Page 8 of Not So Goode

She rested her head against the window. Her shoulders lifted as she heaved in a deep breath, let it out. “I’ve been awake for forty-three hours, Charlie. Can you just drive for a while? Please? I swear I’ll tell you everything. I just need to rest.”

I patted her thigh. “Sure thing, honey. Whatever you need.” I paused. “How about this—I won’t ask again. You tell me what you want, when you want. For now, I’ll drive and you sleep. Later, if you’re up for it, I’ll even let you drive Miss Ginsburg.”

She wrinkled her nose at me. “Miss Ginsburg? Your car is named Miss Ginsburg?”

I nodded. “I thought you would appreciate the fact that I named my car after the one and only Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”

She huffed, a quiet laugh. “Yeah, that’s pretty B-A.”

“B-A?”

“Badass, Charlotte. It means badass. RBG is the OG B-A.” A pause. “O-G is gang slang, means original gangsta.”

“I know that one.”

Her eyes were closing, and her words were slower in coming. “Sure you did.”

“You didn’t even eat your donuts, Lexie.”

She didn’t answer for a long time. When she did, it was muzzy, drowsy. “Ass is fat enough as it is. Later, maybe.”

And then she was snoring.

Good grief. What did she get herself into? She was obviously working overtime to pretend she was fine. But the moment she slowed down, it all just seemed to hit her, weighing on her.

I wanted to fix it, to be the big sis and make it all better. But I knew Lexie well enough to know she’d dole out the story in little pieces. Bit by bit. I’d find it all out, and she wouldn’t let me do anything to help. She just wanted methere. Just be her sister. Her friend.

Which meant…

I was officially joining the two-person no-bra man-hating day-drinkers road trip club.

I was going to indulge my sister, and do things I’d regret. I could see it coming.

But the hell of it was…she was right, too. I’d done everything by the book my whole life. I was out of a job. No apartment. No plan. No man. Not even a checklist for getting back on track. I’d just been wallowing in self-pity for the last several weeks. It was time to do exactly what Lexie said I should do: Cut loose. Have fun. Be dumb. Maybe even a little irresponsible.

And as these thoughts tracked through my brain, I eyed my sleeping sister, wondering what on earth had she done.

2

Crow

Istood just offstage, watching Myles shred through the guitar solo in “Pillow Talk,” and waiting for the cue to bring his next guitar out to him. I’d tuned it, and had stuck an extra pick in the strings, because he tended to drop his picks during guitar changes. His fingers flew down the fretboard, making the notes squeal higher and higher, until he got to the final shrieking moment, which he drew out, hitting it with the whammy bar. Then, with a dramatic slug of the strings on an open chord, the lights cut to black and I rushed on stage, keeping my eyes on him and the glowing X taped on the floor where he stood. I handed him the guitar and took the old one.

“Dropped my pick,” Myles muttered.

“No shit. You always do. There’s an extra pick in the strings.”

“You’re the best, Crow.”

“No shit.” I kicked at his foot. “You fucked up that last note.”

“Shut up. It was fine.” He plugged the cord into the new guitar. “You only get to critique if you get your ass on stage with me.”

“Nope.”

“Then shut the fuck up and get off stage, asshat.”

Jupiter, the drummer, was thumping the kick drum in a slow throbbing beat reminiscent of a heartbeat—thud-THUD…thud-THUD…thud-THUD.