Canaan

---

I found myself pleasantly surprised by the experience of playing with Mike and Tomas. Mike was, shockingly, an extremely talented keys player, and possessed a rich, warm voice. The songs he’d written thus far were introspective and somewhat dark in terms of lyrical content, and when you add in layers of guitar and mandolin and such on top of Mike’s complex vocal style? Well…you had a really interesting sound. Mike couldn’t help growling, even in a folk song, but he could also just sing, which made for a vocal style that could go from tortured and snarling and growling to emotive and soulful.

Tomas was a wizard with anything stringed—he could play upright bass, cello, violin, mandolin, dobro, lap-steel, 12-string, banjo…he was just one of those people who was created by God or the universe or whatever for one specific function, and that was to play music. Tomas didn’t say much, and was awkward and weird when he did talk, but put an instrument in his hands, and he transformed into this confident master of his world. He had a slight accent, from the few times I’d heard him speak over the past three days— Scandinavian, I think, but I wasn’t sure.

With me to round things out, we were able to lay tracks right off the bat. Mike had built himself a hell of a home studio in Seattle, a place where we could jam and practice and just play, but with the press of a button, we could also record. He wanted it to sound authentic, not a smooth, silky, produced thing, but rough and real. Which worked, since the three of us tended to be best once we’d been playing for a few hours, we’d hit the zone and find an element that had been missing, figure out a riff that wasn’t right or a phrase that didn’t work.

It was a wild, intense three days, though. We played, and we drank, and we passed out for a few hours, and then woke up and ate at a nearby diner and talked music and then went back to the studio and went back to playing, and eventually drinking and playing, and then just drinking.

Mike never asked any questions, and Tomas barely spoke, so I pretended life was totally normal, that I hadn’t ghosted on everyone I knew, that I hadn’t left Aerie without a word, that I wasn’t suppressing everything I felt, that I wasn’t in total agony, deep inside.

I channeled it all into music. I played my ass off. Every emotion, every ounce of pain and confusion and anger I felt, I put into my guitars.

In three days, we had twelve tracks, and each one was utterly inspired.

Three days. That was how long I managed to keep up the pretense that I was fine.

We cut the twelfth and best track yet, finishing at something like midnight. At which point I was a handful of shots in, and everything I’d been ignoring was gnawing away at me.

Aerie.

I had abandoned her. After what she told me, that would be the worst thing I could ever do.

How could I go back? I don’t deserve to even see her again. Yet…because of Corin and Tate, I would have to.

God, Corin and Tate. My twin brother was going to be a fucking father. I was going to be an uncle.

A BABY. They were having a baby.

This, recording this album with Mike and Tomas, was amazing, and fun, and I loved it, but I couldn’t see myself doing this again. Playing just wasn’t the same without Corin beside me. Would he and I ever play together again? We’d never tour together again, that was for damn sure. The shit of it all was, I knew, even without having talked to him about it, he would be staying in Ketchikan. I could see it in him. I could feel it. He was home. He was content. He had what he wanted. He had Tate, they had a future together. He could play at Badd’s on the weekend, tend bar, love his woman, take care of his baby, and be happy. That was all he needed. He loved music, and he’d enjoyed the freedom and fun of touring, but he’d never gotten the rush from it I did. He’d said as much, before this thing with the girls ever happened.

We’d been drinking on the bus late one night, and we’d gotten talking about the road, the music, the life, and he’d admitted he liked it, but couldn’t see himself doing it forever. I had felt an uncomfortable sizzle of worry at his words, but I’d been drunk and he’d been drunk and I dismissed it as drunk conversation. Now, I realize, he’d been speaking a deeper truth than either of us had realized.

Where did that leave me?

Out in the cold. Left to figure out my own life.

And what about Aerie?

My thoughts shied away from her. It hurt too much.

She was too afraid.

Of me? Of us? What was she afraid of?

“Whoa, whoa, Cane, buddy, ease up, okay?” I heard Mike’s voice, felt his hands on mine.

He was prying a bottle away from me. Whiskey? An empty bottle, or almost empty, just a few slugs left in the bottom. My throat burned, and my head spun, and I realized I’d been chugging the whiskey straight out of the bottle.

“I…” I found my feet. “I need air.”

Mike was at my side. “Let’s get you outside then, huh?”

