Chapter 15
Reid
“Ithought I’d be walking home tonight, seeing how you stormed off like a child earlier,” Penny says by way of greeting as she swings open the car door. She tosses her purse in first and it lands with a loud thunk. Christ, what does she carry in that thing?
She slips into the seat and buckles her seatbelt.
My knuckles turn white against the steering wheel but I don’t rise to her bait. She raises her brow in surprise at it.
“You done with your tantrum then?” she teases and pokes my shoulder as I pull away from the curb.
“Guess so,” I answer, sarcasm thick in my tone.
“Good.” She settles back in the seat with an exaggerated sigh. “I didn’t feel like walking tonight.”
“I wouldn’t let you walk.” I glance over at her. “You should know that by now.”
She purses her full pink lips and turns her attention out the window to the passing city.
“How was work?” I ask.
“Uneventful. It’s been a slow few weeks, and I think Kevin’s getting worried that it’s not just a lull but a more permanent thing. The vintage shop next door closed down a few months ago, and since then we’ve been the last one’s standing in this strip.”
I hum in agreement. “Area’s pretty dead.”
“Yeah.” She chews on the inside of her cheek and fiddles with the ends of her long hair. “Where’d you go today? You seem slightly more relaxed than before.”
Well, my shoulders don’t feel as though they’re made of stone and stuck up to my ears, so I guess I would agree. “I went to go see my old manager.”
“Like your band’s manager?”
“That’s the one.”
“How’d that go? Do you see him often?”
I shake my head and flick on my turn signal as I pull up to a stop sign. “Not anymore. But I saw him at the party and…I don’t know.”
Penny’s quiet but I can feel her eyes on me as I keep my attention ahead on the road. She doesn’t pressure me or pepper me with more questions. Her silence is the space I need to process and think about what I want to share.
It feels safe.
“I don’t know, after talking to you today about everything that’s happened, I thought that maybe I could talk to him about it, too. That maybe he could give me some sort of insight since he was right there alongside all of us for it.”
“And did you get it?” Her tone is soft. “Insight?”
Yes, no, more than I want to admit but also none of the answers I want.
“I’m not sure yet,” I hedge.
“That’s okay. It’s a lot to process. The fact that you’re even starting is what’s important.”
My hand twitches against the steering wheel with the desire to reach over and place it on her thigh. To feel her warmth, her strength, her skin beneath my own. To give me some sort of tether to her, to this moment, the fact that we both made it out and we’re here together again.
But I keep it firmly in place.
My words are small as I admit, “I think I was happier before any of this, as strange as that sounds.”
“What do you mean?”
I wave my hand around. “I mean all of this. I was happier before all the fame and moving and tours and success. I was happier living in a shithole in Pittsburgh with two people who couldn’t give less of a fuck about me while I finished high school and yet…
I don’t know. Maybe it’s rose-colored glasses or some bullshit nostalgia that tastes bitter as hell but also familiar, but I think I was happier then.
Before everything…” My throat constricts, choking off my words.
“When it was just us against the world.” My brothers, my best friends.
Penny nods in understanding that she might not even possess but is gracing me with now. It’s more kindness than I deserve, more than I’ve gotten from anyone in years without some sort of ulterior motive.
“Isn’t that kinda fucked up?”
“I don’t think so,” she says with no hesitation. “I think happiness is a strange, elusive little thing and if you found it at one point in your life despite everything else, then that’s not fucked up. That’s good for you.”
We pull up in front of her apartment but I don’t want to leave. Don’t want to watch her walk away. “Are you happy?”
She looks up at her building, eyes turning distant in the darkness and her leg begins to bounce.
“I’d like to say yes. I’m happier than I was back in Pittsburgh, but would I say I’m happy?
” She turns to me and brutal honesty shines on her face, moonlight reflecting off her cheekbones.
“I’m not sure. Sometimes I am, and other times I’m not.
But I think maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be. ”
“Yeah?”
She nods and picks at the loose threads on her jean shorts. “Maybe you’re just in one of those seasons where it’s harder to find. And you just gotta keep going until you get out of it.”
It has felt hard to find, often just within my reach but constantly evading. But when I look at the woman sitting across from me, I realize that maybe I’ve had my pockets of it lately.
That she’s brought it to me.
She bends over to grab her bag and I sneak a quick peek at her exposed cleavage. I’ve been noticing parts of her more and more lately that I probably shouldn’t be.
