Page 32 of Best Friend Burden

“Yes, sir?”

“I think we've seen all we need to see.”

Again, the ambiguity was driving me crazy.

But he removed the ambiguity when he stood up and offered me his hand.

“We'd be more than happy to go into business with you.”

And, honest to goodness, I saw a genuine smile emerge on that man's face.

CHAPTER12

***KIEFER***

As my eyes opened at their own pace, I wasn't sure if the night before really happened or not. I was alone in my bed, though I thought I could still smell traces of her. Maybe it was all in my head. But as the memories became clearer, it became obvious that it wasn't all some wonderful dream. It happened. And that made things scarier because it meant there would be consequences.

The mind-reading was always the hardest part of a relationship for me. What did Melody want from this? Because I was too old to be looking for just another hook-up, I had been there and done that for the majority of my life. Now, if I was going to take someone to bed, I wanted it to be the start of something meaningful and lasting.

In my experience, that was the case about half the time with women I met. Some just wanted to get close to a rock star, or even somebody approximating one, to tell their friends about later. And others were looking for a man with a steady job or something. I don't know. But it was impossible to tell the morning after whether the woman was interested in a second date or would immediately delete my number from her phone.

Melody wasn't about to delete me from her phone. Not so long as she needed an apartment to stay in. But that only made things more confusing. I'd had friends with benefits type situations before and, invariably, somebody always got hurt in the end. It would almost have been better for us to cut things off immediately if she wasn't serious about this rather than pull me along with the hopes of things turning into something more.

I pulled up my phone and realized the battery had died during the night. I plugged it in and waited for it to load up, then looked at the time and realized I was already a half hour late coming into work. After jumping in the quickest shower I could take and throwing clothes on, I made it out to the living room and kitchen area of the apartment. The kitchen was an even bigger disaster than it was the night before, and I was worried that it was going to attract bugs or vermin, but there wasn't time to deal with that. I'd have to get on Melody's ass about that later.

I figured that was probably a good sign, though. Hook-ups and friends with benefits didn't have fights — if I was going to have to give her a hard time about the state of the kitchen, that gave me strong serious relationship vibes.

It wouldn't be a huge fight or anything, of course. It'd just be a conversation where I put my foot down and told her that if she was going to use the kitchen, she'd better leave it in the same condition it was in when she started.

I made a promise to myself not to lose my temper or raise my voice this time. We were going to handle everything like adults. I learned with my sobriety that keeping my at home life in a controlled state made it easier to keep my addiction controlled. To some people a messy kitchen wasn’t a big deal, but to me it helped me keep myself from spiraling. Keep my side of the sidewalk clean. That was something I learned and held on to for dear life.

When I finally made it into the studio — it took the Uber driver forever to get to me — it was like nobody even realized I was late. I could hear the sound of a funky bass line playing modal lines around the beat. Real hip stuff that was almost impossible to not tap your feet to.

Of course it was Natasha. With just a little bit of practice, she'd managed to outdo her performance from the day before — a performance that Ernie had already described as better than perfection. Maybe I could have played like she was playing if somebody had given me a recording and asked me to study it, but the fact that she was improvising these licks was massively intimidating. And it was only made more so by her diminutive stature and unassuming nature.

She made it look so easy. And maybe that was because, for her, it was.

I shook the thought out of my head.

Especially in something like music, it would only bring you pain to compare yourself to others. The problem is I couldn't help myself, and the thought kept popping back in. It wasn't so much that I was mad I couldn't play as well as Natasha, it was that I knew I wasn't even playing as well as myself.

I stepped into the sound booth, where Ernie was sitting at the controls.

“She's unbelievable,” he said. “Just like nothing I've ever seen. Or heard.”

I nodded, but didn't respond. In the back of my head was the concern that with Cleopatra Records not doing as well as it once was, it wouldn't make sense to keep two bassists on payroll. Ernie always acted like my friend and like he liked me, but business was business, and it was all meaningless when it came down to the bottom line.

“She's good for this sort of thing,” I said, “but Peterson Floyd is avant garde. She's wasted on a standard pop record.”

Ernie picked up on the subtext I didn't realize I was dropping. “Buddy,” he said, taking a hit on his e-cig, “we're keeping you around. She's not replacing you. She's a sensation on bass, but we'll still need you for rhythm and lead.”

I bit my tongue. I hadn't heard Natasha play those instruments, but I would have put money down that she was just as good on them.

“Even if she plays as well as you,” he said, practically reading my mind, “she can't play them all at the same time. You know I prefer doing everything live.”

That gave me a sense of relief. At least for now, my job was safe, but for how long?

I'd been frustrated with my ability and creative energy, which continued to stagnate. And I knew exactly why.

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