When Evie got home from her shift at the restaurant, she walked into the living room to find her father and new roommate drinking beer and watching Cops on TV. She didn't say anything and Mick hardly even glanced at her. Nikki sat up a little taller. He wanted to thank Evie for all the work she had done to make the basement welcoming, but he decided it was too sweet of a thing for a rock n roller like him to say, so he slumped back into the couch.
After changing into her pajamas, Evie went back downstairs and cooked chicken noodle soup. When it was done, she quietly told the men it was ready before grabbing her own bowl and heading to her room to eat alone.
She didn't come back down until the next morning, making it a pretty unsatisfying ending to a day she had been looking forward to.
The next day was Monday, meaning Evie didn't have work. When she woke up, she slowly headed downstairs, expecting to find Nikki and her father again. But the house was suspiciously quiet. She wasn't sure why, until she found the eight empty beer cans on the coffee table. She sighed, threw the cans away, poured herself a bowl of cereal, and sat at the dining room table to work on a scholarship application.
She was almost done when there was a loud knock on the door. When she answered it, she expected to be met with salespeople, or maybe Mormons or girl scouts selling cookies, but instead she found two long haired men.
Tommy began to say something, but Evie just opened the door wider and motioned for them to come in. Once invited, the guys walked around the house like they lived there. Tommy headed straight for the kitchen and Vince took a seat on the couch. Evie went upstairs and knocked on her father's door.
She opened it when she heard him groan. "Tommy and Vince are here."
Next it was to the basement. When she approached the door, she hesitated, unsure of what she was going to walk into, or if Nikki would feel like it was a violation of his privacy. She took a deep breath, opened the door, and yelled, "Nikki!" in a sing-song voice.
There was no reply. She waited a moment longer before descending halfway down the stairs. She stopped when she saw the man sitting on the couch, with headphones over his ears and a notebook and pen in his hand. Nikki pulled off his headphones and looked at her curiously.
"Sorry," Evie said. "Tommy and Vince are here for practice."
"Shit, I forgot." He set down the notebook and rushed up the stairs, passing Evie on his way. She could tell that he had not yet made use of the shampoo and body wash she had gotten him.
Upstairs, Evie caught up to Nikki in the dining room.
"I'm going to the grocery store," she told him. "Is there anything you want?"
Nikki looked down at her, his mouth open in uncertainty. Did they have a budget? How much was too much to ask for? "Uh, just some cigarettes is fine."
Evie stared at him, unsure of whether he was joking or not. He finally realized his mistake. "That's right," he said, shaking his head. "I forgot. I think I'm fine, then."
"Are you sure? No lunch meat or dinner requests?"
"I'm good. Thanks, though." He hurried into the living room to find the singer and drummer munching away on some cheez-its.
Evie passed her father on her way up to her bedroom. He put his hand out to stop her. "Did they give you any trouble?" He said quietly.
"Vince and Tommy?"
"Yes, and Nikki."
"No. They did get into the pantry, though, so there's that."
Mick stared at her for a moment longer. "Okay. Just making sure." He let her continue.
Evie managed to successfully avoid the band for (most) of the rest of the day. She took a shower and went to the store. By the time she got back, the house was empty. The guys had left for their first day of recording. When Mick and Nikki got back a little before four in the afternoon, Evie was working on a puzzle at the dining room table.
"What are you doing?" Nikki asked her, a bag of potato chips in his hand.
"A puzzle." He sat down across from Evie, a characteristic of a phenomenon Evie was already starting to become familiar with: Nikki's increased boldness right after he played. He looked at the box to figure out what they were trying to make: a 500 piece picture of two tigers, surrounded by shrubbery and flowers. He started picking out pieces and testing them in the outline Evie had made.
When he leaned across the table, Evie could tell that Nikki's lack of inhibition wasn't completely due to the confidence boost from playing: he was drunk.
Soon, a slightly drunk Mick also came downstairs and went over to the table. He looked at them for a few moments, not saying anything, then stumbled back up to his room to lay down.
