Shallow

Riley Three days later

Row is fingering her long compression tunic and standing in front of me as I sit in my chair at the front door. It's very convenient, the way she's standing. She's blocking the afternoon sun, keeping it out of my eyes as I sip a bottled tea. The light bleeds around the edges of her too-thin form. She looks absolutely knock-kneed in those yoga pants.

I sigh. My fixation on Row's figure has nothing to do with my preferences and everything to do with her health. I don't care what her shape is as long as she's living in way that keeps her vibrant, energetic and not popping pills to maintain it.

She hasn't been abusing diet pills in some time, she says, but she also hasn't been taking care of herself, either. And for weeks now, she's been doing nothing but waiting hand and foot on me. Last night she lay on the rug in the living room and jokingly suggested I could roll back and forth over her in my chair and she wouldn't feel any worse.

"It's exactly how I feel already," she laughed weakly. "Run over. Oh shit..." she moaned as she climbed to her hands and knees, crawled over to me and laid her head in my lap. I stroked her hair softly, biting back a myriad of instructions for improving her energy. I always used to tell her exactly what I thought she should be doing both her in her professional and our private lives. I didn't mean to be bossy, but it turned out, her father was right. It's not easy to turn the manager off and just be a sympathetic partner that doesn't take charge when the star of your life complains of a problem.

Eventually, she said. "I think I need to be healthier better, you know? Like have a protein shake and get some exercise..."

"Instead of 3 hour energy shots, you mean?" I murmured, trying to keep the accusation out of my voice.

Her breath was hot against my knees as she laughed. "You saw those, huh?"

"Well, I saw them in the garbage."

"Okay, yeah. I know that's not really a sustainable thing," she says. "Tomorrow. Protein shakes for both of us for breakfast."

I bit my lip, but I couldn't stop myself. "You did also say exercise...were you serious or just talking?"

She wrapped her arms around my knees hugging them. "Well, we don't have any equipment here..."

That was true. This house is too small for a home gym. Row never worked out, and I always went to the gym in the Colossus building. But I understand her reluctance. I shouldn't have told her I get anxious when she leaves me.

"When we come back from my PT, why don't you go for a jog, or even just a walk," I suggested. "Just around the neighborhood?"

"Uggghh..." she had groaned. "Who wants to walk?"

I snorted. "I wouldn't mind..."

She had looked up sharply, "Fuck, I'm so sorry. That was insensitive."

"You've got to stop apologizing. If we can't laugh a little, what is there?"

She nodded against my knees, then collapsed on the floor again. "Do it. Do it, Riley. Kill me now. I'd almost rather die than go for a jog."

I rocked toward her threateningly with my chair. "I could just break your toes, maybe. Then you'd have an excuse for not exercising, but what shape we would be in then...two invalids trying to take care of one another. Your mother could come. And she would never leave, bwahahaha." I lower my voice to the macabre register.

"That would be a horror worse for you than me," she grinned as she turned on her side away from me. "I would laugh my ass off to see you handing my mom your pee bottle."

"I think I shall run over you," I nudged one of the wheels against her ass. An image flashed through my mind. Of that same derriere naked, as I roughly pulled her toward me by the hips. Over and over, forcing us both to our own disconnected climaxes.

I pushed the image of Row beneath me away. For so many reasons. Because that wasn't a loving time. Because I don't know if there will ever be another time where I can improve those last memories of us in bed. Because what if the last time I ever made love to a woman it was like that? Not just dissatisfying sex, but worse.  Punishing my wife with my distance and anger.

If I could go back, I would start there. Sex was always the easiest part between us, and I made it a misery just like everything else between us. I would do that differently. I would have made more effort with the date nights. Talked to Row more. Put her more at ease. We can laugh now—would have really been so hard then? I would have found a way to backtrack to that point where sex was more between us than physical release. I would have treated those reconciliation date nights as a sacred journey back to the time when being with Row was the most tender part of our love—because it was the only place where I ever saw her truly vulnerable.

