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Avery hooted that she'd found the coffee machine and started a pot.
"You nap. I'll shower."
"Wake me up before you go-go." I mumbled and fell into rest.
+++
I woke up in front of the bathroom mirror, soaking wet, naked, and holding a lock of hair under my nose, as if to sniff. It smelled like soap. My breath came short and quick as I looked around the steamy bathroom.
"Avery!"
She opened the door enough to peek inside. A line of concern at my panicked tone crossed her forehead. "What's wrong?"
I squeezed my eyes shut to clear away the pooling tears. "I w-woke up in here." My hands felt numb and I gave them both a limp-wristed shake.
Her head tilted to one side. "No, Angel. I woke you up about twenty minutes ago and you walked in here. You don't remember?"
I shook my head. "Did I say anything?"
"You yawned a lot, said you needed a hot shower. Don't overreact. You just need coffee, that's all. I'll get some." Her face disappeared from the half-open doorway.
"But I already had a shower." I mumbled to the empty room.
Examining myself in the mirror, my gaze wandered down to the sink. My prescription bottles were set out. A small pile of pills lay on the counter. I grabbed the water glass from the sink and filled it, then swallowed down my meds. I should have taken them when I first woke up.
I'm fine. I'm fine. I repeated it until I believed it.
+++
I searched the crowd for Jake. The bands' van was in the back lot, unattended and empty. The stage was full of equipment belonging to various bands. AC's was among them. I would know Max's drum set anywhere. Andrew's stack amp stuck out from on one end of a pile of amps. The Sonic Youth sticker on the side was a dead giveaway.
House music was pumping through the area, raising the voices of people in various conversations. Two guys who looked like roadies crossed the stage. Right behind them, a slender woman followed, carrying a fluorescent green guitar strap.
My stomach dropped. No one had to tell me. I knew it was her. The girl that wanted into the band, Angelica.
"She's really pretty." Avery stated the obvious. "Like, could-turn-a-chick-gay pretty."
My eyes followed the woman with large, dark eyes framed by long black lashes and hair with perfectly placed purple streaks down each side. She was wearing all black-thigh-high laced Doc Martens over leggings, and a small vest in silken black, under that she wore a tight AC/DC tee with the sleeves chopped off. She took to the stage like she owned it, strutting towards a black and white Les Paul. She set the neon green strap over the guitar pegs and hooked it around her shoulders. After giving a long look at the near-empty club, at Avery and me, she took a pic from between her perfectly plump, burgundy lips and strummed.
Her chords were light and airy, bluesy almost. She gave a quick toe-tap at an enormous pedal board on the floor and the chords changed. It doubled the sound of each strum. She tapped another place on the board and the chords distorted. Smooth tones running rough. She tilted her head down, pressed her hips into the guitar and really started playing. We both stared at her fingers as they worked up and down the frets, lightning fast. She stopped to adjust the string tension and then began again.
"Max said she was badass."
"Yeah." She sounded freaking fantastic, like she had ten fingers on each hand. And she was only warming up.
Jake had merely said she was good. What an understatement! He told me she was pretty, but she was absolutely, freakishly stunning. He also said she was cool. But if everything he'd told me had been so downplayed . . . "I'm gonna find Jake."
Almost immediately I spotted him in the back lounge, a roped off area behind the bar. He waved when he saw me and held out two fingers. He was talking to someone. A guy in a corduroy jacket with very neat hair had his back to me. Max and Andrew were there, too, but no one else was talking. They were listening to the man in the jacket. All at once, the group collectively smiled and each one shook hands with the man. Jake walked towards me with a business card and wild eyes.
When he reached me, I spoke first. "I'm worried." I confessed, even though I knew the club wasn't the place for this. "I feel you pulling away. And she's more than pretty, Jake. She's . . ." I couldn't even say it.
He sighed, raking his hands over his head as if he wished he could pull at the hair that used to be there. "I warned you." He looked around at the people passing and spoke lower. "I can't have this conversation now."
I swallowed the lump in my throat. "When?"
He looked like he wanted to smile for just a second. Then a flicker of something passed in his eyes. It was gone before I caught it. "Not now."
I took a guess. "Are you mad?"
