CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Olivia avoided me the rest of the day, and I tried to fill the void that I’d gotten used to spending watching her work, helping her get the best possible pictures or sound bites from the crew or the rest of the band. I stayed on the stage even after we’d finished up sound check, playing meandering little runs on my guitar. It sounded off-pitch, but every time I checked it against the built-in tuner, it was dead on. This is why you’ve never gotten close to anything like this, I thought, picking out a mournful little OK Go tune. It took me a minute to remember the name: “Let it Rain.” I played the melody fill over and over again and then switched to the rhythm, murmuring the words to myself under the noise of the amps and speakers. “Cruise control distressed her/ kinda cursed and kinda blessed her/ engine running on the fumes…vision blue and blurry/ fallen angels in a flurry/ spinning through the empty room…”
The thing that shocked me was that I’d never even considered the possibility of it ending between Olivia and me. She’d say that I was going to eventually move on from her, get tired of her—but it had never occurred to me to think that she might end it. Not really. I’d just thought things would go the same way that they’d been going; that I’d just keep ending up in her bed or her in my bed, and then once the tour ended, we’d switch off going to each other’s apartments, fucking like animals, eating dinner together and getting wasted and having a good time. Even if I never thought of it being something serious—something like a committed relationship—I’d figured it would just keep being the way it was.
I switched to another OK Go tune almost without thinking. The low-slung groove suggested itself in my brain, the lyrics flowing through my head as I played the soulful low melody. I want you, yeah I want you/ I want you, yeah I want you bad/ So bad I can’t think straight, so bad all my bones shake/ so bad I can’t breathe… And in the light of morning for twenty-one days straight, there you are beside me…
“Nick! You’re going to play the calluses off your fingers,” I missed the note and hit the wrong chord, startled by the sound of Alex’s voice shouting over my playing. I sighed and stopped playing altogether, setting the guitar down on its stand.
“I was practicing,” I told Alex as I walked past him. “What else have I got to do? Olivia doesn’t want to be in the same room as me.”
“You have two choices,” Alex said, following me. “You fight for her, or you give her up and find someone to take your mind off of her.”
“She won’t let me fight for her,” I pointed out. “She wants to be left alone to figure everything out, and that’s going to mean that she’s going to figure that she should end it and hope that appeases her fucking editor.”
“I had Ron put in a call to Record Spin,” Alex told me. “He told them that we see no problem with Olivia continuing, and that we aren’t interested in working with anyone else. He’s going to have to eat the scandal or it’ll blow up in his face.”
“But what about her?” I remembered what Olivia had said. “She’s going to have to try and live it down too. Especially if it gets out in the press in general, they’re going to treat her like some kind of groupie.” Alex shrugged.
“Keep her by your side if you can’t live without her,” he suggested. “That way if someone talks shit you can take care of it. But are you that serious about her?”
“I’m more serious about her than I’ve ever been about anything in my life other than this band,” I told Alex. I frowned; the words had just left me—I hadn’t thought about it even for a second. But they were true; I’d never been serious about very many things. My family, the band, and my own pleasure were the only things I’d prioritized for years—even above school. The only reason I’d graduated at all had been because my life was easier finishing and getting the damn diploma than it would have been dropping out and having to pay my parents rent.
“Then fight for her, asshole!” Alex grinned at me. “Jesus, you may be like—easily fifty women ahead of the rest of us in terms of honing your skills in the sack but Christ if you have no idea how to deal with a relationship.”
“Like you’re one to talk,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Until Mary you nuked every relationship you were ever in as soon as the girl started talking about being serious.”
“Nope—only when they started asking about when I’d be stable enough to support children,” Alex countered. “Mary is happy with the way things are between us for now, and if she wants kids eventually…” he shrugged. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“How do I fight for someone who doesn’t want to be around me?” I crossed my arms over my chest. Alex chuckled.
“You lure her to you,” he told me. “You make it impossible for her to stay away, and then you don’t give her the option of you not fighting for her.” I considered that. I smiled to myself slowly and started to form a plan in my head; I thought I knew Olivia well enough to know what to use to lure her back to me, at least long enough to get my point across to her.
“Thanks, Lex,” I said. “I’m going to grab a shower. I’ll catch you in the green room later.”