Hold Me Tight Like Your Past
You had me all choked up
You had me dizzy in my head
I hold you underneath my tongue, and show you off to everyone
But it’s just a matter of time
Until the sun creeps up and the drugs are all gone
I can feel a hole in you
But baby there’s a hole in me too
I’m looking for a late night fix to ease my mind
I’m sure that you could use one too
Yeah, I know it ain’t love but it’s better than being alone
So if you wanna come on, come on
Carolina couldn’t remember why she had decided to drive to Los Angeles again. It all came down to the money, she supposed, but as she downed her venti chai latte, she began to regret being such a cheapskate. The next time, if there was a next time, she was definitely flying.
“So, I have some bad news and some potentially good news,” Laura said, turning back to the front of the booth after checking her phone. They’d had a pretty steady stream of interested customers; the convention was a mixture of general fandom interests and authors like the two of them, and there was a pretty big crossover between the two audiences. Both girls had checked their phones when they could, but it wasn’t easy or professional when they were trying to market themselves and their books to every fangirl who passed by.
“What’s that?” Carolina asked. Her stomach had already dropped, but she knew it was probably an overreaction. She was just always ready for the bottom to fall out of everything; it always did.
“Mia doesn’t think she’s going to make it,” Laura replied. “The photoshoot she was doing this morning—for that band’s album cover–is running over and really disorganized. But apparently she ran into Robert Schwartzman, and I guess she knows him through Zac and Taylor or whatever. Anyway, she mentioned that she was planning to meet up with some friends, and she was telling him about us. He remembered us, and he invited all three of us—plus Zac and Taylor, I guess—to come out to this private party he’s playing tonight. It’s some rooftop party thing and it sounds pretty cool.”
“He remembered us?” Carolina repeated. At first, no other part of Laura’s statement quite registered for her. Then it dawned on her that it may be just her, Laura and Taylor at lunch. She hadn’t realized quite how much she wanted Mia to be there. She needed an extra set of eyes, an extra opinion on her interactions with Taylor. That she wouldn’t be able to get that was more than she wanted to think about it, and so she found herself focused on the later part of what Laura had said.
Laura nodded. “Yeah, well, I guess not too many fans actually offer the band weed. Girls tend to offer—well. Anyway. He remembers us and he wants us all to come to this show tonight.”
“Is Mia going to make it to that?”
“She’s going to try to,” Laura replied. “But lunch probably isn’t happening. By the way—have you talked to Taylor? The last email I sent him, I told him you’d be in touch.”
“So I guess he knows you know I have his number. That’s… probably okay.”
Laura chewed on her bottom lip, then shrugged. “I didn’t really think about it. I mean, it doesn’t really mean anything for you to just have his number. But he knows we’re close. He’s got to just assume you’re going to tell me everything, and if he has a problem with that, too bad.”
“I shouldn’t tell you everything, though. Not the stuff concerned with him, anyway. It doesn’t make me seem very trustworthy to him, regardless of how close you and I are. That’s not the point.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, giving Carolina a look that said Carolina had truly hurt her feelings. “I guess I shouldn’t have said anything like that to him.”
Carolina shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself. Like, none of this is normal or anything I know how to deal with and I just feel like I’m screwing it all up. But you’re right that me having his phone number doesn’t necessarily imply anything and I’m just being overly paranoid and sensitive about it. It’s fine. And I’m sorry.”
Laura’s face softened some. “Well, anyway, you better text him. Our shift is done in about twenty, and I don’t know how long it will take us all to get to the restaurant.”
Carolina waved her okay at Laura, then walked to the back of their booth and dug through her purse until she found her phone.
I wasn’t sure if it was still on. Zac is still out with Mia at her photoshoot.
He hasn’t moved in with her yet? But yeah it’s still on, even though she probably won’t make it.
Griddle Café right? I can be there in about an hour probably. Zac’s slowly starting to move out but he’s still mostly here.
Yeah. I don’t know who will make it to the restaurant first, but we’ll see you there.
