I've Never Lit a Match

Jenna Garret spent the afternoon of her high school graduation helping her best friend pack up to leave. Jenna was a small-town princess; that girl with the same handful of friends since elementary school, the high school cheerleader who was somewhat popular but still sweet to everyone, with the bubblegum smile and the down-for-whatever spirit. She had expected to spend the summer after senior year on the beach with her girlfriends, night-swimming with boys they’d meet on vacation at her grandparents’ beach house and dragging out long goodbyes before all leaving for separate colleges. She hadn’t expected to spend that last summer – before they went off to be adults and make new college friends – without Layla.

After sitting for a two-hour graduation ceremony that earned her a diploma and a ripe sunburn on the back of her neck, Jenna went out to lunch with her family before winding up on Layla’s bedroom floor sprawled out on the hard wood amongst piles of faded old band tees, denim cut offs, and yoga pants. They packed Layla up into a duffel bag, two guitar cases, and a backpack to take on her flight to Baltimore the next morning. They spent the afternoon sifting through Layla’s closet, while Jenna wondered aloud the entire time what it would be like for Layla to spend the summer on a bus with a dozen guys.

You think they’re the kind of band that has groupies? What if they’re getting it in with random girls on the bus all the time?
You’re all gonna be living together. What if one of them sees you naked by accident?
Oh, what if one of them sees you naked on purpose though?

Layla paced around the room, folding clothes in her arms. Despite being nervous about the unknown and the possibilities, she had already kind-of known – somewhere inside – before even showing up in Providence that she was going to say yes. She had been skeptical but interested in the offer and, after finally deciding out loud to go for it, she knew that if she was doing it then she was going to do it right. Layla had always been tough and dedicated when it came to her music scene, organizing DIY tours to cities in the surrounding states with her little bands and taking her commitments very seriously.

Like always, now that she was in, she was all-in; ready to make this summer work.

Layla sat on the edge of her bed, organizing clothes into piles and tossing things across the room for Jenna to catch and stuff into the duffel. She felt bad about leaving her best friend behind in their little one-stop-light town. They had been friends since the fourth grade, when Jenna joined Layla’s Thursday afternoon class at the gymnastics studio by the pharmacy and the Burger King. Their parents started to carpool the girls to Tuesday dance classes, Thursday gymnastics practices, and Saturday sleepovers. In high school, Layla balanced cheerleading obligations with music lessons and band practices, mostly so that she and Jenna still had that one thing they did together even after their interests began to differ.

Layla knew that her friendship with Jenna was one of those simple, low-maintenance friendships they could still pick back up so casually even after time spent apart. It felt weird to run off for the summer, ditching Jenna for almost three months, but she knew that they would be fine catching up at the end of August in the week’s overlap between her arrival back home and when Jenna was set to leave for college.

After Layla’s bags were packed, the girls said goodbye to each other by going out for a drive in Jenna’s car. They drove down back roads with the windows down and Taking Back Sunday’s Tell All Your Friends playing. Layla hummed Michelle Nolan’s part in Bike Scene with her bare feet up on the dashboard, thinking about February when she had felt hollowed out after Kris left without a real goodbye and how Jenna would comfort her with aimless car rides. Jenna would stay quiet and let the music get loud instead, holding back the ache in Layla’s chest as they both sat quietly and wandered through surrounding towns. The weeks after Kris left were rough, despite how badly Layla wanted to be that tough girl who didn’t care.

Layla would sit listening to Taking Back Sunday or Fleet Foxes or whoever and think about how much she’d liked being the no-name girlfriend of some someday-rock star. She would think about how Kris used to pick her up after school and bring her to the makeshift home recording studio in his parents’ attic. On the leather love seat beneath the dormer window, they’d collaborate on new songs for his band until that turned into fooling around, with afternoon light passing through the window shades and striping their coiled bodies. It was sweet when you didn’t put it into context. Layla missed it in February when he was already gone and sometimes she still missed it now, but only softly like a familiar scent you can’t quite name.

The girls drove around singing along to Cute Without the E, Layla remembering how her best friend had taken care of her back then and looking forward to seeing Jenna again after the tour ended in August. She would tell her all about the guys and the shows and all the potentially fabulous details that she hoped would prove true.

“Gonna miss you, boo,” Jenna parked in Layla’s driveway and they hugged goodbye in the front seat.

Layla ran inside, yelling “love you, miss you!” from the porch as Jenna backed out of her driveway. Her mom was already in bed when she got in and Layla thought about sleeping but decided she could do that on the plane. Instead, she crawled into bed, put on an episode of The Office, and called Alex.

“What’re you wearing?” she asked when he picked up.

“Nothing but a smile, baby,” he offered, laughing. “How was graduation?”

“Hot,” Layla answered, sliding deeper beneath her blankets. “No, but it was good. We had a little cookout with my family after and then my friend Jenna came over and helped me pack.”

