I've Never Lit a Match

The boys had taken up four-square as their go-to daytime activity on this tour. Although things like beer pong and prank wars had always kept them busy when they were on the road in the past, a little bit of low-maintenance fun – chalk squares drawn in venue parking lots for a few casual games – felt like a good detox from the typical high-energy shenanigans.

A few days after Layla’s abrupt admission in Anaheim, Alex was outside their Seattle venue playing four-square with his friends. Staining sweat-spots into the underarms of a Glamour Kills tank that Layla had spent the morning making fun of, he bounced the ball into Rian’s square and thought again about what Layla had told him a few days earlier.

At first, what really got him was wondering what Layla’s relationship with Kris had been like if it hadn’t included any outright sex. Alex, of course, understood that regular sex wasn’t the only reason to have a relationship with someone; he just didn’t imagine Kristopher Wallace: Lead Singer of Pretentious Pop-Punk Four-Piece “To No Avail” being the kind of guy who understood that too.

Though he didn’t know him nearly at all, Alex had heard a bit about Kris and he really didn’t think of him as the type to hang around for a girl’s personality alone – even Layla, who Alex had always thought was the most easy kind of person to have around. Having fun with Layla was a very low-maintenance task, Alex thought, since she was carefree and funny, with her smart insults and great taste in music and movies. Still, he remained curious about the dynamics of her sexless – perhaps, some sex and just not sex-sex? – relationship with Kris.

Suddenly, Alex was standing there completely absent from their game. Like a complete fucking creep, he stood in the middle of his chalk square wondering about just how far Layla had gone with Kris. A few moments into this new train of thought, he faltered and let the ball bounce twice inside his square. They all shifted, Alex moving off the game board and Jack stepping in.

There were five of them playing: Alex, Rian, Jack, Vinny, and a bassist named Todd from one of the other bands on tour. Knocked out of the round, Alex was now the alternate and he stood waiting off to the side. He picked his energy drink up off the pavement and took a sip. It was thick and too-sweet, like drinking straight syrup. Warm, too.

Maybe this is growing up – Alex thought – realizing that energy drinks are actually disgusting and feeling shady and gross for speculating about the sexual history of a seventeen-year-old.

Alex watched his friends try to keep up the game one-handed, an effort at accommodating the soda cans or early-afternoon beers that they were each holding. He participated in the classic jokes that were all really only funny in all their stupidity and contributed to the ongoing conversation. A short while later, Matt walked up and joined the group.

Few things had really changed since their summers together back in high school. Every time Matt turned away, Vinny would take the rubber ball and bounce it off of his back. Matt would respond with half-serious threats about dipping Vinny’s toothbrush in the toilet and Vinny would then threaten to toss out Matt’s Mickey Mouse stuffed animal collection (which, yes, was a real thing). Alex remembered similar antics from cookouts and pool parties at his parents’ house in high school and from every tour they had done together since – with all the same people, take or leave a few new friends from other bands that they had met along the way.

Even Layla was simply another new friend. Her temporary addition to their lineup didn’t change the makeup of their tour routine, instead she fit into the existing mold. They had never toured with a girl before – not even with another band that had a female member – but she fit in nicely. The pop-punk scene was so male-dominated that it seemed everybody on the tour – from the three bands to each of their separate crew teams – was pretty excited to welcome her. The first few days had been made up of the expected, hesitant transition. There had been a lot of introductions and politeness. After the first week of getting settled, though, Layla stopped feeling so much like a guest.

Despite the fact that they were kind-of responsible for her, she really didn’t feel like a guest at all anymore. She was another tour friend, a welcome member with her own daily routines and habits. She went for occasional runs with Zack (something she was off doing now), talked LOST with Rian and Alex, and watched movies most nights on the bus with Alex and Jack.

Everybody on tour always develops their own routine. Alex never realized how, that summer, his began to work around Layla. He always woke up much later than she did and showered while she was off on her breakfast run with one of the other guys – usually Rian or Zack, sometimes Matt, since he was always up before everyone else – then Alex would eat breakfast with her when she got back. When she went for runs, he would hang out with the boys until she was done and then he would find something to do with her. He busied up the free spaces when she wasn’t around, but always filled his time with her when she came back. They went for walks, found food, explored local shops, played cards, watched movies, and burned mix CDs to swap.