I was unsteady and grateful for Mike at my side, because I’d have been pinballing off the walls and the stairs to get from the studio down to the street level. Forget about it. I’d have broken bones. Mike got me down the stairs, and helped me sit on the stoop. It was a chilly, wet Seattle night, the roads gleaming wet from a recent drizzle, streetlights smearing orange stains on the blacktop, a traffic signal a block or two away cycling green-amber-red.

Mike sat beside me, dug a crushed pack of cigarettes out of his hip pocket and lit one. “Been giving you time, haven’t pushed or asked, but Canaan, buddy…what the fuck is going on? We been drinking a lot last few days, I get that, but you downing three-quarters of a bottle of bourbon like that? It ain’t you, man. So what gives?”

I shook my head, which set the world to reeling. “I fucked it all up, Mike.”

“What was it you fucked up?”

“Her. Us. Everything. I shouldn’t be here. But I was…I was upset, and scared. I know dudes shouldn’t admit to being scared, but…shit, she scares me.”

Mike laughed. “Ohhh, buddy. I feel you. Women have a way of scaring us, don’t they? Like, they’re so small and soft and confusing and they smell good and then somehow you just…you need her.”

“But she said she was too scared. She said it. I heard her.” I held my head in my hands, trying to stop the spinning. “I heard her say it, man. She said she was too scared to risk it with me.”

“So you bolted?” He guessed.

I nodded sloppily. “She was too scared, which makes me feel like, what the fuck? You know? Like, I’m not worth it? There coulda been something, but she was too scared. I heard her say it, and then you called me, and…” I felt so dizzy, so sick, and I hated it. “It wasn’t one of those sitcom things where I heard what she said out of context, either. No, she said…I heard her say she was too afraid to find out if I was worth it.”

“Worth what?”

I shook my head. “Complicated…too complicated to explain. Basically, though…us.”

“Ah. I see.”

“You see. So, you see, I fucked up, because I ran away. Like a scared little puppy. Not man enough to tell her I’d heard her. To ask her why. I ran. I ran.” Something heaved inside me, a rejection, a rebellion. “Oh fuck. Gon’ be sick.”

Mike had me off the stoop and in the street, over a sewer grate. Just in time. All that whiskey came right out of me.

It burned.

I let it burn.

“You need sleep, dude.” Mike was all but carrying me, now. Or, just flat out carrying me. I wasn’t sure. “You’ll be all right, man. Sleep it off. Figure it out in the morning, okay?”

“Ran.” It was the only word I could get out.

“I know. I’ve done my share of running, too. Guess we’re both pussies.”

“Pussy.”

“Yep, you and me both.”

“What’s…” I was seeing the ceiling in between long, dizzy, sleepy, disoriented blinks, then seeing Mike, two-three-four of him, and walls in all directions, up and down and sideways, “…her name. The girl. You ran from her. Whass her name?”

“Leah. I lost my chance, man. She’s with someone else now. I loved her, but I was scared, so I ran. When I went back to tell her, she was with someone else. Told me I’d lost my chance, that she’d loved me too, but now she had something with someone who wasn’t too scared to admit how he felt, and she was over me.”

“Sucks.”

“Yeah. Yeah it does. A lot.” He patted me on the shoulder. “If you get a chance with this girl, Cane, you take it. Take it, man. Life is too short to waste it being afraid of getting hurt. Because trust me, regret hurts a fuckuva lot worse than heartbreak.”

“ ’M drunk.”

“You are wayyy beyond drunk, buddy.” He patted me again. “But I got you, man. You’ll be fine.”

“Fuck everything.”

“I know.”

“You’re good people, Mike. You play piano real good.”

“Surprised the shit out of you with that, didn’t I?”

“Uh-huh.”

“It was just me and my mom growing up, and she made me take piano lessons for like, fifteen years. I hated that shit every single day, but it was important to her, so I stuck with it. Ended up in heavy metal, but now when I want to relax or whatever, I plink around on the piano. This album we’re doing, it’s for her, man. She’s gone now, but it’s for her.”

“You gotta do a piano song just for her. No me, no Tomas, no guitars or any shit. Just you playing for your momma.” I was so dizzy. So tired. But there was so much spinning inside me. It all hurt. “I lost my mom. She died.”

