Page 87 of Out of Tune
“Can’t get enough of me, can you?” I teased. My fingers locked around her wrist and I directed the blade to my mouth. Avery’s breath caught as my tongue flicked out to catch some of the jelly.
Her mouth popped open into a shockedObefore I released my grip. She swallowed hard, cheeks painted a pretty pink as she pointedly fixed her attention back on the sandwiches and continued her lecture. “Don’t give yourself too much credit. It’s not like I have better things to do. Before I got to my new school, I was already known as Hudson Sloane’s secret love child.”
“Tell me they don’t fucking call you that.” My fists clenched at my side.
She huffed a laugh and looked down at the tattered skin around their nails. “They asked me if I was. I said yes. I’m not ashamed of it, even if my grandparents are. I’m pretty sure the only reason they took me in was because of how it would look if they didn’t. They don’t want me here as much as I don’t want to be here.”
“Come back with me. Come on tour. That was always going to be the plan, right? Us up on stage. There’s no reason you need to stay.” I wanted to get her out as fast as I could. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She belonged with us—with me.
“What about the fact that I’m seventeen? And it’s not just that. My grandparents, they’re powerful. They have connections. If they want something, they get it.” She flipped the sandwiches closed, jelly leaking from the edges, and held one out for me. “Whether I like it or not, I’m stuck. Take this.”
But I had no intention of changing the topic. “Promise me that when you’re eighteen, you’ll join us.”
“I don’t have my guitar, Wes. I haven’t been practicing. It takes everything in me to get through each day. I’m tired.” I saw it in the shadows under her eyes, the ones so much like my mom’s.
Something in my chest cracked. “Don’t let them take this from you.”
“They already have. Can you just take the sandwich and move on?” She thrust it at me as her eyes glistened.
“I’ll drop it, but only if you can look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want this.”
“What’s the point? Lydia reached out and told me she has a deal for me, but I doubt they’ll wait nearly a year for me to sign. I’ll have to wait until I’m eighteen, and you’ll be done with the tour by then.”
“Not necessarily. They’re thinking of extending it.” Despite my mistakes, we’d been selling out bigger venues. Everything we dreamed of was there for the taking, but it wouldn’t be worth itif she wasn’t part of it. “Come on. Play along with me for one second. Say we get a new leg of the tour added, what should I tell them you want in your dressing room? Garrett has been asking for a chess set. Jared has boxes of condoms he never uses.”
She slanted me a look and blew out a sigh before playing along. “I don’t know. A hundred and five teddy bears.”
“Really?” I coughed through laughter.
“Probably not.” A smile teased at the corners of her lips. “I guess I just want to live in a world where having teddy bears in my dressing room is the biggest thing I have to worry about.”
“What else would you want?”
We continued back and forth as we cleaned. I washed dishes and she dried while we conjured up the future we wanted. Visiting cities, going out to museums between stops, singing in bars because we felt like it, performing for whoever was there. She joked, but I tucked it all away in the back of my mind. The perfect music tour. Some of it was out of reach, but I promised myself that I’d give it to her one day.
After dinner, I went back out to the car. I’d stopped by her house after our call on Thanksgiving, knowing that she didn’t have a chance to collect her things.
“I brought some stuff for you,” I said, setting my duffle on an overstuffed chair in the living room.
“Oh, really?” She flopped onto a couch, watching me as I unzipped my bag and rummaged through it.
“First, this.” I held out the old Discman she’d given me to use on tour, then a set of CD cases. “And these. I’ve been picking out a new one each week. There’s some good stuff in here. You might have heard a few already.” I grabbed one from the top. “I also burned a mix with my favorites.”
“Wes. You didn’t have to,” she started.
“Wait. There’s one more thing.” I couldn’t contain my grin as I ducked into the hall and returned with the best item. “Now you can keep practicing. Don’t let me get better than you.”
She gasped at the sight of the guitar case and rushed to take it from me, hugging it like an old friend. Tears lined her lashes as she set it on the ground and popped open the clasps. Flipping open the lid, she ran her fingers over the strings.
She played for an hour. Color coming back to her cheeks and light flooding her eyes. I could have listened to her forever, but we started to yawn.
We laid curled around each other on the couch listening to the CD I’d made her, tethered together once more by fraying headphones. In her sleep, she cried against my chest. I pulled her closer, trying not to think of how tomorrow I had to let her go.
Avery
Winter 2008
Iwoke to the front door slamming. I bolted upright, jostling Wes. His gaze found mine as I started to panic.