Layla was his favorite person to spend time with that summer, since she was funny and smart and down for whatever. He couldn’t exactly imagine Kristopher Wallace hanging around for a girl’s personality alone but, if Kris had, he wasn’t surprised that it had been with Layla.

Still, Alex couldn’t picture versatile and cool-as-shit Layla dating Kris, another generic pop-punk front-man writing those predictable angry songs about hating ex-girlfriends almost as much as you love your friends. He wondered if Kris was any good at getting Layla off, if they ever did any of those sexual things that weren’t quite sex. He settled on the possibility that Kris might not have even really tried to get her there. Kris was probably selfish like that.

But he wondered what Layla sounded like when she did.

Alex imagined Layla’s pale lips pursed and her nose all scrunched – deep green eyes wide, then suddenly heavy-lidded; dark hair wild and splayed across the bedspread. He thought of the breathy noises she would make, the perfect curve in the arch of her back.

Alex was imaging himself getting her there – gone in his daydream, still standing around his friends. Energy drink in hand, he laughed along with a joke he hadn’t been listening to, his cheeks a little flushed and his heart a heavy hammering in his chest. Feeling flustered and foolish, he walked away from his friends and went inside the bus to pull himself together.

“Hey, man, where you going?” Jack called after him.

“Inside,” Alex answered coolly, “be back in a sec.”

Removing himself from the group didn’t do much, though, since Alex wasn’t inside the bus a full five minutes before Layla came thudding up the tour bus stairs. It seemed she and Zack had just returned from their run and, while Zack decided to stay and play outside with the guys, Layla had come in to shower and get cleaned up.

“Hey, there,” she walked inside and greeted Alex with a smiling, panting mouth.

“Hi,” he answered weakly, falling back into a chair and running his fingers through his hair.

“Got a headache?” she asked, grabbing a brush from inside her bunk and beginning to comb through her hair.

“Just tired,” Alex answered, watching her from down the hall as she got ready to hop inside the cramped tour-bus shower stall. Her tiny body was shiny with sweat, her tanned face glowing from the workout. Alex eyed the hem of Layla’s skintight spandex shorts. Her thighs were incredible.

“I’m gonna, uh, let you…do your thing,” Alex tripped over his words and Layla nodded, laughing at him a little as she watched from down the hall. Trying to collect himself, Alex got up and brushed himself off distractedly, looking like a man who couldn’t find his keys. “…get ya some privacy,” he added, mumbling awkwardly.

He had come inside to run away from the internal embarrassment that he felt, thinking those explicit thoughts about Layla in front of his unaware friends. Having her walk in on him – sweaty, messy hair, smiling at him through chest-heaving, post-workout breaths – wasn’t helpful to his cause.

Alex spun towards the door, his body like a rickety tree branch in a hurricane. “See ya.”

“Wait,” Layla called. She stopped him, ordering Alex to take a seat for just a minute. “Are you okay?” she asked once he had sat down at the table by the window. “Is it the heat? I don’t do so well in the heat either. You seem off. Are you dizzy?”

“No, I’m fine,” he told her. “Really, Belle.”

She squinted at him, concerned. “Hold on.”

Layla went down the hall and rummaged through one of her bags. And, of course, she bent over to look for whatever it was that she needed, throwing her perfect ass straight up in the air.

Internally, Alex laughed at himself a little, thinking about how he really couldn’t tell her: Nah, I’m fine. Really. Just feeling awkward as shit, thinking about getting you naked and stuff like that. It would be funny if it wasn’t happening to him. He pitied himself.

Layla came back with a facecloth, which she wet in the sink before giving to him. “You need to cool down,” she told him, offering Alex the cool rag for his forehead. Funny, how right she was.

“You’re something else, my friend,” he said to her.

“Yeah?” she asked.

Alex nodded, “Yeah.” He got up to leave. To humor her, he took the rag along with him and draped it across the back of his neck. In the July heat, he certainly didn’t hate it.