“Me too, man. That shit will fuck you up real good.”

“Real good. Hurts. Old, old, deep hurt.”

He patted me yet again. “Pass out, bro. Leave this heavy shit for when you’re feeling better.”

“ ’Kay.”

Darkness. Welcoming and deep and black and thick and silent. Mercifully silent.

---

Oh fuck, it hurts. It hurts. Head, throat, mouth, body. Everything.

“Take this.” A voice—familiar, soft, warm; a hand, feeding me little hard pills, and then the plastic rim of a bottle, something vaguely sweet and refreshing quenching the fire in my head and wetting the parched desert of my mouth and throat. “Good job. Sleep, Canaan. Just sleep.”

“I ran away.” This, again. It’s on repeat in my head, even as I struggle with reality and wakefulness and the drugged drowsiness of still-drunk slumber; Mike’s words, echoing—regret hurts a fuckuva lot more than heartbreak.

“Yes, you did.”

“It hurts.”

“That’s what the Tylenol is for, Cane.”

“No—no, no, no. Heart, not head.” Still so, so drunk, and hating it. “I ran.”

“Go back to sleep, Cane.” Who was that?

The voice was like a salve, a soothing balm on my soul. The voice of home. Of heaven. Of home, if home were heaven. Or heaven, if it were home. Something like that, something I was too blitzed and crushed to make sense of.

---

I woke up again, still in pain, but able to wake up all the way. There was a bottle of Gatorade and some Tylenol, which I took.

There was a backpack on the floor, near the door. Not mine. A pair of shoes. Lime green TOMS. A phone charger plugged into the wall, the white cord leading up to the dresser, where the phone lay face down—not my phone.

My head was thick and sluggish, and I couldn’t make sense of what it meant. I was hot. And hungry. And thirsty. And I needed a long piss and a bucket of coffee. I was still wearing my hoodie, jeans, T-shirt, and socks—I stripped down to just the jeans and left the room, took an epic wall-hand piss, and then went in search of coffee.

My room at Mike’s place was at the back of a renovated industrial warehouse, and it was a makeshift spot, the walls just framed off with two-by-fours and roughed-in drywall that hadn’t been mudded yet, exposed pipes above, epoxy floor, a cheap bed frame against the wall and a third- or fourth-hand bureau, no closet, and a sliding door on a track. There was a half-bath across the hall, and that hall led out to a catwalk overlooking the living area of the apartment, couches and easy chairs and a giant TV showing ESPN highlight reels, and off on the farthest end of the apartment from where I stood on the catwalk, the kitchen, industrial, all stainless steel and black granite counters. Mike had admitted when I first arrived that this warehouse loft apartment was his baby, something he’d been working on for years, off and on, in between tours and recording albums. He’d done all the reno himself, built everything with his own two hands. The studio was in the same building, and he’d put that together himself too—apparently he’d bought the whole building.

Mike was on the couch, watching TV, and Tomas was on a chair, half-watching the TV and flipping through a magazine, which, as I descended the stairs, I realized wasn’t in English.

Mike saw me coming down, and tossed a wave at me. “Ah, the wild beast emerges from its lair,” he said in a passable Australian accent. “How ya holdin’ up, buddy?”

I winced. “Alive. Barely.”

“Yeah, you really outdid yourself last night.” He laughed, and then wiped his face. “So, um, not sure how much you remember about last night and this morning—”

“I had weird-ass dreams,” I said. “Heard this voice.” I shook my head, not sure how to put the experience into words. “I dunno. It was weird.”

“Yeah, about that—”

I headed past Mike toward the kitchen. “Coffee. I can’t talk until I’ve had coffee.”

Tomas grinned at Mike, and Mike just rubbed the back of his neck.

“Suit yourself,” Mike said.

I reached the corner where the kitchen met the living room and the stove and fridge came into view.

And I heard a pan rattling on the range, a utensil scraping.

If Tomas and Mike were watching TV, then who was…?

I rounded the corner, and stopped.

Aerie.