“He’s going to meet us there,” Carolina said, stuffing her phone into her pocket and joining Laura at the front of the booth.
“Good,” Laura replied. With a nod toward a couple girls walking toward them with special badges on, she added, “And there comes our relief.”
Carolina didn’t know the other authors from their publisher, but she did her best to join in the small talk as they switched out the displays together. She knew she needed to promote herself better and get to know other authors in her genre, but it wasn’t easy. The author thing was easier when it was only online and completely anonymous; like her involvement in Taylor’s fandom, it was so separate from her regular, everyday life and she didn’t know how to reconcile all these different sides of herself.
The fact that they were all converging now only made her spin more as she struggled to keep up with it all.
Carolina picked at her red velvet pancakes and stared obsessively at the door. She was hungry, but it was sticky hot outside and the syrupy sweet food only made her feel worse. She could hardly focus on the questions Laura asked about what was safe to talk about in front of Taylor and what she might wear to the concert that night.
Despite having her eyes trained on the door, she had not seen him walk in. He seemed to materialize in front of her, that same damn smile on his face, like magic. One second, that space was empty and the next it was full of Taylor. It took Carolina’s breath away as she stared up at him.
She managed to squeak out a hello as he sat down next to her, his long legs filling the booth. Everything he did seemed larger than life, like he was occupying more space than even he had any right to. It sucked up all the air and energy in the room, and he didn’t even seem to notice. He motioned to a waitress and ordered a French press, then turned his attention to Carolina.
“So, did your convention thing go well?” He asked. “It wasn’t a library thing this time, was it?”
Carolina shook her head and laughed nervously. “It was good, but no, it was… the other thing.”
“The writing thing.” Taylor gave her a look, like somehow it was a secret between the two of them, even with Laura sitting right there.
“I’m just glad we didn’t have to work that long,” Laura interjected. “Because it turns out we’re probably going to have a late night.”
Carolina gave her a look, then turned back to Taylor. “Yeah, so, Mia ran into Robert—umm, Schwartzman. And she was telling him about her plans with us, I guess, and anyway, he invited us to some party tonight. I guess Rooney is playing, and you should come, too.”
“I might do that,” Taylor replied, his tone of voice already telling Carolina that he had made up his mind that he wouldn’t. “I haven’t been on the other side of the stage for a while, and they do put on a good show.”
“I don’t even remember the last concert I went to before yours,” Carolina remarked.
Taylor tilted his head slightly. “I thought you went to concerts all the time.”
“That’s more my thing,” Laura replied.
“Yeah, I’m just a boring old librarian,” Caroline remarked. “I just stay at home with the cats, mostly, when I’m not at one of the libraries.”
“Oh, come on, the library has to be exciting sometimes,” Taylor said. He turned sideways in the booth, facing her. Their knees were millimeters away from touching and Carolina willed herself not to look down at them.
“I mean, I mostly work in the back now, so there really isn’t anything exciting there. But there was this guy, he basically assaulted me the last time he came in, and he’s apparently been bothering other female patrons so… he’s banned now. That’s not really exciting.”
“I think you mentioned that,” Taylor said, and Carolina knew she hadn’t. But she had posted in her journal about it; apparently Taylor did actually read what she wrote. “Remind me what he did?”
Carolina glanced down, then regretted it when she saw her pasty thigh so close to Taylor’s long, thin leg. She glanced back up, willing herself not to melt under his intense eye contact. “It wasn’t, like, a big thing. I was working at one of the tables and this gross old dude starts talking to me and puts his hand, like, low on my back. It kinda turned into a whole thing, because the branch manager wanted to ban the guy but didn’t have his name, and he had to call the police, and there was a report filed and everything… I didn’t want to make that big of a deal about it, but then I thought, you know, it stops with me. I’m putting my foot down and saying that this isn’t okay, because if I don’t, how much farther might he go?”
“You did the right thing,” Taylor said, his eyes wide but his voice firm. “Like you said, somebody has to stand up to that kind of behavior. You’re a good one, you know.”
