I gasped. Pregnant? “You did?” I asked.
“Yea.”
“But,” he said a little sorrowfully, “We took care of it.”
“Oh,” I frowned. Abortion. It was kind of sad, because Dave looked rather downtrodden as he spoke. Maybe he’d tried to convince her to keep it or something. I didn’t want to talk about it any more, and I didn’t think he did, either. “So, um…”
“Do you want to like, do something?”
“Like what?”
“Well I was going to practice with the band. You can come if you want.”
“Sure,” I smiled. A lot of the weirdness and tension that had existed before seemed to have faded away.
We got into his car a few minutes later, not talking much. So I guess we were going out now. Weird. Very weird. “So I guess I’m your girlfriend now?” I asked.
“Don’t sound so excited,” he laughed as he pulled out of the driveway.
“It’s just weird I guess… I mean, you’re…”
“Your boyfriend?” he smiled.
“Ew, shut up!” I punched his arm.
He shook his head, “Tay, if you don’t want to, I can deal with it.”
“No, I do… it’s just like… I dunno.” I wanted to explain how the only boyfriend I’d ever had was Taylor, and I felt like I was betraying him. My stomach flip flopped. I was betraying him. I loved him, and yet I was going out with someone else. But it was Dave, and going out with Dave was different than if I was going out with some stranger or something. Dave and I had something special… a different kind of bond than I’d have with some other random guy. I leaned over and kissed Dave’s cheek, “I want to,” I assured him.
At Oscar’s house (where the band always practices), I sat myself down on the couch in front of the area they played in. Only Oscar was there, banging away on the drums.
“Hey guys!” he said, laying down his drumsticks. He slapped Dave’s back. “Muf called and said he’d be here in like fifteen minutes.”
“Have you heard from Travis?” Dave asked.
“Not since yesterday. Have you talked to him?”
“Before we left I told him there was practice, but I don’t know if he’s coming,” Dave pulled his shiny black bass out of the case and tuned it. I remained silent, resting my head on the cigarette-scented, time-tainted brown couch.
When Muf came, he informed us that Travis would not be coming because he “met up with a few difficulties of the legal kind.”
“Wanna sing, babe?” Dave asked, fiddling with a microphone stand.
“If I have to.”
“You should sing for us at Dean’s party,” Muf said, plugging in an amp. He always takes over guitar when Travis is not present.
“Unless you’re gonna faint like last time,” Dave smiled.
“I didn’t faint. I was just… dizzy,” I corrected. I never used to get stage fright. Last time I sang with them, however, I sort of had a little panic attack.
“That’s okay, Muf used to get such bad stage fright that he threw up before we played,” Oscar laughed.
“I don’t have stage fright!”
“Prove it,” Dave challenged, flicking on the microphone. He was only doing it because he knows how much I adore singing, but that I get all freaked out when I have to do it.
“Fine,” I went up to the microphone.
Their band really rocks. I sang a few songs with them, namely ones that I had sung the first time I sang with them, but a few new ones, too. At first I was afraid to even look at Dave in front of Oscar and Muf, but then I decided that what lead to the demise of my relationship with Taylor (besides my own stupidity) was that we had to keep it a secret from practically everyone. I decided right then and there that if I was going to have another boyfriend that wasn’t Tay, I wasn’t going to make the same mistakes.
When we were done singing, (I wasn’t as nervous this time because since the party, these boys had learned lots of scary things about me that were much worse than if I could have messed up in a song), Dave and I sat on the couch and cuddled while Oscar and Muf showed us some new stuff they were trying out.
“I thought you had a man, Tayler,” Muf said when he saw me peck Dave on the cheek.
“I do,” I smiled, squeezing Dave’s hand.
“Wait a minute, when did you guys transition from plain buddies to sex buddies?”
“We aren’t sex buddies,” I spoke up.
Before I could finish, Dave smirked, “Yet, anyway.”
“We started going out this morning,” I informed them.
“I knew you guys would hook up sooner or later,” Oscar said.
I did too, but I didn’t want to say so. Now that everyone had been pointing it out to me, it seemed painfully obvious that we were destined to go out.
