You Should Know

“Lipski, can we take it easy with the press? I haven’t had a chance to call my girl in almost two days,” I said as I changed out of my clothes. They were sweaty from bouncing on stage all night.

“So she’s your girl now?” Lipski winked.

“She’s always been my girl, just like Victoria’s my girl,” I smirked and put on a new t-shirt.

“Fine, fine, fine. If you guys aren’t dating then that interviewer who was throwing herself at you was pretty cute,” He settled down on the couch and I came out into the lounge area. Everyone else was changing too.

“Not interested,” I shrugged and pulled my phone off the table Sadler had called me twice, my father, brother and a few other friends. I looked at the clock. It was 11 p.m. here in California, which meant it was about 2 a.m. in New York.

I wanted to call her, but I didn’t want to wake her up either. I opened up my laptop and there was a video chat request from Sadler, hours ago. I clicked accept and she was just there, sleeping on my bed, wrapped in just a towel. I just watched her sleep for a bit, she was beautiful. I wrote her a message in iChat.

I’m watching you sleep right now. Sorry I’ve been MIA, we’ve had interview after interview and show after show, but it’s good that we’re still relevant, right? I miss you and I’ll call you tomorrow morning.

PS: You look good in my bed. Really good.

I checked my voicemail and my e-mail. I had two voicemails from Sadler:

“Hey, it’s me. I don’t really want to leave this on your voicemail, but not sure when you’ll get a chance to call me back. I ran into Jake and he wants me to go to dinner for some sort of closure. I’m going to go, but only so he’ll leave me alone. I hope you have a great show and I’ll talk to you soon,” She sounded so annoyed, but I’m not sure if it was at me not answering or because of Jake. How did she run into him?

Next message from Sadler:

“Just me. I hope you had a great show last night! Call me when you get a chance,” She sounded upbeat.

I also had a message from Rob:

“Dude, did you forget about your friends? I don’t know if you talked to Sadler, but seriously nothing happened,” What would have happened? I called Rob, he was always up.

“You are alive,” Rob answered sounding like he was actually relieved I wasn’t dead.

“I’m very much alive, sorry to disappoint.”

“How’s tour? What’s happening?”

“Good, really good. I got your message…what’s this nothing that happened?” I asked I was so curious.

“Have you talked to Sadler?” He asked nervously.

“No, not yet. I just did press, show, press and a show and I am updating the website now. I’m pretty sure she’s asleep right now,” I laughed a bit watching her as she slept in front of her cam.

“Of course. I think you should just call her first.”

“Why? What happened? Did you guys hook up?”

“Yeah, we hooked up! What are you on crack?” He laughed in disbelief that I asked that question.

“I’m kidding, dude.”

“Sorry, you sounded serious.”

“If it’s nothing, why can’t you tell me?”

“She told you she ran into Jake, right?”

“Yes, she left me a message.” I was really nervous now. Why was he avoiding telling me what happened.

“Well, Sadie was here for her promotion party and Jake came in with this band he’s in town with. He went over to her to say ‘hi,’ or something and she didn’t want anything to do with him. She left early and was really annoyed at him,” Rob said sleepily.

“Okay, and that’s it?” I smiled a little relieved.

“I don’t want to get in the middle, but I assure you that nothing happened.”

“Fine, I’ll call her to find out the nothing,” I said frustrated.

I hung up the phone and dialed Sadler. I watched her wake up and look for her phone.

“Hey,” She answered and I watched her rub her eyes and pull her towel tighter around her as she sat on the edge of the bed near the nightstand.

“Hey, I’m watching you,” I whispered and she looked at the computer. She flipped onto her stomach in front of the computer.

“God, I missed seeing your face,” She sighed with a smile. She had propped herself up with her elbows and still held the phone to her ear.

“I missed your face too,” I didn’t want to ask the question. “I got your messages, lots of press, sorry.”

“It’s okay, I just really needed to talk to you…sorry I stalked,” She smiled.

“What’s going on?”

“I went to dinner with Jake for him to get closure and he kissed me. I pushed him off immediately; I want nothing to do with him. I just wanted to be honest with you,” She said and I could see the nervousness in her eyes as she waited for me to say anything.

I didn’t know what to say. We weren’t exclusive, but we were at the same time. This must have been what Rob was talking about. The “nothing,” was Jake kissing Sadler. I just didn’t know what to feel.

“It’s always something with you, isn’t it Sadler?” I didn’t think before I spoke. I said exactly what was going through my head.

“What?” She wrinkled her face and looked hurt.

“Will it ever just be easy for us again?” I asked her and just shook my head.

“Gabe, nothing happened. He wanted some sort of closure because of his guilt. I did it to be nice…”She got up off the bed and away from the screen. “I even went to a very public place and Rob saw everything. I was talking to him at the bar when Jake came over and attacked me with a kiss,” She was annoyed. She came back to the chat and had a pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt on now.

“It’s fine. We’re not together, right?” I scoffed at her.

“Why are you being so condescending? I’m trying to be honest with you. Would you have rather heard it months down the road from Rob? God!” Sadler held up both of her hands in frustration.

“No, no…I just need to figure out what I want, okay?” I was even surprising myself with what was coming out of my mouth.

Things were good for us. I loved her, I did, but I’ve been away from her since we decided to try us again. I know I was the one to press it, but I just had to figure some things out.

“Okay, okay,” You could hear the tears that were pooling up in her throat. “I’ll just…I’ll just I’ll have Rob water your plants,” She rolled her eyes and shook her head in frustration.

“I’m sorry…I just need a few days.”

“Take your time. I love you and you should know that by now. Things are easy with us. Jake is out of my life, he means nothing to me. So, for someone that means everything to me, take your time,” She was genuine.

“I want you to water my plants, they’re used to you. Rob’s voice will just kill them,” I teased.

“Surprisingly, I have yet to kill them,” Sadler smiled weakly. “If we weren’t easy together and good together…”She started. “This would be a lot more awkward. Have a great show tonight.”

“Thanks. Have a good weekend,” I told her and hung up the phone and shut my chat off.

“What was that all about?” Victoria asked as she came in with her laptop, she sat at the table across from me on the couch.

“I am having relationship issues,” I put my laptop on the floor and laid down on the couch.

“So, you’re in a relationship?” Victoria raised an eyebrow at me and then a wide smile overtook her face.

“No, well, there is a lack of a relationship at the moment,” I had a lot of thinking to do.

“You two were made for each other. Touring is tough, but I am sure you kids will make it,” She assured me as she worked away on her laptop.

“We’ll see…” I took in a deep breath and just tried to zone out and think about what I really wanted. I thought I knew and now I was left wondering.