The next day, Gavin and Nigel head back to Los Angeles. I guess Eddie leaves, too, though I don’t really give a shit about where he goes.

We decide that, rather than try to find a real replacement drummer in two weeks, all we need for now is someone to finish out the tour. That’ll be about a million times easier, and I don’t think Gavin wants the responsibility of finding a new drummer, but he can handle finding a temporary drummer.

I think he wishes Trent and I were going with him, but plane travel sounds like a nightmare right now, and Trent’s made it pretty fucking clear that he’s staying with me. He’s really dead set on seeing my gross back as much as possible, and I’ve given up arguing.

The two of us settle into a routine in the next few days, a cute little domestic-as-shit adorable routine. In the morning, whoever wakes up first hangs out in the lobby and drinks coffee until the other one shows up. We go change my bandages. We make breakfast in the tiny kitchenette, usually some variation on scrambled eggs. We play some music, we have a video chat with Trent about the drummer situation, we play some more music.

Once my back feels good enough for car rides, sometimes we go out in the afternoon: to downtown Tallwood, which is quaint as hell and very proud of its past as a major logging town; to Snokamie falls; to a lake that’s not too far away.

Then I hit up the lodge’s happy hour. We make dinner in the little kitchenette, because eating take-out gets old pretty fast. Then we pick a dumb movie and watch together, even though we usually end up talking over it.

He does my bandages again, and I go back to my room to go to bed.

I like it so much goddamn more than I should. Even though Trent and I have been friends for a while and really close for the past year, we’ve never spent this much time together. It’s never even been close, but I like it, really like it in a way I wish I didn’t.

Because it’s really not healthy for me to want what I can’t have.

* * *

“You didn’t have to come,” I say, kicking my feet.

Trent crosses his arms over his chest, leans back in the chair, and keeps on scowling.

“I’m fine,” he says.

I roll my eyes, leaning forward on the exam table, the paper under me crinkling.

“You’re glaring the bejeezus out of every nurse who looks at you sideways,” I say.

“Darce, I’m fucking fine,” he says again.

“You can stay in the waiting room if you want,” I offer. “Or the car. I could have driven here myself.”

“You’re not on the rental agreement, and I’m here so I can change your damn bandages correctly so stop telling me to go be somewhere else, I’m already here and I’m staying,” he says.

I shove my hair out of my face — I finally got it cut, so I look normal now, not like a five-year-old did it in my sleep — and grab a pamphlet off the wall titled DIABETES AND YOU. I tried to talk Trent out of coming, because I know he fucking hates doctors and hospitals and I knew he’d be grumpy this whole time, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

I could kick him out, sure, but that would be pretty pointless, given that he’s right. So I read about high blood sugar problems and the role of obesity in insulin resistance until there’s a knock on the door and it opens, a women with graying hair and a lab coat breezing through.

“Hi, I’m Doctor Kowalski,” she says, holding out one hand. “Darcy?”

We shake hands, and I introduce Trent. He does at least stand and try to be presentable, even though I can tell he’s still in a dark, medical-facility-induced mood.

After a quick look at my vitals, all normal, Dr. Kowalski has me stand and undoes the ties down the back of my cloth gown as I hold the front tightly over my chest.

“You’re healing nicely,” she says as she peels away the bandage still stuck to me. “The blisters have really gone down. Hard to say how much scarring there might be, but it probably won’t be too significant.”

Scarring. I hadn’t really even considered that yet, I’d just been worried about being able to move and do stuff again.

“I’ve got a good nurse,” I say, nodding toward Trent.

“I can see that,” the doctor says. “Any numbness or tingling? Any fever or joint pain?”

“Nothing,” I say.

She cleans the wound off carefully and wraps me up again. Now Trent’s leaning forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, paying close attention to what she’s doing, asking her a few questions.

Finally, she turns me around and touches my bruised eye gently with two fingers, prodding it slightly like she’s testing it.

“No impaired vision?” she asks.

I shake my head, and she looks over at Trent, who’s still sitting in the chair.

“Would you mind giving us a moment alone?” the doctor asks.

Trent frowns slightly, but he gets up. I nod at him that it’s fine, and he opens the door.

“I’ll be in the waiting area,” he says, and shuts it behind him.

“He doesn’t like hospitals or doctors,” I say. “Bad memories.”

She nods.

“One of the things I’m trained to screen for is intimate partner violence,” she says softly. “Particularly with injuries like yours, so do you mind if I ask how you got these?”

I almost laugh, and I almost tell her that Trent’s not my intimate partner, just my friend, but I don’t do either, because I don’t mind some people thinking Trent’s my boyfriend, even when they’re asking if he hits me.

