In the Absence of You (10 page)

Fuck. I don’t even know what I’m doing.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t know where that came from. I’m… I am so sad about your baby. I’m an asshole. I—”

“Stop. Just stop. Honey”—dark eyes lift to me—“don’t ever compare a measly breakup to losing a baby again.”

I bow my head. Shake it. Because I still own the decency to feel shame. “I’m sorry,” I plead again.

“It’s okay.” Despite what I blurted out, Nadia reaches for me and pats my shoulder. I puff out my relief.

Aishe’s heels tap her away from us. It’s what I need, for my consolation prize to leave, the intruder into the crazies of lost loves. Nadia is the only one who can understand.

“No one ever tells me about Zoe, you know? How she is. Bo doesn’t. You don’t. I mean, it’s like there’s a pact of not revealing her life to me.
Why?
The only way I find out is if some fucking asshole tags a photo of her on Facebook. Shit, Nadia. I’m going crazy.”

She opens her arms and pulls me in. Small like my Zoe, she rocks me against her, shushing me quietly.

I wish every day wasn’t the same, just equally hard to get through.

“We kissed all the way to the gas station. We were only going to pick up green tea ice cream. It was Bo who needed it, because he’d promised you that we had it at home.”

“I know,” she whispers, hand stroking my head.

“But we forgot the time. With Zoe, time doesn’t matter that much, see? We just did shit together. She tricked me into climbing a palm tree to get her what looked like a coconut. It wasn’t. The damn thing was a wasp’s nest, which I didn’t realize until I’d thrown it down to her. Thank God the bastards were sleepy. She got away without a single sting.”

“She told me,” Nadia says, a smile in her voice.

I flop on the couch next to her. “I remembered which gas station sold the green tea ice cream, but my Zoe, she knew of this one place that had the craziest she-male magazines.”

“She… what?”

I feel my stomach rise in a small laugh. I like the sensation. Especially since I didn’t even crack up onstage tonight. “Dudes turned into chicks. So there’s, like, total boobs and pretty underwear, but fricking dicks too. Zoe wanted to show me, and since the place was a gas station as well, we figured it’d be the same. She-male porn and green tea ice cream, total hole-in-one.” My tongue is heavy in my mouth.

“You’re hard to understand now, sweetie. I can hardly decipher you.”

“Just az well?” I suggest, which makes her chuckle again. Two points for me. Bo will be happy.

“So turns out the Indian owner didn’t appreciate us ogling porn mags without buying anything. They didn’t have green tea ice cream, why we had to buy vodka instead. My Zee, she’s a trickster. Said Amsterdam Vodka’s the best and doesn’t even hit you that hard. If only we hadn’t mixed it with… something? Pomegranate juice.”

“Emil,
juice
isn’t why you were drunk off your asses when you returned.”

“Wuz the vodka, huh?” I ask and look up to find her bobbing her head. She’s sweet. Bo’s lucky she likes him. I wish my Zoe liked me.

AISHE

“Y
ou’re so nice,”
I say. “I didn’t expect you to wait around.”

Troy shrugs from his seat at the hairdresser’s. “I needed product
anyway,” he says, puckering his pretty lips and using the hairdresser word for shampoo and conditioner and the like. He’s told me of his two sisters who are hairdressers, why his dreadlocks always look amazing. Their salons must also be where he picked up the term.

“Do they have what you need here?” I ask.

He shakes his head, entertained. “Nope. No dread wax and non-residue shampoo here.”

“We can order some in,” my hairdresser says, all big blue eyes and platinum bob pointing up in an ultramodern sculpture-style coiffure I’d never even dream up.

“No, that’s okay. We’re leaving tomorrow morning anyway,” Troy says. “We’ll be in L.A. at the end of the month, which is where my sister lives. I’ll pick some up from her.”

“I can color it for you though. Wouldn’t it just be so cool if you had the same deep red color in a few dreads as your girlfriend’s stripes?”

Troy rocks back in his chair, a quiet laughter making a sexy hum escape him. I can see why the fans are glued to him when they discover him beyond my blond burst of delicious onstage. Behind the others, there’s always Troy, banging away on those drums, chest, stomach, and arms flexing and shining with effort.

“Nah, I’m good, sugar. I’ll be heading over to Trader Joe’s for some wine. You need anything?” he asks, looking at me. I smile at my tour friend, the only one who isn’t either in his own world or wanting to tell me what to do with my life.

