I've Never Lit a Match

Everyone out in the sunroom had a lit cigarette to apologize for. They were all shivering around an ashtray, stuffed into patio chairs and piled onto each other’s laps. Layla was standing with a guy named Aiden, his arms folded across his chest as they talked. Jenna had hastily introduced them earlier that night, then quickly disappeared into a conversation with someone else, and Layla thought she must have looked really overwhelmed because Aiden stuck with her.

He was a big guy, with a shaved head and thick drummers’ arms from playing in the band with Jenna’s older brother. That weekend was actually a homecoming for the guys, after a few months on the road with their band. They had been out on various tours since mid-July, which Jenna was using as an excuse for her party that night. It was mostly a house full of old friends welcoming the guys back into their hometown. Layla, though, was only there because of Jenna and found herself awkwardly hanging back, the noisy overcrowded party throwing a fit around her like some entitled toddler – until Aiden got her talking.

He was cool enough to hang around with her, working at trying to find something they could talk about. And it was kind of sweet how, when he had wanted to go out for a smoke, he invited her to come with him instead of ending their conversation and abandoning her. Even though Layla wasn’t usually one to get so intimidated, relying on other people to navigate her through social situations, she was relieved that Aiden opted to take her with him. She was happy to go with him onto the back porch – despite the cold November air that nipped at her skin and the fact that she didn’t smoke herself – because of how that party left her so uncharacteristically overwhelmed. It was even at her best friend’s house but, overrun with greedy strangers, Layla seemed to lose her rights to any familiarity with the space.

Aiden introduced her to a few of his buddies outside, talking about music and flicking ash from the tip of his cigarette. It seemed to Layla like everybody there that night were friends with the band, hometown buddies and pals from old high school groups. Aiden introduced her to people as “Jenna’s friend” and, since it was a small town, she recognized some of them. She and Jenna were seniors at the same high school everybody at that party had graduated from, the high school where Aiden and the guys met and started playing together. Layla and Jenna had been in the sixth grade at the time.

The four of them – Jenna’s brother Peter, Aiden, and two other guys named Brant and Kris – called themselves To No Avail and played music that fell somewhere on the spectrum between pop-punk and hardcore. They started going out on tour after graduation, signing with an indie label shortly after. They hadn’t stopped moving in the four years since. Whenever the guys left home to go on the road it was for months at a time, which was why homecoming parties always seemed necessary.

“I feel like we should’ve met before, Layla,” Aiden gave a small laugh, moving into one of the newly vacated wicker porch chairs and letting Layla slip onto the arm of his chair.

“We probably did a long time ago,” she answered, “I remember hearing you guys practicing in the basement when I’d come over to hang out with Jenna in, like, middle school.”

“Yeah, that too, but I just meant how you’re into the local music scene here. That’s where our band started and we still talk to a lot of those people. With everything Jenna told me about you, I feel like we should’ve met,” Aiden amended. “Plus, Jenna says you’re really good.”

“Jenna likes to brag.” Layla diverted, awkwardly remembering how Jenna had introduced her to Aiden as her singer-songwriter best friend.

“Yeah she does,” Aiden chuckled, “but you told me you’ve played out shows in Nashville. There’s gotta be something worth bragging about if you got all the way down there. Maybe even just a little?”

“Are you trying to get me to compliment myself?” Layla laughed.

The two fell easily into the new conversation topic, talking about music and swapping stories about different sets they had played and people they had met. Aiden told her about touring on a bus and shit his band mates did on the road, Layla carelessly slipping from her perch upon the arm of his chair every time she laughed too hard. She explained to Aiden that the two shows she had played in Nashville came to be when the “kind-of punk” band she was fronting at the time was asked to open up for another local band on a mini tour that spanned the east coast. She spent the summer before her senior year in a minivan with three kids she’d met through a ‘looking for lead singer’ flyer.

“Well, aren’t you badass?” he teased.

“Hardly,” Layla scoffed, “I’m mostly just recording covers of pop songs now. It’s fun.”

There were a half dozen conversations bobbing around the patio furniture and the single ashtray. Apart from the friendly commotion, there was a guy in the corner whose dark eyes flickered over at Layla every now and then like flame throwing shadows on her skin. Aiden had pointed him out as my buddy Kris earlier and he had nodded casually in response.

Kris’s chair, Layla noticed, was set aside from the group in a way that seemed to demand the party approach him. He was acting the snob, the pretentious wallflower, and Layla watched the room sway with him.

