Page 43 of Kind of Famous
After years of hard work, they went from playing small clubs to opening for some of the biggest bands in rock.
The food came out as Shane was explaining how they often fought now, but he believed they were on the cusp of truly breaking out. I couldn’t help but agree.
We dug into sesame chicken, moo goo gai pan, fried rice, dumplings, Kung Pao shrimp, hot and sour soup, and a couple of egg rolls. It was way too much food, but I discovered the source of the delicious smells (the sesame chicken), and while we ate, I gushed about his band’s better-known songs, not wanting to reveal I knew the deeper tracks too.
“And the rhythm on ‘Close Enough’ always makes me bang on my steering wheel when I’m driving.”
“The thing people never realize,” he opined, waving his chopsticks like magic wands, “is that a band without a drummer might as well be an orchestra.”
I laughed. “It’s true.”
“And yet, it’s always the damn guitarists who get all the glory. Now, is that fair?”
“Not remotely.”
“You understand. But have you ever noticed how few spreads there are of world’s hottest drummers?”
I chased a piece of chicken around, then gave up and stabbed it with the chopstick. I’d never gotten the hang of eating with them. “That would be a short article. Unless they put you on every page.”
“Naturally.”
I snorted. “You really do have it so hard.”
His eyes narrowed. “For you.”
I waited a beat for the curl of a smile, an arched eyebrow, some sign I should snicker at the joke, but his features conveyed no irony. What could I say to this boy, throwing himself before me without fear after knowing me for a couple of days?
It was crazy. What did he even see in me? I couldn’t match his reckless abandon without second guessing at every step. It was too soon to tell him about the men who’d come before him, leaving their individual scars, with fears that had nothing to do with him, fears that he tripped with his too intense interest in me.
But it wasn’t too soon to confess about the fandom. That was a much easier part of me to share, and one I’d have to cop to eventually. We were well beyond cool points.
“Shane.”
I opened my mouth to go on, but he must’ve picked up on my hesitation. He hid his sincerity behind the goofy grin I’d originally expected. “I was supposed to say, ‘That’s what she said.’ ” He picked up his plate and stood. “I really blew that.”
He laughed as he carried the empty trays to the trash. I stared at a glob of rice that hadn’t followed the script, escaping the threat of capture from inept chopstick handling.
Right when he returned, my phone exploded in vibrations and that Walking Disaster song. I really needed to change my ringtone.
“Sorry,” I said, as I reached back to grab my phone. Seeing Ash’s message irritated me to no end. I swiped the notification off the screen without reading it and muted the damn phone before tossing it into my bag.
His eyebrow rose, curious.
“Not important.” I wanted to get back to the more serious conversation, the one he’d aborted with a joke, but Ash’s interruption had broken the moment. Besides, it was getting late for a work night. “I should head back.”
He nodded and held out a hand to help me to my feet. Out on the sidewalk, I waited for him to suggest an Uber, but he spun around on one foot in a complete circle, like he was stalling for time. “I could walk you back to Micah’s.”
The prospect of accompanying him through the dark Brooklyn neighborhoods again gave me a warm fuzzy. I reached out to take his hand, but he immediately roped me over and put an arm over my shoulder, just cuddling me into him as we started walking. It felt comfortable to press into him, and I allowed myself to slide a hand up his back, just under his shirt hem, hooking my thumb into his belt loop. Here we were, out on a busy sidewalk, two near strangers, and our touch created an intimacy I craved, opened a doorway I wanted to walk through.
He sighed into my hair. “Layla.”
And in that moment, I didn’t want him to walk me back to Micah’s. I wanted him to whisper my name somewhere private. “Maybe we could go somewhere else?”
His breath tickled my ear. “I could show you my apartment.”
My chest rose and fell. “How far away is it?”
“It’s right here.”
