Page 24 of Call and Response

Once I’d dried every possible molecule of water from my hands and disposed of the paper towel, I put myself back in motion. With just a few steps into the main area, I solved my mystery—there she was.

Fine all over again, damn.

She was seated at the kitchen counter with her notebook and pen, her laptop, and her headphones on.

Eyes closed, but not asleep, clearly in a zone—head bobbing, lips moving.

I hated to interrupt.

And I’d already decided I wasn’t going to, taking a step backward to leave without a word, but her eyes popped open, and her gaze immediately found mine.

“Hey,” I spoke, since now I was in the spotlight. I didn’t want to paint a picture that I’d been standing there for some extended time, watching her like a fucking creep. “You good?”

She startled a bit, almost like she hadn’tactuallyeven registered my presence until I spoke. A sly, sexy grin spread over her lips as she pushed the headphones back on her head, freeing her ears.

“What did you just say?”

“I asked if you were good.”

Her eyebrows pulled together. “I let you give me Twinkie treatment, and you feel like you need to ask if I'm good? Interesting,” she mused, dropping her elbows on the counter, chin resting on her hands.

Staring a damn hole into me until I broke eye contact, chuckling.

“You arehell, you know that?” I asked, traveling the rest of the distance to get to the counter.

“Because I’m reminding you of last night’s irresponsible decisions?”

I shook my head. “Because you’re using it as bait.”

“Bait? For what?”

“To keep me from noticing that your eyes are red, face puffy, you’re up late as fuck with a pen… you’re writing your way through something.”

Her eyes went wide, lips parted in surprise for a moment before she blew out a sigh. “Fine,” she huffed. “You’re right. Now what?”

“Now… what’s up?” I responded, taking the empty stool next to her. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, we’re doingthis?”

I shrugged. “Like you said, I gave you Twinkie treatment. Surely we can talk to each other.”

“Surely,” she agreed with a soft giggle before she looked away. “I just… have you really processed what we did a few nights ago? Performing on the fly like that, in front of all those people, barely any rehearsal…”

“You know that’s probably what saved us, right?” I asked. “Or maybe that was just me. Not having time to think too hard about it, no time to back out… wehadto make the shit happen.”

“Absolutely.” She nodded. “And we weresowell received. People in person have been great, and all the comments online are overwhelmingly great, but it’s… it’ssodifferent. I didn’t know how different it would feel.”

“Different from… solely being the writer? Actually performing for yourself?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’ve snuck and sung background with people before, and I sing demos all the time, so it’s not like it was completely foreign, but that night was so…major. And now… here I am, sneaky-linking and writing and not getting enough sleep like… normal. This huge thing happened, and it’s like nothing changed.”

“But you just said—”

“I know, it feels hella different. That’s the point,” she explained. “I feel so discombobulated, and I'm not even sure why. So I don’t know where I could start to try fixing it.”

I nodded. “And layering in my bullshit probably isn’t helpful, huh?”

“Are you kidding me?” She sucked her teeth. “Please. These last few hours have been the most peace I’ve had since we went on stage.”

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