Game On(29)
“Soph-ie, Soph-ie, how I love it when you kiss me. When you touch me. When you love me. Soph-ie, Soph-ie, don’t you leave me, don’t you leave me.”
When he wrote it, I had found it charming. What girl didn’t want a song written about her? But it wasn’t even really about me. It was just a good rhyme, Nick had told me one night, effectively removing all the magic and romance from it. From that point on, the song had always felt like a lie. Now, it was an embarrassment. And one that never seemed to end.
Usually the chorus repeated itself, but it appeared that Nick had gained some inspiration since I had left him and launched into a completely new section. One that he practically growled into the microphone.
“Soph-ie, Soph-ie, put your arms around me. Put your legs around me. Put your lips around me.”
I wanted to die. I was pretty sure that if there had been a bottle nearby I would have tossed it at the stage. And my aim was pretty good when I was mad. I began looking around for something just as destructive. Anything to stop Nick from singing about our sex life. The same sex life that had been remarkably uneventful for half of our relationship. Not that you’d be able to tell from the way he was singing about me. If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought I was some hot-to-trot sex kitten that lived for f*cking and blowjobs. Not that I was against either of those. With the right person.
I looked over at Nathan, whose eyes were darting between me and the stage. I then looked up at the band and realized that not only was Nick singing about me, he was singing at me. Somehow, in the dim light of the bar, despite the lights blasting the stage, he had still managed to pick me out of the audience. Staring and singing.
Poor Anne Marie, I thought, as she clanged her tambourine and glared at both of us. No matter how many tambourine solos she was given to play, or ooh-la-las she was given to sing, the song was always going to be mine. It was always going to be my name, my memory. From the stage, Nick flashed me a smile and I could feel half the room shift their attention to me.
Nathan, on the other hand, hadn’t taken his eyes off of me since the second part of the chorus had begun.
“Is that— Is this song— Is it—?” he couldn’t seem to finish any of his sentences. This evening couldn’t be any more of a disaster. As Nathan sat there with his mouth hanging open, I sat down and put my head on the table and waited for the music to end.
Chapter Twelve
I should have just left. The minute I realized who was onstage, I should have just taken my bag and my phone and walked out of there. Instead, for reasons I couldn’t quite name, I stayed and polished off half a pitcher while Nick and his band played his whole set.
Maybe I was hoping Nick would feel guilty. Maybe I was hoping he would apologize. Maybe I was a glutton for punishment. Maybe I was just a drunk idiot sitting in the audience of her ex-boyfriend’s show while he sang a song about the blowjobs he used to get from her. WHICH HE HADN’T GOTTEN IN MONTHS BECAUSE WE NEVER HAD SEX ANYMORE.
I winced, realizing I was yelling at myself in my head, and took another long drink of my beer to soothe the pain. It made the voice calm to a steady buzz and pretty soon I wasn’t thinking anything at all, just sitting there, my arms folded, glaring up at the stage, waiting for it to be over.
To Nathan’s credit, he had said nothing, except to send away the last pitcher of beer, which made me mad at first, but the tiny non-drunk part of my brain made the point that I would probably be grateful later.
An hour later, the band had ended its set and Nick vaulted off the stage with more energy and excitement than I had seen in the past few months and made a beeline for me. Suddenly, the realization that I had been sitting there, waiting for him, made me feel completely gross, and before he could reach me, I leapt up from the table and practically ran out the door.
The hot night air made me sweat immediately, but I stomped my feet against the pavement towards the direction of my hotel, ignoring the two male voices calling for me from behind.
“Sophie!” Nick and Nathan both called out, their footsteps pounding behind me.
I finally whirled around to face them.
Nick was still holding his guitar, his face flushed with the adrenaline rush of having given a good show. And as much as I loathed to admit it, it had been a good show, one I might have even enjoyed if I wasn’t so f*cking angry at him. And then he spoke.
“What did you think of the new lyrics?” he asked, in his typical clueless manner. I wanted to rip off his hands and slap him with them.
I almost missed the “what the f*ck, dude” look that Nathan gave Nick as I tried to focus my now unsteady gaze on him. He was also flushed, but instead of holding a guitar, he had my purse and my phone in his hand, which he held out. Feeling stupid for having forgotten them, I snatched them out of his grasp, shoving the phone back into the bag and slinging it over my shoulder.
“I have to go,” I said, hating the way my speech was slurring. Why had I kept drinking? Why had I stayed? This was exactly something my mother would have done. She totally would have sat in the audience of an ex-boyfriend’s show, though she would have kept going until she was too drunk to stand and the bartender or bouncer would have had to call me to tell me that they had put her in a cab and that I should expect her home in a few minutes. Then it was my job to make sure she got enough liquids in her system, or that she threw up if she needed to, so I wouldn’t wake up the next morning as an orphan. The thought that I was acting like my mom over a guy, over NICK, made me nauseous.