Banshees

Adie and Billie Joe separated in July. No one knew except me and Mike. They hadn't even told the kids yet. That's about the time Billie started having the nightmares and couldn't sleep alone.

After two nights of waking up around two and drinking coffee until Mike and I drug our asses out of bed, he started crawling into bed with Mike. I watched the first time. Nothing too strange about it. Mike and Billie Joe are best friends after all.

It started going from once or twice a week to three or four times a week until Billie's bunk was turning into a shelf for clothes.

And I still didn't think anything of it until the night they forgot to close the curtains. Billie's face was buried in Mike's chest and his hands were clutched to his shirt. Mike had his arms around Billie Joe and his chin resting on his hair.

I was getting ready to roll over and try and get to sleep when Billie Joe lifted his head up and kissed Mike right on the mouth. Okay, I wasn't fucking expecting that.

Mike's eyes opened and Billie kissed him again and again until Mike put his hand over Billie Joe's mouth. "Knock it off." There was a pause and then Mike yelped. "Fuck, Billie Joe! Don't fucking bite. You're not four."

"Why don't you want me to kiss you?" Billie pouted.

This was really weird.

"Why do you want to kiss me?"

"You can't answer a question with a question."

"You're fucking annoying."

"Just answer the damn question." Billie snapped. "You're the one who's making this difficult."

"I don't not want you to kiss me."

This was getting really hard to follow. I shouldn't drink that much before two people start kissing in the bunk across from mine.

"So you want me to kiss you?"

"I didn't say that."

"Double negatives cancel each other out." Billie said assuredly.

"Is that the only thing you remember from freshman English?" Mike groaned.

"Yup. Therefore 'I don't not want you to kiss me' means 'I do want you to kiss me'." Billie smiled.

How can someone be that articulate or whatever when they're drunk?

"Okay." Mike said. "But we shouldn't."

"Why?"

"You're married."

Billie got pissed at that. He sat up and barely missed cracking his head on the ceiling. "I'm getting a fucking divorce."

"Do you think I don't know that?"

"All rules on cheating have gone out the window." Billie snapped. "She had her affair."

Mike sighed and pulled Billie Joe back down, then kissed him.

Dude . . . that was so weird.

* * *

I'm supposedly a heavy sleeper, but I don't think the dead could sleep through the sex Billie Joe and Mike had in the living room or whatever you want to call it.

All I could hear was screaming and moaning and as cool as I am with the relationship they still haven't told me about . . . enough is enough.

* * *

But what do you say to them the next day at practice? What can you say really? ‘Hey, dudes, I heard you fucking last night. Why don’t you wait until you’re in a hotel and why don’t you tell your drummer so he doesn’t throw a drumstick at your head?’

Which I did. They blew it off as me being Tre fucking cool, but it wasn’t. I know I’m like a hyperactive teenager, but if I can keep my mouth shut about Adrienne and Billie’s impending divorce I can keep my mouth shut about the bassist and guitarist screwing each other.

After the fourth drumstick Mike got kind of pissed. Okay, Mike got really pissed. “Tre what the fuck is wrong with you?”

Billie rolled his eyes, apparently still thinking it was a case of Tre-itis. “PMS much, Mike?” His best friend gave him the middle finger. Billie rolled his eyes again and turned in the other direction, playing random chords on his guitar.

I don’t have much tact as you might have guessed. “I could ask you the same damn thing, Mike. What the fuck was going on in the living room last night?”

Billie’s guitar playing stopped. Mike’s eyes widened as Billie turned to me. I wanted to snicker inwardly at how much they were acting like teenage girls who had heard a vicious rumor. Billie gave a nervous laugh. “Tre, that wasn’t—“

“You two fucking each other’s brains out after forgetting to close the curtains to your bunk and making out like banshees?”

“How does a banshee make out?” Billie asked automatically, cocking his head to the side.

Mike glared at him. “That wasn’t the fucking point, moron.”

“But I want to know. Aren’t banshees those things that scream really loud?” Billie put his hands on his hips and looked at me. “So how the hell do banshees make out, expert?”

“Sloppy. Like they don’t have any idea what they’re doing.” I laughed.

Billie gave a mock expression of being insulted. “I make out like a pro I’ll have you know, Cool.”

Mike was glancing from Billie to me as we exchanged our verbal banter. He looked completely confused. He must have expected a dramatic argument or me demanding to know the whole story. For being the only one of us to go to college he certainly was a dumbass most of the time. Like I want to have some dramatic conversation. I just don’t want to not know when two thirds of my band are fucking.

I think Billie must have realized what his boyfriend-slash-best-friend was thinking. “Mike,” he began, walking toward our bassist, “it’s Tre, okay? If you expected seriousness from him, you need a couple of beers.”

Mike gave his first smile since I began throwing my drumsticks. He looked me dead in the eyes. “Quit jerking off to us fucking, you male nympho.”

I grinned. “You fuck like banshees, too.”

Mike picked up one of my discarded drumsticks and chucked it at me.