Wearing black-and-white striped yoga pants, the stripes emanating from her butt in downward diagonal lines, emphasizing the lovely curve of her ass and hips. A purple tank top, bare feet. Her long blonde hair in messy bun, strands escaping to drape around the delicate column of her neck, wisping around her nape. There was music coming from a Bluetooth speaker next to the stove, an iPod next to it, and Aerie was dancing as she cooked, hips bopping from side to side, legs shifting and wiggling and shaking in place to Elvis Costello’s “Man Out of Time”, a spatula in one hand, occasionally stirring what looked like scrambled eggs. As I watched, a toaster popped, and she tossed the spatula down, grabbed two pieces of toast, and danced her way through smearing cream cheese and peanut butter on them—the way I liked my toast, something very few people knew.

I just watched.

What was she doing here?

It had been her talking to me? Feeding me pain meds and Gatorade? My heart twisted, thumped, and ached.

She turned to put the toast on a plate that was waiting on the island, which stood between her and me. Saw me. Stopped, toast in hand. “You’re up.”

“Sort of.”

“Just in time.” She pointed at the island. “Sit.”

She poured coffee from a pot into a big black mug, and set it down on the island.

“Aerie, what are you—”

She turned away from me, cutting me off. “Not yet, Cane. Just sit. Drink your coffee and shut up.”

“Um. Okay.”

So, I sat. I sipped coffee, and watched Aerie finish making eggs and bacon. She kept dancing, the song changing to Duran Duran, and then A-ha. Eventually, she dumped the eggs onto the plate, tonged a good half a dozen slices of bacon on and then slid it to me, handed me a fork, and took a stool next to me. I ate in silence, and Aerie just sat beside me, watching. Thinking, too.

When I was finished, I pushed the empty plate away. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“For the food, the coffee, and for last night, or this morning, or whatever.”

“That was this morning. I got here about eight thirty.”

“Eight thirty? This morning?” I glanced at the clock on the stove. “Holy shit, it’s one in the afternoon.”

“Yeah, you were a mess.”

Silence. I had no idea what to say next, and yet a million questions zinged and seared and bounced through my head.

I heard a shuffling step behind me, and turned to see Mike and Tomas behind him. “Uh, we’re gonna head out. Grab some food, kick it with some buddies.”

“Mike, you don’t have to—” I started.

He waved a hand. “Cane, buddy, you two need privacy to work your shit out. I got friends all over this town, okay? I can get into trouble for a day or two, no problem. Do your thing and don’t worry about us.”

I nodded. “Well…thanks. For everything.”

He turned away, then stopped and glanced at me over his shoulder. “You remember what I said last night? About taking your shot, if you get one?”

“I remember.”

“Good. Just keep it in mind.” He waved again as he walked away. “See ya, buddy. Aerie, good to see you again, sweetheart.”

“You too, Mike. Thanks.” After another moment or two, we were alone, and Aerie smiled. “He’s a great guy.”

I nodded. “There’s a lot of depth to him. Sort of unexpected, from a guy in that kind of band, who looks like he does.”

“Yeah, well, you know what they say about judging people on their appearances.”

I nodded. “And I’ve known Mike for years. He’s been a good friend for a long time, and I’ve always known he was a lot more than just a tatted-up, angry, beefy, metalhead screamer.” I gestured at the grand piano that was a focal point of the living room, taking up a whole corner opposite the kitchen. “That’s not just for show. He’s a talented pianist, and you heard him sing when we played with him at the base.”

She nodded. “I remember. I actually spent some time talking to him and Tomas today, while you were sleeping. He’s actually very perceptive.”

I frowned at her. “Perceptive? How do you mean?”

She kicked her foot, not looking at me. “Oh, well…I had no idea where you’d gone after you left, so I talked to Corin, who called Mike, who confirmed you were here with him, so I talked to Mike on the phone and he gave me his address so I could come find you. When I got here he showed me where you were, and after I checked in on you, gave you Tylenol and such, we sat down and talked. He told me this story, about this girl named Leah—”

“The girl he was in love with, and messed up.”

“Right. He didn’t go into too much detail, but he made his point pretty clearly.”

“That he regrets being afraid.”

Aerie nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.” She sighed. “Although, I think his point was more that he regrets letting his fear get the better of him. Being afraid is natural. It happens. It’s life. But…we don’t have to let fear control us.”

I groaned. “The food helps, the coffee helps, but I’m not sure I’m ready for this just yet, Aerie.” I shot her a quick look. “I want to have this conversation, I swear I do. But…I’m so hungover, hearing my own heartbeat hurts right now.”