“Salty licorice?” I suggest.

His eyes narrow. “Oh man, that’s so nasty. The guys bring that shit from Sweden whenever they’re home. I should never have taken them up on the offer to try a piece.” He shudders dramatically, which just makes him adorable. Big, tall, dreadlocked man shuddering. So funny.

“You’re silly,” I say.

He rolls his eyes lazily. “I’ll look for it, all right? Here’s to
hoping
they have it.” Troy makes quote marks in the air around “hoping,” and I can’t help smiling.

Trader Joe’s didn’t have salty licorice, but strolling back to the bus, I’ve got long, shiny, straightened hair with deep red sections mixed in. I wanted them bright and eye catching. I’m fully aware that I’m primping for Emil.

Since we’ve been back on the bus, Emil has avoided me. Not that we don’t talk, but he doesn’t joke with me, address me without purpose, or sit close if he has a choice.

He doesn’t sneak into my bed anymore, and I haven’t mustered the courage to use Troy’s bunk as a stepping-stone in hopes that he welcomes me when I appear unbidden.

With each passing day, I need Emil more. Some might think it sad, but for me, it’s a fact I push out of my head when the realization grows too stark. Even so, a big portion of my hours is spent pondering how I can melt him. He needs me. If only he would realize how good I could be for him.

I walk next to Troy. I’m wearing a pair of small, female-type combat boots, and I found a great skirt at a store called Kacee’s. It’s long and flowing with layers to it, as familiar to my body as the sensation of the plague. In a deep red, silky consistency, it’s wide and setting in around my ankles in soft, swooshing sounds with each step. The color is similar to my new hair.

I see myself in passing shop windows. I do look striking and exotic, the opposite of Emil and sort of complementing Troy. Opposites attract. It’s what I’m banking on, to cost Emil a gasp or two when I get back on the bus.

We stride along, two steps of mine for each of Troy’s. We chat about our families, something I usually avoid but that’s easy with him. Troy comes from a big family. Seven sisters and two brothers, with him being the eldest and the only musician. I’m not joking when I tell him that’s hard to believe; how could his kind of talent run in just one child?

I bought a bunch of bangles too, went all out shopping today while Troy stranded himself at the Guitar Hub. In gold and silver and a shiny purple, they jingle up my arm, and I suddenly recall getting my first batch at five. I was so proud. I looked like my grandma when she was young in that stern, pretty picture we had glued to the dashboard of our car.

I stop abruptly, staring into a
b
ijouterie
exhibit.

“What?” Troy says, backtracking for me. He stares too, trying to locate what might have caught my attention. “Oh, the feather earrings?” he asks, of everything in there.

“How did you know?” I ask, impressed as I wave him with me inside.

They’re heavy, golden hoops with small feathers in the same deep color as my hair. They’re tacky and beautiful and back to my roots and yet not. My heart hammers for them. There’s a matching necklace too? Oh shopping lust rushes through me, making my smile wide.

“Uh-oh,” Troy says at the look on my face. He crosses thick arms and stands back, leaving me to my lust. By the time we walk out, I’ve spent less than thirty dollars on those awesome earrings, the necklace, and a few feathered hair ties from the same collection. The cashier helped me attach them randomly across my hair, and here I am, admiring myself in the bus window and really freaking liking what I see.

“Watch out, World,” Troy purrs behind me.

EMIL

I’ve killed time
at Walmart. I’ve rummaged through the local game store. I’ve spent time with Elias picking through a fucking second-hand record store, and I don’t even own a record player.

All I’ve managed is to confirm that I can’t wind down. That everything sucks if I’m not onstage or belting out songs in some bathroom or in the back lounge of the bus.

Our booking agent just screwed us over. There’s a hole in the schedule with a canceled radio appearance and shows too far apart on each side. It’s left Troll bitching, which is fine with me. What isn’t fine is a day and a half doing nothing while the driver sleeps in a hotel and we’re stranded on the bus.

Yeah, so I’ve got time on my hands to feel like shit about Zoe. All these months, and I’m still drowning in our breakup. I need to not go online and check out her Facebook page, but if I feel like it, like now, I’m not going to fucking stop myself.

She still has pictures on there from when we were together. One’s of the two of us, where I’m pulling her boot off, and she’s yelling at me, half-laughing, finger-pointing and telling me what not to do.

