“Can I bug you?” I heard a voice ask.
I sat up in the bunk and pulled back the curtain, smiling as Drew Reddy slyly lifted his eyebrow. I patted the empty space next to my crossed legs, and he hopped up, pulling the curtain closed and putting his scruff on my neck.
I met Drew the first night of the tour at the historic Aladdin Theater in Portland. My set started out the way most unknown opening acts do—noisy chatter and laughter competed with my voice. But by my last song, I noticed a hush had fallen across the room. The sold-out crowd of 620 people was transfixed, staring up at me in silence so I could be loud. I floated offstage to a chorus of deafening cheers, my skin on fire and my insides vibrating from the rush of captivating my largest audience.
Seconds later, Drew found me backstage at my sexiest—my sweaty forehead pressed against a giant box fan, the neckline of my off-the-shoulder dress tugged below my bra. Just a girl, standing in front a fan, asking it to cool her post-show adrenaline boob sweat.
“You were something out there,” said a faded Southern accent.
I quickly pulled my dress’s neckline above my chest and turned to find myself staring directly into a wide 85mm lens. The shutter clicked, and the photographer glanced up from his camera, his playful expression widening my eyes. He looked like the kind of guy who built log cabins with his bare hands—a beanie, flannel, and blue jeans.
“Drew,” he said, outstretching his hand to mine. “I’m joining you guys for the rest of the tour.” He pointed to his chest. “The photographer.”
“Maggie Vine. The opening act,” I announced.
“Yeah, no shit.”
I grinned, cheeks reddening.
“What?” he asked, amused.
“It’s just…I’m not used to someone knowing who I am before we’ve been introduced.”
“Get used to it, Vine.”
The sound of my last name on his lips made my face burn even hotter.
Later that night on the tour bus, after I beat him in a game of Bullshit and gloated shamelessly with a victory dance, he stared into my eyes for five seconds and announced, “You’re trouble.”
I knew better. I knew that when a man calls a woman trouble, he is in fact trouble. But Drew was right, and so was I: we were both trouble. I wanted so badly to feel something real, and Drew lived life like it was one big game of Dare. If we had an extra day in a small town, he would find us a cliff to dive off, a lake to get naked in, a country club to sneak into so we could go on golf cart joyrides. Every night, in the time between sets, Drew and I would find a closet backstage, he’d press me up against a wall, tug up my skirt, I’d rip the leather belt off his jeans, and we’d have the fastest, wildest sex of my life. I had a hard time coming down from performing, and I discovered that Drew’s hands on my body was the best way to expel the remaining adrenaline.
Drew was a talented up-and-coming music photographer who would go back to LA and find another indie band to tour with when ours ended, and I would go back to New York and start playing bigger venues and work on getting actual representation. I would miss him instantly. I knew I would. I would be left with my willowy body curling over my dad’s old Gibson Hummingbird, ugly cries echoing against the hardwood of my pre-war studio, wine-stained lips birthing earth-shattering breakup lyrics. We had a week left on tour, and I was dreading the inevitable. I was subletting my studio in the city, I was doing what I loved without having to worry about paying rent or feeding myself, or fighting to get my next gig—my adult life felt taken care of for the first time. And I liked embracing my wild side. New York City didn’t give me a chance to feel this kind of freedom. You can’t live on the edge when an entire city is watching. You can’t sneak out of your studio apartment and run naked into cold moonlit lakes without a second thought. Drew made me feel like a teenager again—like the Maggie Vine who snuck out of her camp cabin to find wanderlust with her first love, Asher Reyes. Drew made me forget about the constraints of adulthood.
I lay naked in Drew’s arms, my nails tracing one of his many tattoos on his biceps, my soul at peace. He grazed his fingers up and down the side of my breast, eyes pensive.
“We should keep seeing each other. After this,” he announced to the ceiling.
I slowly sat up, shifting so I was on top of him—so his eyes met mine. I searched his face, shocked to find his expression dead serious. This was a man who scoffed at people who wanted to put down roots, and here he was, discussing our future.
“You want to keep seeing each other?”
“I do,” he said, expression unwavering. “What do you think about me coming to spend some time in New York?”
My mouth hung open in a smile. I pinned his wrists back, scrunching my face up to his. “Those AC units drippin’ onto your mouth when you aren’t lookin’， all those people in a hurry to go nowhere,” I said in my best Southern accent, mocking his pretentiousness. “I thought you hated New York.”
His dark green eyes scanned my face.
“I do. But I love you.”
Heat enveloped my chest, as a sparkly sensation floated through my body. My hands went limp around his wrists.
“You…you love me?” I found myself grinning stupidly under the words. They were lavender and honey. Love.
He sat up and grabbed the back of my neck, pulling me into a kiss and rolling me over. Drew’s mouth found my ear as I arched my hip upward, feeling my protruding phone on my back. I set the phone on the windowsill, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a text from Garrett light up the screen. His words, miss you, made my heart beat even faster.
10
THIRTY-FIVE
THIS WASN’T THE FOLLOW-UP MOMENT I had pictured after I kissed Garrett Scholl on my thirty-fifth birthday. It had played very differently in my mind over the last five years, like a glorious rom-com montage. I figured our courtship, most of it existing in the All Is Lost moment of act three, would send us straight to Happily Ever After once our lips met, once one of us kept that promise. Not so much. I was not “I-wanted-it-to-be-you” Meg Ryan. I was crying-hysterically-in-her-bed Meg Ryan. More specifically, crying-on-the-subway Maggie Vine. Here I was, failing to hold back tears on the C train, weeping to “Silver Springs” because Garrett Scholl wasn’t mine.
“Was I just a fool?”
I unstuck my sweaty, bare thighs from the bucket seat, avoiding sympathetic eyes as they floated in my direction. I ducked my head behind the heat of my phone as an elderly woman, likely in her mideighties, wobbled toward me.
She stopped, clutching the bar next to me, looming over my seat. “I’ve been there, honey,” she said, giving my shoulder a firm squeeze.
Have you? Did you make a promise with your best guy friend to marry each other when you turned thirty-five, only to kiss him on your thirty-fifth birthday, just to learn that he was engaged to another woman? HAVE YOU BEEN HERE, SHIRLEY!?
“He’s not worth your tears. Or she. Or them. My grandchild is a them. Isn’t that wonderful?”
I bit the fire on my tongue and blubbered, “Yeah. Thanks.”
Progressive grandmas are national treasures, so I decided to protect her against my personal devastation at all costs. If only I owned a car, then I could sob from one destination to another in peace, without all of New York Fucking City as an audience.