Chapter Twenty-Two Selfish for More
Chapter Twenty-Two
Selfish for More
Griffin
It’s dusk. There are pink and purple brushstrokes over the sky as Beverly, her family, and I sit in the yard between the houses, watching the sunset paint the end of a day.
Ava and I have been back in our garage apartment for a week now. While she plays with her toys and dances, I hammer out lyrics and notes—songs that now pour from my fingertips like water. Some songs are for Birds, but then there are others…
I’m crooning new chords that echo memories of Beverly’s laughter that night at the bar. Every strum is my fingers entwining through hers. Every breathy note is the exhalations against her skin on the red carpet.
Being back in Elk Grove is disorienting compared to that.
Our Adirondack chairs surround a large firepit, where we’re nestled in coats and thick quilted blankets.
Beverly’s mom and dad curl together on one seat while Rob plays his video game, tucked almost completely under his blanket.
Greg sips hot cider that may or may not be spiked with cinnamon-scented liquor.
And my chair is beside Beverly’s. The edges of our chairs’ arms touch, as close as we can get without our armchairs overlapping.
Ava sits in Beverly’s lap. She plays with the wooden bird, now fixed with a single felt wing Beverly crafted onto it.
The two of them look so natural together.
My girl’s head is settled on Beverly’s chest, and with each laugh, I think I see Ava’s shoulders rise, too, as if contagious with Beverly’s laughter.
I get it. I’m infected by her too.
“So, Polished Shoes going on the road?” Greg asks.
Rob shrugs. “Maybe.”
“Rob,” Beverly’s mom chastises. “What about college?”
“Oh, he’s fourteen,” Nana argues on Rob’s behalf. “Let the boy live.” Rob peers up from his game with a sheepish smile. She tosses a wink to him.
“Beverly, you’re gonna have a show soon,” her dad teases. “Give him a job or something.”
From beside me, Beverly laughs. It’s nervous. They know how hard Beverly works, but I’m not sure they see the anxiety nestled below the surface. Though, for Beverly, you don’t have to look far. Her lower lip is bitten to hell.
“He’s too young,” Beverly’s mom says.
“I could go to LA, though,” Rob says, straightening up.
“I don’t have a show,” Beverly says.
“Yet,” Nana adds.
“You’ll have one,” I throw in. Beverly peers at me from the corner of her eye. I watch the fire dance across her lips as her dad throws more wood on the crackling flames.
I have no clue if she remembers our conversation that night or the unfortunate bar event where her tight dress got the best of me.
I don’t feel shame—not exactly. I’m not ashamed of my attraction to Beverly when she does Beverly things like try to watch over me, laugh out loud at Poe like sunshine in a bottle, and wear gorgeous outfits that fit her like a glove.
But I do feel guilty. Beverly likes her peace of mind, and I’m shattering that.
Even if she does remember the incident, she probably doesn’t want to acknowledge it.
I wouldn’t blame her. She was simply sparking Beau’s jealousy when she stayed on my lap.
But the idea of it not being real…the discomfort tugs the muscles at my chest, pulling taut and painful like barbed wire scraping against my bones.
Every single time I’ve placed my palm in hers, it’s been a ruse.
But now…now it isn’t. Not to me.
I like Beverly.
I want to kiss Beverly.
I think of Beverly each morning, I compose songs about Beverly each afternoon, and I ache to see her each night.
Jimmy asked for one song. I’m now up to five, and every composition is about her.
I’m sick.
Sick, sick, sick.
Because we’re colleagues, and colleagues don’t write songs about each other the way I’m melting notes into sonnets for her.
I’m a damn romantic, and I hate it.
I have to record this album, and she’s got her show to produce. The sheer amount of work on her plate is unfathomable. I can’t—I won’t—derail it.
I look over and see Ava shimmying closer to Beverly, nuzzling her head into Beverly’s neck.
It’s not just my heart I have to worry about. Would Ava remember her after this winter?
Beverly’s hands shiver against Ava’s coat. I want to reach out and hold them.
