Page 36 of Your Chorus
“That we know about,” I can’t help adding.
I see her trying to hold another snort in.
“Right. Well, whoever’s it is,” she continues, “I hope they feel bad when Sanjay murders me later today. I don’t know how that thong got in his laundry, but all his beloved button-up shirts are ruined now, and I donothave enough money to replace them.” She whirls around all of a sudden and holds a shirt out to me, pointing at the label. “Lacoste. He wears exclusively Lacoste. How much are you paying this guy?”
“Honestly? I have no idea.”
She turns back to the dryer. “You’d think it would be enough to afford a drycleaner. He’s going to strangle me. I’ve seen the look in his eye when he gets stressed. He could totally do it.”
She goes on and on as she empties the basket out, barely pausing to catch a breath, and that’s how I know that being around me isn’t as easy for her as she pretends. This thing between us—this force, or curse, or whatever the fuck it is—isn’t letting her go. She feels it. I feel it. Everyone around us can feel it, and it’s driving us all fucking nuts.
Matt was right. We’ve got to do something, or the whole damn bus is going to explode. I want Roxanne back so bad it’s like a constant throb in my head, like a bass riff that never stops repeating, but even that’s not enough to justify compromising the tour. This band means too much to me to put it in danger.
“Roxy.”
I cross the room in a few steps. She jumps when I lean up against the dryer beside hers and then pretends like she didn’t.
“Yes?” she asks, keeping her laundry basket up between us like a shield.
“Uh, Matt talked to me,” I begin.
She instantly gets suspicious. “Did you set this laundry thing up with him?”
“No. I swear I didn’t know you were here.” I hold up my hands in defence of my innocence. “He did have some things to say about us, though.”
She only looks slightly less pissed off now. “Is ‘us’ really his business?”
“It’s starting to be.” I pause, waiting to see how she’ll take that. “It’s starting to be everyone’s business.”
To my surprise, her shoulders slump, and she sighs. “I know.”
“You do?”
She nods. “I was afraid this would happen. I never wanted me being here to have a negative impact on the band, and I’ve tried really hard to keep our issues just between us, but I mean, we’re living on a bus, and we’ve always been kind of...hazardous, haven’t we?”
She gives me a weak smile that I find myself returning. Hazardous, yeah. There’s a word for it.
“I’m sorry,” she says thickly, turning back to the dryer again, “I’m sorry if the guys are pissed at you because of me.”
“Roxanne, no,” I tell her, “it’s not like that. It’s...They...Matt said everyone just wants to see us, you know, happy.”
I cough. This conversation is getting a little too Disney Channel for me.
“Happy,” she repeats, laughing like she can picture the awkwardness of Matt and I discussing that together.
“That’s clearly not exactly where we’re...at,” I continue, “but we can’t keep dragging everyone down.”
“No,” Roxanne agrees, going serious again, “we can’t.”
“Matt had an idea. He said we could...fake it.”
She gives me a look that begs me to repeat myself.
“We pretend we’re back together,” I explain. “We act like we’ve decided to give it another go. We cool it on the tension so everyone feels like they can relax again. Plus we won’t have to getParent Trap-ed anymore.”
She doesn’t look convinced. “You don’t think people are going to know it’s bullshit? You really think we can ‘cool it on the tension’ and make people think we’re sleeping together again?”
“I can.” I lean over her laundry basket until our faces are only a few inches apart. “Can you?”
