I'd had sex before. I'd been in love with other women. I'd even had my fair share of adventures on the road, gorgeous groupies willing to try anything once, desperate to please, to leave an impression on me. But nothing compared to the sight of Kaycee, splayed in front of me in the dim bedroom, her face a picture of ecstasy as she came from my touch.

Yet another way I'd never be the same. Yet another memory I could never erase. Another reason I knew I was kidding myself.

This was no casual sex.

We could never be friends with benefits, because we'd always been more than friends, no matter what we'd told ourselves.

Or maybe it was just me. Maybe I was the only one desperate enough to lie to myself in order to keep her close, to have an excuse to pretend that I was fine with whatever crumbs of a relationship I could get out of her. Kaycee was so precious, those crumbs were worth more than a whole marriage with someone else.

Only, with her gasping beneath me, her red hair spread out on the white pillow like a phoenix's haloed flame, I couldn't tell if she was searching for the same things as I was. If when she had avoided eye contact with me the past few days, it had been out of fear for the way she wanted me, or if it was something altogether different.

Because I had been sweating, dreaming, longing for her in one way or another for the past ten years. I could see that clearly now, the way I'd gravitated towards redheads when we were on the road, telling anyone who'd listen that I 'had a thing' for them.

Bullshit.

The only kind of girl I 'had a thing' for was Kaycee. They were just pale imitations. The clumsy, rough sketches of something she'd managed to perfect without trying.

No wonder my brothers and Stevie had spent so much time joking about how I was in love with her. To them, it was the running gag of our band's career, an unmistakable fact that eventually I'd clue in to. I wished for a second that they'd never done that, so that I wouldn't feel so foolish now.

What had happened in the past was past, though. And Kyle had surprised us all by getting seriously involved with a girl so stable and lovely that she made him calmer, more grounded. Jack was still recovering from the devastation of Sarah's death. That left me, the clueless jokester who ended up the butt of the biggest joke in our lives. What a twist.

"Winston?" said Kaycee. She turned her head so that she was facing more closely the direction I was standing. Of course, because she was blindfolded she couldn't see exactly where that was, but she had a good general idea.

"I'm here," I said. My voice sounded nothing like I was reeling from a deep emotional realization, which was good. I wasn't ready to share it with her. For all I knew, she only wanted sex. And I just happened to be here.

God, I couldn't take it if that were all she wanted, though.

I reached down to unclasp the restraints around her wrists. My skin on hers was comforting, the softness of her still so surprising even after years of knowing her. Once she had her hands free, she took off the blindfold herself.

"That was fun!"

I smiled at her, hoping against myself that my eyes didn't convey the messy emotions I was feeling. "You're telling me," I said. "You were the picture of gorgeous depravity."

When that perfect pink color rose on her cheeks, I wanted to kiss it. Kiss the apple of each alabaster cheek, taste the sweetness of her. Instead, I moved to the foot of the bed and undid her ankles. Once freed, she curled up her legs underneath her, perched on the side of her hip.

"I'd say the same," she said, "only I couldn't see you to confirm whether you were the picture of anything."

I laughed, relishing the surreal moment. We were in bed together, enjoying a warm Los Angeles day with languid, sweaty sex. This was the kind of stuff that would have blown the mind of eighteen year-old me. And not just because he loved Kaycee.

"Tough nuts," I said to her, my eyes meeting her gaze despite myself. It looked as if she had just awoken from extremely restful sleep. She was glowing. I almost didn’t want to interrupt her as she basked. It seemed wrong to disrupt the beauty of her lounging after our romp.

Yet, I had to ask. I held my hands under my thighs to quell the way I noticed them trembling.

“Are you certain you want to move out?” I said. My breath was shallow, barely moving my chest up and down. “Because I meant what I said before. If I can help at all, give you a place to stay while you’re reeling from Greg things and busy with work…”

There was a pause while Kaycee looked at me, her mind clearly at work despite her mouth’s silence.

Please say no.

It wasn’t that I needed her to stay. I could figure out my feelings on my own time, try to find words to describe them even if she lived elsewhere. But the notion of her leaving, given my knowledge of her current situation, just didn’t compute for me.

Of course, I was sure my pulse was rapid mostly from selfishness. Still, I knew it wasn’t entirely my own desires fuelling my statements. It genuinely didn’t make sense to me for her to move when I was only six weeks away from the next Avowed Brothers tour.

Kaycee breathed in deeply and sighed in a sound almost like a huff. Rather than angry, though, it sounded a little defeated.

“I don’t know,” she said. If I wasn’t mistaken, she was back to avoiding eye contact with me again.

What on Earth was going on with this girl?

