69
Sasha
Quinn figures it out before Lillian and I have decided how to tell the rest of the band.
The next week, Wavelength’s rehearsing in his basement.
Everyone except Lillian’s slacking off a little since we don’t have a show scheduled until early February.
It’s opening for a band none of us even have any friends in, which is a big step, though it’s at an ill-reputed venue called Brickworks.
Lillian’s mom said she thinks she’s still banned from there, but she refused to tell Lillian and Jasper the story no matter how much they bugged her.
Now that I’m a regular in Lillian’s house, I get to witness these exchanges.
I’m friendly and polite and in the band, but according to Lillian’s mom, that’s not what clinches how comfortable she is with Lillian and I being together.
“Even if you were altogether rude,”
she said.
“if Cyprus trusts you, the highest standard has been met.”
Not that Cyprus always looks at me like she trusts me.
In Quinn’s basement now, he’s watching me and Lillian with his own brand of suspicion.
Every time her and I get close to each other, he gives me a look.
Or when we sing something remotely about love or sex.
Which happen to be two of the main topics of music, so all the time.
It took Quinn less than two weeks from that night at Cyprus’s to arrive at this realization.
To be fair, I did give him a couple fairly sizable hints.
I told him about the mix CD Lillian made for me.
I was humming a song off it at school, and when Quinn asked, I figured I could make it seem like a friendship thing.
It could have been, no reason why not except for maybe the words at the end.
I mean, love is a friendship word.
And romance and friendship aren’t mutually exclusive.
Friends love each other.
Still, I didn’t mention those words.
“She drew pictures?”
asked Quinn.
“Were they deliberately bad? Because normally Lillian works out her insecurity about her drawing abilities by drawing bad on purpose.”
I described the drawings with the color thrown in and the lyrics worked around them. Outlines of people with defining features and pieces of clothing.
“Um,”
said Quinn.
“that’s not a usual Lillian mix CD. Usually it’s no-nonsense. Music-focused. A scrap of paper with the track list if she’s feeling kind.”
“Maybe your artistic prowess is rubbing off?”
“Trust me, it’s not. I’ve tried.”
He threw a campy, overplayed shrug at me.
“I wonder what other explanation there could possibly be?”
“You hopeless romantic.”
“Sasha, babe, no romantic is ever without hope. That’s the very nature of the thing.”
Then last night I answered a call from him when I was in Lillian’s bed with her.
Clothed, and strictly speaking on the bed, not in the bed.
Though my version of clothed would be called skimpy by some.
Our legs tangled, our music suspiciously loud. Leaving kisses along each other’s collarbones.
It wasn’t escalating, just hovering there. I could feel us both wanting to move quickly and both holding back a little.
Both a bit scared of the abandon we wanted.
This tension has to break soon, somehow.
We both know it.
I promised to talk to Quinn after his date with Sef.
But I figured Quinn might not call until the next morning.
Or deep into the night, past when I could reasonably stay over at Lillian’s without there being some discussion with her mom.
Lillian’s mom keeps her assumptions to herself, but apparently she’s not a morning person or a fan of unexpected people around in the a.m.
Though Lillian says her mom is mostly just happy Lillian’s out of her post-breakup spiral from earlier this year.
She doesn’t want to disrupt Lillian’s trajectory.
When my phone vibrated, it could really only be a couple of people, and one of them was Isabelle.
The spike of fear in me was enough to break the moment and have me check.
When I saw Quinn’s name, I answered the call without considering calling him back or letting him wait.
I turned off the video fast before it grabbed the background.
I could see Quinn wearing a suit with a bow tie undone.
He looked charmingly ruffled.
Sexy ruffled.
“Hey, I can’t see you,”
said Quinn on speakerphone.
“I just got out of the shower, but how was the date? Tell me all.”
Lillian, lying on her back and listening, murmured something about how she liked the image of me in the shower, and I swatted her away.
Quinn gave me the short version because he said he’d tell the band tomorrow at lunch anyway. He said it was fancy, for sure. Sef’s family is rich, and he tossed that around to make a big show out of things.
“Don’t get me wrong,”
said Quinn.
“I love expensive food. There was this dessert …”
“I sense a ‘but’?”
“If you breathe a word of this to Sef I’ll think of something unspeakable to do to you.”
“Sounds kinky.”
“Okay, well, I’m not very threatening yet.”
