Page 45 of Charm City Rocks
“My hair is thinning.”
She squints at his forehead. “It doesn’t look like—”
“No, not there.” He shows her the crown of his head, and she runs her hand over it.
“Okay, yeah, a little.”
“The lady that cuts it says she can hide it for a few more years. All bets are off after that, though.”
“I find grays sometimes,” she says. “I just yank the fuckers.”
He goes to her hip again, pulls her closer. “Don’t even get me started on my stomach,” he says. “My twenties, it was good.Thirties, decent. I even had one of those V things for a while. Now it’s more of a U. I have a U-shaped stomach.”
Margot smiles, and Billy wants to kiss her again. He will soon, he’s nearly certain, but for now he’s enjoying this part. This is foreplay in your forties: pointing out all the things you don’t like about yourself and just going with it. She rolls onto her back and slides her T-shirt up, revealing the pale skin from the bottom of her ribs to the waistband of her pants. “Mine’s held up pretty well,” she says. “I actually still kind of like it.”
Billy swallows and then touches her there. She sighs, a sound likehmm,that he could listen to all night.
“How long has it been since I said we should wait?” she asks.
Billy consults his digital alarm clock, which is among the only electrical devices in his apartment that are still plugged in. “About an hour and a half.”
“Yeah,” she says. “That’s long enough.”
Chapter28
Robyn Frazier considers herself a social media voyeur. Caleb called her that once, and she liked it, despite it sounding creepy. The idea is that while shehassocial media accounts, she never actually posts anything. Instead, she uses them to keep up with her friends and relatives, liking photos of their dogs and children and birthday cakes. She’s glad the people in her life post these things because it gives her something to look at while she waits for hair appointments or sits in traffic jams, but she has absolutely no interest in putting herself out there online in any way. Who cares what her salad looks like?
Consequently, the algorithms keep Robyn at a distance, showing her only the tips of icebergs—the surfaces of rabbit holes. Which is why Robyn only knows the basics about the Margot Hammer Incident. Some of her friends have texted her about it.
Is this really Billy?
That’s Caleb’s dad, right?
Seeing the shots of Billy all moon-faced next to the drummer made her laugh at first. She imagined him making a fool of himself trying to talk to her. But then she remembered how annoyed she used to be at his Margot Hammer crush. It wasn’t like Robynhadn’t had her own music crushes. She’d been quietly in love with Jack White, for example, and Justin Timberlakestilldoes things to her insides. The thing that irked her was that Billy really liked Margot Hammer—as a person and an artist. If he’d wanted to grind up against the Spice Girls like some horny idiot, that would’ve been one thing. Expected, even. But seeing him with his big earphones on air drumming to her music had been a sore spot. Plus…well, Margot Hammer wasn’t even that pretty.
That’s a tremendously bitchy thing to think, Robyn knows. Sure, Margot Hammer was a rock star, which came with some built-in appeal. The whole mousy, regular-girl-turned-rocker thing was annoying, though, and frankly, played out. The fact that she’d been married to Lawson Daniels of all people was and remains a complete mystery. Whatever, though…celebrities are weird.
She’s standing at her kitchen sink now, eating a low-fat English muffin, waiting for Billy and his piano to arrive. The window overlooks the driveway and the front door to the little guest apartment over their garage. Things are starting to turn green again, flowers blooming. Springtime in Baltimore. A male cardinal sits on the backboard of Caleb’s basketball hoop, shouting into the sky, looking for a girlfriend.
“Honestly, though, I just think this whole thing is weird. The entire concept of this. Weird.” Aaron is at the kitchen table readingTheWall Street Journalon his tablet.
“Your position has been noted,” says Robyn. “You’re just pissed because I made you move your Peloton.”
“A little, yeah, but that’s not all,” he says. “I get that this is what Caleb wants. I do. But Caleb’s eighteen. If we did everything eighteen-year-olds want, the world would spin out of control.”
She finishes as much as she’s going to eat of her muffin and drops the rest into the garbage disposal. “Mm-hm,” she says.
“You know I like Billy,” Aaron says. “Everybodylikes Billy. It’s just…”
Her husband is searching for a word other thanweird,which he’s dramatically overused these past two weeks. A female cardinal lands on the rim of the hoop outside and chirps up at the male.Oh, good for you two,she thinks as both birds dart away.
Robyn is willing to concede, in her own head at least, that her ex-boyfriend and the father of her child moving into the room above their garage might seem odd, in theory. But…it’s Billy. It’s fine. Caleb asked for this, and when he did, she could tell by the look on his face that he really wanted her to say yes, so that’s what she did.
Robyn doesn’t say any of this, because marriage is exhausting enough without having to replay the same conversations on a loop.
“Speaking of eighteen-year-olds,” Aaron says, “I take it we haven’t heard from Stanford.”
“Cay said no email yet.”