“Ok,” I heard myself say. “You don’t have to decide right now, just know you have a place here if you need it. And that I want to help.”

If Kaycee wasn’t going to stay, I needed to figure some shit out. Soon. And in the meantime, I could use a good session on the drums to work through the tension rippling through me.

I left her to think, or rest, or whatever she decided to do. Realistically, knowing Kaycee, she’d end up working in the bed on her laptop. But I needed some time for contemplation.

I padded from the room, throwing on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, and I went to my drums. They were a constant in my life: no matter how busy I was, or how many things people clamored for me to do, the drum kit was there. I could hit it, could downright abuse the skins of the drums, and all the drums would do was echo the noise out into the world.

Tonight, they sounded clear and honest. I vented my frustration, my longing for Kaycee to stay unequivocally, into those drums. And I’d like to think that the sound they made was rhythmic in a way that she would have enjoyed hearing. That the beat ran through her, transferred from me to the drums to her skin, each vibration conveying another wordless piece of the puzzle of my feelings.

* * *

The next morning, Kaycee made me breakfast. I took an enormous bite of the scrambled eggs and proclaimed them delicious, but I was so overjoyed from her kind gesture that they could have been raw and I’d likely have said the same thing.

“So I’ve thought about it,” she said, perching on one of the bar stools I couldn’t bring myself to replace, no matter how shabby they were. I’d had them since I moved out of my dad’s place in Beech Lake way back when, and they’d become a symbol of growing up to me.

Don’t say it. Don’t say you’re moving.

“If you’re absolutely certain it’s ok with you, I’ll stay here for the next few months.”

I took another bite of eggs, needing the excuse to remain silent for a moment. My joy was too much, too vivid for me to respond in a reasonable way. After all, no matter what we were doing in the bedroom, we weren’t dating. I couldn’t act like she was moving in with me romantically.

“Glad you’ve made a decision you can be happy with,” I said. My tone was even, my words warm but not too enthused. If she’d chosen to leave, I’d have said the same thing, despite the heavy depression that would have filled me. “Now I’ll have to shell out for some new earplugs.”

“What?” Kaycee had a smile playing at her lips, but she was clearly still too nervous from the declaration to understand my joke was indeed a joke.

“You know,” I continued, “to help drown out your jet-engine snoring?”

“Oh, nonsense,” she said, both relieved and a little frustrated. With an indignant scoff, she got up from the barstool. “I don’t snore.”

“Sad to break it to you yet one more time,” I said, “But you’ve been snoring since I met you. Just cause all your other boyfriends have lied to you…”

Shit. Did she hear it?

Kaycee’s back was turned, her hands in the sink, where she was washing the dishes from her breakfast. I could see no sign that she’d noticed my Freudian slip. If she’d heard me call myself her boyfriend, she could have been horrified, or amused, or something in between.

I thought I was supposed to be good at this by now: sleep with a girl, act casual the next day and move on, making jokes to ease the transition. Just because I felt something more serious for Kaycee didn’t mean I couldn’t continue to be the clown. Except, apparently, my jokes might reveal a little too much for comfort.

I took Kaycee’s silence for mock outrage at my accusations, and I rolled with it.

“You’ve lived too long in a cavern of denial,” I said, puffing my chest as if I were a grand medieval knight. “I cannot abide a lady suffering through such a din without knowing the source of it.”

“Even if it’s me?” she said, turning around. She was smiling, eyes bright and lipstick perfect. “And I never heard it?”

“Trust me, my lady,” I said. I bent down on one knee, offering a hand expectantly. When she took it, I pressed my lips against the back of her hand gallantly. “It is most atrocious.”

“Flattering,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t believe you, but even if I did snore it’s not like your house is so small you have to hear it. One of the perks of being a successful musician, right?”

“Fair enough.”

I rose from the bended knee, stretching as I moved. “You win this round, K.”

“You know who does snore, though?”

She blinked at me pointedly. I was a perfect picture of feigned innocence as she implied that I was the snoring beast.

“Me? Never!” I gasped and clutched at imaginary pearls.

“Your brother, actually,” she said. Kaycee leaned in closer to me, her shimmering eyes so bright I felt caught in them. Suspended in time.

“Oh yeah, they can both be loud as a thunderstorm sometimes. Have definitely learned that from years of touring.”

“So you must be looking forward to this one.”

She said it so simply, and though some part of it was true, a larger portion of me was now struck with the thought that I didn’t want to be gone while Kaycee lived in my house. I would miss this, a morning routine with gentle banter.

I wanted to be here with her.

Within a second, I recovered from the way I’d faltered and mumbled something affirmative. We got ready for the rest of the day without much more conversation. But I knew I needed to talk to someone, get some of these feelings off my chest before I said more I might regret.

