The Song

Part Fifty-Four

Aston and I spent the day in the apartment, going through music books, making phone calls, and sending emails. Somehow this song had become some sort of symbolic key to my memory, the pair of us determined to find it somehow, be it in a video, recording, or written out.

“I’m sorry Ast,” I sighed, “My head hurts too much to keep this up.”

“Go rest,” he replied, his laptop on his lap, “I’ll send a few more emails.”

“Don’t stress out too much over this,” I sighed, patting his shoulder as I passed him, “Another day isn’t going to change much anymore.”

“Just trying to help,” he said.

I went into the bedroom and climbed into bed, my head really starting to hurt again. I knew the doctor said it was normal, but I was seriously hating it at the moment.

Fifteen minutes later the door clicked open and Aston slipped in, “Mind if I join you?” he asked as I caught his eye, “I didn’t sleep much last night.”

“Why not?”

“Worried,” he shrugged.

“Climb in.”

I watched him wander to his side of the bed and pull up the duvet, slipping into bed next to me. Grimacing as my head throbbed again I twisted around to look at him, his brown eyes staring right at me.

“Is this really hard for you?” I asked him quietly.

“You’ve asked me that before,” he said.

“I know, but things are different now.”

“A little,” he said, “There’s limits right now, whereas before there really weren’t. While when we weren’t fighting.”

“What would we have done on a day like today? Before I mean?”

“Well…” Aston started, his eyes looking towards the ceiling.

“Be honest.”

“I don’t want it to sound awkward.”

“I’m curious,” I prodded, “Tell me in as much detail as possible.” Aston rolled his eyes as I said that, knowing I didn’t actually want to hear all the detail.

“We probably would have slept in,” Aston said, “And then had a leisurely shower….”

“Together?”

“Probably,” he smirked.

“Ok,” I said quietly. I sort of had caught on that we were pretty open with each other, and that sort of thing would have been really normal for us. But I still wasn’t ready to ask more questions than that.

“And then we would have walked down the street to get some sort of lunch or breakfast, depending on the day and time.”

“Why depending on the day and time?” I asked.

“Americans love brunch,” Aston said, “But they really only eat it on the weekends.”

“Brunch? Like breakfast for lunch?”

“Yeah. We both love it.”

“It sounds awesome,” I said.

“And they usually have bottomless drinks,” Aston smirked, “On more than one occasion we took advantage of that to our detriment.”

I laughed as he said that, intrigued by the idea. “Will you take me for brunch while we’re here?”

“Course!”

“Ok, then what?” I asked with a smile, plodding on.

“Then we probably would have lain by the pool for a while. A bit drunk mind you. And then we would have had an afternoon siesta. Then gone for a meal somewhere romantic and quiet.”

“Yeah?”

“Before things blew up we were really good just the two of us,” Aston said, “I know you don’t want to hear my exaggerations, but it’s true. We could spend days together and not get bored.”

“That’s impressive.”

“On our honeymoon we spent two entire weeks together, hardly talking to anyone but each other, and when we were done we came straight back here to LA and were crammed in a tiny hotel room and got on fine,” Aston said, “Although, that’s when you put your foot down and said we should buy a place.”

“Why?”

“You were tired of coming here with me and getting some impersonal hotel,” he said, “You wanted somewhere comfortable and familiar since you spent so much time at home writing while I was at work.”

“So we got this place?”

“It took some convincing on your part but yeah.”

“I like it, it’s a good investment.”

“You’re right,” Aston said, “And we let friends and family use it when we aren’t here. It sits empty a lot, but we get enough time out of it.”

“And it was super nice to arrive and have some of my stuff here. Not that I remember the stuff, but there was a drawer full of clothes and a keyboard.”

“Yeah,” Aston said, “It’s kind of become a storage locker.”

I grinned at him as he said this, comfortable in our conversation. He was totally right, we were really good when it was just the two of us.

“You wanna go for a meal tonight?” Aston asked, “Like another date or something.”

“Date night?”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds good,” I smiled, “I am going to sleep now though.”

“It’s early yet,” Aston said, “Sleep to your hearts content.”

I grinned at him, slipping a hand around his waist and cuddling into his chest. It was warm and comfortable to lay with him, and soon he’d wrapped an arm around me too, the pair of us drifting off to sleep.

A good two hours later Aston woke me up. “If we don’t get up now we’re going to totally throw off our sleep schedule.”

“Yeah,” I groaned sitting up, “I’m starving.”

“Get dressed and we can go find dinner,” Aston said, “I have an idea.”