"What are you doing?" he asked her, brain-to-mouth filter clearly offline.
She looked up at him, one eyebrow raised. "Knitting," she said simply. So she was-she sat quietly, her hands working to create something from a ball of yarn that sat in her lap.
"Isn't that something little old ladies do?" he continued. So much for his vow to be less of an insensitive dick.
"Yo, some asswipe in Austin says we're the West Coast's answer to Bon Jovi," Rip announced. "I'm explaining to him all the reasons he's wrong."
"Bon Jovi's a good band," Tank noted. "Aw, Jesus, they're gonna vote Tanya off tonight. Son of a bitch, she's the only idiot in the whole competition who can hit an F-sharp."
"I'm not knocking Bon Jovi. They're great," Rip conceded. "But comparing us to them is like comparing Metallica to the Beatles."
"That comparison is sacrilegious," Melody told him.
"Then Lennon would have loved it," Rip argued back. "What should I tell this idiot?"
"Stop arguing with fans," Dylan moaned. "I don't know what's worse, when you pick on the trolls or pick up the fan girls."
"You're just bitter you didn't think of it first," Rip boasted. "I know! I'll post that there's a leak of our new album on the Internet. They'll waste hours trying to find it."
Dylan flinched, but no one saw him, wrapped up as they were with their television shows and Internet chat rooms. No one except old eagle eye with the knitting needles, of course.
"You okay?" she mouthed. That simple gesture was so sweet; she was so aware of his desire to keep his humiliation quiet. Dylan felt something inside his chest break a little, and his breath caught in a strange, exhilarating new way. He couldn't speak, but nodded to her slightly, holding her gaze until she returned it to the red and purple yarn she was knitting.
Even though Rip was using the potential of their new album to screw with people online, Dylan wasn't sure there would be a new album, not at the rate he was writing. He had his songwriting notebook out and open, the empty pages taunting him.
"Hey, Grandma, you do know you can buy sweaters now, right?" Tank said, noticing what Melody was doing.
"Hey, little girl, you do know you're not American Idol's target demo, right?" she shot back.
"I could have won this thing if we hadn't gotten our record deal," Tank bragged.
Melody's eyes widened, excitement coloring her cheeks. "Please. Please tell me you auditioned for American Idol and that there is footage of this somewhere."
"Yes and yes," Dylan confirmed.
"Oh my God. I need to see this," Melody said gravely.
Grateful to be distracted from all the songwriting he wasn't doing, Dylan whipped out his phone and pulled up his videos.
"Aw, man," Tank whined, "you've still got it?"
"Dude, I have hard copies in my apartment and backups saved to the Cloud," Dylan said. He offered his phone to Melody. "Enjoy."
She picked up her knitting supplies and transplanted herself onto the couch next to Dylan, grabbing the phone excitedly. She was so close. He took the opportunity to sniff her hair-he hoped he was covert enough that no one noticed him doing so-and sighed. Coconuts and pineapple, just like that toxic green drink she'd spilled on him the night they'd met. Melody was tropical beaches and fresh fruit, and miles of smooth, creamy skin just begging to be touched-
"Ohmygod, you're singing Foreigner," Melody squealed, and Dylan's attention was drawn back to his phone. On the screen, a much younger Tank, pre-gym membership, was belting out Foreigner's most famous ballad, assuring the world that he wanted to know what love is.
"I'm telling the guys on the forum that's Tank's favorite guilty pleasure song," Rip said, fingers flying across the keyboard.
"I hate you all," Tank moaned.
Melody grinned at him. "You won't say that when you're rocking the most kick-ass hand-knitted hat and scarf set in all of rock ‘n roll."
"The words ‘hand-knitted hat and scarf set' do not belong in the same sentence as ‘all of rock ‘n roll'," Dylan observed.
"Seconded," Rip agreed, with much more bite in his tone than was strictly necessary.
"You guys suck," Melody said, wincing as a knitting needle grazed one of her burnt fingers.
Dylan felt like a jerk for the tenth time that day. "Are you okay?" he asked her quietly.