Well, until now. Now she cries. Now she sits in my lap and rests her head on my shoulder and whispers self-aware things that I honestly never knew were in her head.  Now she lies on the floor, exhausted without makeup, with her hair in a ratty braid,  and she looks up at me with a kind of rueful empathy, because we are both sore and exhausted from living this new normal of hauling my reluctant body around. I looked down at her, imagining this is what Row would do if she were a new mother. Work herself to death to take care of a helpless creature then melodramatically roll around on the floor to vent her frustration, then get up and do it all over again with her sweet determination and her newfound efficiency.

Now she is standing at our front door, loathe to leave me to go for a walk, as if I am the helpless creature. It seems she took my suggestion to heart much better than she ever used to take my bossier instructions. I didn't mention the exercise at all again. I'm rather surprised to see she's following through on her own volition.

"Go on if you're going," I laugh at her. "I'll manage. Thanks to you and Jerry the contractor. Who by the way sent an unitemized invoice that seems, quite frankly, a bit low for all the work done. Did you mostly pay the man already?"

"Going now," she backs away, and the sun blinds me.

"Rowan," I say sternly.

"Riley," she smiles sweetly as she backs past the desert plants and rock gardens. "If you didn't have all those lifts inside I couldn't leave you and go for this walk.However would you sneak down to your office while I'm gone to work when you are supposed to be resting?"

"Hmmm..."

She's not wrong. I do have a sneaky task to accomplish this afternoon while she's gone, but it's not work. I already worked today, for an hour this morning after the caregiver came, and then checking in again on the drive to and from PT. Ari and the team are managing fine from the office and Marley can do more with her cell phone and her Doc Gorgeous voice than most generals could do with a battalion of troops.

As I watch Row walk down the street, I pull my phone and ring Javi, Soundcrush's back-line specialist. He answers right away.

"Riley! Hey listen...it took me a minute to wade through Soundcrush's storage unit, but I found it. I actually have the case in the van, when ever you are ready for them..."

"That's great. Javi where are you right now? I don't suppose you'd have time to drop them by..."

"Now?" I hear the exasperation in Javi's voice, but I also know he will capitulate. Javi is Soundcrush's number one instrument specialist when we tour—meaning that he takes care of what Trace considers the most important instruments on stage—his guitars, of course.

It's been a while since we employed Javi under contract, and he's been out with a couple of other bands since Soundcrush's last big tour, but if he's in LA, he's basically our go-to guy for scheduled performances and impromptu gigs. He's family, he's just not full time family. I try to give him as much work as I can with all my clients—Darius, Harper and Sadie.

"I'm on my way to a late lunch," Javi hedges.

"Working lunch or a date?" I say.

"Date," he confesses.

"Javi...do me a favor, alright? I'd rather...it not be a big production with Rowan, you know? She's out right now. For maybe an hour or so. She doesn't step out much right now..."

Javi is quiet only a second. "I get it, man. Be there in forty."

I meet Javi at the garage entrance and he unloads a medium sized road case and then a small tool kit. Conveniently, the case fits on the lifts, at he laughs at the ease of directing it from the garage to my lower level office.

"Wish every venue was this simple," he tells me.

Once we get the case inside, Javi stands awkwardly at my side. "So...how you doin'?" he asks. His expression tells me that he's nervous that I might actually be honest.

"I'll be up and around in no time. This is just a precaution against re-injury, right now," I lie.

He looks relieved. "That's great, man. And...Row? How's she? I see her on that show..."

I bite back my smile. I'm well aware that Javi had a crush on my beautiful young wife on the tour that Strut opened for Soundcrush. Of course then, she wasn't my wife, she was an eighteen year old sex siren who was my client and who making my life a hell of temptation.

"So...uhm...I guess...are you...back together or whatever? I mean, it's good, if you are..." he trails off. "Nevermind, none of my business," he adds swiftly.

I look Javi over, wondering if he would have had the balls to defy Matt's hands-off my daughter rules delivered to the Soundcrush crew during that tour. Possibly. The guy's got a fair amount of game with the ladies.Another possibility is he might not have had the will to resist Row if she had looked around for a drunken consolation prize one of the many many nights I turned her down.

"We're good. I'm good. Row is...well...she can answer for herself. Back so soon, darling?" I grin at her but it is not very sincere. Damn. I was hoping to avoid this—a big to do over the guitars.

She doesn't notice the case yet because she's surprised to see our visitor.

"Javi!" she hugs him without the slightest hesitancy, then gives him a little shove. "How the fuck are you?" she says in her happiest voice. The voice of a rock star hanging with her crew. "I haven't seen you in forever!"

