His sense of contentment for life, family and music glittered around him like an aura. He drew people because he was kind. That kindness was etched into him physical y, in the wrinkles around his bright, dancing, hazel eyes and the grooves around his mouth. Floyd was just the kind of person you wanted to know.

“Let’s talk about you,” Floyd said to me.

Oh dear, here we go.

Okay, I decided in that moment that Floyd was not the kind of person I wanted to know.

I turned away and walked to the platform where my guitars were. “Nothin’ to talk about.”

“Bul shit, Stel a Bel a. You aren’t pul in’ any wool here, girl,”

I stopped on the platform, opened up a guitar case and grabbed one of my electric guitars.

I’d known Floyd a long time and I’d never, not once, been able to pul any wool with him. And believe me, I tried.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I tried an evasion tactic.

“Wel , I do,” Floyd returned. “Not to mention, Emily is scared shitless.”

My tactic failed.

Shit.

Floyd had two grown daughters. Therefore Floyd was the Master of the Guilt Maneuver and was not afraid to use it.

“Let’s start with Mace,” Floyd pushed.

“Let’s not,” I replied, placing the guitar in the case careful y and then closing and locking the lid.

I heard Floyd’s boots on my floor then I felt Floyd’s fingers curl around my upper arm. With no choice, I stopped what I was doing and turned to him.

“Girl…” he said low, his voice both steely and sweet, something which I was sure worked for him with Emily and his daughters. I was sure it worked for him because it always worked on me.

“He thinks we’re back together,” I told Floyd and his hand dropped away as his eyebrows went up.

“He thinks?” Floyd asked.

“We’re not,” I answered.

This wasn’t altogether true as I’d been sleeping with Mace for days. Not to mention, I’d had sex with Mace twice.

Good sex. Sex some would even define as “getting back together sex” (though, if I was honest, sex of any kind could be defined as that). And further, not two hours ago, Mace had dropped off two big, stuffed-ful gym bags and two boxes of crap at my apartment. Then he grabbed me, kissed me hard and took off saying he’d see me later that night at the gig.

“Why not?” Floyd prodded, cutting into my thoughts.

“How many reasons do you want?”

“How many you got?”

“Seven thousand, two hundred and eleven,” I retorted sarcastical y.

“Wel , I got seven thousand, two hundred and twelve why you should let him back in.”

I felt my eyes go round. “Are you loco? Were you not around when he broke up with me? Were you not there when I went through two boxes of Kleenex in your and Emily’s living room? Hel o? Mace came into my life, settled in a way I thought was forever and I liked it. I liked it a lot. I liked it too much. Then he ripped us apart and walked away. I’m not going through that again.” I shook my head.

“Unh-unh. No way.”

“Emily left me,” was Floyd’s reply.

This time, my eyes bugged out and I felt my mouth drop open. I figured my mouth dropped open in an effort to give my body oxygen but it was an impossible feat. My lungs had turned to stone.

Emily and Floyd were solid. Emily and Floyd were strong. Emily and Floyd were everything. This was impossible.

“Not recently, seventeen years ago,” Floyd went on and I felt the trembling world under my feet grow steady again.

Floyd kept talking, “She left me, took the girls, moved in with her parents back in Michigan and was gone for ten with her parents back in Michigan and was gone for ten months.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered, thankful y breathing again.

“Don’t know why, even to this day, even though she explained it. Whatever it was, we weren’t working. Not for her. It didn’t matter. Only thing I cared about was she came back.”

I staggered back and sat on the arm of my mauve chair, feeling the weight of this news settling on me like a boulder.

I’d always thought that Emily and Floyd were the end al , be al of relationships. I couldn’t wrap my mind around this information.

Juno trundled over to me and butted my hand with her nose until I started scratching behind her ears.

Floyd crouched in front of me.

“What I’m sayin’ is, shit happens to couples. In any relationship there’s ebbs and there’s flows. You want that relationship to work you put on your life jacket and ride it out.”

I shook my head, not feeling much like going in the conversational direction he felt like taking me but Floyd kept talking.

“You gotta learn to give, Stel a. I’m not sayin’ this to be ugly but you’re bound up tight. That boy walked into your life and you didn’t give him a f**kin’ thing, ‘cept your music. I watched, hel , we al watched and we knew he was ready to lay the world at your feet, al you had to do was let him in.

You never let him in.”

I felt a queer sensation, like someone had reached a hand in and started squeezing my heart.

hand in and started squeezing my heart.

“I let him in,” I said softly but I knew that wasn’t altogether true either.

Floyd put his hand on my knee and looked into my eyes.

“You got more to give than your music, girl.” Direct shot, right to the gut.

But he was wrong.

“I don’t.”

“You do,” Floyd said firmly.

Okay, wait just one damned minute.

I wasn’t going to take the fal for Mace giving up on me.

That was not going to happen.

“He wanted it, he should have asked,” I said to Floyd.

“He never talked to me. Looking back, we didn’t know each other at al .”

“You ever ask him? Did you ever talk to him? Did you ever try to unlock whatever demons that boy has trapped in his mind?” Floyd asked.

This threw me. It threw me so much, to hide it I gave a sharp laugh, a laugh that didn’t even sound like it came from me and I shot up from the chair. Floyd came up from his crouch.

“Mace? Demons?” I asked.

Hardly.

Mace was…

Wel , just Mace, super cool, super hot, super job, super good at everything he did, just al around super.

Floyd was staring at me, doing it so intensely it made me uncomfortable.

My body prepared for another blow because something weird was happening here.