Page 64 of Purple Hearts

“Seriously, Nora.”

“Seriously, Cassie,” she echoed. “Do whatever you want. You’re a queen. Toby’s lucky to have you.”

I smiled. “He doesn’t ‘have me’ yet. But, yeah. It’s been a while since I’ve been liked. Like, actually liked,” I said.

“Awww—”

“I’m experimenting,” I interrupted, feeling my face flush.

“K. Well, good luck, Dr. Kinsey. Don’t fuck with our drummer. Seriously, Cass. Band comes first.”

“I know.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

We said good-bye and hung up.

I checked my lipstick in the camera. I checked my blood sugar to make sure nothing would happen like in the greenroom at the Skylark. I put on Nicki Minaj. When I was full-on rapping along to “Favorite,” Toby texted that he was downstairs. I turned off the music.

I opened the door and he smiled wide. “Hi, good to see you.”

“Good to see you, too,” I said. I slipped on my Converses, waiting.

He was still standing in the doorway, taking a big breath. “This is weird.”

I laughed, covering a sigh of relief. “It’s not that weird, but, yeah, it’s weird.”

“We’ll improvise. I’m supposed to, like, present you with a gift from my people, right?”

“After we sing the ceremonial mating song, yes.”

“Fuck it, let’s go eat.”

•••

An hour later we were sitting on a curb outside of Lulu B’s, talking with our mouths full of bahn mi. After dinner, we’d go to a show at Swan Dive.

He was telling me a story about a time when a venue manager in Tennessee accidentally double booked a night, and his old band got scheduled to play at the same time as a Christian rock band.

“We did the only thing we could,” he said. “We played.”

“You kicked them out?” I asked, laughing.

“No.”

“Then what?”

“It’s not very punk. It’s kind of embarrassing,” he said, looking away from me with a smile.

“No one said you had to be punk,” I told him.

“Well, they were a Christian rock band, we were a rock band, so we decided to play songs we both knew.”

“Which were?”

“Creed.”

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