Something In Between: Sequel to On The Edge of Tomorrow

Chapter 1

The high summer sun sunk deep into my skin; I was helpless against the scorch. It was one of many annoyances of the July afternoon. Summer tourists jammed the Portland sidewalks. The breeze dangerously fluttered my skirt, yet somehow provided no relief from the heat. And a discarded piece of gum found a home on my shoe, ensuring my left heel stuck at every pace. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief as I entered my building, but a single chirp from my phone stole my lungful.

Billy's name splashed across my screen with a "you free?"

It should have felt familiar, but given how we left things at Thanksgiving, it shattered my thoughts and replaced them with want, anxiety, and panic.

Over the past seven months, Billy Collins and I had only texted a few pleasantries and spoke even less. Awkward starts and stops littered our infrequent calls. As much as we both longed to be friends, we had never built a friendship; we had assembled a romance. We needed to burn down the building to rebuild, but neither of us had the nerve to light the fire.

"Always," I tapped back as I entered my apartment and peeled off my sticky shoe. I threw it out the window to the fire escape as my phone blared, Why Don't You Get a Job? by The Offspring.

Billy's best friend, Tim, and I found it funny when we set it as Billy's ringtone so long ago it felt like a lifetime. Billy was the hardest working man anyone had ever met, and his career skyrocketed because of it. He made that leap from garage band to a living legend in what seemed like a blink of an eye, but it was nearly eight years of back-breaking, soul-crushing effort on Billy's part. The ridiculousness of both the sentiment and the 90s pop style of The Offspring was a mocking joke to his work that didn't strike as humorous in hindsight. It painfully echoed in my ears, reminding me that Billy was officially a rock star; everyone recognized his music and his name, shooting him into an entirely different stratosphere than I had even imagined possible.

"Hey," I answered, but a crack in my tone revealed my nerves.

"Hey," his voice came breathy, showing his awkwardness. "How are you, Lil?"

"Good, braving the heat." I tried to sound light and natural, but he heard through me.

"You have an AC in your place?"

"By AC, do you mean windows and box fans?" I joked. 

His breathy laugh breezed through the phone to my ear. The genuine reaction broke the tension.

"How are you, rockstar?" I asked. 

A heavy sigh seeped through the phone. "I hate it when you call me that."

"Babe, it's out of my hands. When you have the number one album and the number one single, you're a rockstar by default."

"That's not what makes a rockstar," he absently spoke. His mind gravitated back to his goal.

"You're right. I think it's your malcontent personality and panache for wreaking hotel rooms that gives you the moniker."

"Yeah, maybe." His tone came distant until my words rolled through his head long enough to register. "Wait; what? I'm not a malcontent, and I've never wrecked a hotel room in my life."

I let out a laugh that settled my nerves further. "What's up, Billy?"

A solemn pause blanketed the connection as Billy deliberated on his words. "I wanted to call you. I just... I wanted to tell you before you found out from... another source."

"Source, like a tabloid?" I teased, but a tabloid was precisely his worry.

"I met someone, Lil. We've been seeing each other for a couple of weeks." His quick words came like ripping off a Band-Aid.

The room spun around me, and my stomach lurched. Billy had met someone; of course, he had met someone. This is what I wanted. I limply fell to the couch like a wet washcloth.

"Good," I managed. "I'm happy for you."

"I think you'd like her... err... I think you'll like her," he offered.

Billy wanted me to meet his girlfriend. The only role I had ever played in Billy Collins' physical presence was a romantic one, and now he was setting me up to meet his new girlfriend.

"She's an actress." 

His words painfully stabbed into me with more pain than a knife would supply. It pierced me like a dull spoon, willed by sheer blunt force.

"Would I recognize her?" The question just fell from me; as my mind hit auto-pilot.

A false chuckle came across the line. "Doubtful, she's never been in a Hitchcock. She's a current actress, not one from the '40s. It's Ella Price."

"Ella Price, she's on a sitcom, right?" I couldn't put a face to the name, but she was on a popular TV show. Her name filtered into my world from snips on the radio or as I clicked through the TV channels.

"Yeah, she is. She's normal, though," Billy added, attempting to appeal to me.

"That's great; I'm happy you're happy."

"Are you? Lil, it changes nothing. You're still my best friend." A pause let his words penetrate me. "Are you happy?" He finally asked again, more meekly.

"No." A laugh escaped my lips. Lying to Billy was useless. "But I will be. This is what I wanted; you to find someone that fits."

"She fits, Lil. She gets this world," Billy offered.

"That's good; I want you to be happy. It'll just take me a bit to get happy for you."

"I guess that's allowed." His shifting came through the phone. "I miss you, Lil; I miss talking to you."

"You can call me whenever you want," I reminded him.

"Can I? I mean, the phone works two ways, and you haven't been blowing up my phone," he gently poked.

"I wanted to give you some space. My decision wasn't what you wanted, but now with Ella... I guess we're officially friend-zoned."

"Yeah?" He prodded again.

"That's for sure. I'll call you, you'll call me; pretty soon, you'll be as sick of me as you are of Timmy."

"Never, Lil. I love you. But," he reluctantly paused.

"You have to go," I finished for him.

"Yeah, I'm sorry. I have some radio thing."

"Go," I pushed, but we both hesitated. "Hey, Billy, I love you too." I ended the call before we devolved into a further delay.