Her mom’s only condition in letting her run off for the summer had been that Layla stick around long enough to walk at graduation. Layla’s mom was always supportive. She paid for music lessons, let Layla’s bands practice in their basement, and – once she realized Layla had the kind of talent that might actually get her somewhere – she let Layla travel with her bands to play shows as long as they were chaperoned. Her mother knew that she was potentially building something real here with these All Time Low guys and only insisted that Layla wasn’t allowed to leave Massachusetts until after her graduation.

“Was mama real proud?”

“She cried!” Layla snickered.

“Cute!”

“Pretty much. We took lots of pictures, too. I look all scholarly in my cap and gown.”

“You’ll be sharing those with me tomorrow,” Alex told her, “for sure.”

“Alrighty then,” Layla rolled onto her side.

“You all set for practice week?” he asked.

“Yup.” Layla had spent the past few weeks learning every song on a list Alex had sent her, studying up for her stage debut as All Time Low’s temporary rhythm guitarist. She was flying down the next morning so that she and the guys could spend four days working in a rehearsal space together before leaving for tour on Friday.

“It’ll be great,” Alex told her, his voice sleepy.

“Yeah,” she said, “I’m actually pretty excited.”

“What do you mean actually?” Alex demanded, stalking through his empty house in his underwear, cellphone hastily pressed between his face and his naked shoulder.

“I’m just… not nervous anymore,” Layla answered. “I was nervous before so I didn’t…I don’t know…I didn’t have the energy to be too excited.”

“Ok, whatever,” Alex said, settling onto the kitchen counter with his fist crammed inside a box of Lucky Charms. It had been over two months since he and the guys met Layla and her absurdly tall brother Taylor in Providence, this odd telephoned friendship only continuing to progress as the months passed and they talked about love-hate relationships with catchy pop songs and planned out their summer together.

That night Alex talked to her between mouthfuls of cereal until around midnight, when he insisted she get some rest before the next big day ahead of her. It took a while for the two of them to actually hang up, before he padded barefoot back up the stairs. He went to sleep naked in an empty house that night, his parents back in England visiting family for a few weeks. Alex cocooned himself inside his blankets, happy to be falling asleep in this bed for a few more nights before moving onto another bus with the guys.

He woke up at eleven the next morning with four text messages waiting for him: two from Jack, rambling about mostly nonsense; one from his mother, just checking in; and the earliest from Layla, sent at eight a.m. saying she was leaving for the airport and would see him in a few hours. Alex showered, dressed, and had a bowlful of Lucky Charms – with milk this time – before heading out to pick up Layla.

He waited for her in the terminal, standing with his back up against the wall-length glass windows that overlooked the runway. Planes took off and landed behind his head as he slowly scanned the crowds for Layla, giving a cheeky smile when he saw her, further dwarfed by the crowd.

Layla was barely five feet, with wild black hair that poured halfway down her back. It was rock-goddess careless, sexy, a mane. She weaved deftly through the crowd on her small feet, most everybody around at least a full head taller than she was. Alex broke apart from the wall to wave her down.

“Hey,” he pulled her into a hug.

“Hi,” an easy smile split her face wide open like some pretty jack-o-lantern.

“Did you sleep on the plane?” he asked, tucking her beneath his arm as they walked off to go retrieve her bags.

“For, like, fifteen minutes,” she answered, the thick soles of her black lace-up boots squishing into the tile floor as they walked. She wore a loose sundress beneath a black cardigan that drooped off of her shoulders.

“Eh, good enough!” Alex pulled his arm away and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
They collected her bags and, within twenty, were stopped in a drive-thru on the way back to Alex’s house. He bought them French fries and, mouths half full, they sang along to guilty-pleasure pop songs with the windows down.

“Jack’s probably at my house already,” Alex warned when they were a few minutes out and – sure enough – Jack was sprawled out on the couch watching Judge Judy shirtless when they got in.

“Hey, sister-girl!” Jack greeted, waving the remote control at them. After Layla quickly hugged him ‘hello,’ she and Alex left Jack stretched out on the couch like a house cat. They climbed the stairs with her things and Alex showed her to the guest room.

That first night at Alex’s house was comfortable. Zack and Rian came over for a while and the five of them ordered pizza. They hung out, watched a few movies and, when Jack fell asleep in the living room, Alex brought Layla upstairs. While she looked through her bags for some clothes to sleep in, Alex stood in the doorway delivering this speech about how he and the guys knew she was going to be the only girl on their bus this summer and they were going to try and be “super aware” of that.

“You’ll tell us if there’s any issues, right? We want to make sure you never feel uncomfortable or anything,” he told her and she thought that was a sweet concern.

“Will do,” she answered. “Now, close the door so I can change.”

“Oh! Right, right!” Alex smirked, closing himself inside the room with her.

Layla just looked at him, playfully unamused. “I’m feeling uncomfortable now,” she teased.