I adjust in my chair, glancing across the fire to see Nana staring back. Her lips rise in the corners to a mischievous smile. It’s like she can read my illicit thoughts of holding her granddaughter’s hand. Something so simple has never felt so nerve racking.
But I can’t stop noticing Beverly. I focus on every lick of orange flame from the firepit reflected in her beautiful green eyes.
My throat closes when I see how it makes her blond hair almost ginger.
How the soft exhale from her parted pink lips sends a puff of white into the air.
I want to capture that air in my own mouth and swallow down every breathy sigh.
This situation is only temporary, though. She’s on a deadline, and so am I. What do we expect to happen after? I’ll be on tour overseas. She’ll be shooting a show every week.
“I could like puppets,” Rob says. “For a summer in LA, I could.” He nods to his sister. “You like them.”
Beverly leans back in her chair. The column of her neck stretches to the sky.
“I love them,” she says simply, so much care echoed into that statement.
This show has her heart, not me. It’s selfish to want more. Not when she has dreams that hinge on my ability to create music for her. I’m mixing up my priorities. My life would be too much for her. I’m too much for her. Me and my fame and my complications. Robin knew it. Beverly knows it.
“Do not send that boy to LA,” Beverly’s mom says, laughing.
Greg tips his drink toward her. “Oh, he’d love it.”
“I would,” Rob insists. “See? Bev? I’d be good at whatever job you give me too. I’ll try out puppet voices or something.”
His dad chuckles. “You legally cannot work, Rob.”
“I’ll help out unpaid!”
Beverly smiles for a moment before her phone vibrates.
She looks down at it. I want to know who gained her unique attention.
But Beverly’s spine straightens when she sees the text.
After a silent moment, she locks her phone, then steals a glance at me again.
Another smile twitches at the corner of her mouth, but this time it’s uneasy.
She’s anxious?
Why?
Ava wiggles down from Beverly’s lap and hops into mine. She can’t sit still tonight, moving from person to person every few minutes. I lift my quilt to tuck her inside, despite how much she’s heated up from the firepit.
Pudge pads around the fire in his knitted sweater, also looking for a place to settle. Finally, he finds a spot beside Beverly on the edge of the quilt slung over the side of her chair.
“Pudge, no, come on,” she whines. Pudge plops down, taking half the blanket with him.
Without thinking, I lift my quilt and throw half of it into her chair. Her body heat instantly travels to me under the shared blanket. We’re already close, but she scoots her chair closer, crackling it over the rocky pebbles below us.
The arms of the chairs overlap. Her forearm brushes against mine. I want to trace my palm down her sweater, to her delicate wrists, and across her fingers. But all I get is her shoulder and the cable-knit sweater concealing it.
Her phone lights up again. She slides a hand outside the blanket to click her phone off so that the screen goes black.
Who keeps texting her? Everyone she talks to regularly is here.
Or maybe not.
How well do I truly know Beverly?
I know how she looks to the ceiling or heaven above when she thinks about the show. I know how her pink lips twist to the corner of her mouth when she considers an idea, and I know how her brow furrows when she won’t tell me something. It’s as if keeping a secret pains her.
She exhales a cloud of air again, shaking and erratic in the winter cold.
She crosses her arms, snaking her hand to her inner elbow.
My fingertips nudge hers. Our hands linger together under the blanket, brushing like a whisper only we can hear.
Her eyes dart to me, dancing over my face.
All I can do is the same—following the green rims around her pupils, tracing their years of life with humor and smiles and everything I haven’t had.
I feel like I’m getting away with something with Beverly.
I always do.
Ava curls into my chest. Her forehead is still hot from when she sat next to the fire, even though she’s been facing away from it for a while now.
Wait…
I touch Ava’s forehead with the back of my hand. She’s burning up. I cup her shoulders, leaning her back to get a look. Her eyelids droop. She’s tired, but the sun has only just set. We’re a few hours out from her bedtime.
I run a thumb across her cheek. There’s a sheen of sweat.
“Hey, munchkin. Are you feeling all right?”
Ava slowly blinks at me, looking like she’s one second away from falling asleep.
And then she lets out an open-mouthed cough, right onto my face.