“I got lit on fire by a stray firework,” I tell her, and explain the whole story. I know that it must be in my chart somewhere, and she must know about the bass player who was on fire, but I definitely made the Tallwood news.

But I think she wants confirmation from me, so I tell the story again. I do it clinically, trying to sound detached.

Like I don’t remember that Trent saved my life, or that he held my hand in those seconds before help was there. Like I don’t sometimes fall asleep thinking about Trent staying with me like that, being there for me in one of the worst moments of my life.

“There’s video of it,” I finish, and pause. “It wasn’t Trent. He’s never touched me.”

The doctor just nods. I still don’t tell her he’s not my boyfriend, because it’s oddly thrilling that someone thinks he is.

“Double-checking is part of my job,” she says. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“Just so you know, it was the nature of your injuries, not the impression I got from you two,” she says, sticking a pen through her bun. “Abusers don’t tend to be quite so genuinely concerned. They’re usually faking it.”

I just nod. I feel horrible for Trent right now, probably sitting in the waiting room feeling miserable that he’s here at all, not to mention the doctor just asked if he’s been smacking me around.

“I see,” I say.

We shake hands again. She lets herself out, I put my clothes back on over the new bandage, and leave the doctor’s office. Trent’s sitting in the waiting room and we walk out into the parking lot in silence. I almost say they all think you’re my boyfriend, isn’t that funny, but at the last second I decide to keep it to myself and keep pretending.

“It wasn’t because of you,” I finally say when we’re in the car and he’s driving out of the parking lot. “It’s because I’ve got a black eye.”

Trent checks traffic, waits for a car to pass, and pulls out.

“I know what it looks like,” he says. “Believe me. She did the right thing, asking me to leave.”

There’s a long, long pause, as we drive down a curvy, tree-lined drive, Trent staring straight ahead.

Of course he knows what it looks like, I think.

“Thanks for coming with me,” I finally say.

The corner of his mouth ticks up at last, and for the first time since we left for the doctor’s office, I feel better because he’s smiling.

“Of course,” he says, then taps the steering wheel. He glances over at me, like he’s thinking, then back at the road. “You wanna go get pie?”

“Fuck yes I wanna go get pie,” I say.

* * *

We only found Aunt Sadie’s House of Pies two days ago, but this is at least our fourth time here. Don’t judge us. Pie’s fucking delicious. We each order slices — I get apple with cheddar cheese on it, Trent gets cherry — and eat them in one of the old-fashioned wooden booths in the back.

“You know cheese on a pie is still wrong, right?” he asks, forking a pile of cherry into his mouth.

“Am I judging your pie choices right now?”

“Someone needed to tell you,” he says, shrugging.

“I watched you put chili powder on watermelon the other day and I didn’t say a damn thing,” I point out.

“That’s delicious.”

“So is this!”

“I tried it. It’s not.”

I take another huge bite of cheese-topped apple pie and shrug at him.

“More for me,” I say.

“You can have it.”

“I will.”

Trent swallows pie, then opens his mouth to say something. Instead he frowns and pulls his phone out of his pocket. He looks at it, then at me.

“It’s Gavin, do I answer or pretend I’m in the shower?”

We’ve already talked to Gavin twice today, and I almost tell Trent not to answer, but the poor guy is scouting drummers all alone.

“Be nice, answer it,” I say.

Trent makes a face, but pushes the green button, and Gavin’s face pops up. He’s in our recording studio, chin in hand, looking tired.

“Are you two eating pie again?” he asks.

I stab the final bite of mine and shove it into my mouth.

“No,” I say, flaky bits of crust spraying out of my mouth.

“You were also eating pie the last time I called,” Gavin says.

“That was this morning,” I say, and swallow. “We weren’t eating pie this morning.”

“You’ve definitely eaten quite a lot of pie.”

“Were you calling us to check on our diets?” Trent interrupts.

Gavin leans back, sighs, covers his face with his hands, and spins around in his chair. It’s very dramatic.

“I still haven’t got a drummer,” he says. “I’ve found at least three who could do some of the tour but not all of it since everyone’s got bands and tours and recording of their own, and finding an unattached drummer who I’d trust with this is...”

Trent and I just nod, in unison, in the pie shop.

“I’m still only partway through the list we brainstormed,” he says. “I’ve got meetings tomorrow with another six bloody drummers, and God knows that at least one of them is going to show up here and say tour? Oh I thought the advert said ‘snore’ and this was for a napathon so I’ve got that to look forward to as well.”

“Let us know if we can make any calls,” I volunteer. I feel guilty just sitting up here eating pie and not helping, but there’s also not that much I can do from here. One of the nice things about being a successful, famous musician is hiring people to do the messy work for you.

Gavin waves one hand.

