Page 17 of Another Postcard

“It’s shit all right.”

“See you in an hour, asshole. I’ll bring pizza.”

He hung up and I called Matteo, then Noah, demanding that they get their asses to my house and make sure to bring stuffed wallets. I considered calling Sasha, but I wasn’t in the mood to be around any estrogen. Sasha would be fucking pissed when she found out we’d had a poker night without her, though. Then I had a brilliant idea. I pulled up Sasha’s contact on my phone and hit call. I was walking through my door when she answered with, “You’re not my type, Matthews, so I hope you aren’t looking for a booty call.”

I couldn’t help it, despite my low spirits, I burst out laughing. Sasha could always do that, bring lightness and fun to any situation. Always ready with a quip or sarcastic comment to make us laugh our asses off. “Thanks for the offer, Blue,” I drawled.

“I didn’t offer, fucker,” she said indignantly.

“I need a favor.” I ignored her protest and moved on to why I’d called her. “Do you have plans tonight?”

“Not a booty call, huh?” Her sarcasm was thick enough to be cut with a knife.

“Would you stop thinking about fucking me?” I clipped, pretending to be offended. “Am I just a piece of meat to you?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what you are to me,” she agreed. “Fresh meat that I constantly consider feeding to the sharks in the East River.”

“Are you done?”

“Yup. What’s the favor?”

“Take Brooklynn out tonight. Maybe you could talk Kristi into joining you.”

Sasha snorted. “Yeah right. We leave for tour in like two and a half weeks. When she isn’t at the studio, she and her husband are holed up in her apartment fucking like bunnies.”

I cringed. “Thanks for the image.”

“Happy to help,” she said cheerfully. “Anyway, no favor necessary. I was thinking of calling Brooklynn, anyway.”

“Great.” I grinned to myself. Problem solved.

We said goodbye, and I wandered into the living room with the stack of mail the doorman had handed me on the way in. I dropped onto the couch and set aside all the junk, looked through my bills, finishing with a stack of fan mail. We had a team that exclusively handled it all for us, including our social media. It didn’t matter how popular we seemed with the public, there would always be people who didn’t like our music and sent their opinions via hate mail. The team collected it from the P.O. box and sorted through the mail, weeding out the stuff that none of us needed to see. It would only be added stress in our lives.

Whenever possible, I tried to go through everything they forwarded on to me and answer as much of it as possible. However, when we were on the road, I had to let our people respond and I was adamant that no letter go unanswered. If I couldn’t do it, then the team sent an autographed picture and/or other things. I read a couple of the letters, laughing at one from a seven-year-old boy, who’d colored a picture of me performing and tucked it into the envelope. My head and the microphone were the same size, but my body was tiny in comparison. One of my hands was sticking out, holding what I assumed was my guitar. There were curtains on either side of the picture, more like a theatre stage on Broadway. And there were large circles across the top. It took me a minute to realize they were stage lights. I chuckled again and left the couch to take everything into my music room. I tacked the picture on a cork board filled with similar items and snapped a picture with my phone, quickly posting it with a thank you on Twitter.

There was a loud pounding on my door, and I sighed and sent a silent apology to my neighbors. For some reason, Simon had something against my doorbell. I was turning to go answer the door when a postcard caught my eye. I grabbed it on my way out of the room. Simon, arms full of pizza and beer, made a beeline for the kitchen the second I had the door open. Noah held more beer and entered, Matteo on his heels with yet another case of beer. Two guys from another New York based band Afterdark were just coming down the hall, so I held the door open until they were entering as well, but their arms were full of other shit, pretzels, chips, and . . . oh, I didn’t see the beer. I chuckled and shut the door and looked down at the thick card stock in my hand as I followed them. I started laughing, a full belly laugh that had tears leaking from my eyes.

The guys were setting up my poker table in the living room and stopped to look at me like I was losing my fucking marbles. I couldn’t even explain since I was still laughing, so I just held it out. Noah took it, and when he got a look at it, he started laughing right along with me.

The front had three hairy chimpanzees, all dressed in various colors of polka dot bikinis, standing in a row with their arms linked. They had big false eyelashes, but they were smiling with the typical toothy monkey mouth. There was a huge wave behind them and the top of the card read, “I think you’re SWELL and we’d get along just SWIMMINGLY.” It was one of the stupidest things I’d ever seen, but it had attacked my funny bone with a vengeance. It worked its way around and when I had it again, I flipped it over to read the typed message.

Levi,

I love your music. I hope we meet someday.

I was disappointed to see no signature. I wouldn’t be able to thank the sender. Still, I added it to my board and then we sat down to trash talk, drink beer, and kick each other’s asses for money.

10

Brooklynn

Iwas fucking exhausted. Working with Stone Butterfly was exhilarating, but hard work. After the first day of recording, we’d spent the next four days laying down more tracks, rehearsing, and writing. Then piled on top of all that was the strain of keeping Levi at arm’s length. I did my best to try and diffuse the chemistry that was only growing stronger every day instead of weakening like I’d hoped it would. We’d taken to texting a lot and had a habit of talking long after the others had cleared the studio. None of it was really serious or in depth. We learned about each other’s tastes in food, music, movies, and all the stuff that makes up a personality. A few times, he talked about his family, and I could tell he expected me to reciprocate but I didn’t like thinking about my past, much less talking about it. So, I would subtly shut it down and change the subject.

Sasha and Kristi worked in the studio today, which meant a rare day off for the rest of us, and I knew exactly what I was going to do with it.

Nothing.

I’d curled up on my couch with my Kindle and stayed there, pretty much all damn day. It was dark by the time I drew a bubble bath and as I tested the water temperature, I could already feel my muscles relaxing. I was just slipping out of my robe when my doorman buzzed my apartment. At the same time, my cell phone started ringing. I grabbed it from the bathroom counter and glanced down to see Levi’s number flashing on the screen as I ran to the intercom by my door. I pressed the button for the lobby and asked, “What’s up, Peter?” Then I quickly swiped across the screen of my phone and said, “Hold on a second, Levi.”

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