Well then. She seems perfectly unaffected by him. Wrong vibe. You're bloody paranoid, Emsworth.

"Good, good. How are you, girl?" his voice edges down slightly.

At his inflection, Row's expression goes through a convolution as if she is remembering something long forgotten. "I've been...well you know..." she's looking at me, then her expression softens. "We're good. You know, bouncin' back all that. Thanks for asking," she finishes, as if Javi is a fan and not SCIC.

Javi clears his throat and nods at me. "This man here looks about ready to get back to work. Probably because of your TLC..." then he winces, like he wished he hadn't said that, and gives me a grin, somewhere between sheepish and guilty.

Not paraoid. He has fucked my wife, hasn't he?

Well, he wasn't the first. Or the last. Poor bastard is just like me, I suppose.  We might both well turn out to be no more than middling notches on her bed post.

"Yeah, well, Javi's late for a lunch date. I appreciate you taking the time to wade through that storage unit."

"Naw, it was nothing. Marley had the inventory. It's all in good shape over there..."

"Good to know."

"Thanks for the work comin' up with DevBlu's talk show promotions. I haven't run his backline before but that should be..." he cracks a grin. "A fun time."

I'm barely listening to Javi, because I'm eying Row, frowning at the case. "What? Oh yeah, no problem. Listen don't underestimate Dev's standards. He acts like a lunatic, but he expects top notch professionalism in his product. Make sure you keep it tight. And don't let him get you arrested in New York..."

"No problem, man. He and his DJ can raise hell, I'll keep it low key. Thanks again," he says, and we clap it out.

He gives Row an awkward upper arm squeeze. "Good to see you."

She barely says goodbye now that she's noticed the case.

"What is this?" she asks staring at the case, fingering her braid.

"What was that?" I reply jerking my head toward Javi.

Her eyes cut to mine sharply. "Are you kidding, Riley?"

I sigh. "Look, I don't care about Javi. On that Soundcrush/Strut tour, was it? But it would have been wiser to let me know back then, since he was crew. Honestly I'm surprised I didn't see it then. It's not like me to miss something so obvious. I knew he had a crush. I didn't know you were with him."

"I wasn't with Javi," she says sharply.

"So you've never slept with him?" I crack back just as sharply.

She crosses her arms. "I thought we decided a long time ago not to name names."

"Well that's an obvious yes, and it should also be an obvious exception to the rule if the bloke bloody works for us. I'd think you'd give me the courtesy of a head's up—"

"Like you gave me a head's up about this?" she slings a hand at the guitar case, then strides forward, flipping the latches, flinging it open. It has seven slim rectangular cases inside.

"I did. We talked about pulling the guitars out of storage..."

She pulls one of the cases with memorable stickers to the floor, and opens it. It's her completely custom made accoustic Gibson, painted by her brother—pink, black and blue paisely. It's her favorite acoustic, the one she used to write with.

"What is this doing here?" she says from her knees, holding her hands back from it like it was a bomb. She rises quickly. "You said you were getting your guitars out, Riley!Not mine." Her voice is angry and accusatory. "Just because you want to play, doesn't mean you're going to strong arm me, okay? This is about you," she stabs toward my chair. "Not about me!" she holds up her right hand.

I stare at her sudden outburst of anger, and I think about what Marley says, about fear being at the heart of control. And I realize that Row wants to play again, but she's not ready. Her need to play hasn't yet outstripped her fear that she can't.

"Rowan, our guitars were all packed away together. I had them bring the case of acoustics, that's all. I was going to look through it, find my Martin, maybe keep one or two others and send it back. I'm sorry, if this has upset you. It was not a plot to force a guitar back into your hand."

Her anger seems to wither by a degree, so I push forward. Literally and emotionally. I inch the chair forward, and I circle her wrist with my hand, swinging her arm across my body. This is our signal now, my invitation for her sit on my lap. She eases down, somewhat less eagerly than usual.

"I'm bloody bored, alright? I'm bored, I'm anxious and I thought...I thought playing would be something enjoyable. I did ask if you were okay with this...you said yes...absolutely. But if you want, I'll send them back. I'll send them all back."