Zoe always told me what not to do. Sometimes I listened. That picture is the one with the most comments. Three hundred and ninety-eight. It’s mostly
OMG
s
and
You know the singer of Clown Irruption???
and then my mother’s tactless one, added way after we broke up, saying, “Hug Emil for me.”

My sexy girl. That small, pointy nose of hers and the blonde hair that’s not much longer than mine. She liked her tiny ponytails. I did too, because it was a blast to pull them out. She’d bitch about that too.

Thinking about these things makes me smile.

Elias is at the register, paying. While I wait for him, I dial Zoe’s number. My calls go straight to voicemail, which means she’s blocked me, but if I star-sixty-seven her, I’m good. She’s stopped picking up anonymous calls too though.

Zoe’s voicemail is the same as when we were together. She sings her greeting out in some parrot imitation, ending her instructions with an “I love youuuuuu!” She sounds hopped up on helium, and I can’t for the life of me remember why her voicemail used to annoy me.

My anything-but-sweet girl, so different from everyone else. Nothing I did impressed her. Everything I did turned her on.

No. I remember one thing that impressed her. She liked it when I switched up my singing voice. Zoe has the craziest taste in music. Obviously, she’s a fan of Clown Irruption—she discovered us even before we were popular—but mostly her playlists are eclectic and old-fashioned.

“You don’t even care what people are like,” I told her. “They could be bald old men as long as they sang like lounge lizards. You’d blow their dicks if they did a smoochy ballad for you.”

“Bullshit! Ah, omigod, Emil.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Gimme someone hot singing like that, and you’d get a run for your money.”

“Why would I give you that? I’ll just do it myself,” I joked, humming low for her and instigating one of her love attacks.

My girl was funny. So fucking cool and funny. There’s a knife twisting in my stomach at not being with her anymore.

I call her again. I don’t know if she retrieves my voicemails. Either way, I’m leaving her one for the books. Lowering my voice, I level down to sexy and breathy like Jeffrey Osborne and sing “On the Wings of Love” until the
beep
cuts me off.

“What’re you doing?” Elias asks, purposely freaking me out from behind.

“Nothing you need to worry your hyper-white wig with,” I say and earn a punch in the back.

“You weird-ass prick. Ready for the bus?”

“Never,” I say and get up.

EMIL

I
’m in a foul mood.
We’re traveling tonight, finally, but Bo and Nadia are whispering in their back lounge suite. For once he’s not consoling her.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Nadia says, keeping it quiet because I’m right outside. I hate to be kept in the dark. There are things I don’t want to be bothered with, sure, but the choice should be mine.

“You know how she is, darling. It’s not like you can stop her. She’ll be here whether you want it or not, and honestly, it’ll be good. She’ll be of comfort to you.”

Nadia hushes him. “What about… it’s going to be horrible for…”

Bo gets up and shuts the door, literally in my face. What the fuck? Now I have to turn the light on in the bunk area. I was relying on daylight from the lounge to see what I’m throwing into my dirty laundry bag. While eavesdropping.

“Zoe,” I hear from in there. “Dot, dot, something-something, dot.”

Goddammit!
I slam the door back open and glare at the two of them. “Zee’s flying out?”

There’s that silence again. Bo veils himself in studious unresponsiveness, but Nadia’s got deer-in-headlights eyes. She opens and closes her mouth. Then she opts for grabbing her frilly little home-crocheted blanket and pulling it tighter around her.

“Bo. Nadia. If Zoe’s coming out—” I can’t finish what I’m thinking. I want it so damn bad. “Is she? Because I want her to.”

“No, she isn’t,” Nadia murmurs, dark eyes concerned beneath her lashes.

Bo sends her an apologetic glance before returning to me. “Yeah. She is. I’m buying her a ticket.”

Nadia draws in a deep breath, irises floating in moisture. “Babe, it’s better that I head back home. I could hang out with Zoe during her off-weekend. It’d be the same price since you’re paying either way. Plus I’d water our plants.”

And then I’m witness to them staring deeply into each other’s eyes, both wanting and needing the best for the other. It’s so fucking—

Okay, I am glad for them. I love them both like siblings, but sometimes it’s hard to take in when someone flaunts so readily what you lack in your own life.

“I want her to come out,” I repeat. There’s some tiny animal in my throat talking for me. I sound… not like myself.

“Shit,” Nadia says, which isn’t her at all. “See what you’re doing, Bo?” Her expression tightens as she meets my stare, braver than she was a moment ago.

“Emil, if she ends up coming out this weekend, it’s because she wants to keep me company.”

