13. Quinn
quinn
. . .
T he tattered napkin sits on my coffee table. My blue pen rests between my fingers, moving back and forth, as I read over the lyrics I wrote earlier. When I sat down to write, I was angry, filled with rage and jealousy after watching my father play with Ajay. Seeing them together, the way they performed in fluid motion, hurt. My dad and I, let alone the rest of 4225 West, haven’t played like that in a while. I wasn’t invited to jam, I was only there to see the band Elle’s forming. So, I could what? See what I’m missing? If that was their plan, it’s backfired. I’m more determined to stick to my guns now than I was before.
No one understands what I’m going through. Half the time I can’t reconcile why I have these feelings, why the thoughts of my biological mother finding me weighs so heavily on my mind. It’s silly when I think about it. She knows my dad, everyone does. It’s not like she can’t look him up as a way of finding me or even do a search on the web to locate where I am. Maybe it’s because she hasn’t, that I’m feeling this way. I expected a call on my eighteenth birthday, and again on my next. The call never came, neither did an email or letter. I don’t need Alicia Tucker in my life, but part of me wonders why I wasn’t good enough for her to stay around.
I think my mom gets it. I think she understands why I don’t pursue music professionally. I’m not sure she agrees, though, because it’s her daughter who is pressuring me to join this band. I have to give my sister credit, she knows music. For the few minutes I allowed myself to listen, and not focus on my dad and Ajay, the sound was good, stellar even. And from the looks of it, Dana will do a bang-up job as lead singer. They don’t need me, which is just as well because the band life? It’s not for me.
Not all is lost though. I attempted to flirt with the cute new waitress at the Bean Song, albeit very poorly. I’m sure my funky mood did nothing to impress her, nor the fact that I was staring at her. Even when she caught me, I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to. I sat there, trying to figure out a way to make her smile, and I couldn’t. I’m used to women hitting on me, friends of my sisters. It’s easier for me that way because I don’t have to put myself out there. However, this woman, she wasn’t trying to come on to me, and that was a huge relief.
Her name tag read Nola, a name I hadn’t heard before, and living here, you hear every name under the sun, which makes me believe she’s definitely not from here though and I like that she’s not trying to fit in. I half expected her to turn up to her shift with a partially shaved head or pink hair. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s from Georgia or one of the Carolinas with the southern vibe I’m picking up from her. There was a few times through the night when she’d slip up and start to call me sir, only to catch herself with a crooked smile, a tilt of her head, and a sweet giggle that left me wondering how I could get her to laugh.
Throughout the evening, she made sure I had everything I needed without bothering me or being that annoying server who wanted to free up their table. Every so often, I’d catch her looking at me. Sure, she could’ve been looking in my general direction, but I felt her eyes on me, watching me. When I left, I was tempted to leave her my number. The thought was presumptuous and filled me with more doubt. Instead, I left her a hefty tip and second-guessed myself on my way home.
Words like love, first glances, beating heart, joy, and what her hair looks like in the long braid fill my napkin. None of it makes sense. I’ve never been the romantic guy, the one who expresses his feelings through song or even letters. My sisters didn’t come to me for advice on guys, and my friends definitely never asked me for help with their girlfriends, probably because most were trying to date Elle or Peyton. Yet, everything I’ve written tonight is about falling in love. Something I’ve never done.
The knock on my door startles me and my pen smudges against the words. I take it as a sign. I’m thinking outside my normal realm and need to reel it in. Nola’s probably an aspiring actress or musician and getting involved doesn’t benefit either of us. I tuck the napkin under one of my magazines before going to the door.
“Hey, what’re you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood,” Liam says as he steps inside. I shut the door behind him and stand there for a moment. His guitar’s in his hand, meaning he carried it up from the parking lot, which doesn’t really bode well with his excuse.
“Uh huh.” I head toward the kitchen. “Beer?” I ask.
“Water.”
Water, right. Rarely does Liam prefer water over beer, so something’s definitely up. I grab a beer for myself though because I’m going to need it. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s here because of my dad and the stunt I pulled… no, that he pulled earlier today.
“So, what brings you by?” I hand him the bottle of water and resume my seat on my couch. “Dad send you over to try and convince me to join Elle’s band?”
Liam shakes his head as he takes a drink. He finishes half the bottle before setting it down on my coffee table, dangerously close to the magazines hiding the napkin with my inner feelings scrawled all over it. The last thing I want is for him to see my scribbled notes and ask me what’s going on.
“Your dad didn’t say much after you left.”
“Did he even notice? He was pretty wrapped up in Ajay.”
“Is that why you left?” he asks.
I half shake my head and shrug my shoulders. I’m an adult and shouldn’t get jealous, but I am. I don’t know why I never pursued becoming a drummer. I like it, but I like the guitar more.
“Why leave then? Why not join us?”
