Andy shifted in his sleep and Em’s dream wavered in her memory. She rolled over, not wanting to relinquish her precious sleep, but also not wanting to remember that day. She snuggled into the covers more and opened one eye to see Andy’s body in the moonlit room. He slept peacefully with one arm thrown over her middle like a child who clings to its security blanket while dreaming. Em’s lips twitched in the essence of a smile before she closed her eyes again.
****Flashback****
After a flawless but very cold performance Andy and Em had been exiled to Spark’s bus. They both sat in the back, waiting for any sound of some one coming to join them. Surely they didn’t all hate the two now. Reny, she would forgive her band mate and “brother”. Alex, he would come to the defense of his best friend. But no, no one came.
“I’ve never been so glad that Kit and Mae weren’t here.” Em said quietly.
“Same here. It’s bad enough having seven people blame me for defiling you.” Andy said, in effort to joke.
“We can’t just not talk to them the rest of the tour Andy. We’ve got to tell them something. I can’t stand the way they’re looking at me.”
“Do you think it’s easy for me? As if they didn’t hate me enough for my relationship with Mae; even though she and Scott never agreed on anything but when and where, now I’ve stolen you too.”
“You didn’t steal me.” Em sighed.
“But that’s not how it looks.”
“ARG! I’m so SICK of being worried about how things look!” Em cried in frustration.
“But there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Yes there is, we can talk to them…tell them…God, tell them anything and hope they believe it. Andy, I can’t take the look in Anton’s eyes.”
“Ha.” Andy laughed shallowly. “Like he has any reason to be upset. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
“He’s got every right Andy. He trusted me, trusted me enough to change, enough to think that we could be together forever. I destroyed his trust by lying to him.”
“So, what? Is it my fault that you lied to him?” Andy said turning on her.
“YOU DIDN’T WANT ANYBODY TO KNOW!” She yelled at him.
“NEITHER DID YOU!” He yelled back. They sat in silence for a few minutes. Em tried to be discrete about wiping the tears that had begun to leak out of her eyes. She saw Andy’s posture soften until he had his head in his hands.
v “Andy…” She started. “I’ve waited my whole life for someone like him. And I can’t let it go, you can’t ask me to.”
“Can’t I?” his muffled voice asked.
“They had to find out sometime. I mean, we got people watching us 24/7; we were stupid to think that they wouldn’t notice. I don’t even know why we tried to keep it a secret anyway.”
“Because I didn’t want to hurt them.”
“And you aren’t hurting them now?”
“It’s different. Why’d you want it to be secret?” Andy asked, getting up.
“I knew it would only last a little while longer.” Em whispered.
“And then we’d tell them?”
“Then it wouldn’t matter, because it’d be done. Nobody would ask, so there was nothing to explain.”
“We’ve really done some damage here haven’t we Emmy.”
“I don’t regret it.” She said standing next to him. He wrapped her in a hug.
“I don’t either. You’re so…”
“Don’t Andy.”
“I’m sorry that it’s ending like this.”
“Me too. We make a good pair.” She smiled at him. “I’m going to ask Dave if we’re stopping anywhere soon.”
“Good idea, at least on the bus they can’t completely ignore us.”
It wasn’t long at all before they were crossing the border into Germany and so Andy and Em climbed onto the Unison bus. They were met with icy glares from Sean and Jacks who sat at the table.
“HEY GUYS!” Sean yelled to the back. “THE INFIDELITY TWINS ARE HERE.” The door opened and Jamie and Scott came out. They wore blank expressions that thinly veiled the anger etched on faces. Reny came out next, she looked torn. Then came Alex, looking disappointed, with Anton behind him. Anton raised eyes that were bloodshot from crying. Em gasped as though she’d been struck and quickly ducked her head to avoid looking at him. Andy grabbed for her hand, which earned a raised eyebrow from Jacks.
“So is it true?” Scott asked.
“Is what true?” Andy countered.
“You know what he means Andy.” Jamie said.
“I want him to say it out loud. I want you all to hear how it sounds.”
“Fine,” Scott nodded. “Are you sleeping with Em?” Em tightened her hold on Andy’s hand. He took a deep breath; it was his place to tell them.
“Yes.” The word hung thick in the air. Anton surged towards Andy and Em, but Alex caught him and held him back.
“What do you mean Andy?” Reny asked almost desperately.
“He means that once again he’s screwing somebody else’s woman.” Sean answered her.
“Shut up Sean.” Reny snapped. “All you do is sleep, right Emmy?” Em didn’t answer right away, and when she did her voice cracked.
“No. But we…we didn’t do anything wrong.” She looked up now, but couldn’t decide who it was safe to look at.
