Sweet Little Thing: A Novella (Sweet Thing) by Renee Carlino Page B

In twelve seconds flat, I discovered the meaning of life while holding that guitar. I turned to thank Mia and found her donning a shiny gold halo and angel wings.
    “I knew it. This is heaven, right?” I said to her.
    She laughed. Okay, she didn’t really have wings and a halo, but she was as angelic as I had ever seen her, with her tousled hair, pink lips and white dress. It also didn’t hurt that she had just bought me my eternal wet dream.
    “Not that this day could get any better, but what would it take to get your glorious little ass over to that drum kit?”
    Mia rarely played the drums. She didn’t play them very well either, but I needed a drummer and she was the only one around. She kicked off her heels and skipped over to the stool as I plugged in my new precious baby.
    “Which song?” she asked. There were plenty of good reasons why Mia didn’t normally play drums. For starters, she held the sticks awkwardly. Actually, I’m being generous when I say awkwardly. She held them like they were goddamn horse reins. She sat there in her pretty dress with her legs spread, one foot on the bass drum pedal and the other one on the high hat, the picture of a complete rock star if only it didn’t like look she was about to play the xylophone.
    “You are so cute, baby.” I grinned and she smiled and bounced on the stool giddily. “‘When the Levee Breaks.’”
    I watched as she searched her mind for the beat and then away she went, pounding like John fuckin’ Bonham. I didn’t adjust the strap, so the guitar was resting lower on my body than usual. I pushed my right leg out to play as best I could. Mia didn’t let up, so neither did I. Her hair was in her face and she was sweaty, and she only looked up at me at the bridge, and then I saw some sort of disbelief in her eyes. That’s what happens when you pay attention to your surroundings while you play the drums. You realize that not everyone is living in a loop. She messed up a few times and then closed her eyes and found the beat again.
    I could mess up a thousand times and no one would notice, but mess up on drums and you screw everyone. Good thing it was just Mia and me that night…playing a Jimmy Page guitar, playing a Led Zeppelin song, and Jesus Christ, if that wasn’t a wedding present to remember. Imagine it’s thirty years from now and you’re thinking back to the day you married your wife. Was she pregnant with your child, playing “When the Levee Breaks” on the drums, in a wedding dress with no underwear on because you fucked her silly in the back of a limo? Yeah, be jealous.

 
     
     
    I t took a lot of convincing for me to finally agree to leave the studio after our wedding ceremony. Mia didn’t want the guests waiting too long at the restaurant for us. I chased her up the stairs to the loft and into our bedroom. I helped unzip her, and then I watched her change into a casual white dress. She topped it off with a black leather jacket. That’s when I revealed the T-shirt I’d been hiding underneath my dress shirt.
    “You are not wearing that to our wedding dinner,” she said with her hand on her hip.
    “Tyler said you’d kick me in the balls when you saw it.”
    “If you don’t take that off, I will.”
    My T-shirt said “Buy Me a Beer, The End is Near” and then underneath the writing there was a picture of a ball and chain.
    “It’s a joke. This couldn’t be further from how I feel.”
    She scrunched up her nose and gave me the pouty face.
    I moved toward her, pushed her hair behind her ears, and tilted her head up to look at me. “I honestly feel like this is the beginning of my life, Mia.”
    “Me too,” she said. “I’ve just been really sensitive about stuff lately.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know, sometimes I think it was the way you reacted when I told you I was pregnant. It made me think we were rushing into all this.”
    I held her face in my hands and glanced past her into the hallway where June was pooping