“There wasn’t any room,” I tell him. One quick look at my uncle tells me he thinks I’m full of it. He’s right. There was room. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that the jam session was set up for my benefit.
“I know what it feels like to be pressured into doing something. My dad…” Liam pauses. “He was relentless in his pursuit to get me to the NFL. I had everything to get there too, but I didn’t want it because it was his dream, his desire. It used to be mine, but at some point, it became too much to handle. The pressure to be perfect exceeded my love for the game.”
“But you love the game,” I point out.
“I do.”
“And now you have Noah immersed in it.”
He nods. “If he quit, I wouldn’t care as long as he was happy. His happiness is all that matters.”
“That’s where you and my father differ.”
Liam leans forward and clasps his hands. “From the day you showed up on his doorstep, you’ve been his priority in life. Everything he’s done was because of you.”
“Then why can’t he accept that I don’t want to be in Elle’s band?”
“Good question. I’m wagering a guess that it has something to do with Elle and the fact that you’re an amazing musician and your dad is trying to get you to branch out. It’s not a bad thing, being in a band, and I think he sees how it saved us all.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Liam clears his throat. “Meeting your dad changed my life. He gave me a family, something I hadn’t had in a long time. With your dad, came your grandmother and aunt. Two women who cared about me and not what I was bringing to the table. When I left Beaumont and everyone behind, it’s because they had these expectations of me that I didn’t think I could meet, and I was afraid of failure. Afraid they’d leave me if I let them down.”
“I’m not sure what that has to do with me.”
“I suppose nothing. However, I saw you today. I saw the glint in your eyes, your fingers twitching as if you were playing the guitar. I didn’t know you were being blindsided. JD and I would’ve never gone along with a plan like that. We were invited to jam, and we couldn’t pass it up. You know I’d never pass up a chance to play with you.”
I try not to smile but to no avail. I do love playing with Liam, and with him living in Beaumont, it doesn’t happen as often as I’d like.
“What pisses me off was that no one asked me. My dad comes over, under the guise of getting a new bike and taking me for a ride, only to stop at the studio where I’m ambushed.”
“I think he saw the error of his ways.”
Liam’s probably right, and maybe if I answered my phone or one of the fifty or so texts he and my mother sent today, I’d hear or see an apology from him. Knowing my mom though, she likely lambasted my dad for doing this. I am, after all, her favorite.
Liam finishes his bottle of water and I use this as an excuse to get up and grab him another one. I linger in the kitchen, longer than necessary, trying to compose my thoughts. Even if my dad asked, I’m not sure if I would’ve jammed with them today, but I might have gone to listen. I owe my sister that much.
“Did you come to town for that impromptu session?”
Liam shakes his head. “Nope. There’s a wedding planning party going on at your parents. Josie and Paige were coming so I thought I’d tag along.”
“Wedding, right,” I sigh. My mom’s frantic about the preparations, especially because Peyton hasn’t given her much to go on. “Do we know where they’re getting married?”
Liam looks at me. “Thought you knew since you’re the best man?”
I shake my head. “Is that a question?”
“No,” he says. “A statement I’m hoping you’d spill the secret on.”
I throw my hands up in the air and laugh. “Sorry, I don’t know anything. I don’t even know the date of the shindig.”
He looks flustered, and it makes me wonder why all the secrecy. I’ll have to text Noah later and ask him what’s going on, and why he and Peyton won’t tell anyone when they plan to get married. I suppose it doesn’t matter since we’ll drop everything to be there, but a general idea would be nice.
“What’s the guitar for?” I nod toward his case.
Liam bends over and unhooks the latches, pulling out his acoustic. “I’ve been working on a new song and thought that maybe you could help me.”
“Is this a ploy to show me what it’s like to be in a band?”
He looks at me, studying me for a long minute. “Solo is a lonely life, Quinn. You only meet your band when it’s time to rehearse. You travel by yourself and don’t have any real connections with people. Being in a band, like I said, it gives you family.”
“I have a family,” I tell him.
“And a damn good one,” he adds. “But a band family is different. Creatively, they’re your constant sounding board because they get it. They get the lifestyle. They understand everything in our world. I’d never expect Josie to grasp why an amp isn’t working for me, but your dad or JD would, and they’d know how to fix it.”
I don’t know whether he’s here to convince me to join Elle’s project, to start a band of my own or to just show me what being part of a group can offer. None of it matters because he’s reminded me that while I felt isolated when I was growing up, always surrounded by adults, I had a family. A good one at that and that’s important. If it weren’t for Liam, my dad would’ve never met Katelyn and things would probably be a lot different for me. Maybe I should heed his advice and really consider what it’d be like to be a part of a group.
Liam starts strumming his guitar. The melody is soft. It’s a ballad and instantly I pull out the napkin, flip it over and start writing. After an hour, I show him what I have, and he plays his tune while singing the words I put down about the sweet southern girl who serves coffee.