* * *

“Thought band practice was tomorrow,” said Jack. He was standing at the door of his temporary rental in the city, a joyless studio in a just-slightly gentrified part of downtown. I hadn’t managed to convince him to find anything more worthy of his time, and neither had Kyle.

“It is,” I said. “But I need your advice.”

Jack inhaled sharply, sucking the air in through his teeth. “Don’t know that I’m your guy. I mean, look at me.”

Though he’d cleaned up since Kyle reconciled with him last year, Jack was still a gloomy shadow of his former self. Grief had gutted him, darkened him, made him withdraw from life. When Sarah died, social services had gotten involved in the care of his daughter because of how public his catastrophic breakdown was. I suspected he could likely regain custody if he applied himself, but it was like despair still drove him, pre-empting the possibility of hope.

“No,” I said. “You are. Kyle’s in such a great place these days I wasn’t sure if he could understand.”

“Something wrong?”

Jack and I had been close growing up, despite our differences. He’d been the good student, the selfless helper to our father, the kid working since he could pick up a wrench and help in the shop, and I’d been just as applied in my attempts to avoid responsibility. We loved each other, though, and that was what counted.

“Yeah,” I said, sighing and sinking into the ratty brown couch in Jack’s living room. “Please tell me this couch isn’t second hand.”

Jack shrugged. “Don’t ask if you don’t want to know the answer.”

“C’mon man, you’re flush with cash like the rest of us, right? Didn’t spend your fortune on ill-advised gambling or something?”

“Course not,” said Jack. “I just don’t intend to stick around Los Angeles once this record and tour’s done.”

That was news to me, but it shouldn’t have been. “Moving back home?”

He nodded. “Kyle and Adelaide will be busy with their little one, and I ought to fix my life up once and for all.”

“Get your girl back?”

“Mm-hm.”

“That’s really good to hear,” I said. I didn’t want to startle Jack. Even now, a couple years after the accident that claimed Sarah’s life, I couldn’t read him anymore. What once had been a brotherly amicability between us was now replaced with an opaque, thickly bearded quasi-stranger. I loved him, of course, but felt helpless when thinking about the magnitude of his loss.

“Thanks,” he said. “It’s time.”

“Shit, man, I feel bad making you wait until we’re done recording. You could head back for a few weeks before the tour starts, get things rolling with child services?”

“Nah,” said Jack. He was sitting in an equally dowdy chair across from the couch I was perched on, only he’d committed to the act of lounging much more than I had. Guess fame had changed my tastes at least a bit. “The time will come soon enough.”

He didn’t sound like he was ready to face Minneapolis again. When we’d gone to find him at the family cabin in Beech Lake, to reunite the band after Kyle got clean, Jack had barely been existing: eat, sleep, fish, repeat. It was a good thing he’d kept his dog or he might’ve forgotten basic interaction with other living beings. She was asleep in the corner now, her legs splayed at wonky angles.

“Sounds good,” I said. The words seemed paltry in comparison with the magnitude of Jack’s plans, but they were something. Trying meant something.

Jack breathed heavily, recomposing himself after our dive into topics he was clearly still uncomfortable with. He blinked as if awakened from a dream. “Sorry man, what was it you needed help with?”

I couldn’t ask him about my feelings, probably a stupid crush, now—not after he’d been talking about getting his daughter back. Not when his grief was still palpable from across the room, several years in. Not when he’d loved and lost, so vividly, and I had never taken the risk since Kaycee and I broke up.

“You know what, it’s nothing,” I said. After a quiet pause, I stood and awkwardly strode towards the door, trying to pretend I was fine.

Jack, to his credit, saw through me like I was a teen again, sneaking home drunk after a rowdy evening.

“Bullshit,” he said, standing and blocking the door. From this distance, his eyes looked almost black, as if to match his hair and beard. The bulk of his shoulders dwarfed me, making me feel young all over again.

“Jack, c’mon,” I said. My pleas were pathetic, even to my ear. An obvious excuse, trying to avoid the things I most feared.

A painful truth about being so goofy, resorting to humor in stressful situations, was that it was my crutch. Sincerity, my kryptonite. Even if it was my beloved older brother, who was so experienced and tough and intelligent in ways I never could be. If I’d had even a tenth of the problems he’d faced, I’d have broken.

I’d never recover.

But here he was, standing in front of me insistent that I crack. That I let him in, tell him what was on my mind.

I sighed.

“Ok, fine. Promise not to laugh too hard? Hell, what am I saying. Of course you’ll laugh. I would too. Look,” I said. Then I paused.

Here goes nothing.

“I think I’m in love with Kaycee,” I said.