She smiled at him. "I'm fine. I just have to be more careful. I'm still sort of clumsy with the needles." She nodded her head at his arm. "What about you?"
"Same," he said. "Look, I'm really sorry-"
"It's fine," she said, letting him off the hook with an easy kindness that Dylan envied. "We're both walking wounded." She looked at him carefully, as if deciding how far she wanted to push her luck. "You seemed upset yesterday on the phone," she probed gently.
He had to tell them. He knew he had to tell the guys what was going on (they loved Emma, too; she was the unofficial band mascot), just in case … in case something...
"Yeah. I talked to Grace," he said quietly. All of a sudden the clacking of the keyboard stopped, and American Idol went silent.
"Who's Grace?" Melody asked slowly.
"My sister," Dylan said. "My niece is … sick."
"Sick?" Melody repeated. He could see the same expression in her eyes that he saw in everyone's when he told them. There was the hope that Emma just had a cold, the certainty that it must just be a simple seasonal bug.
"A rare heart defect," he confirmed, watching the sadness settle over her, dimming her bright green eyes as her heart went out to a little girl she didn't even know. There was another painful crack in his chest. "She, ah, isn't doing well." He looked up at Tank and Rip. The worry on their faces was only a fraction of what Dylan felt.
"Is she … ?"
Dylan didn't let Tank finish the question. "She's gonna be fine," he said, even though Grace hadn't said anything like that over the phone. You might want to prepare yourself, was what she'd actually said, with enviable fortitude in her voice. She was so unlike Dylan, so much stronger than he was. Grace had practically raised him, even though she'd only been three years older.
"How old is your niece?" Melody asked.
"Eight," Dylan said, his voice breaking. Eight years old. It wasn't fair. An eight-year-old little girl might not live to see her ninth birthday, yet assholes like him and Snake got to make one terrible decision after another, seemingly without consequence. Every time he thought about Emma, who struggled just to breathe at times, he got mad. He was mad at himself for being so far away from the only family he cared about; he was mad at the doctors, for having no answers; and he was mad at God, for being so heartless.
"Show her the mouse picture," Tank said, moving to the couch to sit on Melody's other side. Rip, too, got up and leaned over the back of the couch.
"What's everybody looking at?" Jesper asked as he entered the room with a large cardboard box tucked under one arm.
"Emma at Disneyland," Rip said.
"She's not doing well," Tank added. "Power of positive thought."
"Right on," Jesper said, joining Rip behind the couch.
Dylan pulled up his picture folder and opened the album from Disneyland. Emma had been seven, and it had been her, Grace, and the band at the Magic Kingdom. Emma's father hadn't been able to handle the illness, and had taken off when she had turned four. Grace said she was grateful he'd left when he did, because Emma had been too young to remember him properly. He'd tried to make contact once after that, but had run scared again, leaving Grace in tears and Emma confused. Dylan and Jesper had tracked him down after that, and they had made sure the scumbag knew never to wander back into their lives again.
The first picture was a group shot in front of the Magic Castle. Even Snake was grinning, unable to resist Emma's infectious enthusiasm. Her smile was lopsided, missing a couple teeth, but to Dylan, it looked perfect. He glanced at Melody and tried to imagine what she saw: a little girl, too small for her age, with her Minnie Mouse-ears hat and her yellow princess dress, surrounded by a bunch of rockers sporting unshaven faces, long hair, and doting expressions.
He swiped his finger, and the second picture in the album appeared, this one depicting Emma getting a hug from Cinderella. Next, Grace and Emma on the Teacups, Emma's face split in a huge grin. Emma sandwiched between Rip and Tank on Pirates of the Caribbean; Dylan holding Emma on his shoulders, her hands covering his eyes as he staggered around dramatically, just so he could hear her laugh.
Dylan chanced a look at Melody again. There was a mixture of emotions on her face. Joy, because the images truly were magical; amusement, because by the end of the day, all the band members had donned novelty Disney hats; and sorrow, because she knew that the little girl who seemed so happy in those pictures was suffering now.