“Funny definition of wrong.” Jacks snorted.
“Aren’t you supposed to be our friends?” Andy asked angrily. “Aren’t we supposed to be able to trust each other?”
“Shouldn’t we be asking you two that?” Jamie countered.
“Listen, if we tell you that we didn’t do anything wrong you should believe us.”
“You just told us you slept together.” Anton said, finally speaking.
“Yeah, and we did. We slept.” Andy said.
“What?” Scott asked.
“We didn’t always sleep.” Em said for Andy. “We started just talking…”
“Likely story.” Sean mumbled.
“You know how neither of us sleep that much, and it gets lonely at night with nobody to talk to or hold. And since everybody knows about me and Anton, I didn’t want to risk asking him to stay in my room…”
“So I started to sneak over at night, and we’d fall asleep.”
“We didn’t just talk though, or sleep.” Em nudged Andy, who sighed heavily.
“Here.” He pulled a thick stack of paper from behind his back and threw them on the table. “That’s what we were doing. Well, mostly.”
“What is it?” Jacks asked.
“It’s lyrics.” Andy said. He looked at the floor. “Em is helping me write for my solo album.”
“WHAT?” Alex cried.
“THAT’S why we didn’t say anything. I knew you guy would be upset about me going solo… but I’m not really, I still want to be a part of Unison, but I wanted to get a jump on things, and Em was willing to help me…”
“If he let me use him as a guinea pig for my book.”
“A book.” Jamie said more to himself than to anybody.
v “It’s a fictionalized version of us, and all the things we’ve done together.”
“And how strong our friendship is.” Andy said pointedly.
“It was supposed to be a surprise.” Em whispered.
“Why didn’t you just say that this morning?” Jacks asked.
“Because you came at us like some sort of possessed shark.” Andy said, making a face at Jacks. “Maybe if you hadn’t been so suspicious to begin with, none of this would have happened. I could have killed you for saying something like that about Emmy.”
“So you were writing?” Anton’s voice came again. He looked up at Em with his still red eyes. She stood up and rushed to him.
“Yes! God, Anton, I love you; I’m IN love with you. How could I give myself to anybody else? You’re all I ever wanted.” Anton’s eyes spilled over and so did Em’s as the two embraced.
“I’m so sorry.” He said into her hair.
“I’m sure we’re ALL sorry.” Alex said. He put a hand on Andy’s shoulder. “We never should have jumped to conclusions.”
“I TOLD you guys they weren’t having sex.” Reny said loudly. “My girl’s gonna have a white wedding.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry too.” Jacks said. “It’s a little thing called tact…I think I should look into getting it.” They laughed dryly at her joke. “But really Andy…Em, I can’t say how sorry I am.”
“Me too.”
“Me three.”
“And me four.” Said Scott, Jamie, and Sean respectively.
“We’re sorry too guys.” Andy said. “We should have just told you what was going on instead of putting everybody through this. I didn’t want you to think I wanted out of the group, and by not telling you I probably had you wanting to kick me out.”
“And just because I was being all stupid and secretive about my story, I risked the one love of my life.” Em concluded. “I’m so sorry Anton.”
“Just promise me one thing.” Anton said. “From now on…when you’re done writing with Andy, you come sleep with me.” Em smiled and agreed.
“Aren’t you worried about the rumors that you’re having sex?” Alex quipped. The others groaned, and Andy smacked him.
“We’re not going to let them get started.” He asserted. “If we all stand together about something then nobody’s going to argue. It’s when,” He looked at Jacks. “We start accusing each other that the problems start.”
**** Em walked bleary-eyed into the kitchen. Andy sat at the table with an empty bowl.
“Emmy, I had the weirdest dream.”
“Really? What was it about?”
“I hit on Jacks!”
“And what did she do?” Em laughed.
“She decked me.” Andy stated and then laughed.
“I had a dream about Jacks being all pissy too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, remember Vienna?” Em said, raising an eyebrow.
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you should tell Anton we slept together.” Andy laughed.
“I think I will. Though I still think I’m leaving out the part about your horrible acting job beforehand.”
“Hey, I’m not a bad actor.” Andy said. Em made a face. “Ok, so maybe I’m a bad actor… but I do know how to seduce women, thank you.”
“Don’t quit your day job Kid.” Em pulled open the fridge to see cold Taco Bell tacos. “Oh my God, I love you!” She said gleefully.
“Yeah, I had them for dinner the other night, and it made me think of you.”
“You’re so sweet to me.” Em said, kissing his head.
“Sorry about totally ruining your reputation.”
“Eh.” Em shrugged. “It wasn’t totally ruined.” She paused. “Just mostly.” He laughed at her as she winked at him.