Quinn dropped his voice as low as he could.
“Me and the boys will mess you up. Better?”
“The voice, definitely. But the boys are who, Jasper and no one?”
“I was including my dad and Lillian for threat purposes.”
“Now that is terrifying.”
“Rude,”
muttered Lillian, loud enough that Quinn asked who that was. I said I’m not sure what he meant. I suggested it was the music and turned it down.
After a series of jokes and sidetracks, Quinn found his way to the point. There were good things, simple acceptance, fun for a while, but he aspires for spark. Also true love. He was being more serious than usual. Lillian mouthed oh my god at me.
“So you’re looking all undone because of a cute peck on the cheek, right?” I said.
“Your audio’s breaking up. What was that?”
“What’s got your bow tie undone?”
“I’m going through a tunnel. I can’t hear you.”
“How was the S-E —”
Quinn covered his face for a second then reemerged grinning at me.
“If it’s this fun now, think how it’s going to be with practice and being in love.”
“Don’t forget the spark.”
“If only I could. Even without that, all the firsts in this body … it’s so good, Sasha. Though a little overwhelming.”
“You okay?”
Quinn waffled for a second then nodded.
“Yeah, I really, really am. I mean, I’m the same. Fundamentally unchanged. I’ll keep you posted. What are you listening to?”
I took a guess confidently and Lillian rolled her eyes at me.
In rehearsal, Quinn drops another beat and Lillian stops the song.
“Get your head in the game, Quinn, my friend. You know you’re all that keeps this whole thing on the road.”
“I’m just so distracted,”
says Quinn.
“There’s this earworm I can’t shake that Sasha was listening to on the phone last night.”
Quinn starts drumming and sings a little bit of what Lillian and I had on.
“I can’t remember what it’s called.”
I know my original guess was wrong. Lillian mocked me roundly for how far off it was and how the band I named wa.
“loathsome, but not in a fun way.”
But I stick with it.
“It’s ‘Amber Bottle,’ by Lockpick.”
Cyprus has been watching this unfold with a composed expression that makes me think of how Lillian’s always more cagey about us when Cyprus is around. Cyprus is holding her phone like she’s using it, but her hands are still.
“Lockpick, niiiiice,”
says Quinn. He’s looking straight at Lillian.
She breaks after about two seconds.
“Sasha, I would never in a million years put on Lockpick. They’re misogynist trash, and that’s an insult to trash everywhere. It was ‘Crueler Still,’ by Artist Pickup.”
Quinn looks smug beyond belief.
“Sasha was just visiting and then showered and was getting dressed in your room?”
Now Cyprus sets down her phone.
“They weren’t showering,”
says Lillian.
Quinn spins his drumstick to point at Lillian.
“So why’d they say they just got out of the shower?”
Lillian looks so scrambled and guilty that I start laughing.
“Well, I did my part trying to keep it secret,”
I say.
“Your music snobbery won out.”
Lillian steps back to her mic and plays a chord.
“Glad we got that sorted out. Everyone’s in the know? Can you focus now? Great, good. Okay, from the top. One, two, one two three four.”
Only Lillian starts playing.
Cyprus gestures back and forth between me and Lillian.
“So you two are …?”
I say.
“Together.”
She says, “A thing.”
For the joy of making everyone cringe, but somehow ultimately dispersing awkwardness, Quinn says.
“Banging it out.”
Cyprus and Quinn bombard us with questions. I’ve never met a gossip columnist who was more persistent than these two.
Then, I suppose I’ve never had a group of friends. The top young Channel actors were friends with each other, not with someone like me who went from being a quiet extra to living a life on the road. Who hid in closets and helmets.
“I should have put money on it,”
says Quinn.
“Cyprus, get this, Lillian made Sasha a mix CD with nice drawings.”
“Oh, wow,”
says Cyprus.
“I thought maybe this was a hookup situation. I’m cautious to say it, but this sounds like … dating?”
I can’t speak for Lillian’s heart, but I wouldn’t characterize what’s happening in mine as cautious. We both make it out to be very casual, just seeing what happens. We skip over a lot of gazing into each other’s eyes. I’m not sure anyone’s buying it.
“How long has this been going on?”
asks Quinn.
“Since we were at your place a couple weeks ago,” I say.
Watching Cyprus very closely, there’s a second where the playfulness is gone. A second where if I could make the shutter snap at the perfect moment, she’d look sad.