So, he’s still pissed off. The quiet room is pulsing.

I lie down beside him, but he doesn’t touch me. “Are you going to be pissed off at me the rest of the day,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean it the way you took it.”

He sets aside the journal and takes a long drag of the cigarette before he stomps it out. “No? I think you meant it exactly how I took it. Don’t turn me into a substitute for your fucked up addiction.”

“You are so mean at times,” I mutter, completely confused by him. “I don’t know how to deal with you.”

I roll away, sighing in frustration. Emotionally, I’m rattled by his suspicions and internally more than a little panicked that there is truth in what he said.

“Why is it so hard for you to believe I care about you?” he asks unexpectedly.

Now, on top of everything, I feel like I’m going to cry. “I don’t know. Because you are you.”

“Don’t give me bullshit, Chrissie.” He lifts my chin, forcing me to look at him. “I love you,” he whispers. “Don’t ask me to hurt you. Not ever. I won’t be a part of that.”

I nod. I understand. “I’m sorry.”

“Why do you get all uptight whenever I say I love you?”

Oh god! I blink at him. How did we get back to psychoanalyzing me again? I’ve been contrite. I’ve apologized.

“It’s just not something I’m comfortable with. Please, can we not do this today?” I whisper.

“I’m just trying to understand you. You are a very confusing girl.”

Frustrated, I jerk into a sitting position, letting my towel drop. “How confusing can I be? You’ve seen my burns, you are in my head and I do pretty much anything you ask without a fight. I’m not confusing to you. Sometimes it feels like you know me better than I know myself.”

“Not exactly,” he murmurs, a trace of irritation still in his voice. “I don’t know why you hurt yourself. I don’t want to be just an extension of that.”

“You’re not. So let it go.”

“So, then what am I to you?”

I let out a shuddering breath. “I don’t know what you are to me. I don’t know why I’m here or why you want me here or what we’re doing. I don’t know. How’s that for an answer?”

He leans into me to kiss me very gently on the lips. His eyes are soft and glowing as he pulls back. “I don’t like it, but it’s a truthful answer.”

He takes me with him as he sinks into the sheets, his body molding into me, his arms holding me closely. “Sleep, Chrissie. I need to sleep now.”

And shamefully, I’m reminded he’s been awake thirty hours. I’m not tired, but I lie in the tuck of his body, listening to his breathing change. I stare at the album artwork on the floor. In the center of the swirling darkness there are shapes. I didn’t notice that before. Long and Hard. They look almost like eyes. They look almost like me.

* * *

“Don’t laugh.”

Jeez, why did he say that? Of course, I’m going to laugh now. I fight it but I can feel my body shimmy against him.

“You’re laughing,” he chides.

“If you tell me not to laugh I will laugh.”

He is smiling down at me fondly. After twenty hours straight of sleep, he woke no longer pissed off at me. He is playful Alan since we’ve finished having the sex he always wants when he wakes. Sex, quiet time, and then hopefully food. And maybe if I’m lucky, getting out of the bedroom today.

“Don’t move,” he orders.

“Why?”

“I don’t want to leave you, and if you laugh or move you will force me out.”

“How long do you plan to stay?”

“Until I am forced to go.”

“Why do you always want to hang after?”

He grins against my skin and I can see he’s fighting his own laughter. Oops, I didn’t phrase that well. I bite my lower lip, but it’s Alan who laughs and his body slips out of me.

He rolls onto his side beside me, still laughing, and runs a hand through his hair. “You make horrible puns. I can’t figure out if you do them deliberately or by accident.”

I crinkle my nose. “Unintentionally.”

“So, what do you want to do today?”

I pretend to give it serious thought. “How about a date-date?”

Alan laughs. “What’s a date-date?”

“An evening that doesn’t include an entire evening in the bedroom.”

His eyes sharpen. Shit, what have I said now? It seems to take him a long time to decide how to answer. “You are not getting bored with me, are you?”

I look at him, puzzled. “Why do you have to be so touchy? I’d just like to get out of the apartment today.”

“Do you want Colin to take you shopping?”

Shopping? I make a face. “I didn’t say I wanted to go out without you.”

A knock on the bedroom door saves me from what I can feel is going to be a quickly escalating argument.

“Fuck, Jeanette,” Alan growls. “Stop pounding! What do you want?”

I enjoy his flash anger directed at someone other than me, right up to the point where Alan jerks open the door butt naked in front of his secretary.

They talk in quiet tones I can’t hear. Then Alan rakes an aggravated hand through his hair. “Shit! Is that today?”

“You can’t put this off, Manny,” Jeanette says sternly.

“Fuck.” He closes the door and jerks on a pair of jeans and nothing else.

“Get dressed,” he orders.

I don’t like the way he sounds. “Why?”

“Just do it.”

I roll my eyes and pull on a long sleeve T-shirt, shorts and my UGG boots. I’m still struggling to pull one up as his hand practically drags me down the hall to the terrace. It’s packed with chattering bodies, balancing food and drinks from a long buffet. My insides go numb as I recognize the well-known faces of his band, and what must surely be assorted wives and girlfriends.

There is no time for Alan to explain what this little unexpected interruption is about, or even why he wants me here for this. We are quickly swallowed up by fast quips and greetings, the unrelenting flow between him and the people competing for his attention. There is too much going on all at once to catch any of it in clarity, and it is a particularly haunting pathos to be trapped against him in the drape of his arms while they all fight to get near him.

Everyone seems to just bounce off Alan with hardly any notice, except Linda. She cuts her way through the circle, ruffles his hair, kisses his cheek.

“Poor Ugly,” she teases with a pout. “Thought you could hide out here with the little kitty forever, didn’t you?”

The entire cluster sinks in unison, almost like a moving football huddle, onto the large cushioned chaise lounges. I’m still against his chest, and they’re like a firing squad in front of us.

“Listen. We’re just going to clear the air,” Len Rowan says, silencing the disjointed chatter of the mob. “No pressure, mind you. But we just all need a no bullshit, straight answer about what’s up.”

Kenny Jones, Alan’s drummer, is not quite as pleasant in his manner. “I’m tired of being fucking jerked around by you. We hear things, OK. We leave on the road in three weeks and we need to know: are you going to be there?”

Alan takes a long sip of his whiskey and smiles at me. “Yes. We will be there.” He says it clipped, succinctly, but I tense in every muscle. We? What does he mean by we?

“But it’s not enough just to show,” Len says intensely. “You’ve got to really be there. No barricading yourself away for days in your room. No jumping tour and disappearing. You’ve got to be on the road for the show to be any good.”

Alan nods. “I get it. You don’t have to lecture me, Len.”

“We need to get back into the space. Rehearse,” Kenny adds.

“Soon. I have things to take care of in the city, and then we’ll go to the rehearsal space,” Alan says tonelessly.

“You are OK, aren’t you?” Pat Despensa asks.

“I’m OK,” Alan states flatly.

From there the conversation diverges into shoptalk, the upcoming tour, and everything Alan’s missed in the last six months. Silent, I listen and watch this totally bizarre dynamic, where the limit of their concern over Alan and all that has gone on the past year was to ask him once, evasively, if he was OK. It makes me hate each and every one of them, and it reminds me of Alan’s comment about real people and the everyone else in his life.