She blew out a slow breath. “I haven’t really slept in a few days. I could go for a nap.”

I chuckled. “Wouldn’t you know, all that food made me sleepy all over again.”

She frowned at me, eyes narrowed. “Sleep, Canaan. By sleep, I mean sleep.”

I nodded. “I know. I know.”

“Because we are sure as fuck not there yet.”

“I know.”

“I’m so mad at you right now, I could punch you.”

“I deserve it.”

“Yes, you do.” She stood up, heading for the stairs to the loft where my bedroom was. “Come on. I’m dead on my feet. Cooking is exhausting, and I was already exhausted.”

I followed her up the stairs. And I have to admit, in the name of honesty, that I followed a few steps below her, solely for the sake of getting to watch her butt sway as she went up the stairs.

She stopped at the top of the stairs, eying me. “You’re staring at my ass, aren’t you?”

I nodded. “Yes ma’am, I surely am.”

She smirked. “Well, get a good look, because that’s all you’re getting.”

I laughed. “Babe, if a look is all I can get, I’ll take it.” I stopped laughing, letting her see, hopefully, how much I meant it. “One look at you is better than the best thing with anyone else.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re saying you’d rather look at me than hook up with anyone else?”

“That’s what I’m saying. One look at your beautiful body is better than…god, Aerie, it’s better than life. It’s music. It’s beauty itself. You are beauty.”

She shook her head, rolling her eyes, and turned away to head into the bedroom. “God, Canaan. You can’t bust out with goofy compliments and think it’s going to erase anything.”

I followed her into the room and slid the door closed behind us. “I’m not trying to erase anything, Aerie. I just want you to know that that’s what I think, when I look at you. What I see when I look at you.” I sat on the bed. “And I didn’t think it was goofy.”

Aerie snorted. “Maybe not goofy. Clumsy may be a better word.”

“Clumsy it may have been, but it was a genuine sentiment.”

She flopped onto the bed, closing her eyes. “Canaan, just lay down and shut up. I need to sleep before I can think about how to express everything I’m thinking and feeling.”

I slid the blankets aside and draped them over her, and then climbed in beside her and lay down on my back, close, but not too close. There were several very long moments of tense, awkward silence. Even when things were just starting between us, the silences were never awkward, and I never felt this strange, strained reticence to get too close, this fear of touching her, this fear of…just everything.

Aerie sighed. “Canaan, I’m not going to bite you.”

“But everything is fucked up.” I felt a thickness in my throat. “So fucked up.”

She rolled to her side, gazing at me steadily. “Yes, it is. And it’s not just you. It’s me, too. But this awkward silence, where you won’t even let your hand accidentally touch mine? It’s bullshit and I can’t sleep like this. So unless you just want nothing else to do with me ever again, come closer, and let’s get comfortable.”

“I want everything to do with you.” I breathed out slowly, shakily. “I just don’t know where to start.”

“Hold me.” Her amber-green eyes found mine, held them. “Just hold me. It won’t fix anything, but it’s a start.”

I shifted closer, extending my arm, and she nuzzled closer, lifted her head to rest it on my shoulder. We both breathed out, slow exhalations, releasing tension. She felt…right. Here in my arms, nestled against me. Even though everything was messed up and unsure, she still just…belonged.

God, that scared me.

“I can feel your mind spinning, Canaan,” Aerie murmured sleepily.

“Can’t seem to stop it.”

She just murmured again, but I couldn’t understand what she’d said because it had been mumbled as she drifted off to sleep. No such luck for me. I was honestly still exhausted, and should have been able to sleep, but I couldn’t. I lay with Aerie in my arms, breathing in her scent, feeling her warmth against me, her softness and her curves, her breath on my neck. My heart was aching worse than ever, pounding, thudding, splitting.

How could I have run away from this? From her?

But then I remembered what I’d heard her say, that she was too afraid to risk actually being with me. So far, we’d danced around the idea of togetherness. We’d never discussed what we had. We’d had great sex, and a lot of it. Incredible, life-changing chemistry. But…did chemistry and wild sex equal…more? No, not really. If we weren’t willing to talk about what our relationship was, where it was going, how long could it last? I’m not dumb or naive enough to think a real, lasting relationship can be based on nothing but sex and chemistry.