She shakes her head, more concerned for me than I can muster. All I see is opportunity. I can talk to Zoe, tell her—explain what happened, why and how what happened will never happen again.

Zoe can trust me with the rest of her life.

I’ll get a ring.

It’s premature, crazy, a beautiful thought. I won’t do it. I’m too smart for that, but ah, to tie her to me forever sounds so perfect. I let my fantasy go before it rises higher than homemade bread.

The front door of the bus slides open to Aishe and Troy chattering quietly between themselves. Faintly, I remember them talking about a shopping spree this morning. Me, after my outing with Elias, I went by our shower room at the hotel and got myself washed up. Besides agonizing over Zoe, it’s all I’ve done over the last few hours.

I turn to the door—and suck in a breath at the sight of Aishe. I’ve never told her about my early memories of Gypsies passing through Skala once a year. She doesn’t know I have a crush on long, flowing skirts in bright colors. They really do look like they were created with the sole intention of being lifted to the level of a woman’s hips.

She’s wearing one of those now. Her hair is a freaking
mane
, long and shiny with tons of red stuff streaked through it and with squaw-style feathers and large hoops, and it’s a hell of a lot to take in now that I’m raw from the possibility of Zoe coming.

“Geez. Got your hair done?” I ask, pitch deeper than it usually is.

“Mm-hmm. You like it?” she quips, irises glinting with Gypsy fire. They were confident back in Skala too; those women held their chins higher and their bodies straighter. It’s like Aishe is tapping into that stuff, tall despite her short stature and with a queen’s arrogance painted in her eyes.

“I do. That looks damn good on you. New everything, huh?” I ask as Bo quietly shuts the door between us. Asshole.

“Not the boots,” she sort of purrs out, which is too sexy for words. She lifts the smooth fabric of her skirt enough to show black combat boots I’ve seen before.

It’s a strange thing to focus on a single woman for hours on end, unable to snap free of your spiraling thoughts. And then someone simply walks in, piercing your sphere, and suddenly your instincts take over.

“Don’t move,” I say. Troy closes his eyes for a second before he turns for the kitchen nook. Rummages for food in the cabinet and switches on the TV. Not that I’d stop any stage of flirting for a band bud, but it’s nice when his captain’s chair swings, showing just a few dreads over the backrest.

I lower my voice so she’s the only one hearing me. “Lift higher? I couldn’t see the top of your boots.”

Her posture relaxes, eyes soft and playful as her hands wriggle the skirt higher up. I see a smooth, smooth calf starting right above the boot. “Like this?”

“Hmm, better.” I reach for the door to the main lounge and clench a fist around it, staring. “What if you scrunched it a tad higher?”

“What, you want a strip show or something?” she asks, reminding me of feisty, bitchy girls I love until death. “Not gonna happen in plain daylight with all of your…” She flicks a gaze in Troy’s direction and lets her whisper all but dissipate. “…
friends
around.”

“Ooh,” I say, smirking and moving in closer. “Well, you look so nice I’d do anything to see more of those legs. You want me to toss everyone out?”

That makes her smile big. She flips super-shiny lengths of hair over her shoulders, and I realize they’re so long they reach her ass. Holy shit, that’s hot, especially with an ass like hers.

“No, you’ve got me wrong, sir. I’m not one of your groupies.”

Oh hell yeah, this is turning interesting. I’m right in front of her now. Seems she’s moved into my space as much as I have into hers. We meet at the threshold between the bunk area and the main room.

“I think you’re dirty,” I say. It’s not the flirty hot thing to say, and I’m confusing her. Aishe’s brows sink deep as she tries to figure out my game. I’m making it easy. “We still have that shower room at the hotel, if you need me to scrub your back?”

Her expression clears. I love it when those lips curve in a sweet smile the way they do now. Aishe is awesome. She can make a dude forget. With the feistiness she’s shown, could I get over Zoe?

I guide her off the bus.

We have another few hours before we leave. It’d be time well spent to lift that Gypsy skirt the way I dreamed of in my teenaged years. It’s finally happening.

Why don’t girls
sleep after sex? We only have an hour left. She should shut her eyes instead of lying sideways on her arm, big eyes peering at me with eyeliner smeared like she’s been thoroughly fucked. Which she has.

“What happened with Zoe?”

She asks me this?