Left alone, Nikki and Evie fell into conversation. He asked her what grade she was in (rising senior), and she asked him how long he had been in the music business (7 years). He asked if she knew how to play bass and guitar (yes) and who taught her (her father, of course). She asked him the same (yes and self taught).
"So do you wanna be a musician when you finish school? Are you going to finish school?"
She laughed. "If everything goes as planned, I'll finish. And, I'm not sure if I want to go into the music business. I love playing and everything, but I feel like it's just so hard to make it, and I would rather have a job where I'm guaranteed to make money, you know?"
Nikki looked down. He knew the girl didn't mean any harm, but maybe that made it worse. It confirmed the little voice inside of him telling him that every rational person knew it was impossible to get anywhere in the world of music. He shook off the thought, and asked what she wanted to go into, if not music.
"I'm not sure," she said. "I think I'd like to go into nonprofit work. I volunteered with the Lutheran Family Services last summer. I tutored two kids from Colombia, and it was a lot of fun. I'm actually waiting to hear back from the Refugee Resettlement place in LA about working with their daycare."
"You like kids?"
"Sort of. I like working with them, mostly toddlers. Once they're past the age of 9 they're kinda insufferable. But I don't think I would ever want my own kids. What about you?"
"Kids aren't really my thing." He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. "They're scared of me."
They both smiled, and their eyes met. For the first time, Evie noticed the ring of light brown inside of his bluish eyes. Nikki focused on the way the ceiling light caused small white circles to appear at the top of her pupils. They stayed like that for a moment, neither one of them wanting to look away, until there was a loud noise upstairs. It was just Mick closing the door to the bathroom too loud. When Nikki looked back over at Evie, she was still smiling at him.
"What was it like being raised by Mick?"
Again, she laughed, and Nikki found himself noticing how attractive she was when she smiled.
"I imagine it's similar to being raised by someone who really loves you and really tries hard to be a good parent, but every so often forgets they have a child."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"You know, he'll spend two months being great and loving and providing for your every need, but then randomly disappears for two days, and then comes back and says he's so sorry because he 'lost track of time.'"
Nikki only laughed because, even if Evie was confiding in him, it was clear she was playful about it.
"Just so you know," he told her. "If that's happened since the band started, he wasn't with us. I'm not trying to say he's sneaking around with someone, but..." He shrugged his shoulders to let her know he wasn't serious.
"Don't worry." She looked back over her shoulder to make sure he wasn't coming, then leaned closer to Nikki. "He's too old to be doing that now. Now he just gets drunk and falls asleep."
Nikki looked in the direction of the staircase, wondering what Evie would think if she knew he did that exact thing almost nightly.
"So he's a good dad, then?"
"Yeah, he's great." Nikki could tell she meant it. "What about you?" Evie asked. "What was your childhood like?"
Nikki didn't know what to say, so he stayed silent for a moment. Finally, he said, "complicated."
Evie took the hint and didn't press him further. Instead, she asked about his old bands.
The conversation carried over into the kitchen when it was time to make dinner. Nikki stood with his back against the entryway while Evie stirred the mac n cheese and told him about all the dumb shit Mick did in his younger days. Nikki made a note to start calling him Zorky when he either got his own place or was confident that Mick wasn't going to kick him out of the house.
It seemed like Evie was finally warming up to him, just like Mick said she would. Something that Nikki wouldn't get used to for a while, though, was the way Evie clammed up when she was around her father. Nikki couldn't tell if it was because Mick told her she shouldn't be talking to him, or if she was shy around her dad, or if Evie actually didn't care to talk to him at all. In any case, she sat on the couch quietly eating, while Mick and Nikki talked about Mick's job and altered schedule.
They had moved onto the topic of their show on Friday when Mick had to leave to go to said job. Nikki helped Evie clean up, then she said she was going on a walk. Apparently, it was part of her routine. Twice a week, she went on a forty five minute walk in the evening after her father left. Evie didn't ask for him to come with, so he didn't offer. Instead, he went down to the basement to drink himself to sleep.