mean,” she continues, spraying the skillet with nonstick spray before ladling batter into the center of it. The simple actions of making pancakes seem to be making it easier for her to talk. Because with all the time we’ve spent together discussing music and concerts and career aspirations, she’s never once brought up her band.
I have a few times, but I caught on to the fact that she quickly changed the subject every time or pretended not to hear me and asked me a question instead, so I stopped. The pancake story is the most she’s divulged about her time with Golden Enigma since we met.
I know the basics of the story and how they met their collective demise. I have access to the internet, after all. But I know as well as anyone that what’s reported online and reality often only match in the most basic facts. There was a car accident. Mia, the driver, was drunk. Everyone was hurt, though Alexis only suffered a minor fracture on her lower leg, which had healed by the time I met her.
But other than frustration over the circumstances of losing her contract and trying to get a new one as a solo artist, which I one hundred percent relate to, though my own story is drawn out over several years, she hasn’t shared any of her feelings about what happened.
“Good weird or bad weird?” I prompt when she’s silent for a long time.
Her shoulders hitch even higher, but come down after she flips the pancake, rests her hand holding the spatula on the cheap formica counter, and blows out a long slow breath. “Both?”
She turns to face me, leaving the spatula and crossing her arms as she leans against the counter. Her eyes search my face. “I’ve performed alone before, but not in a really long time. Not since high school, when I’d play open mic nights. But those were in coffee shops. Not venues where people pay for tickets.” She shakes her head, looking down at the square patterned vinyl floor, years of dirt ingrained in the material that won’t come out no matter how many times it’s mopped. “This was my first time playing that kind of venue without them. They’re the ones who pushed me to write more songs, so we could play originals and not just covers. They’re the reason I even have a shot as a solo artist, and being up there without them just feels … wrong. Like I’m betraying them.”
“Alexis,” I breathe, wanting to reach for her, to offer her comfort of some kind. To tell her that she’s not betraying them, that she’s amazing and she deserves to share her music with the world.
But she shakes her head, one hand coming up to swipe at her eyes as she turns to pick up the spatula and transfer the first pancake to a plate. “I know,” she says, her voice a little wobbly as she ladles more batter into the skillet. “I know.” This time her voice is firm. With a sniff, she raises her eyes to mine again and gives me a crooked smile. “I know you’re going to say that’s ridiculous, and maybe it is, but that’s how it felt. Especially because it also felt so right performing like that again. Singing my songs by myself, just me and my guitar and the audience enthralled with my music, with my words. And then, when you joined me?” She lets out a soft sound of amazement. “It was the best feeling. And I’d never experienced that with anyone else before. So yes, it was amazing and wonderful and everything I hoped it would be. But it was also hard.”
“I get it,” I say softly. “That’s the first time I’ve performed for an audience without my brothers. Ever.”
Turning, she meets my eyes. “How was it?”
I step closer and pull her into my arms, unable to hold back anymore. She wraps her arms loosely around me, laying her head on my chest. “It was weird,” I tell her. “But amazing. And even better because you were there with me.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Alexis
The week after that life changing performance seems to be mine and Colt’s actual honeymoon, even if it’s spent entirely in our tiny apartment. We barely put clothes on and spend most of our time wrapped around each other, making up for all the time we spent torturing each other with sexual frustration.
And there was a lot of sexual frustration to work out.