Loud is How I Love You (16 page)

“Let’s do it again and try not to suck this time,” I say.

“No, something is wrong,” Cole says. He puts his bass in the stand. “What the hell is going on?”

Travis turns back around and faces me. His guitar is slung low on his hips, and he’s gripping the neck like he’s trying to strangle it. He just looks at me, raises his eyebrows, and I glare at him like the menace I wish I was.

“Oh Jesus, are you two fucking?” Joey accuses us. “Say you’re not fucking.”

Travis doesn’t say it, so I do.

“No, we’re not fucking. We did hook up, but it won’t happen again.”

“Oh fuck no,” Joey says, rubbing his face with his hands. “Are you kidding me?”

Travis looks pissed and Joey and Cole look like they’re about to deck him and take away my front-girl parking space.

“It happened, it was a mistake, but we need to be adults and move on,” I say. “You know, shit happens.”

“Travis?” Cole says, like he’s waiting for some additional explanation. “Is this . . . are you, I mean . . . seriously?”

“What?” Travis says. “There’s nothing else to say about it, is there?”

“You guys are okay?” Cole says.

“Yeah, we’re awesome,” Travis says, leveling a look at me. “Don’t we sound like it?”

“This is totally not cool, you guys,” Joey says.

“I know it’s not cool, that’s why it’s not happening again,” I say.

“How’d you feel right now if it were me and Cole who hooked up?”

“You guys aren’t gay,” I point out. “Are you?”

“No, but if I was, I’d probably hook up with Travis, too,” Cole says. “So I guess I can understand how that could happen.”

“You do?” I say.

“You would?” Joey says.

“No way, really?” Travis asks, and by the surprised and flattered look on his face I can only assume he wishes he’d hooked up with Cole instead of me at this point.

“Sure,” Cole says. “Either Travis or Ron. Ron has serious charisma.”

“You’d hook up with Ron?” Joey says. “What about me? I’m the one who carries your damned bass cabinet around every weekend.”

“You’re not my type,” Cole says with a shrug. “I like light-haired guys.”

“Dave Grohl isn’t light-haired,” Joey argues.

“Now you guys are just fucking with us,” I accuse them, but I still can’t tell. You never can tell with the beat brothers.

“Let’s play it again,” Travis says, and turns back to his amp, so we start the song again. This time it doesn’t suck at all. In fact, this time we play phenomenally together. Maybe clearing the air with the beat brothers helps, I can’t say, but I think there’s also something about Travis and I being so angry and in that tight space with all that loud noise that makes the set take off and get to a whole new place. We sound like we’ve been touring for years. The problem is, as good as it sounds, it doesn’t make me feel any better.

Travis leaves right after rehearsal. There’s no small talk, no shop talk, no shit talk or anything. He doesn’t even say good-bye and I never, as long as I’ve known Travis, have seen him be this much of a dick to anyone. I guess I deserve it after everything that’s happened, but I had higher expectations, I have to admit. I thought beyond everything else that’s happened, he and I were good enough friends that we could work through this. I thought beyond the sex and the confusion that goes
along with it, Travis and I had a bond, a friendship that was unbreakable.

But this is breaking us. I can feel it.

Somehow, miraculously, Stars on the Floor doesn’t fall apart. Five weeks have now passed since I first fucked Travis, or maybe “fucked with” Travis is more like it. I’m always worried Travis is going to quit, but three more weeks pass from the last time we hook up and he doesn’t. He keeps coming to rehearsal, on time, every week. I don’t know how we all manage to suffer through with Travis permanently on his man period, but I have to give him credit because he doesn’t quit, and that’s all I can ask of him. I guess I can’t even ask that much, but I do because that’s just how I am.

But while he may still be in the band, our friendship has taken a serious shitter, and this is slowly sucking my soul away from me. I knew he’d need time to get over things, but I really did think he’d get over it and we would just go back to being friends and move on. I keep thinking maybe, hopefully, this is going to happen, because he’s still here—he’s still in the band. But he doesn’t call me, ever. He doesn’t hang out with me outside of rehearsal and shows. There are no trips to Sam Ash. No flyering, no breakfasts at Neubies, no more parties. After we played the Demarest basement and the Dead End show he just dropped me off and went home. He’s not really being a dick or anything, he’s just distant, and even though I still see him three times a week, I miss him. Desperately.

I know I should get him alone and explain that I’m just an asshole. I’m just afraid. I’m just not good at boys, at all. I’m good at bands, or at least I used to be. But he knows all this already anyway, and since he hasn’t actually quit yet, I figure my best bet is to not rock the boat further with my mouth. Give it time, like George said. Give him time. It’s not easy, though. Being quiet about these things, especially with him, is maybe the hardest thing I ever try to do. But he’s still around, so I think it’s working.

It’s April now, the Saturday before Ag Field Day, when Sonia comes to my door with the cordless phone and tells me it’s Billy Broadband.

“Next week is the Ag Field Day gig,” Billy says. “Can you come on the show tomorrow night to talk about it?”

“Sure,” I say. Billy plugs all the local bands on his Sunday show. We’ve been up there plenty.

“Great. You and Travis should play a song on the air.”

