Living for the Music

“Lo?” I said, not even glancing at the caller ID on my phone. Only a few people had this number, and they were all worth talking to.

“Hey babe,” Aaron greeted me. “I missed you tonight.”

I leaned back in my chair, smiling to myself. “Not my fault you decided you wanted a boys night.”

“I know, I know,” he sighed. “And it was good. But I still missed you.”

“What did you guys do?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Oh, you know. We played some Xbox, ate some pizza, caught up with Seth…”

“Learn anything good?” I asked, managing to pull off a playful tone.

“Learned a crapload about England, “ Aaron admitted. “More than I’ll need to know in a lifetime.”

I laughed. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”

“Man, that kid can talk,” Aaron continued. “But that was a good thing when we started talking about chicks.”

“Hey,” I protested. “You’re not supposed to be thinking about anyone but me.”

“Of course I didn’t,” he mumbled unconvincingly. “It was mostly about Seth’s girlfriend.”

“What?” I asked, hopefully adding the right amount of surprise and curiosity in my voice. I didn’t want Aaron to know I’d been Facebook stalking my ex-best friend.

“Yeah. This kid Taylor. Which, in my opinion is a guy’s name, but Seth swears she’s a girl. Guess he would know,” Aaron snickered.

“What’s she like?” I pressed.

“I dunno,” the boy sighed. “Honestly, I was pretty beat. I think I might’ve fallen asleep for a little bit.”

“Aww, poor baby,” I crooned, trying – and failing – to keep the laughter out of my tone.

“Hey, it’s all your fault,” he protested. “You were the one that woke me up at 1 am because you needed to go home.”

“Aaron, haven’t you gotten used to that by now?” I replied. “That’s pretty much par for the course.”

There was a low voice on the other end of the line and for a moment Aaron covered the phone. I could hear him whispering to someone, but couldn’t make out the words. After another minute, he came back on the line.

“Sorry bout that,” he finally said.

“Who’re you talking to?”

“Oh, just Seth.”

“He’s still over there” I asked, unable to keep the shock out of my voice.

“Yeah. The other people left, but we’ve been hanging.”

“So he knows you learned more about England than you ever wanted to know?”

Aaron laughed at that. “Trust me, I’ve given him loads of crap about that.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but shut it just as quickly. Now that I knew Seth could hear whatever I said, it changed things a little.

“Hey, you’re not mad, are you?” Aaron asked anxiously. “You totally could’ve come if you wanted to. It’s not like we did anything dirty.”

I snorted. “Aaron, if Tyler was gonna be there, I wasn’t. You should know that.”

“I hate the fact that you two can’t get along,” he sighed. “Shouldn’t it be ancient history by now?”

I was silent, secretly seething. Had he lost his memory? Hadn’t he told me, just last night, that he didn’t want me to talk to Tyler? To look at Tyler? And now he wanted to know why we couldn’t be friends.

“You’re awfully quiet, babe,” Aaron finally remarked.

“It’s just…. Different with Seth there,” I admitted.

“Don’t worry, he’s not listening,” Aaron said quickly, and I heard a grunt of pain as he apparently pushed Seth away from the phone. “You can say whatever you want.”

I laughed softly. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Aaron. Okay?”

“I guess,” he grumbled. “Love you, babe.”

“I know,” I replied cheekily. Aaron was laughing as I hung up the phone. But I honestly couldn’t tell whether he was laughing at me or with Seth.