LEFT A HAND PRINT ON THE DOOR --

[DENVER CARLOS HURLEY]

Annie being sick only meant one thing: not a very eventful day for Denny. Sure, he had to go into the studio and lay down some tracks, but that got boring and monotonous after a while without Annie’s distractions, even if he sort of complained about them when she was getting in the way of work. Work was just more interesting with Annie around – it wasn’t so much work as it was something that got them by financially. It gave them an opportunity to work together, collaboratively, and usually Annie took that as an excuse to flaunt the fact that he was hers to the whole world, not that Denny cared too much. They weren’t keeping their marriage a secret – anyone with eyes for rings knew that – but they didn’t just talk about it just because it was something to talk to other people about. Loads of people thought it wouldn’t work; they were too young and they spent much too much time together for this marriage to be consistent in its spontaneity. They’d run out of things to talk about, things to do; they’d start hating each other and the whole ordeal would, supposedly, end in a really abusive divorce. That was what people thought about their marriage – not everyone, and not even most people, but there were a handful of individuals that didn’t bet on them lasting.

Denny would knock them out one by one if he could name them. This marriage was going to last for two reasons: 1) Denny didn’t know how to love anyone else. 2) Annie didn’t know how to love anyone else. Denny had had his share of girlfriends in high school, but none of them had lasted long and none of them had gotten him naked in a dark room. They had either said something that made him break up with them or they’d equally called it quits and just stayed friends until the accident. No one wanted to be his friend after that – especially not someone of the female gender. They all blamed him for running the drunk girl over, but that wasn’t something Denny liked to talk about anyway. The point was that girls sort of avoided Denny after that. Every female he’d ever known had pretty much hated him since then, with the exception of three. One, his mother, two, his sister, and three, Annie. She’d done everything except hate him. Annie had let him be her friend, then her best friend, then her boyfriend, fiancé, and now her husband. They’d come such a long way in the past nine months or so; trial and error had taken its course with them and now they were here, in New York, recording an album for the band they’d started back home, in Cape Cod.

But now that they were here, less people knew about their marriage. I mean it was kind of obvious, unless everyone thought they were just siblings that were a little too close. Annie had changed her last name; she was Annabelle Hurley and he was Denver Hurley. If that wasn’t a dead giveaway, Annie’s recent need to hang all over him in all places was. Honestly he only minded when she was getting in the way, but he would never say it that way to Annie. He’d find words to sugar coat the feeling; something along the lines of, “Annie, sweetie, can you please just calm down for a few? I’m in the middle of laying this down and I wanna get it done before we go,” might be heard out of Denny’s mouth. He knew the consequences of being straight up in an insulting manner; Annie would be angry and hurt and she’d block herself out from him. Denny would then shut himself out from her and only be around when she absolutely needed him to be, until of course she let him know in a forceful manner that everything was okay again. Denny was actually trying avoid that very situation these days; it was just easier to say something that sounded like he’d dipped it in a pot of melted chocolate rather than come out with the whole truth all at once. His honesty didn’t like that so much, but that secondary personality was sitting on one of his shoulders like the little devils and angels in movies and television, telling him that it would help, not hurt this relationship. He had a feeling it was right, no matter how little he trusted that personality. Denny knew what would keep Annie happy, and asking her nicely to just sit next to him and hold his hand was better than just blurting out that she was in the way of work.

He was afraid if he said that, she’d go back to Cape Cod, file up some papers to divorce them (or maybe not so much that part), go to the apartment, pack up all of her things, and just leave. He didn’t know if she would really do that, but it was a thought. She had the right to; if Denny was going to be a total jerk, why should Annie stick around? But the thing was that he wasn’t a jerk, and she knew that. That was why she knew he had to go to work today. Even if she was sick, Denny had to go to the studio. He’d only be a phone call away if she needed him, and if she called Denny would be the first one out of the studio to come help her. It had been hard to explain that to her since he would have rather stayed in the hotel to keep her company, but Denny knew he couldn’t. Just like his job at the book store in Cape Cod, he could only stay at the hotel if he really needed to, and a small cold wasn’t something he could just neglect work for. He wasn’t sick – not yet, at least – which meant he had to go in. He’d only played hooky from work one day in his entire life - their makeshift honeymoon – and Denny wanted to try and keep it that way as for as long a time period as possible.

And that was why he was at work. The studio was larger than any place he’d ever been and filled with more equipment than Denny could have ever dreamed. Unfortunately, it was also filled to the brim with people he wouldn’t end up liking. He’d walked in there the first day with a huge dorky smile on his face, looking around with Annie’s hand in his as if he were in a Smithsonian, not the halls of Delirium records. Now, after a few weeks or so, he was tired of seeing the same gold records on the walls, the same platinum awards, the same names and faces. It would have been nice to stay in the room with Annie because hers was the only face he didn’t get tired of. Ever. He’d have to deal without saying anything though; he was a hard, determined worker, and he wasn’t about to let anything get in the way of this album. It would do wonders for Drawing Blanks, he had no doubt; it was just getting the whole process done and over with that was the hard part. Thankfully, the producers had stepped out of the room for lunch; Denny was left to his little devices and words that Annie had written down for him. Well, not necessarily just for him, but they were right there, open and ready for him to interpret musically. And there Denny was, alone with just a few pieces of equipment, working because it was the only thing that didn’t remind him of his wife being miles away from him (it seemed).

1,301 words -- lily/chey (: -- um lyrics to ellie goulding everything else to me -- denny's wearing you know a grey shirt, jeans, and those little black shoes blake wears all the time -- oh hai this is gonna be megafun!