Her own shyness earlier had been warranted and genuine, but Kris was a rehearsed routine. He sat back in that chair with this playfully-amused smirk on his face, while Layla and Aiden swapped lists of favorite bands and a few dude-bros swapped anecdotes in a sort-of drunken story time.

Between every few sentences, Layla noticed Kris sending her these stray glances. He wasn’t worried about her noticing. It was like he intended for her notice him and for the coolness of his gaze to leave her flustered, or some other pretentious shit like that. It kind of worked.

Kris was the kind of guy whose strategic glance across the room gave a girl the impression that he was standing directly in front of her, exhaling chests practically bumping together.

Looking back on that night, Layla would recognize how Kristopher Wallace had really only looked like he was trying – posed, slouching with one hand tucked into the pocket of his leather jacket and the other sustaining the perch of a cigarette between calloused fingers. He let his brown eyes take her in and roll her over in his mind, while adding so casually to the various conversations that kept nodding back to him.

“Poor girl looks like she’s freezing to death.” When Kris finally approached the two of them, speaking these words, it seemed odd. His silent intrusion in her night so far had been so persistent that it didn’t feel like these could be the first words that he was offering her, as he was suddenly stalking towards her and Aiden just to interrupt them.

“I’m fine,” she answered, trying to speak for herself despite the fact that Kris had actually been talking about and not to her.

“Say it without letting your teeth chatter,” he teased.

“Well, it’s November,” she said back, a childlike friendliness evident in the way she softly laughed under her breath.

“Yeah, it is,” Kris continued, “You’re a friend of Jenna’s – Layla?”

“Yup, can’t seem to find her though,” Layla answered awkwardly and Kris chuckled politely.

“I’m Kris. I’m in the band with Pete and, uh, Aiden here,” he introduced himself. “I sing.”

Layla looked up at him blankly for a second, before responding, “Me too.”

“Yeah?” he asked, all cute with an eyebrow raised, incredulous.

“Yeah I’m, uh, going to college for audio-engineering next year, actually.”

“So you have a singing voice but you’re gonna be like a producer or something instead of actually use it? Lame.” Kris had moved behind her now, leaning in to run his hands up and down her arms. She really was shivering, so she didn’t exactly mind the bold gesture.

“I do use my singing voice,” she answered casually. Then, she teased, “I just don’t like… distribute it like you do.”

“Ouch!” he made a face, “So I’m a product. And you’re what? Real art?”

“Maybe!” she laughed. “But, actually, I’ve never listened to your band,” she admitted quietly, with mock-embarrassment.

“Oh, just keep the insults coming, Layla!” He gestured for her to continue, an amused grin on his face.

“Sorry!” she giggled.

Aiden was looking at her too, after that one. “Really, girl?”

“Sorry!” she repeated.

“Hey,” Kris began, turning over to Aiden, “mind if I steal this one from you for a bit?”

“Dude, you already have.” Aiden rolled his eyes and waved a dramatic goodbye to Layla, shaking his head exaggeratedly to himself as he watched Kris walk off with her.

“C’mon,” Kris took her by the hand, leading her through the house.

“That was maybe just a little bit cocky, don’t ya think?” She scoffed, following him towards the stairs.

“I guess – maybe – but you liked it,” he answered, nodding assuredly to himself.

“Confident…” she noted.

Kris stopped them half-way up the stairs, “You say it like it’s a bad thing,” he accused. He stood on the step above her – further emphasizing a drastic height difference – and stared pretty obviously at her bottom lip for a moment. His charm was strategic – always.

Layla blushed and Kris laughed at her.

Then, he told her, “I want to kiss you.”

Caught off guard, Layla just looked up at him. A second later, Kris had sandwiched her between himself and the wall. He left himself on her lips and just barely upon the tip of her tongue, book marking the beginning of something else entirely.



Following that night, Layla and Kris dated into late January. Kris picked her up like a game of cards to pass the time while he and the guys were home for the winter months, working on material for their new album. He spent those months with Layla, until it was time for him and the guys to fly out to California and get back in the studio. He left without ever really telling her not to wait around but, after two weeks of unanswered phone calls, she got the hint.

Throughout their relationship, there were two things Kris was always trying to get out of her. Sex was the one he openly admitted just wanting for himself because, whatever sort of asshole Kristopher Wallace may be, he is a genuine asshole; always true with his intentions.

The second thing he wanted from her was a demo, and here is where things get gray and not quite so blatantly selfish. He really did want to help Layla; he was always offering to record some of her songs and send the demo out to a few people who might be able to do something with it. But it was how he ignored Layla’s refusals – coupled with how he was always boasting about the offer like he was doing her some grand favor – that seriously condemned his intentions.