Zoe. We started out so beautifully. She came trotting into our dressing room, not even caring that the others were there to see her turn her seduction on full blaze. The girl radiated smug sexiness and self-confidence, and I clamped on, hook, line, and sinker. She never even looked at the other guys. It was me she wanted, and boy did she get me.

Turns out it’s hilarious when someone that little likes to boss you around, tell you what to do, and you have to explain yourself like she’s your mother. Who the hell knew?

Zoe started as a fan. What are the odds that a fan turns into the love of your life, you say? As big as for any girl: damn slim.

Oh Zoe. Everyone’s so cagey with me. I’m the singer they tread carefully around. They fulfill wishes. Want to keep me happy. But you’re who made me happy.

My not-at-all lax girl. Her crazy humor. Those little outfits I loved to disturb. I’m not a public sex guy, but if I could wind my girl up and make her cuss me out only to surrender moments later? I wouldn’t be me if I let an opportunity slip away.

Behind the restroom corner at the boardwalk; just off the path in the park, half-hidden by some scrawny bushes; in a lingerie dressing room. Unfortunately, she banned me from panty shopping after that. She claimed I sullied her new stuff before she even paid for it. I told her she did a damn good job herself of that, what with removing her own underwear while trying on lingerie. Her reply was a hard twist of my nipple.

But that jealousy. It’s a part of her bossiness though, and I enjoyed it. In my profession, dolled-up chicks trying to get your attention comes with the territory, and you need to work with them. They’re your fans, and they want a piece of you. You gotta give—an inch, at least.

Zoe used to glare daggers into the girls while I signed their stomachs or a tit they all but squeezed over their tops. Afterward, in our hotel room, she’d shift those daggers to me and tighten her mouth into a line. I’d bite my lip to keep from smiling, because really, what did she have to worry about? There was no one like Zoe.

“So was it awesome to sign those big jugs today? I betcha they were full of milk. I’m telling you—that slut had a baby waiting at home, and there she was wanting
you
to freaking grope her. And plus, why the hell did you offer to sign both of them when she only offered up one?”

I burst out laughing, which caused Zoe to shove against me, madder. She pushed me toward the bed though, so I moved willingly. “Babe, it’s not what you think. I just do my best to make them remember us and always buy CDs and tickets to our shows.”

“Right, so you have to whore yourself out?”

“My Sharpie.”

“What?” She was a cloud of
angry
. God, her response was funny. Why would she react this way? It was just me, Emil, and I loved her so hard.

“I whore out my Sharpie, not my penis.”

“Ha!” She said, grabbing a hold of my hips. I had no complaints though I couldn’t tell if she wanted to shake me or hug me. Fucking adorable. “Betcha if you could write with your penis, you’d have totally whipped it out tonight. ‘Oh look at me! I’m Emil the almighty singer of Clown Irruption, and Imma gonna write on your breast with my penis!’”

Just. Impossible not to fold over laughing. She was so upset saying all this, such a typical Zoe situation: she’d be too mad to think and blurted out utter bullshit until I couldn’t stop cracking up.

She thrust her hands into me again, letting out a frustrated little grunt.

“I should’ve thought of that,” I said, writing my own obituary. “I could’ve peed my name on her.”

When her stare met mine, her eyes arched huge over my idiotic suggestion. Then her lips started trembling. Oh damn, that moment when she struggled to hold on to her ire was precious. She wanted to prolong the fight so bad.

“Are you okay? Your mouth’s twitching,” I said.

She crossed her arms and turned away. Of course I wouldn’t let her off the hook. I poked a finger under her chin and swung her toward me. “Zee-Zee?”

Zoe, she’d keep it together as long as she didn’t meet my gaze. Back then she aimed at the ceiling, desperately suppressing her amusement.

“Babe? Look at me. You know you want to.” In my quietest rendition of Seal, I hummed out, “You know you want to. You know you want to.”

I cocked my head playfully, waiting, and sure enough… as soon as she surrendered and stared back at me, she launched into a giggle fit.

Oh my girl, my girl.

I threw her on the bed and prowled up over her, grabbing her arms and sucking on her throat. “You drive me crazy. You’re such a weirdo, Sweets—love. I love you so much.”

She whimpered. Lifted her head from the pillow to meet my mouth, sucking and loving me back. “You’re an asshole is why. I love you so much—it’s hard to be with you. You make it tough.
They
make it tough.”

“I know, babe, but you’re who I want. I don’t care about anyone else. They’re just bleak nothings compared to wild you. Love you, love you. What have you done to me?”