How common—and complex—it is.
‘How long were you guys together?’
‘On and off around six years,’ he says.
As though that’s nothing. As though that doesn’t change everything. Honestly, if he’d told me they’d had twins together I’d have been less shocked.
That’s a hell of a long time. He’s only twenty-eight. So they started dating when he was in his early twenties. I blink at him, but he doesn’t seem to realise how spun out I am.
‘We were friends for another six or so years before that.’
It’s Jeremy and Fiona all over again. A shiver runs down my spine—that same trickling sense of being an outsider, running over me like a rash. But for some reason this almost seems worse, and I can’t say why.
‘All this...the fame thing...it’s a tricky son of a bitch. I guess because I knew Sienna before. Before I made it...before she made it... I thought that somehow future-proofed us. I thought that made us more real.’
Does he know how hard this is to hear? Of course not. I’ve told him I want nothing from him. So we’re people who fuck...and apparently now I’m his therapist as well.
I’m tempted to establish some kind of barrier here. A line in the sand meaning we don’t talk about Sienna or Jeremy. But my morbid curiosity is still thick inside me and I find it impossible to ignore.
‘Do you miss her?’
His eyes latch to mine and his smile spreads across his face slowly. But there is resignation in that look, too. ‘I seem to have found the perfect Band-Aid.’
‘LOOKING FOR SOMEONE?’
I tweak the E-string, play a chord, closing my eyes as I find every single note. They are floating through space and I am able to see them from every angle—but, more than that, they reverberate in my blood, hitting a frequency that I know intimately.
Then I hear the question. Carl has toured with me for years; he knows me well. In that moment, I think he knows me better than I would like.
‘Nah.’
It’s a lie. I keep wondering if she’ll come. Thinking how annoying it is that she hasn’t.
Why does it piss me off so much? Hard to say.
‘Sienna here?’
Sienna? Is that who he thinks I’m scouring the audience for? ‘Nah. We broke up, remember?’
‘Fuck. Sorry, mate.’
I grimace, turning back to the guitar. I play the beginning of ‘Wild Silver’, sing a few lines into the mic and then stop abruptly. I wrote this song for Sienna. With Sienna. The memory is like a ball, bobbing on the horizon of a stormy ocean. I can see it, but it keeps fading away and there’s no way I can reach it.
How many of my memories will be like this? Inextricably linked to her but no longer tangible?
‘Did you hear about the tickets?’
I blink, focusing my attention back on Carl. On the now. Only there’s a different mirage on the horizon now. One that makes me smile rather than frown.
If Ally’s not here, where is she?
I picture her naked in my suite. In the shower, lathered up, slippery and sweet, singing in that sweet off-key way she has. All of me is pulled. I want to be with her. Fuck the concert.
‘Nah. What about them?’
‘Someone’s scalping seats for a thousand bucks.’
I arch a brow, yet I’m not totally surprised. The concert was booked out in under thirty minutes. My management refused a second show.
‘Jesus...’
‘Yeah.’
Carl hands me another of my guitars. I pass the Fender over and begin to tune the Gibson.
‘You all good for drinks after?’
Shit. I’d forgotten about that. Our tradition. I always take the crew out for a post-concert wind-down.
But... Ally. Naked in my shower. In my bed.
I’m saved from needing to answer by the arrival of Grayson and my manager, Paul. I smile at them, but in my mind I’m already back at the hotel, and Ally’s eating out of the palm of my hand...
* * *
I tell myself I made the right decision. I’m not a groupie and I think it would be weird to see Ethan up on stage, larger than life, as Ethan Rock God Ash.
So why am I sitting glued to my phone, stalking the Twitter hashtag #ethanashNYC? Which is trending—of course.
There are videos of the concert being uploaded and I watch them almost faster than they can appear.
There’s his beautiful acoustic cover of ‘Hallelujah,’ which sends goosebumps into every part of my body, like shooting stars chasing their natural end. Then there are his faster, earlier songs, full of youth and enthusiasm. There’s a few ballads. He performs a song with Hunter Smith and Esther Scott, of Scott Smith—only my favourite band ever.
He looks amazing.
I mean, amazing.
And like himself as well.
Only it’s so hard to reconcile Ethan—my Ethan—with this guy. This guy who’s performing in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans. Women who are passing out. Who are shouting his name, waving their hands, holding posters that cry out their love for him. And he’s so...cool. So effortless. He waves. He sings. He wanders from one side of the stage to the other, sauntering with his trademark nonchalance, and my pulse is raging.
My God.
He is so hot.
And he is mine.
Shh! I silence the grumpy part of my mind that constantly wants to remind me not to get too possessive or invested.
I seem to have found the perfect Band-Aid.
Those words have chased themselves around my head, and finally I can admit that they spark relief in me. They free me. Because they show me that he is indeed using me as a crutch. On the rebound while he gets over Sienna. And that means I can relax. This isn’t serious for him.
Which means this is okay.
It’s okay that I am waiting for him.
That I am in his hotel room and that he knows I am here, that he has promised to hurry back. That he told me he’d be counting the minutes.
Because I’m just a Band-Aid. And he’s just hot sex. It’s simple. Easy. I’m in control. Our boundaries are established and we are staying firmly within them.
Anticipation rolls through me. I look around his suite, checking all the details with a small smile. Candles. Music. Dinner.
Me in a slinky black negligee and nothing underneath.
I curl up on the sofa, dragging my finger down my phone obsessively, refreshing my feed as though my life depends on it.
And finally the concert is over.
It can’t be long now, right?
How long?
I stare at my phone, contemplate messaging him but decide not to. I know that I’m desperate to see him; he doesn’t need to.
It’s almost an hour later when I hear noises outside the hotel room. And with the moment upon me I am nervous suddenly! I stand up