at each other in surprise. Yasmine’s voice caught at the end of her sentence, and she looked like she was about to cry. We bumbled onto the bus, me behind Andrew, and waited to hear what was going on.
Yasmine joined us all on the bus about five minutes later. The others were strangely quiet. Usually, the band roasted each other while we waited, loudly bantering back and forth. Today, the air held a subtle vibration to it, like a rubber band pulled taut after being plucked. I started to pick the skin around my nails while keeping my hands under the table. Soon, I felt strong, long fingers grasp my own. He smiled at me with understanding in his eyes.
“So, as some of you may have heard, mi abuela se murió,” Yasmine said without preamble. I looked to Jean Lee curiously. Grandma died, she mouthed. My eyes widened as I dragged my eyes back to Yasmine.
Yasmine flicked a few tears from her face, sniffled, and continued, “My grandmother raised me when my parents weren’t fit to do the job,” she said to me and Andrew. “Familia was never at the top of my mother’s list of concerns, and my dad wasn’t too much better than her. My grandmother raised all four of their children, on one income, in the hood. She was my rock, and I can’t imagine my life without her.” She stopped again, lips quivering, her face scrunched in a painful grimace. She took a deep breath and continued.
“We will have to postpone our next couple of gigs as I do funeral arrangements and then bury her,” she said. “I’m the oldest of my siblings so it is mi responsibilidad. My duty. So I will do that, and then we will continue on. Does anyone have any questions or concerns?”
“Let’s split up the responsibilities,” Philip said, coming up to stand beside Yasmine. He put a hand on her shoulder as she blew her nose into a tissue.
“I’ll call the venues and let them know what’s going on,” Kevin volunteered.
“I’ll reach out to our friends and let them know when the funeral is,” Danny intoned.
“I’ve got the social media accounts,” Andrew said.
“I’ll talk to the funeral home about the arrangements,” Jean Lee put in.
“And I’ll be there for you, whatever you need,” Philip murmured to her. As she nodded, he squeezed her shoulder and pressed a kiss to her temple. My eyebrows shot up and I looked at Andrew again. He watched them, unsurprised and unfazed. Did he already know that they were together?
Philip turned to all of us again. “Alright,” he said, “it’s gonna take some time to get home. Let’s get going.”
The drive back to our hometown was long and arduous. The cloud of tension hovered around all of us, and Yasmine was almost mute the whole way. Andrew was also characteristically silent and didn’t mention our night in the hotel room at all. Despite this, we coexisted in a friendly quiet, as if my uncontrollable sobbing resolved something, somehow.
The friendly, comfortable vibe shattered in one moment toward the end of the journey home. Andrew was sitting on a bottom bunk, sifting through a small notebook when I came into the sleeping area. I looked on curiously until he flapped the notebook shut. “Need something, nosey?” he asked.
I grinned slyly. “Whatcha got there, Minnie?”
“A notebook full of none of your business.”
“Why so secretive?” I sidled closer. “Is it erotica? Your diary? A love letter?”
He shifted slightly to move the notebook on the other side of his body, away from me. “None of the above. Why are you so interested? I’ve had this notebook since we started on tour.”
I looked past him, judging the distance between me and the notebook. “You seemed deep in thought. Figured it was a good time to ask you about it.”
“Well, it’s not. Problem solved.”
As he looked away and toward the notebook, I lifted it deftly from his grasp. I grinned. “Thanks, nerd. Since you won’t answer my question, I can just see for myself.”
“Not if I have anything to do with it.” He reached for it, but I kept it just outside of his grasp. He got up and backed me into a corner. “Nowhere to go now, Jones. Hand it over.”
