“I’m confused right now.” I rub my sweaty palms on my knees.
Oak drags his index finger along my lower lip. “I know, baby. And scared?” I give a small nod. “I’m scared, too. But let’s work this out together. Let’s see where it goes. We don’t need labels or words. We just need to be together.”
I let my anxiety go in a huge rush of breath and reply, “Okay.”
He squeezes my hip and then lifts me down off the deck. “So Matt sings, huh?”
“You’re going to play?”
“Why not?” He slides a grin toward me. “I heard it’s real popular with the chicks.” He slips inside before my punch can land. “Anyone got a guitar?” he asks loudly.
Matt jumps up so fast that he nearly tips the table over. Miraculously, four guitars are produced, including one from Justin, who, in the fifth grade, slammed his recorder onto the concrete in his driveway and then proceeded to ride his bike over it again and again. The recorder was plastic and suffered no damage whereas Justin got his butt whipped by his dad.
“You don’t even play an instrument,” I accuse.
“I know. It’s for Ford. Just in case,” he says sheepishly. “I borrowed it from my uncle.”
“This is a righteous instrument.” Oak swings the body of the guitar up and strums a couple of chords.
“What do you want to play?” Matt asks eagerly. “I know your whole catalog. Even the new stuff.”
The girls and I hide a smirk behind our hands.
“I’m up for anything but my tunes. Know any Smashing Pumpkins?”
Matt nods. “Yeah, I can play ‘The Everlasting Gaze’ or ‘Today.’”
“‘Today’ it is. Where we doing this thing?”
Matt leads the way into the living room. “You can sit here.” He points to the middle of the sofa. Oak takes a seat and Matt then positions himself on the ottoman right in front of Oak.
“I’d be worried that Matt is going to try to steal your man,” Kiki murmurs in my ear.
“He does look infatuated.”
“Infatuated,” Carrie scoffs from my other side. “If Oak batted his eyes at Matt, Matt would be down on his knees so fast, the house would shake.”
“Mmm. Nice visual.”
“Come sit by me, baby,” Oak calls and pats the cushion to his right.
“Baby?” Carrie and Kiki mouth to me.
I ignore them, try to keep from turning beet-red and climb over a dozen people to slide next to Oak. He cants his body slightly so that his back is pressed against my side and the neck of the guitar is slanted away from us. The closeness of our position means I feel his arm move as he slides his fingers up and down the fret.
The guys sing one song and then Matt leads them into the next. Pretty soon, they’ve moved on to 1D songs. Oak even sings a lower rendition of “I Knew You Were Trouble” by Taylor Swift, sending me sneaky glances the entire time that no one in the room misses.
Oak singing to me in public is different than him singing in the studio. At the studio, he’s working. The songs are often cut off at the halfway point and then he and King will try something totally different. You almost never hear the whole song.
But here, it’s as if every word that comes out of his mouth is some message about how he likes me, thinks I’m the best thing that has happened to him, that I’m saving him in some way.
By having me sit by him, by him looking at me almost the entire time, he’s making a public declaration of his feelings. Something that W hardly ever did. The boy wouldn’t even wear his Vans that we decorated. He said he wanted to save them, but I knew then, as I do now, that he was embarrassed of them.
But Oak has no problem singing about how happy he is to be in love with me.
“Play one of your new songs,” I urge him. I know he’s insecure about his music, but it’s more amazing than he realizes. An appreciative audience like this one would be the perfect place for him to test out a song or two.
Oak must agree, because he starts strumming the one with the bridge that neither he nor King have been happy with. “Yeah?” he says.
There’s a chorus of yeses. Oak ends up playing half his album before he stops and admits he’s thirsty. A herd of feet trample into the kitchen to be the first to get him a drink.
Oak’s neck is sweaty. Playing the guitar is a lot of work. I draw my finger down the middle of his neck. He shivers and then leans all the way back, resting his head against my shoulder.
“What’s it really like, being you?” Justin asks. The jam session has broken down the barriers, and whatever rules Carrie and Kiki tried to impose have been strummed and sung away.
Oak reaches up and brings my hand down over his shoulder. He laces his fingers through mine, settling our entwined fingers against his chest. “I can’t complain.”
Meaning he won’t. He has so much it would be gross for him to say his life is terrible even if it can be at times.
“What’s the best thing?” Justin presses.
“Is it the girls? The girls must be awesome,” Matt says. He ducks when a bunch of Solo cups are thrown at his head. “What? It’s true, right?” he protests.
Oak’s lips twitch. “Even if it was true, and I’m not saying it is, I wouldn’t disrespect Vaughn by talking about someone else. She’s my girl and the only one I care to talk about these days.”
The words are so sincere that they make the heart of every girl here flip over, including mine. I grip his hand tighter. He thinks he’s the one in trouble? No way. I’m in it up to my eyeballs.
He taps the top of the body of the guitar with his palm a few beats before continuing. “The best thing is walking out on stage and hearing thousands of people sing your lyrics back to you. You can stop, anywhere in the middle of a track, and they keep going. That’s incredible. I can’t even describe how it makes you feel. But in those moments, you literally feel invincible. Like you could fly based on their raised voices.”
Matt looks disappointed at the answer, but he’s the only one.
“What’s the hardest thing?” Carrie asks, handing Oak a glass of water. I throw her a grateful look.
“Thanks.” He takes it with his free hand, refusing to let go of my fingers. “I don’t get to do stuff like this very often.” He waves his hand around the room. “Everything is a production. If I want to go to the Rams game, I can’t sit on the fifty with Vaughn. My people have to call the Rams’ front office. We will need sideline passes for me and probably four bodyguards. On the sidelines, there are reporters, other people, and maybe in the first quarter, no one is asking me about anything but by halftime, someone knows someone else who has a sister’s cousin who wants into the music industry and would I care to hear the stuff. And those that aren’t asking about music connections are taking snaps and selfies to be the first to say that they saw Oakley Ford.
“And as I say this stuff, I know I sound like a self-righteous pig. Oh, poor Oak, can’t do anything ordinary people can but tonight, hanging out with you guys, jamming with you, playing Frisbee in the back? It’s been awesome. No one’s bragging about tonight. No one’s treating me different.”
Matt glances a little shamefacedly at the guitars.
“Nah, I don’t mind playing. This has been great. But so much of the time when you leave the house, your guard’s got to be up and that isn’t great. It sucks. On the other hand, fans pay the bills and if it wasn’t for fans, I wouldn’t be where I am. So I’m grateful for all of it and try not to complain.” He slaps the guitar. “Now that I’ve bummed you out, how about we play a couple more songs before I take my girl back home?”
Matt readily takes up his guitar again and Oak reluctantly releases my hand and sits up.
I know he’s doing this because he wants to, but this year that I’m with him? I’m going to watch out for him. I’m going to try to give him things that he can’t get because he’s Oakley Ford. Whether it’s space to hang with kids his age, whether it’s a reconnection with his mother, whatever it is, I want him to have it.