“Nigel’s done all the calling,” he says. “Practically won’t even let me near the phone, something about charging in and having no tact? I don’t know what he’s on about.”

“Me either,” I lie.

We all know the truth, and none of us is saying it out loud: until this time last year, Gavin was way more concerned about where his next fix was coming from than the logistics of a tour. There are plenty of people who wouldn’t bother answering his calls.

“How’s your back?” Gavin asks.

We chat for a few more minutes, giving Gavin the updates and the good news, even though there isn’t a whole lot to talk about. Trent and I have started watching those dumb ghost hunter-type reality shows, but that’s not the sort of thing you brag about.

That’s the sort of thing that you keep secret with your best friend, because you know it’s kind of a stupid thing to do.

“I ought to get home,” Gavin finally says. “Since I’m unexpectedly in Los Angeles, I’ve been roped into some sort of corporate law firm event with Marisol and I think I’ve got to wear a suit and everything.”

“Do you own a suit?” I ask.

I’ve sure never seen him in it. Gavin’s good looking, I’d remember him in a suit.

“I’ll have you know I own two suits,” Gavin says, grinning.

Trent looks at me.

“We’ve lost him,” he says, very seriously.

“First it’s suits, then he’ll be wanting to put synthesizer in all our songs,” I say. “Maybe we should also just quit the band while we’re ahead.”

Gavin points at the camera.

“That’s not bloody funny,” he says, and the three of us laugh.

When we hang up, Trent leans back in the booth opposite me, hands on his head.

I look at my pie plate, smashing the crumbs between the tines of my fork, and try not to notice how it pulls his shirt tight against his chest, or how I can see every muscle in both his thick arms when he does this.

I notice nothing. Nothing.

“I gotta pee, then you ready to head back?” he asks, sliding out of the booth.

“Sure,” I say. It’s not like I had big plans in Tallwood today or something.

He saunters off to the men’s room, and I do not crane my neck a little to watch him leave.

When Trent informed me that he was sticking around to take care of me and there was nothing I could do about it, a big part of me thought that maybe, maybe, being around him so much would cure me of my dumb crush on him, but it’s done the goddamn opposite.

Now, every time he looks at me, I wonder what he’s thinking. Whether he’s thinking the same thing as me. If we accidentally touch hands, I wonder what would happen if I held on. I wonder what would happen if I leaned against him while we watched terrible made-for-TV movies at night.

Part of me desperately, desperately wants to try it, but what if he leaned away?

And what if he didn’t? What if we fumbled through some make-outs, maybe even had sex a couple of times, only to find out that we just didn’t click that way? Then what?

I can’t give Trent up. I can’t. And if keeping this means never getting to kiss him, never getting to straddle him on the couch while a stupid movie plays and—

His phone buzzes, jolting me out of my quick fantasy. It’s still on the table, and he’s still in the bathroom, so I pick it up.

The caller ID says COLLECT, and my stomach forms a tight ball. I’m pretty sure I know who’s calling.

Fuck. Fuck.

Phone in hand, I slide out of the booth and stand, peering toward the men’s bathroom. It buzzes again, but no sign of Trent.

Shit. I don’t know what to do. I know he wouldn’t want to miss this call, but it feels really weird to just answer his phone.

Another buzz. It’ll go to voicemail next, and Trent can’t possibly be more than another thirty seconds in the bathroom, so I think fuck it, hit the green button, and clear my throat.

“Hello?”

“Hello,” says an automated voice. “This is a collect call from the North Delano State Correctional Facility. Please press 1 if you’re willing to accept the charges.”

I swallow hard, glance at the bathroom door, and wait a second. Still no Trent. I hit 1 on the keypad, palms sweaty.

“Thank you!” the voice says, sounding way too happy about this. “You will now be connected.”

I wait. I stare at an old-fashioned sign on the wall of Aunt Sadie’s — Farm Fresh Milk, only 5¢! — and I wait. Finally, there’s a click on the other end of the line, and a man’s voice.

“Hey, Trent,” says a voice that sounds a lot like Trent.

I scrunch my toes in my shoes.

“This is Eli, right?” I ask, suddenly nervous.

“Yeah,” he says, and pauses. “Who’s this?”

“This is Trent’s bandmate Darcy,” I explain, still looking at the wall. “He’ll be back in a second.”

“You answered his phone?”

I blink at the wall.

“Yes, obviously,” I say.

“Damn, girl,” Eli says. “Damn.”

There’s a long pause, because I don’t have a response for that. I’m not even sure what that means.

“So, is he gonna be back soon, or should I call later...?”

The men’s bathroom door opens, and Trent steps out. I wave at him like a madwoman.

“Here he is!” I practically shout into the phone.