“I’d go with you, but I need to get back to Seattle.”
I take a sip of my tea. “I know.” I smile. “But it’s nice having you here now, though.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever told you this before,” Neil says quietly. “You’re not just my girlfriend. You’re my best friend.”
There is a sweet kind of smile on his face now, shy and affectionate, and it makes my heart twist.
“You’re my best friend, too,” I say.
He shakes his head and looks up at me. “I wouldn’t be where I am without you.”
I give him a nudge with my leg and I make a face. “Neil, don’t get all sappy on me tonight. I like it better when you’re a conceited jerk.”
He laughs, shaking his head. “I’m not a jerk. I just like to mess with you. And don’t tell Rene I’m your best friend. She’ll start hating me again.”
We’re both laughing when Rene bounces back into the room, drops a beer onto Neil’s lap and then retrieves the controller.
Rene settles on the couch. “Ready for a rematch, jerk?”
Neil sets my feet back on the cushion. “Wasn’t sure you were coming back for a rematch. It took you so long to grab a beer, I thought maybe you had a guy in the kitchen.”
Rene makes a fuck you face and Neil winks at me. I feel a smile that doesn’t rise to my lips. It’s nice they’re friends.
They start to play and I watch and sip my tea. I’m pulled from my troubling thoughts by the sound of my mobile phone ringing in the bedroom and I set down my cup.
Rene rolls her eyes. “Her majesty’s private line.”
I climb over and pause as I pass Rene. “I wouldn’t have a private line if you weren’t on the phone all night every night.”
I go into the bedroom, shut the door, grab my mobile phone from the drawer and flip it open. “Hello?”
“Chrissie.”
I lie down on the bed.
“You sound like you were sleeping,” Alan says. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
“You didn’t wake me. Just feeling lazy today. It’s only four in the afternoon here, Alan. Where are you?”
“I’m not sure where I’m…” Alan says, laughing and I curl around the phone. “… It’s nighttime though. I’m thinking of you. So I called.”
I can hear lots of noise and voices in the background. It sounds like a party, and his voice is raspier, more gravelly like it is when he’s just been on stage.
“So what are you doing?” I ask, rolling over to lie on my side.
“Sitting on a rooftop terrace. Drinking. Thinking of you,” he says in a sweet way.
“Nasty thoughts or nice thoughts?”
“A little of both.”
I start to laugh. “Me too. You have definitely been away too long this time.”
“For me too, Chrissie,” he says. “With the travel from Europe I can only manage two days, but I can be in Malibu in January, the tenth and the eleventh, if you want me there.”
“Stupid question. What do you think?”
“I want to hear you tell me you want me there.”
I feel tears gathering in my throat and eyes, and I don’t want them. Not today. “I told you it was a stupid question, isn’t that good enough?”
“Not nearly,” he breathes.
“I want you there. Very much.”
I sniff back the drips from my nose that came with my tears, covering the mouthpiece so he can’t hear. “Why are you going through so much hassle to be with me for two days, Alan?”
“I told you. Missing you. Thinking of you. Nasty thoughts.”
He says it succinctly like he’s reading a grocery list and I smile.
“And I lied,” he says, low and raspy. “There are no nice thoughts. They’re pretty much always nasty these days.”
“Me, too.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be with you for Christmas. With the travel time and the short hops, it’s not possible.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s OK.”
“I would be there if I could, Chrissie.”
“I know.” I take a moment to reign in my emotions and then I say, “I’m going home for Christmas, so you’d be pretty much out of luck if you were here.”
Alan laughs. “I would even eat Mexican food on the patio with Jack if it got me back to you.” Silence, and I can hear his breaths followed by a long exhale. “I’m tired of the road, baby. I’m tired of missing you.”
Everything starts to run loose and frantic through me. I need to hang up the phone quickly. I don’t want to get upset with Alan since it makes the long hours between the calls miserable for me.
“I’ve got to run, Alan.”
“Are you OK, Chrissie?”
I hold the tips of my fingers to my nose, pressing in, almost until it hurts, to keep the emotion from surfacing.
“I’m more than OK. I can’t wait for January. I want you here. Now.”
I click off the phone before he can answer me. As anxiously as I wait for each call from Alan, sometimes hearing his voice is too hard for me.
~~~
Neil comes into the bedroom three hours later, and flips on the lights.
I look up. “You guys done playing with each other?”
He gives me a revolted, pained expression. “Very funny. A disgusting thought, playing with Rene, but funny.”
I smile and he sinks down on the floor beside me.
“So why are you sitting here in the dark alone?” Neil asks.
“Just thinking.”
He brushes the hair back from my face and says, “You thinking in the dark. That’s never good. What’s wrong, Chrissie?”
I take a moment to collect my thoughts and try to figure out the best way to do this.
“You’re back on the road again next week for another four months. Aren’t you?” I ask.
His gaze fixes on my face and there’s just enough hint of alarm in his eyes that I tense. I wonder what slipped into my voice just then.
His eyes are now searching my face, more alert and less smiling. “Yes. I told you that already. Four months this time. Ernie has actually booked some pretty good venues.”
I can’t bear to look at him so I stare off into a vacant space in the room.
“I think we should give us a rest for a while. Take some time off. I graduate in a few months. I’m leaving Berkeley. You live in Seattle when you’re not on the road. I thought we might want to take a break.”
Silence, and it pushes in on me until I look at him. Then, Neil’s posture changes from loose limbs into a tense, alarmed sort of arrangement.
“A break?” Neil says. “I thought after graduation, you might go on the road with me for a while. We can spend more time together. Make this better for you. I know it hasn’t been everything you want it to be, but I thought with you out of school, we could try to make it work better for the both of us.”
“I don’t think that would be good for either of us.”
“Fuck, Chrissie. What are you saying?”
I don’t answer him.
“Are you saying we’re over? You want to end us?”
That’s the door I’ve been fumbling to get to and for some reason the fact that Neil said it makes it something I’m afraid to walk through. I stare at my hands and say nothing. Crap, what’s wrong with me? We’re here, finally in a moment together where we can let go of each other, and I can’t will myself to be the one to bring us through it.
I run a hand through my hair. “We’re practically never together. You must have something else going on. Have you ever…” The look in his eyes trap the words in my throat.
Neil stares. “Have I what?”
“It’s not like we’re a couple or anything. Fulltime. Exclusive,” I say.
Those warm green eyes grow opaque in a way I’ve never seen before.
“You’re out on the road a lot of the time,” I continue. “You’re a hot guy. There must girls all over you. You must be sleeping with someone else.”
In a flash, he turns into angry Neil. I’ve never seen him get angry this fast.
“You think I’m screwing around on the road? Is that what this is about? Fuck, Chrissie. I love you. Why don’t you get that?”
“I just want to know, Neil,” I somehow manage to whisper, “It doesn’t have anything to do with anything. Not my decision, anyway. I’ve always sort of wondered so I’m asking. We’ve always had an agreement. When we’re not together, we’re not together. Whatever you’ve done. It doesn’t matter. I’ve never asked. I want to know. And I won’t get pissed.”