“It was worth a try,” he shrugged, laughing, before walking out and closing the door behind himself.

“Dork,” Layla called through the closed door, falling back onto the bed to change into a pair of cotton shorts. She tossed her bra into her bag and crawled beneath the blankets.

The next few days passed easily, Layla sliding simply into the guys’ rehearsal schedule. Hopeless Records had rented a practice space in Baltimore for them. They worked into the early afternoon each day with about twelve crew guys always operating around them. Layla had been introduced to a few of them, but mostly they let her slip into the background, busy stepping around her to get their work done. She knew Matt – the tour manager – and Evan, Danny, and Jeff, but there were also a bunch more she knew only by the last names that she kept hearing Alex jokingly scoff.

Rehearsing with the band did not end up like the diligent, painstaking process she had been expecting. Still, they got everything done. After two and a half days of rehearsal, they had agreed on a set list; rehearsed said set list; figured out lighting and a bunch more of those little technical things; and they still had time to fuck around, Jack squealing about how he was going to fuck this burrito! during lunch breaks and him and Zack breaking up practice to tackle each other mid-song. Alex frequently found himself with his pants around his ankles, shouting in various bad accents.

Layla had expected that practicing all day would be like work; that they would repeat, repeat, repeat the songs that needed the most attention and it would be serious business. Instead, there was chaos and she really liked it. She admired the way that the guys worked hard but also managed to turn everything around them into something to experience. They made the world around themselves into a very simple kind of fun. Layla had always been one of those meticulous, type-A workers and she appreciated the reminder that even the important things didn’t always have to be so serious.

She had fallen into an easy rhythm with the guys since that first night at Alex’s house. They rehearsed, ate dinner together, and went night-swimming in Alex’s parents’ pool. She had even gone on a run once with Zack, panting behind him down the sidewalk. The week passed by with ease, the first show on Friday night quickly approaching.

Wednesday afternoon they ended their studio time a bit early and Alex pretended to act hurt and betrayed when Layla agreed to leave with Zack instead of going home with him like usual. She and Zack went out for another run together and then took turns getting cleaned up in his shower before meeting back up with the rest of the group at a restaurant in town that they had had to flip a coin in order to pick.

“It’s not too late. We could still leave and act like we never knew them,” Zack offered Layla that evening in the restaurant parking lot. They were a little late, pulling in to find Jack out front alternating between belly rolls and pelvic thrusts, while Alex stood off to the side clapping out a beat.
Layla just laughed because she wasn’t exactly surprised anymore.

“You’re late!” Alex called.

“Where’s Ri?” Zack wondered as they met on the sidewalk out front.

“He’s late too.” Alex answered, leading the way inside.

The four of them were shown to a table and they ordered drinks while waiting for Rian and his girlfriend Kara.

“Never ditch me again,” Alex whined at Layla once the waitress walked off. “I didn’t know what to do without ya.”

“I bet you touched yourself,” Jack snorted.

“Yeah and I thought about that fine ass of yours,” Alex winked across the table at his best friend.
Rian caught the tail end of this conversation as he walked up with a pretty brunette holding his hand. “This is a family establishment!” he scolded. “Layla, this is Kara.” Rian introduced his girlfriend.

“I’ve heard so much about you Layla!” Kara smiled, forcefully scooting Alex out of the seat beside Layla. Kara was petite with deeply tanned skin and straight brown hair, which she flipped sharply behind her shoulder as she took the seat next to Layla. “Rian says practice week is going good. That’s awesome. The guys raved about how talented you seemed for so long, it would suck if they got you down here and y’all didn’t, like, mesh well or whatever. You just graduated, right? That’s awesome.”

“Yeah,” Layla smiled politely back, trying to keep up.

“So, what else do you do? Besides music, I mean.” Kara asked Layla, letting the boys fall into their own conversation across the table.

“Lots of music,” Layla answered. “And, I was a cheerleader in high school.”

“Me too!” Kara shot back, excited. “Were you a flyer? I bet you were a flyer. You’re tiny.”

“What’s that?” Jack wondered. “One of those girls they toss up in the air?”

“Yup,” Layla answered, leaning over to sip her drink. “I only ever got dropped on my head once,” she joked. “What do you do, Kara?”

Rian answered quickly for his girlfriend, a proud partner. “She’s a ballerina!”

“Kinky…” Layla noted.

Across the table, Alex exclaimed, “Right?” like Layla had finally just validated something he had been saying for months.

“Lots of BDSM in ballet, if you pay attention,” Layla said and Kara laughed in agreement, saying she had the bruises to prove it.

Kara started explaining that, yeah, technically, she was a professional ballerina. She danced with a company out of Washington D.C. but that it was a minor deal and she was actually thinking about nursing school now.

“You’re all kinds of fetishes,” Layla teased, laughing.

Across the table, Alex was quietly watching Layla. Who even says stuff like that? he chuckled to himself, smiling as he watched her.