Aidan sets his beer on the table and says, “Would you be interested in playing at my bar tomorrow night? Busiest night of the week. The stuff you two play will fit right in with the customers.”
The only time I’ve ever really felt this nervous playing in any bar or club was the first time I performed with Andrew at Old Point in New Orleans. I think it just makes me really nervous to sing in front of his family. In front of people I don’t know and will likely never see again. It’s not so nerve-wracking, but this, I have to say, is causing my stomach to twist into knots.
“I don’t know…”
Andrew squeezes me gently from behind. “Oh come on,” he says, trying to encourage me without being too pushy.
Be pushy, Andrew! Stop being so cautious! Be like you used to be when you told me to get on the roof of your car in the rain, or when you forced me to help change that stupid tire!
“Come on,” Aidan says with the quick backward tilt of his head. “Andrew says you’re quite the singer.”
I blush and wince at the same time. “Well, Andrew is also biased, so you can’t really take his word for it.”
“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Michelle adds and takes her own seat on Aidan’s lap. He playfully smacks her thighs with both hands, and it reminds me of how Andrew tends to do that same thing to me a lot. Aidan doesn’t look as much like Andrew as Asher does, but as far as everything else they share, you can definitely tell they’re brothers.
I think on it a moment and turn at an angle to see Andrew behind me, draping my arms around his neck and interlocking my fingers. He’s grinning from ear to ear. How can I say no to that?
“All right,” I agree. “I’ll do it. But I get to pick the music.”
Aidan nods his acceptance.
“Whatever you want,” Andrew says.
“How long would we play?” I ask.
“However long you choose,” Aidan says. “As little as one song if you want. It’s up to you.”
Andrew and I go to bed late after playing a few competitive games of Spades with Aidan and Michelle. And even though we’re in the spare room right across the hall from theirs, it’s not as awkward being here as it is at my mom’s. Only there isn’t any noise coming from their room like I know there was from ours during the past half hour. I tried to keep my moans and whimpers at a low volume, but, well, that’s not an easy thing to do when Andrew’s having his way with me.
I think I’ve been laying here for three hours since Andrew fell asleep. I hear the noise from the street outside and Andrew breathing softly next to me. Every now and then the light from a car will move across one section of the wall and blink out seconds later.
I can’t sleep. I’ve had a hard time falling and staying asleep since… well, for a couple of weeks. I try not to toss and turn too much so I don’t wake Andrew up. He looks so peaceful lying there.
Finally, I crawl quietly out of the bed and rummage inside my purse for one of those pills. They’ve been helping me sleep. And I like the way they make me feel. Because they make me feel something other than pain. But I’m being careful. I don’t have an addictive personality, and I’ve never taken any kind of drugs ever in my life. Though I did try pot a few times my senior year, but everyone did.
Though I admit I think a lot about what I’m going to do when I run out of these…
I shuffle one into my hand and look at it for a moment. Maybe I should take two tonight so I can get some deep sleep. I want to be refreshed and ready to perform tomorrow night at Aidan’s bar. Yeah, that’s a good enough reason to take one extra.
I swallow the pills down with the bottled water I left next to the bed, and I lie down next to Andrew, just gazing up at the ceiling and waiting for the effect to kick in. Andrew, feeling my movement, rolls over instinctively and lays his arm over my waist. I curl up next to him, carefully tracing the outline of Eurydice down his side. I do this until finally my head feels as light as air, and my eyes are filled with hundreds of tiny butterflies tickling the back of my eyelids and around my temples.
And I…
Andrew
Camryn slept way past lunch. When I finally got her to wake up, she did so with a migraine and a bitchy attitude. Cute, but bitchy. She barely had two beers last night but you’d think she drank a fifth of rotgut the way she’s lying in the bed with her face buried underneath the pillow.
“I brought you some Advil,” I say sitting down next to her. “Maybe you have a brain tumor.”
She knees me in the thigh. “Not funny, Andrew,” she says with a little moan in her voice.
I thought it was funny.
“Well, take these,” I say, removing the pillow from her head. She protests for a second before giving in.
She raises enough from the bed to wash them down with water and then collapses back onto the mattress, squeezing her eyes closed and rubbing her temples with her fingertips. I give her the pillow back, and she hides underneath it.
“Y’know, people usually get accustomed to drinking the more they do it, not the other way around.”
“I only had two beers,” she says, her voice muffled by the pillow. “It’s just a headache, probably has nothing to do with the beer at all.”
I lean over and kiss her on the stomach, briefly recalling the last time I actually did that, when she was pregnant. It makes me sad for a second, but like I’ve been doing since it happened, I force that shit down and suck it up.
“I can stay here with you if you want,” I say.