“Yeah, well.” Carolina could feel herself blushing, and she had to look away. “I had to do something. That was all I knew. It doesn’t really feel like a big deal.”
“But it could have been if you didn’t stop it when you did,” Taylor shot back. “I kinda hate to admit this, but I never really thought about things like that happening at the library.”
“It’s a public place. Anybody can come in, and the likelihood of them being weirdos is… pretty high.”
“I guess I just never thought about it being busy enough for there to be much chance of anything crazy happening. Like I said, I feel bad admitting that.”
“You should!” Carolina replied teasingly, resisting the urge to reach out and swat at Taylor the way she wanted to. It wouldn’t matter if she was being playful; touching him like that seemed to be crossing a line. “Maybe if you visited your local library once in a while, you’d know.
“Maybe I would,” Taylor replied, a slight smirk on his lips.
Carolina waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. She was ready to dive into her entire spiel about what the library had to offer, but she knew that wasn’t exactly the best way to seduce someone. She wondered why she was even bothering; she was clearly a gigantic nerd who had no place in Taylor’s world.
Taylor turned to Laura and they began to talk about some concert she had been to see recently, some band Carolina didn’t really know or care about. She picked at her pancakes, but found that her appetite was completely gone now. She wondered if Taylor was going to eat anything, or just drink his coffee, and she began to get the sinking feeling that he was only humoring the two of them by showing up at all.
“Weren’t you talking about Phantom Planet a few days ago?” Taylor asked, and it took Carolina a moment to realize he was talking to her.
“Oh, yeah, I was telling someone I really liked The Guest,” she replied.
“We hung out a few months ago after their show,” he said. “I know Robert better, but Jason’s pretty cool, too.”
“Well, that’s even more reason why you need to come out with us tonight,” Carolina replied, hoping her tone was appropriately flirty. She didn’t sound like herself at all, and she kind of hated it.
Taylor chuckled. “Well, we’ll see. I’ve got some boring business stuff to take care of this afternoon, and we’ll see how I’m feeling after that.”
Laura asked a question about the business stuff, and the conversation shifted back to focusing on Taylor, then. Carolina tried to follow it, but his nearness to her made it difficult to focus on anything but his scent and warmth and the little bit of his chest that was exposed by the low v-neck of his tight shirt.
“So y’all are going to that concert. Any other plans tonight?” Taylor asked.
“We actually need to head out soon,” Laura replied. “We have to go to a dinner thing with some of the other authors, then the concert. If we could hit a good bar at some point, too, that would be good. Know any places?”
“I always like the Black Cat,” Taylor shot back, his eyes flicking to Carolina so briefly that she almost wasn’t sure it had happened. “But hey, I’ll let you girls get back to it. It’s been good hanging out.”
The three of them stood almost in unison and made their way to the counter to pay. Taylor walked outside with the girls, side by side with Carolina. She hated how being so close to him made her heart beat faster, and she was sure she was blushing.
“That’s your car, right?” Taylor asked, nodding toward Carolina’s Prius. “I’m parked around the corner.”
“So… I guess we’ll see you later, maybe?” Laura said.
“You’ll see me sometime,” Taylor replied, giving Laura a one-armed hug. He turned back to Carolina and enveloped her in his arms. She lifted herself up onto her toes, unable to resist the urge to pour all of her feelings into that one hug. “It’s been good to see you again.”
“You too,” she breathed out, reluctantly letting him go and dropping back down to earth.
Carolina forced herself to look the other way as he walked back down the street. She walked around to the driver’s side and plopped down in the seat, feeling all of her nervous energy finally drain out of her body.
“That was…” she said, unsure what she wanted to say at all. She didn’t know what it was.
“I might as well have not even been there,” Laura said. “That was all you and Taylor.”
Carolina shook her head. She wasn’t so sure about that. Whatever had happened, she was certain he had only sucked her in even further. It wasn’t love, but it wasn’t something she could let go, either.