Kris never acknowledged the fact that Layla really didn’t care to build the kind of career he had growing. He thought he was encouraging her in the obvious direction, helping her achieve what she should be achieving.

He didn’t understand how she could be so unbearably humble, so married to the idea of underground music. Sometimes her refusals kind of pissed him off a little bit because she had this talent that came together so seamlessly. He watched her soften out compositions and elegant fucking lyrics to match in the unconscious way with which most girls brush their hair or read a book. It made him hopelessly jealous.

One Thursday afternoon, mid-December, Kris and Layla sat atop her bed working on another song for his band’s new album. “Okay, so this is what I’m thinking,” Layla introduced a pattern of cords meant to form the instrumental outro. Layla had a hand in nearly every song Kris wrote that winter, these collaborations becoming the natural core of their relationship.

She began to strum the progression out on her guitar, splitting Kris so evenly between frustration and satisfaction.

“You little bitch,” he shook his head, devilish grin twisting his lips.

“Good?”

He rolled his eyes. It was times like these when Layla could make him feel so incredibly inferior, though he’d still never be the type of guy to admit his girlfriend could do that in any respect. So he spoke to her in the same patronizing tone he normally adopted, “That’s my girl.” He took her guitar, setting it aside before climbing over and covering her petite body with his own.

When Kris had come to her with this latest track, he had been comfortable that it was finally finished and perfected. As soon as he had shown it to Layla, though, she tore apart entire sections of the song – and she had been right.

“Thanks, Babe.” He pecked her forehead.

“No problem.”

“Uh huh: no problem I’m a child-protégé. Helping my boyfriend write his silly songs is child’s play to me. No big deal…” Kris mocked, rubbing his nose against her face before leaning in for a kiss.

He had grown to adore the way she always seemed to be some sort of surprised when he kissed her. When they met back in November, he had known that she was the kind of innocent you want you point at from across the room just to warn your buddies ‘hands off.’

Kris laid his head down beside hers and rested his big, calloused hand over her stomach, “You’re too good,” he said. “You’re too good not to get the credit for it.”

“Helping you write your songs is enough for today, thanks.”

“I don’t get.”

“That’s okay,” she whispered and Kris rolled his eyes at the humbleness that defined her. She had a gorgeous voice – a soft, baby soprano that he had been expecting the first time he heard her sing but also with a raspy, lustful undertone that he hadn’t. Beautiful voices should be heard.

“It’s like… you’re too good for that!” He sat up. “You’re too good to just be behind the scenes.”
“Spotlight won’t validate my abilities,” came the rehearsed response.

“And I think you’re shy too,” he added.

“We know that’s not true,” she scoffed.

“We’ll see how shy you are when I do this…” he leaned in, beginning to kiss her neck. He moved them both back down onto the mattress. They were alone in her house – a rare occurrence, actually, since she lived there with her mother, step-dad, and three brothers.

To readjust his position, right arm propping himself up over her, he pulled away for a second. He saw how her thick black hair was splayed across the bedspread. She was a sort of pretty that was very foreign to him, with creamy pale skin and round green eyes. She was a casual kind of pretty, not the long-legs and teeth-like-white-picket-fences kind. He slipped his hand beneath her big black Taking Back Sunday tee with its constellation of holes along the shoulders.

Despite the fact that Kris almost liked the way Layla’s musicianship sometimes intimidated him; how her young-and-inexperienced innocence and her vague, modest beauty seemed endearing; even how he’d grown to like her small breasts; he’d never have attached himself to her if he hadn’t been looking for something to validate to his stay at home that winter. Layla was his winter ’07. For her, he was there and then he was gone.

Their relationship did produce one thing, though, that would still be around to meddle with aspects of Layla’s life long after California came for Kris.

She fought him when he offered his demo idea because she didn’t mind moving city to city in a minivan, a music career made up of fighting for scraps. She didn’t mind playing coffee shops and subways and sometimes opening up for bigger bands who offered her slots. She loved those things. Layla was only interested in the idea of meet-n-greets and tour buses and the covers of Spin and AP magazine in a vague “yeah, that could be cool” kind of way. She didn’t want those things in the all-encompassing way that aspiring rock stars do; she didn’t dream of those things. But she really loved making music and this demo CD, she slowly began to recognize, could really only help her do that a bit more easily.

So later that afternoon, with Kris’s hand between her thighs and his breath hot on her neck, she thought, what could it hurt?

They recorded her demo the following weekend.