I will send them back, if she asks. I won't force her to face her fears. God knows it's taken long enough for me to begin to face mine.

"No...no. Don't send them back. You should play." She looks down at her Gibson. "You should keep them all. They deserve to be played."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

"Alright, let's talk about this Javi thing," I say slowly. "I didn't mean to make accusation, and you don't owe me any explanation. It just...surprised me. I caught the vibe just now, but I'd never seen it before for what it really was, is all. I'm sorry I...questioned you, about him. And you are right—we did agree, when we got together, to leave our pasts in the past."

"It was before you and I ever...it was just once, early in the tour. Honestly, I had nearly forgotten all about it. It was a long time ago."

"You don't have to explain. I'm not judging you," I tell her.

"You sort of were," she replies.

"I'm not. There's a difference in judging and...a moment of jealousy," I admit.

She's still sitting on my lap but she looks away. We are both thinking of my jealousy and the reasons for it, now.

Javi is not the man in my mind. Aidan Mosteller is.

"I think I'll check out my Martin. Maybe restring it," I say, gesturing to the toolkit of strings Javi left, patting her hip in an indication that I want her to rise.

I need a distraction. I need to do something with my hands, so I don't focus on her and Mosteller and my anger.

She bends down, closing the case on her guitar, leaning it against the wall out of the way of my chair path. I roll forward, checking the remaining cases in the box, looking for The Cure Stickers that indicate my Martin is inside. I tug the handle, but Row takes an anxious step forward. I hold out a warning hand to her.

"It's not heavy."

"You aren't supposed to lift things."

"It's a fucking guitar, Rowan," I snap, jerking the case out and pulling up into my lap, snapping it open, pulling the guitar out with one hand and slinging the case somewhat haphazardly across the floor. Ostensibly to clear it from my chair path, but in truth I slung it a little harder than strictly necessary.

She wanders toward the door, stops, and turns. She's rubbing her lips with the heel of her hand. "I feel like I can't ask what I want to ask."

"You can ask me anything," I say curtly, fingering the strings and tuning the guitar up.

She watches me and listens to the tuning. I see her fingers curled tight.

Tuning complete, I strum through C,G,Aminor, and F, looking up at her expectantly.

"What?"

"Are you going to cut Javi loose now?"

A clear, vicious phrase is fully formed in my mind.

If I had to drop every roadie you've slept with, Rowan, I couldn't put together a crew, now could I?

It's not true. It's not true in any way. And it's not about some night she had with Javi when I was still in control of my life. Before I fell for. This isn't about him. This is about her affair. And it's not the way I want to treat her even over that, to feed hate and hurt. At the heart of it all, I remind myself...it's my fear and my choice.

I watch Rowan fighting her own fear as I finger E, B, C#m, then A. Somehow, I let the hateful words slide away in the vibrations. I realize I have no desire to be cruel to her anymore.

Em. D/F#. G.

C. G. D.

Em. D/F#. G.

"No, love," I answer mildly. "Javi is safe. Unless..." I look at her face. "Unless there is some reason I should?"

"No. He was cool, when I let him know it wasn't going to be a thing."

I nod, strumming the chords again.

She recognizes the song. She taught me how to play it.

"Do you remember the picking?" she asks mildly taking a step back inside the room.

I do. Low E string, or the 6th string in the Em to begin. Then 3-2-3. Then my fret hand changes chords as I pluck the 6 then pull the 3 and 2 together. Bump to stop the chord, chord change, as I pull the 6, 3 and 2 all together.

Rest and two and three four.

Then repeat.

That's how Shallow starts.

Row smiles. Hard rock is not the only music she enjoys, and she's always liked this one.

I repeat, then move through the rest of the measures of the finger picking. She's watching. I can tell she wants to play it, because even now she could probably play it better than me.

She can do this. I know she can do this. This is a slow song. There's no way her fret hand has forgotten its effortless movements. And she just needs her thumb and two fingers to pick out this intro.

She doesn't ask for the guitar.

She's not ready yet.

Instead she asks me to sing.

"I will if you will," I tell her.

She nods, and slides down the wall, crossing her legs, closing her eyes, waiting for me.

We start over. And as our voices respond to one another, as we listen to one another, as we strive for harmony and rhythm and expression, we begin an entirely new conversation.