I hit the locks. But before she swings the door open, she looks at me over her shoulder. “Do you wanna come up?” she asks with a hesitant glint in her eye.
I’m quiet for a moment, shocked that she’s asking, before I turn the car off and grab my keys. She’s never invited me up. In over the month that I’ve been driving her home, she’s never asked me that before.
“Sure,” I say, and the smile she gives me is confirmation that I made the right choice.
She leads the way into her building, and I catch myself staring at her ass as she walks upstairs. Her thighs are tanned and toned as she takes each step. I’m so distracted by the view that I almost run into her when she stops abruptly on the second flight of stairs.
“Hello!” she says cheerfully.
In an equally excited tone, the two other women coming down the opposite way greet her back. “You’re back early!” one of them says.
I peer around Aspen, and the two women back up enough so we can both stand on the landing between the split levels.
Aspen checks her phone. “No, this is my usual time.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” Aspen chuckles just as the taller one of the two takes notice of my presence. Her eyes widen slightly and I see her fingers flex as she squeezes the hell out of who I would presume is her girlfriend’s hand.
“Ow,” the shorter one, a blonde, mutters and then looks at me, too. “Well, holy shit. Aspen, this that foster brother you told us about?”
Aspen’s cheeks turn bright pink beneath her freckles and she gives her a wide-eyed look. “Yes. Marley, Sara, this is Reid. Reid, these are my roommates and best friends, Marley and Sara.”
The taller one’s mouth gapes as she looks at her friend. “You didn’t mention his name before.”
“Or the fact that he’s famous,” the other one adds.
“Or that he’s Reid Keely.”
“Like the guitarist.”
“Whisper Me Nothings’ guitarist.”
Aspen cuts a hand through the air. “Alright, I get it. Don’t boost his ego up, please.”
I smirk.
“And yes, former famous guitarist,” Aspen clarifies.
My smile drops.
The blonde studies me shrewdly, as if she wants to peel back my skin with a thin knife to see what ulterior motives I may be hiding beneath for her friend.
I decide I like her right then and there.
“So what do you do now then, former famous guitarist?” she asks. “Besides play personal driver for our Aspen.”
“Marley.” The brunette squeezes her hand. “What she means is—”
“What I mean is why are you spending all your time stalking Aspen at work and driving her home?”
Aspen sighs but doesn’t try to intervene. Her face shows she expected this kind of grilling from them, and I’m not surprised. It’s not the first time I’ve witnessed friends skewer the new guys in their friends’ lives.
“I’m figuring out my next steps, just like Penny here” I say.
“Penny?” The blonde one, who must be Sara, looks over at her friend. “I didn’t know you had a nickname.”
“It’s from a long time ago,” she says. “He’s the only one who calls me it.” She jabs a thumb in my direction.
Marley hums and scans me from head to toe again. I stand still under her assessment, letting her take in her fill but keeping my face neutral.
“Where are you guys going out tonight?” Aspen changes the subject and thumbs the shiny material of Marley’s maroon dress. “You guys look hot.”
“We’re heading out to check out a new cocktail bar in SoHo. The owners reached out for a feature of it.”
Ah. “So you two are the ones with the magazine?” I ask.
Sara beams while Marley merely narrows her eyes on me. “Yes,” Sara says. “Has Aspen told you we’ve been trying to get her to quit that job of hers and come work with us?”
That job of hers. I don’t think she means it to sound condescending, but by the inward turn of Aspen’s shoulders I can tell she picked up on it too.
“She has,” I say, keeping my tone deceptively light. “And she also told me she’s content where she’s at for right now while she figures out what she wants to do. Isn’t that respectable of her? To know what she wants and stick to it despite being pressured?”
Sara’s smile falters slightly, as if realizing the way she came across, and looks to her friend. Aspen shakes her head and offers her a smile. “You know I always appreciate the offer.”
Marley’s mouth curls and I’d say I’m not earning myself a fan here. “We should get going. Reid, would you like to walk out with us?”
I know she’s not asking out of the goodness of her heart or to get to know me better as I accompany them out. She just doesn’t want me going upstairs with Aspen.
As if that’s her decision to make.
Aspen answers for me. “Actually, I invited him up.” I like watching the way she asserts her ground so effortlessly. “But you guys have a fun night. I’ll see you when you get back?”