And she’s unwilling to risk her heart with me. Which, I get. Honestly. After what Lex did to her, harboring that hurt and that betrayal and that mistrust is only natural. Her father left her, and her mom shackled them to a creepy old rich businessman who they never liked, and who probably gave them more reasons to mistrust men. Then Lex comes along and takes advantage of a young, nubile, naive, starry-eyed eighteen-year-old girl, uses her, gets her pregnant, stabs her in the back, and then…god, tells her to just go get an abortion? The regret I heard in her voice, the self-loathing, and the pain of the memory. How could she ever come back from that? How could she ever believe in men, or love again?

I get it.

Doesn’t mean I like it, though. For me, I mean, selfishly speaking. I want more. I really do. I may not know how to go about getting there, especially with her, but…I’ve watched my older brothers all find love one after another, and I’ve seen them transformed into different kinds of men. Bast was always gruff and closed off and aloof, more concerned with survival, keeping the bar afloat, and ensuring the rest of us had some kind of stability when he was just a young man himself. And now? He’s still gruff, but he’s found his sense of humor, he’s become more open, more involved. The good man that was buried deep inside his rough, tattooed shell has come out, and it’s all due to Dru.

I’ve seen the similar transformations in Zane, Brock, and Bax, and now even my own twin is finding that love, finding his place in life, and it’s taking him away from me.

And goddammit, I’m jealous. Of what he’s found with Tate, and also I’m jealous of Tate because she gets him, she gets my twin. It’s always been the two of us, making music and doing life. Now his life is hers. And I’m jealous of that.

And I want it with Aerie.

I feel myself drifting as these thoughts spin and circle and loop back. Wanting, but being afraid.

I don’t have any huge trauma in my life that’s holding me back. I mean, not really. Not like Aerie has.

There was Jenna, though. I don’t think about her much, because it’s past, it’s over, and there’s no point. But she did really do a lot to me in terms of making me wary of trusting women too far. Is that coloring the way I deal with Aerie? It’s an old story, from when Corin and I first moved to LA. Could I have been more affected by Jenna that I’ve ever realized? Maybe.

Probably.

When Cor and I first moved down to LA, we had a great contract and a decent following. We found a shitty apartment in West Hollywood, and we played the LA rock scene, building our audience and honing our style as we worked with the label to put out our first album. With it came more success than we’d ever imagined. The audiences at our shows grew, and the size of the venues grew. The backstage experiences got more…interesting.

Girls would show up and want to have fun with us. No strings attached, no expectations, no promise of a call or even of seeing each other again. We were rock stars, and they just wanted a piece of us. Hell yeah. I was seventeen, so of course that was my dream come true. Being seventeen, having money, screaming fans, playing famous venues? Plus, the women. Hot-as-fuck chicks would just show up backstage, in our green room, and they’d strip off their tops and waggle their fine asses in their sexy little miniskirts, and they’d bang us and blow us and go on their merry way afterward without expecting jack shit in return. Who wouldn’t love that?

Then I met Jenna. She was a sound tech at a club, and she wasn’t impressed by me at all. She wore ripped jeans and tank tops and fitted hoodies, ball caps and sneakers. All girl and totally heterosexual, just tough, pragmatic, and no-nonsense. She painted her nails and wore rings and necklaces, watched girly romance movies and cried at the end, but if you called her on it, she’d slug you hard enough to leave bruises. She grew up with a bunch of brothers, grew up tough, grew up self-contained. Shitty home life, let’s just put it that way. I asked her to coffee, asked her to dinner, asked her to shows…got told no a dozen times, but something about her kept me coming back for another rejection. Then, finally, she agreed to go out with me. Made it clear we weren’t a thing. Just coffee. Told me she didn’t expect me to change anything about my life just because she’d gone out with me on a date. One date became two, and by the third we were sleeping together at her apartment. She was intense, but quiet. Not a screamer, not effusive, but she was…intense. She’d shake and quaver and gasp, staring at me, and the look in her eyes would stir something inside me. She told me again and again that we weren’t a thing, we were just friend with benefits. Don’t change your life for me, she’d tell me, again and again, don’t develop feelings for me.

I did anyway.