“I’ll see ya in a bit,” Layla called after him, walking back towards the tiny tour-bus bathroom. He looked back, caught a glimpse of her peeling the sweat-soaked top over her head, and walked off the bus.

Outside, nothing had changed except that the four-square group had grown. Zack joined the game, along with a few more of the guys from the other two bands. Alex walked out and took a seat in one of the green fold-out camp-fire chairs, underneath the bus’s shade.

“Been killing it in four-square!” Jack announced proudly as he walked over. After pausing for a moment to hoist up the pair of shorts that were drooping below his skinny hips, he took a seat beside Alex and threw his head back, basking in the relative coolness of the shade.

“How come you’re not playing then?” Alex teased.

“I’m out.”

“Exactly,” Alex nodded, chuckling at his friend.

Jack just sat back in his seat, casually asking, “So, ya alright?”

Though they rarely talked seriously, the two had been friends long enough to feel like brothers. Jack was like the Turk to Alex’s J.D.; the Joey to his Chandler; the George Clooney to his Brad Pitt. It didn’t feel odd for him to get a little bit weary, noticing Alex’s somewhat withdraw behavior, and quietly check-in.

“Yeah, yeah,” Alex answered with his easy smile. He took the wet cloth from his neck and held it out for Jack, since it looked like he needed it a bit more. “Here,” he offered. “Layla thinks I’m wilting in the sun.”

Jack took the facecloth and draped it across his forehead, pushing back his sweaty bangs. “Are you?” he asked.

“Nah, I’m fine. I mean, if anybody’s gonna pass out I figure it’ll be her since she’s been out running around in 80-degree weather.”

“Yeah, but she’s strong, though,” Jack disagreed. “She’s little, but she’s tough. Have you seen her stomach?”

“Why?” Alex interrupted too quickly, too defensive.

“Well, I’m just saying, I bet I could punch her in the stomach and she wouldn’t even get hurt. Abs of steel,” Jack told him. “She’s Mighty Layla.”

“Why would you punch her in the stomach?” Alex squinted at him.

“Well…I mean, I wouldn’t,” Jack answered in a tone that implied he didn’t understand why Alex was ruining his jokes.

“Good,” Alex laughed. “Plus, if you couldn’t hurt her, does that say more about her or about you?”

“Well, I’m kinda the Superman to her Wonder Woman so…” Jack sassed. “You figure it out.”

“Sure,” Alex drew out the word, playfully mocking.

With that, Jack got up, left the wet rag behind him on the seat, and walked off towards the rest of the group.

Alex stayed behind, thinking that Jack was right about Layla. He smirked, liking the idea that, if he ever challenged her to a push-up contest, she would almost definitely win. The funny thing that really got him about Layla was her versatility. She was sweet and tiny and truly a very thoughtful person. Alex had realized that last one a few weeks after they had started talking on the phone, months ago. She was able to recite back minor details to stories he didn’t even remember that he had told her. Alex learned early-on that she was thoughtful, a listener.

But Layla was also sort-of tough as nails, both physically and also in terms of the fact that she developed as a musician by participating in the local hardcore scene in Worcester, Ma. And she was smart – in a street-smart sarcastic kind of way – and funny – a kind of humor that is adorable, since she’s usually telling jokes that are only funny because of how stupid they are and then laughing at them herself – and unafraid to speak up when somebody says something too stupid for her to put up with, and all of that good stuff…

Alex thought about something Zack had said to him when they were still in Texas, a week or two back. Zack had said, essentially, that if any of the guys were to hook up with Layla it would be like they were taking advantage of her. Alex swore a little, internally.

Layla was young, seventeen – and an apparently inexperienced seventeen, at that. She had given them her trust – she had given Alex her trust – and he couldn’t ignore that. Layla was out with them that summer with the understanding that they were responsible for her, that they wanted to help her make a name for herself, and that they were doing all this out of the goodness of their hearts.

Alex was her friend, someone with whom she had an invested time into an ongoing Harry Potter moving marathon. They had been watching them in order, another every night, for the past few days. They had inside jokes about her fuzzy leg hairs and, once at 2am, they had invented a new card game together. They were friends. She was his lil’ friend. He felt guilty, and a little like a creep.