Chaos

by Jamie Shaw

  Six years ago, I might have fallen for a line as simple as that. Now? I shift toward him to show him just how unfazed I am. “Then why do you keep giving me so much shit?”

  He looks more than a little uncomfortable as he scratches the hair at the base of his scalp. “I don’t know . . . ”

  He doesn’t know? Doesn’t know?

  All the insults I’d lost come back in such a rush, I’m not sure which to settle on. Fuck off. Get bent. Kiss my ass.

  “I didn’t trust you,” Shawn adds, and my eyebrows slam together.

  “You didn’t trust me?”

  “I thought maybe . . . ” He shakes his head and stares down at the console between us. “I’m not sure what I thought.”

  I’m so angry, the hair on my arms is standing up. “What, because I’m a girl or something?”

  Dee thought I was a groupie when she opened the door of Mayhem before my audition, and I guess Shawn did too. And why, just because I’m hot? Just because I have boobs and a fucking vagina? His eyes flash back up to mine.

  “Huh?” His head starts shaking back and forth, the crease between his eyebrows digging deeper and deeper. “What? No!”

  “Then why, Shawn?”

  He stares at me for a long moment, but my gaze is as hard as his is soft. Finally, he nods and says, “Yeah, fine . . . It was because you’re a girl, okay . . . but I said I’m sorry.”

  “It’s about time,” I mutter under my breath.

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing.” My teeth snap back together after I bark at him like a temperamental pit bull. “Why are you still here?”

  Adam pokes his head out of the garage, takes one look at Shawn and me sitting in my Jeep, and disappears back inside. The chilled April air is wrapping itself around me, sending a trickle of goose bumps up the back of my neck, but even though I have a hoodie in the back, I’d sooner freeze to death than get it. As far as Shawn needs to know, I’m indestructible. Impenetrable. Even the cold can’t touch me.

  “Look,” he says, immune to the cold in his black T-shirt and jeans, “I said I’m sorry, and I meant it. You were off your marks today, but I was a jerk.”

  I cross my arms tightly over my chest. “I was off because Joel—”

  “Joel just got dumped by his girlfriend,” Shawn interrupts. “And he’s spent the last week and a half putting himself through hell because he doesn’t know how to handle having his heart broken like that.”

  The explanation hits so close to home, I immediately feel like a bitch for lashing out at Joel in the garage. The guy looks like a mess because he probably is a mess. But at least he’s up and dressed and attempting to function, which is more than I would have been able to say for myself six years ago . . . “I didn’t know—”

  “It’s fine,” Shawn insists, his expression full of as much regret as mine. “We should’ve given you a heads-up or something. You’re one of us now.”

  Another grass-scented breeze lifts my hair away from my pierced right ear, and I slide a hand up my neck to warm the cold metal. “One of you?”

  Shawn’s gaze tracks my hand before slowly swinging to meet my eyes. “Unless you still want out . . . ”

  “DID YOU KISS and make up?” Adam teases as soon as we reenter the warmth of Mike’s garage. All six foot three of him is sprawled out on the dusty garage floor, like he was going to literally pass away from boredom if we took even two seconds longer before coming back inside.

  Shawn helps him up—and then knocks him a step back with a hard punch to the arm. Which is good, considering I’m too busy blushing fire-engine red to form a snarky reply.

  “Shut the hell up,” Shawn scolds while Adam laughs and rubs his arm. Mike chuckles at them while I turn to Joel.

  “Hey . . . I’m sorry for being such a bitch.”

  He gives me a small shake of his head, his sad blue eyes making me feel even worse than I already did. “Don’t be.”

  I frown at him, but he simply replies with a weak smile and tosses me my guitar pick. I catch it and, knowing he doesn’t want to talk about it, turn to Adam and Mike next. “Sorry I acted like such a girl.”

  “You?” Adam says while he continues rubbing his bruised arm. “Shawn was the one whining all morning.”

  He smiles and jumps away from the look Shawn gives him, and Mike interrupts the impending violence to ask if we can get started.

  Shawn is already strapping his guitar back around his neck, but I don’t bother following his lead. Instead, I shake my head. “I don’t learn like this. I can write songs like this, but I can’t learn them without seeing them written first. And I’m guessing none of you write music—”

  “I can,” Adam offers, stepping into the open doorway of the garage and lighting a cigarette.

  His back is to us when I say, “You can?”

  “I got the same degree you said you were going to school for. So yeah.” He turns around and blows smoke out of the side of his mouth so that it doesn’t drift inside. “And Shawn can help you practice. Which we can do at our place.”

  Our place? He told me earlier that he and Shawn are roomies, so . . . Shawn’s place?

  My voice almost squeaks when I say, “Your place?”

  “Yeah,” Adam answers, oblivious to the frantic beats my heart is skipping. He looks around the room at Joel, at Mike, at Shawn. “Who’s coming?”