I stopped hooking up backstage, because it felt nasty and weird to go from nailing a groupie backstage to meeting Jenna for coffee and then going to her place and being with her. She assumed that was what was happening, and told me so in so many words. She didn’t want anything real, just wanted to hang out, hook up, have the thing we had, which wasn’t a thing.

I wanted more.

Jenna and I had our thing-that-wasn’t-a-thing for several months, and I knew she was probably hooking up with other guys. Didn’t know it for sure, but sometimes I’d call to see if she wanted to connect and she’d say she had other plans, was already out, something. Which, to me, meant she was with some other guy. Sure, okay, that’s what it was for us.

I tried to keep it casual, tried to keep my emotions out of it because I knew she wasn’t interested in me that way.

Eventually, curiosity and a desire for more got the better of me. After she and I had gone out and seen a movie and hooked up at her apartment, I lay in her bed with her. We were smoking a joint, still naked, Joni Mitchell playing in the background.

Are you ever going to want more than us being friends with benefits? I had asked.

She’d blown out smoke, glanced sideways at me: Nah, not really.

That had hurt: I’m not hooking up with anyone else.

Another of those long silent sideways glances: I am.

Shit.

I went for broke: I want more. I like you. I feel things for you. We could be good together.

She took another drag, handed the roach to me: I don’t want that. It’s not you, it’s not that you’re not a good guy. You’d be a great boyfriend. The fact that you’re not hooking up with the groupies when I know for a fact how many of them are throwing themselves at you every show you play says a lot. But I’m sorry, Cane, I just don’t want more. Not with you, not with anyone.

I had lain silently, smoking, trying to contain the hurt: There’s nothing I can do or say to change your mind?

She had shrugged, speaking through a mouthful of rolling smoke: Not really, no. My heart is broken. In the sense that it just doesn’t work right, not in the sense that someone hurt me and I’m not over it yet. I’m just broken. Love doesn’t interest me. You don’t interest me like that. I enjoy hanging out with you and I like fucking you, but that’s all it is, and that’s all it’ll ever be.

What was I supposed to say to that? There wasn’t anything. Eventually I had gotten up, gotten dressed, and got ready to leave. Jenna had stayed naked, watching me as she lounged lazily on her bed, stoned and divorced from the fact that I was hurting.

She’d waved as I paused at the door: If you have feelings for me you can’t get over, then it’s probably best we don’t see each other again. I’d rather hurt you a little now, like this, than let you think I’ll ever change and risk hurting you more later.

I had laughed bitterly: Already hurts quite a bit, Jen.

Yeah, well…I told you from the start what this was. I told you not to change your life for this—she had traipsed naked across the apartment to stand in front of me, perhaps intentionally teasing me with the fact that she knew I was crazy attracted to her: best advice I can give you, Cane, is to lose my number and forget about me.

So I had.

I left, deleted her number, and forgot about her. We’d never taken pictures together, so there really was no evidence of her in my life except for my memories. Which faded.

Except when other women came into my life, and there were plenty of them after that. Groupies who wanted more than one night, who presented tempting opportunities for something more than backstage hookups or tour bus shenanigans. I never took those opportunities, because deep down, I remembered Jenna, and the casual, off-hand way she had dismissed me and my feelings. Why bother? Better to go for the low-hanging fruit. The easy conquests. A girl I could bang on the tour bus, smoke a bit with, drink a bit with, and then say goodbye to as I went to the next show. Eventually, that was the habit, and it was easy, and it was fun, and I stopped questioning it.

Until now.

Until Aerie.

I hadn’t even thought about Jenna in years. But in the back of my mind, she was always there. Standing naked in front of me, looking up at me dispassionately, understatedly beautiful but cold and disinterested as she crushed my nascent little dream of having a relationship.

Fuck, I couldn’t sleep.

I’d started to drift, but thoughts of Jenna woke me up, and now I was just…awake.

I was holding Aerie and wondering what she would say to me. What would happen next?

Why would she show up like this? Take care of me, cook for me, and then ask me to hold her? Especially if she didn’t want something more…

But why would she change her mind? I ran away, and she’s going to change her mind about me being worth risking her heart over? Yeah, probably not.

Eventually, I managed to quiet my mind enough to relax. Not sleep, exactly, but just…drift.

But she’s there, in my arms, in my mind, in my heart, confusing me, hurting me, scaring me, worrying me. I have no answers. Does she? Are there any answers?