“I’m never drinking again,” Layla said. And to add insult to injury, when the band finally convinced the booker they couldn’t drink any more, he told them he didn’t think they were a good fit for the club’s image, and Layla was still bristling about it.
“There’s nothing wrong with our image,” she said to Liam as he spread the food out on the bed and stretched out beside her with his own Styrofoam container. She stole a piece of his bacon. “I’ve been to that club and their image is overpriced drinks, a restrictive dress code, and an inflated sense of their own importance. At one point the booker asked if I only wore jeans when I performed. Scotty told him I often wore skirts and I had to go along with it.”
It wasn’t that Layla didn’t understand image. It was just that she had a hard time understanding why it should be given so much importance. Shouldn’t the music be their focus? The guys in the band weren’t going to suddenly start wearing sport coats with their jeans. Loafers instead of tennis shoes. So why should she have to glam it up? Layla had her own sense of style and she didn’t want to be tied to any particular look. She wanted something to start happening for the band, but what they’d be wearing when it did was the furthest thing from her mind.
“Also, what kind of maniac does more than one shot of sambuca?” Layla muttered as she took a bite of her pancakes. She paused because she feared she might see them in reverse, but she managed through sheer will to hold the food down and felt marginally better after she finished her breakfast. She reached for the Motrin and swallowed four capsules, draining her entire water glass in the process.
“That seems like a lot to take at one time, honey,” Liam said.
“It’s fine,” Layla said. “I mean, I think it is.” And then Liam pulled her into his arms for a nice long cuddle, which was exactly what she wanted, because she had no intention of getting out of bed for the rest of the day.
chapter 19
Josh
Josh opened the app on his phone and started swiping. His brother had been texting him every day for a week asking if he’d “gotten back out there yet,” and Josh said yes, mostly so he’d shut up. Then, curiosity had gotten the better of him. Dating now seemed a lot like window-shopping, and he could do it from the comfort of his own living room. A small part of him did wish for someone to spend time with, to see a movie or grab a drink like his brother said. Something casual. Some adult conversation.
A brunette with pretty eyes and a nice smile caught his eye. She was a nurse, and her bio said she liked dogs and tacos and movies. When did women start loving tacos so much? He swiped right, and by the end of the evening he’d swiped on five or six profiles. Several of the women sent friendly messages, and by the end of the week he had dates set up with three of them. Maybe one of them was looking for the same thing he was, and maybe one of them would be willing to take things slow.
* * *
Dating in the modern world blew Josh’s mind, and not in a good way. The nurse who liked dogs was even prettier in person, and Josh relaxed a bit, settling in for a pleasant hour or two of drinks and getting to know her a little. Her name was Jen, and it turned out that her brother was friends with Josh’s oldest brother. She was articulate and the conversation flowed. Maybe his brother was right. Maybe this was just what he needed.
“What about kids?” she asked.
“I like them. I have a daughter and she’s my world.”
“Do you want more?”
“If it happens someday, sure. I’d love more kids.”
“How soon do you see yourself getting married again?” she asked.
He let out a chuckle. “I was barely out of high school when I did it the first time. I don’t know that I’ll ever want to get married again,” he said, and watched her face deflate.
* * *
As soon as they graduated, he and Kimmy spent all their free time together and had sex every chance they could get. In her bed if her mom was at work, in the back seat of Josh’s car if she wasn’t, and one night, when his parents were out of town, they spent an entire night together under the covers of his double bed after Kimmy told her mom she was spending the night at Angie’s.
Josh spent his days pouring concrete. It was backbreaking work, but Kimmy said that his back and shoulder muscles felt bigger under her fingertips and that his dark tan made him look even cuter.
Kimmy had found a job selling children’s clothing at the mall. For the first time in her life, she had real money to spend, and she could spend it on whatever she wanted. She was able to walk right into her favorite shoe store on her lunch break and buy two pairs of shoes, she told Josh. At one time! She had forgotten about her goal of buying a car. It didn’t seem as important now that Josh drove her everywhere or let her use his car.
Evenings were spent in Mikey’s garage or in someone’s backyard now that a few of their friends had started moving out of their parents’ houses and into the crappy rentals that were all their low budgets allowed. Josh’s parents still held out hope that Josh would go to school somewhere, anywhere, and said they’d pay for an apartment if he would just enroll.
“I can’t do it, Kimmy,” he said one night when they were sneaking a quickie in Josh’s bedroom while his parents were out to dinner. “There is no way I’m going to take another English or math class or whatever I’d have to take to go along with the stuff that might actually interest me. School of any kind sounds awful.” Josh was always moving, always finding a project to fill his time when he wasn’t working. He liked tinkering in his parents’ garage, and he loved tools of any kind.
By fall, they were in the kind of ridiculous, all-consuming love they were certain no one besides them had ever experienced. Josh chafed at the rules his parents set forth. At eighteen, he no longer had a curfew and could come and go as he pleased. But they’d laid down the law about him paying rent. It wasn’t that they needed the money, but they told him if he didn’t want to go to college, he’d need to start living like an adult and that included paying his own way.
Josh had a stubborn and headstrong side, and when he put his mind to something, good luck to anyone who thought they could change it. It was one of the things Kimmy said she liked most about him. Nothing bad would ever happen to her as long as Josh was in charge. For the first time in Kimmy’s life, she had someone she could really count on, and her loyalty to Josh ran as deep as an ocean trench. She had found her soul mate, her hero. If she stumbled, he would always be there to catch her. Kimmy made Josh feel ten feet tall, and he liked that feeling.