Paige
REVBERB: An echo effect, often applied with artistic purpose to part of a track
“Your password isjingle bells four five six?”
“Shut up,” I grumble. “I made it when I was like, thirteen. It was Christmas.”
Youssef and I are sitting side by side on my couch. He’s got my laptop propped on his thighs as he helps me type emails to everyone who’s going to need to know I’m temporarily incapacitated.
I spent most of this morning doing the best I could to finish up a very important—and very well-paid—graphic design project I couldn’t afford to lose. It turns out the painstaking process of doing everything with my left hand turned my fingers into useless, exhausted lumps pretty quickly.
I wouldn’t have accepted Youssef’s offer to help me type if it weren’t imperative I get these emails out as fast as possible. Losing weeks and weeks’ worth of clients and DJ gigs is going to fuck me over bad enough without the stress of waiting around to bite the bullet and give cancellation notice.
“Okay, here we go...” I pull up the gig scheduling app on my phone and wince as I look at everything for the next few weeks. “The doctor seriously said a six week recovery?”
Youssef gives me a sympathetic look.
I hate sympathy. I hate being so pathetic right now, clumsily navigating my phone with my left hand while somebody else types emails for me.
I couldn’t even put cream cheese on my own bagel this morning. Youssef had to help with that too, and I hated how underneath it all, it felt good to have him in my kitchen. It felt like my whole chest filled up with something warm when I walked out of my bedroom this morning and found him softly snoring on the couch, wrapped up in a huge crocheted blanket Zach’s mom made.
I was so out of it yesterday I don’t remember him saying he was going to stay here. I would have told him to take Zach’s room—after putting up a very long fight about why he didn’t need to sleep over.
“Unfortunately, yes,” he answers, “and then you’ll have a lot of physio after that.”
I wish I wasn’t so aware of how close his thigh is to mine. I wish I could stop imagining the way it felt to have him stand behind me and cut me out of my shirt and bra.
That was all I could do: feel. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. I just stood there and tried not to tremble every time I felt the cool blade come close to my skin and bare another inch of me to him.
I can’t even blame it on the general horniness of a six month dry spell and try to get some relief; as I learned when I woke up sweaty and desperate before the sun even came up this morning, the second day of extreme bruising and stiffness makes it next to impossible to get yourself off.
Which just filled my head with some very hard to ignore fantasies about Youssef getting me off.
“But the sling comes off after two weeks,” I say, pulling myself back into the moment before the thoughts can go too far again. “So really I only need to cancel two weeks of shows and then see how I’m doing.”
“Paige.” Youssef shifts so he’s facing me better on the couch. “You’ve only been in recovery for one day, and you’re already pushing yourself too hard just moving around the house. Take my opinion how you will, but if you keep pushing like that, you’re just going to end up prolonging the whole process.”
I can’t argue with that. I want to—not with him, but with my body. I’ve made it as far as I have by always pushing for what I want from the world, and it makes my skin crawl to know the only thing holding me back right now is my body.
I’ve done everything I can to make sure my body doesn’t control my career—not my face or my ass or my curves, and not who I let touch me. I know it’s stupid, but it’s almost as terrifying to know my body is holding me back as it is to know it’s getting me ahead.
I promised myself a long time ago that I’d never let the way I look control my career. I’d never let anything or anyone butmebe in control. I’d never be stuck, unable to move or defend myself.
“And,” Youssef continues when I don’t say anything, “I’ve spent enough time around Nabil to know venues are going to appreciate you giving as much notice as possible.”
“Okay, you’re right. I’ll cancel four weeks to be safe.”
I roll my eyes and play it casual so he won’t know notice the dread is gripping my chest and making my heart race as I start directing him on what emails to send. Thankfully, my most prestigious gig of the year—playing the pavilion outside Montreal’s new mega-club, Luxe, on their opening weekend—is happening after my recovery period.
“Shit, you’ve got a lot of bookings,” Youssef says after the first few emails.
“No rest for the wicked. We can’t all be famous like you.”
“Ha.” He scoffs without taking his eyes off the screen, and I notice a crease form across his forehead.
“I know it might not seem like a big deal to cancel on somewhere like Taverne Toulouse when you’re, you know, a superstar, but—”
“Paige.” This time he does look at me. “I’m not some celebrity jackass, okay? Don’t imply that. My EP happened totally by accident. It was a fluke I wasn’t even looking to get anything from, and it doesn’t mean I look down on you, or your gigs, or anybody else. In fact”—he makes a dramatic sweep of his hand in front of the laptop screen—“why don’t I play your gigs for you?”
