Purple Hearts(35)

So what do you think?

After we had hooked up the first time, Toby had been the one to say he wasn’t looking for anything serious. I had told him I was fine with that, and from then on it was an unspoken agreement that I would occasionally hook up with him after practice.

Why the sudden penchant for traditional romance?

He wrote back right away, I’ve been wanting to hang for a while.

Hang?

Date? Go on one?

So if I say yes, then what? I’d realized this could be read as a flirtation tactic. But I’d also honestly meant it. I had enough ambiguous male figures in my life. I was stalling.

I would say how about Thursday night?

He had basically saved my life. I didn’t feel so much that I owed him a date, because that was icky, but more that I was genuinely curious. What the heck would we talk about? The album? Nora? The state of our country? Plus we’d already slept together and not talked about it. I’d doubted this could be any more awkward. Ok, I typed.

Rad.

Rad, I had repeated, not sure whether I was making fun of him.

I’ll pick you up at seven, he’d texted. Thinking we can eat like three steaks each, and then take naps, how does that sound?

I laughed, as I had done the first time I’d read it. Sounds perfect, I had written. Meat and naps. You really know the way to my heart.

I hadn’t been on a date for a while. I’d kind of forgotten how. When Nora and I went on “dates” we would usually spend the whole time talking across from each other with our mouths full at Mai Thai, fantasizing about ways we would murder John Mayer.

I called her. She picked up on the first ring.

When I told her, she screamed. “Toby Masters? Our little drummer boy?”

I sighed. “Yeah.”

“But why?”

I thought of his long hair, his gap-toothed smile, his gushing compliments after shows. “He’s nice. He’s funny.”

“So are lots of human beings.”

“But most human beings don’t ask me out.”

She laughed. “Probably because you spend all of your time playing piano and scheming the army for benefits.”

“Yeah, the timing isn’t great . . .” I started.

“Uh, yeah, no,” Nora said, her voice dry. “You get fake-married and all of a sudden you want to lock down your fuck buddy? Is this a contagious disease I should worry about?”

“No, no,” I said, forcing a laugh.

I was quiet, trying to quench the fire in my stomach with a sip of wine. Of course Luke was a factor. Maybe I’m trying to see what a normal relationship looks like so I can use my experience to fool the army police. Is that what I was really doing? No. And what if I actually got hurt? I changed the subject.

“What kind of questions do I ask? Like, am I supposed to ask what his favorite color is? Or, like, what his relationship is like with his mother?”

“Ask him to come in earlier after the bridge on ‘Too Much.’?”

“Seriously, Nora.”

“Seriously, Cassie,” she echoed. “Do whatever you want. You’re a queen. Toby’s lucky to have you.”

I smiled. “He doesn’t ‘have me’ yet. But, yeah. It’s been a while since I’ve been liked. Like, actually liked,” I said.

“Awww—”

“I’m experimenting,” I interrupted, feeling my face flush.

“K. Well, good luck, Dr. Kinsey. Don’t fuck with our drummer. Seriously, Cass. Band comes first.”

“I know.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

We said good-bye and hung up.

I checked my lipstick in the camera. I checked my blood sugar to make sure nothing would happen like in the greenroom at the Skylark. I put on Nicki Minaj. When I was full-on rapping along to “Favorite,” Toby texted that he was downstairs. I turned off the music.

I opened the door and he smiled wide. “Hi, good to see you.”

“Good to see you, too,” I said. I slipped on my Converses, waiting.

He was still standing in the doorway, taking a big breath. “This is weird.”

I laughed, covering a sigh of relief. “It’s not that weird, but, yeah, it’s weird.”

“We’ll improvise. I’m supposed to, like, present you with a gift from my people, right?”

“After we sing the ceremonial mating song, yes.”

“Fuck it, let’s go eat.”

? ? ?

An hour later we were sitting on a curb outside of Lulu B’s, talking with our mouths full of bahn mi. After dinner, we’d go to a show at Swan Dive.

He was telling me a story about a time when a venue manager in Tennessee accidentally double booked a night, and his old band got scheduled to play at the same time as a Christian rock band.

“We did the only thing we could,” he said. “We played.”

“You kicked them out?” I asked, laughing.

“No.”

“Then what?”

“It’s not very punk. It’s kind of embarrassing,” he said, looking away from me with a smile.

“No one said you had to be punk,” I told him.

“Well, they were a Christian rock band, we were a rock band, so we decided to play songs we both knew.”