“Yeah, sure,” I say and feel my stomach twist because now I’m going to have to call Travis and ask him, and I don’t call Travis now. I make Cole or Joey do it. “Which one do you want?”

“Give me something new,” he says. “See you at eight.”

I hang up and take my guitar off the stand and hold on to it and realize that we don’t have any new songs. Soft hasn’t written anything new since all this shit between me and Travis happened, because writing songs is an altogether different kind of thing than just playing them. To write songs, you need to talk. You need to throw ideas out there for other people to potentially love or hate or even laugh at. You need to be able to argue and negotiate and generate ideas, and that’s pretty difficult to do with someone you’re barely speaking with because you’ve fucked with his heart so much.

I start to play my guitar and think of my father. I think of all those shows Len played with this very Gretsch, and I wonder what he’d say if he could see me now. Then I get mad at myself for caring what that asshole would say about anything about my life. He wouldn’t care, that’s the whole problem. If he’d cared, he wouldn’t have left, would he?

Now I think about Montana (the trucker, not the state). Montana says he’s coming to the Ag Field Day gig to see me play on his way back through from Maine. When Montana called to let me know he was okay, he said he wanted to take me and Travis out for a burger to thank us when he was next in town. That’s when I told him about the show. He said he wouldn’t miss it. I’m sure he’ll hate it.

I’m still playing my guitar as I think about all of this, my fingers finding all the notes without me having to think about them, just wandering along the fretboard like lost souls until a pattern emerges and soon I’m lost inside of some lilting, melancholy riff, wishing Travis was here to make it better. Aching that he’s not here to make it better. Travis makes everything I do better.

I have no idea how long I’m sitting there playing when Sonia comes in my room.

“That’s really pretty,” she says. “What’s it called?”

“It’s new,” I say. “I just made it up.”

“I love it,” she says. “You should finish it before Ag Field Day.”

She’s right. As usual.

I finally get up the nerve to call Travis. He’s surprised to hear from me, but not when I tell him about going on
Overnight Sensations
. He says that it’s fine with him. I mention maybe we should get together today and practice for it, and he says he’s working on a paper and we can play “Daylight” and it’ll be fine.

“Come on, Travis,” I say, and I know I sound a little pathetic but I can’t help myself. “Please? I’ll help you with your paper. Bring it with you.”

He’s quiet for a minute. I’m not sure what sways him, but he says fine. He’ll be there in an hour.

Now I’m really nervous, because he’s coming here and I’m definitely not his favorite person these days. I strum my guitar again, but my fingers slip up and fuck up the riff I’ve been playing perfectly for ninety minutes, because I’m even more nervous than I was the first time I stepped on stage at CBGB. Travis was there that night, too. I turned to him right before we were supposed to go on and I said, “I can’t do this, I’m going to throw up. I can’t get up there.”

He took me by the shoulders and said, “Yes you can. You’ve worked all year for this moment. Don’t think about it, just get your ass on stage and play.” And then he turned me around and gave me a supportive shove towards the stage.

And I did get on stage. And we played our asses off that night, too, and it was amazing, being on the stage of CBGB, even if it was half empty and Tuesday night and I had a paper due the next day. Because this was the same stage where I saw Sonic Youth play when I snuck in underaged, where Gibby from the Butthole Surfers stood right next to me and I felt like yeah, this is the world I want to be in. This is where I belong.

And I didn’t puke, either.

Travis shows up at my house with his acoustic guitar and I bring him up to my room and I’m remembering the last time he was here and I feel a terrible ache in my heart. An ache for how we used to be, how easy it once was to be near him. This moment here is where I could, I should say something to explain what my problem is. I should open my mouth and tell him how I really feel but I just can’t do it. It’s all weird and quiet between us and he’s not filling the empty space between us with his easy chitchat and I just don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. It’s like I’m staring at the CBGB stage all over again and I can’t get on it. And he’s not nudging me this time. There’s no pep talk.

So instead of doing what I want to do, which is tear that jacket off of him and kiss him with my whole tongue, instead of running my sad and hungry hands through that jungle of wavy blond hair, instead of telling him I’m desperately afraid because I already know that I’m absolutely in love with him and there’s no going back for me, I pick up my Gretsch from the stand.

“Want to hear this new thing I wrote today?” I ask.

“Sure, why not,” he says.

“Take your jacket off, stay a while,” I try to tease him, but he doesn’t take his jacket off. He just stands there with his hands in his pockets, looking down at me, waiting.

I try to play him the guitar part but I fuck it up and it sounds all wrong.

“No, no, that’s not it,” I say, and my voice is shaking as I speak. My hands are shaking. “Hold on, let me get it back in my hands.”

“It’s okay,” he says, and then he takes his jacket off and sits down on the bed next to me. “Relax, Emmylou.”

I take a deep breath and start again, and now I’ve got it back and it sounds good. I keep playing and glance up and I can see he digs it. He’s nodding his head in time with the song, tapping his knees, and then he starts humming along once he picks up the basic melody. Then he pulls his acoustic guitar out of the case, tunes it up, and starts lightly strumming this chord pattern beneath the picking thing, and before I know it he’s writing a bridge and a chorus for it. And it’s perfect.

“I want to try something here,” I say, and it’s like I can breathe again. My head is buzzing with that electricity I get when I’m creating something like this, and it’s always ten thousand times better when I’m doing it with Travis. I pull my lyrics notebook out and open it to the last thing I was working on, and I’m super nervous to sing it for him. I take a deep breath and say, “Keep playing,” so he does while I pick up a pencil and start editing, scribbling, rearranging words on the paper. Then I start to tentatively sing over the chords Travis is playing.

Loud is how I love you,

Loud is how I know you’re there,

Loud so I don’t lose you,

Because I’d know the sound of you anywhere.

My eyes are closed when I’m singing, so I can’t see his reaction, but Travis stops playing when I get to the last line there. His mouth drops open and he freezes. Now we’re staring in silence at each other for a lifetime and then he looks down and I have no idea what’s going on, if he’s mad at me or what. Then he starts to play again and looks up at me.

“Do it again,” he says.

My heart pounds and I pick my guitar up and play the picking part and then Travis arranges the entire song. My string-picking opens the song and he doubles it, so there’s this super rich bell-choir sound, like a lonely church calling the hills home to pray. Then he moves into the chords and I sing it again and it’s all working. Really working. I know this is going to be the next single we record if we can scrape up the money to get into the studio. Travis is bobbing his head as he plays, totally absorbed in the song, and I think,
Can’t we just do this? Can’t we just stay like this forever?
This is all I want, right here. I know it’s so special, it’s too much to ask, but I’m going to ask the universe anyway.

Please, universe. Please, please let me hold on to him.

He catches me watching him as I sing, as he plays, and finally, fucking finally he gives me that crooked happy smile of his that breaks my heart into a zillion happy pieces.

We stay up until three a.m. working on “Loud.” We end up recording it on my four-track in the living room after Jeff and Sonia and Adam all bitch about going to sleep. After we finish, he comes upstairs to get his jacket and I see how dead tired he is.

“Do you want to stay?” I say, and I know it’s a reach but I really can’t stand to watch him walk out that door tonight.

“I’ll be fine,” he says. “I’m only going a few blocks.”

It’s folly, it’s a real risk is what it is, but I take it. I put my arms around his neck, rest my head on his shoulder.

“Please stay,” I whisper.

“Emmy,” he says, all stiff and awkward. I squeeze him harder until he puts his arms around me and exhales. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t want to?” I ask.

“It’s not that,” he says. “You know it’s not that.”

I look into his eyes and he looks worried and like he’s weighing this decision very carefully. I want to tip the scale in my direction, so I pull him to the bed. I climb onto it and he stands there, looking lost in a way I’ve never seen him look.

“I’m not . . . I don’t want to do anything,” I say. “I just don’t want you to leave.”

Travis climbs onto the bed next to me and we lie on our sides, facing each other. We just look at each other, not saying anything at all. I don’t know what to say now. I don’t know what to do with him there. I still don’t know how to be with him and not be with him all at the same time. All I know is that I never want to stop being around him.

He is so sleepy. He’s trying to keep his eyes open and he can’t. He takes my hand, holds it. He’s running his thumb along the back of it and then I fall asleep feeling not weirdness, not awkwardness, but full-on agony.

***

I wake up in the dark, kissing Travis.

We’re on top of my bed. He runs his tongue along my bottom lip and then bites it gently. I open my mouth for him and he barely puts his tongue inside, knowing it’s wide open and that I want him. He teases me with his tongue, touching my lips and teeth and the tip of my tongue, and it makes me grab the back of his head. I want him to fill my mouth with his tongue because now I’m awake and he’s right here and I need some part of him inside of me. He runs his hand up my back, the other is on the back of my neck, his fingers are in my hair.

I honestly have no idea who started this midnight kissing episode. All I know is that we both wake up in the center of this intense need, like the need itself has its own will and we’re just doing its bidding. I push my tongue into his mouth and he rolls on top of me, pushes my knees apart and holy fuck, I need to get out of these pants.

“Now.” I say it with heaving breath. “Please, now.”

He pulls his T-shirt off over his head. Within seconds we’re both stripped all the way down to nothing but our mating chemicals and now I know exactly how high school girls get pregnant. Travis is naked, kissing me hard as he pushes his tongue into my mouth. He slides his hand down between my legs and I’m already so wet I’m not sure how we aren’t fucking by now.

I have no idea what these low, husky, wordless sounds are that I’m making as I try to process the sensation of his hands, his lips and tongue and teeth working their way down my body, but they seem to encourage him, so I’m happy. He licks my skin. He sucks on me everywhere. He tongues my nipple and gives it a soft bite as he slides two fingers inside of me, and the sensation is making me want—no, need to get fucked now. I can’t believe I’m saying I’d rather get fucked than get head, but if he keeps doing that, I’m either going to come on his hand or take a pass and skip straight to getting boned, because I’m not going to be able to take that for long.

“Not yet,” he says, taking his fingers away, stroking my thigh. “I want you to come in my mouth.”

“Travis, please,” I say, my hands on his shoulders, gripping him.