  THE ENTIRE WAY to Adam and Shawn’s apartment, it’s easier to pretend I’m just on a casual drive. Just driving for no reason to no place in particular—definitely not to Shawn Scarlett’s apartment six years after I let him inside me and never heard from him again.

  The drive is too short, the parking lot is too empty, and even though my legs feel like soggy noodles, they carry me from my Jeep way too quickly.

  The sound of my boots echoes off the floor in the arched-ceilinged lobby of his apartment building, and the entire elevator ride up to the fourth floor, all I can think is, God, how many girls must Shawn have brought back here? What kinds of things has he done in this elevator? How many groupies since he decided I wasn’t special enough to remember?

  When I enter apartment 4E, I almost expect to see panties hanging off of lampshades and a pile of naked girls passed out on the couch. Instead, I find Adam’s girlfriend, Rowan, doing homework at a breakfast bar with a half-empty mocha and a can of whipped cream on the counter in front of her.

  The walls are a pale gray except for a spot where someone has written in bright blue marker, DON’T COLOR ON THE WALLS! Guitar stands with Fenders line one side of the living room, stretching all the way to a massive entertainment system that screams “rock star bachelor pad.”

  “It needs to be tuned,” Shawn says when he catches me running my fingers across the head of one of his Telecasters. Thinline. Three-color sunburst. Stunning.

  I pull my hand away.

  “Sorry,” I say as he studies me. “I have one of these on my wish list . . . ”

  “You have a wish list?”

  “Like twenty guitars long,” I explain. “But I’d have to sell my right arm to afford most of them.” I wiggle my fingers in the air. “And then what would be the point?”

  The look on Shawn’s face transforms into a wide smile, and I’m about to smile back at him, when kissy noises interrupt us from across the room. Adam has his arms wrapped around Rowan’s shoulders, and he’s smothering her with sloppy kisses while she laughs and wriggles all over her stool. She threatens to squirt him with whipped cream, he makes a sound that says he’d like that, and Shawn and I swap uncomfortable glances before moving to the couch and recliner at the far side of the room.

  With Adam distracted, it’s just the two of us. Mike opted to stay back at his place, and Joel took off in a beater Oldsmobile as soon as we got back, which sentenced me to the most awkward non-date ever.

  “Is he actually going to get any work done?” I ask just for the sake of saying something, and Shawn casts Adam another look before rolling his eyes at the kissy sounds coming f
rom that side of the room.

  “When he feels like it, maybe. It’d be faster if we just did it ourselves. If I play it, can you write it?”

  I nod, and Shawn disappears into a room off the living room, leaving me with nothing to do except twiddle my thumbs and pretend not to hear the noises coming from the breakfast bar. If those two start going at it, I swear to God—

  A gorgeous acoustic Fender exits Shawn’s room, and I forget all about everything that isn’t the beautiful black instrument in his hands. It’s vintage, and probably worth more than my Jeep, all smooth lines and polished wood.

  “That guitar is beautiful,” I breathe, the awe in my voice making Shawn smile as he sits down and props it on his lap. My fingertips long to feel the hum of the strings, and I rub my hands over my knees to distract my anxious fingers.

  “It’s a ’54. Bought it at a thrift store.”

  That guitar belongs in a museum. Or in my lap. Not in a hand-me-down thrift store. “How good of friends would we have to be for you to let me play it?”

  Shawn smirks as he tunes the strings. “I’ve never even let Adam play this guitar.”

  Judging by the way Adam haphazardly swung his mic around during practice this morning, I’m guessing that’s been a good call. “What would I have to do for you? To get you to let me play it?”

  There are moments in life—moments when your foot defies all rules of physics and manages to implant itself wholly and completely in your mouth. When Shawn looks at me like I just offered to put his dick in my mouth instead of my own foot—like he’s surprised I’d be so forward—I realize this is one of those moments.

  “That . . . that did not come out right.”

  My cheeks are stained red—I can tell, because my whole face is one giant freaking raging bonfire—and Shawn is graceful enough to not say a word . . . which triggers my say-exactly-what’s-on-my-mind disorder and leads to an epic fucking disaster.

  “I wasn’t offering to give you a blowjob or anything.”

  Shawn’s eyes dart back up to mine, and now both of us are just sitting there looking absolutely mortified.

  “I mean, when I asked what I could do for you . . . I didn’t mean I’d do anything, not like . . . that . . . I just”—I lift my hands and bury them in my hair—“keep talking. I just keep talking.”

  Shawn stares at me for a moment—like I just escaped from a mental ward—and I stare back at him—like he’s right. And then, his face softens and he lets out a chuckle that breaks the awkward silence between us.

  “God,” I say after a chuckle bursts free of me too. Did I seriously just say the word blowjob? To Shawn?

  Yes, I seriously just talked about giving Shawn Scarlett a blowjob. To Shawn Scarlett.

  “Are you nervous or something?” he asks with an amused smile on his face.

  “Why would I be nervous?” I untangle my fingers from my hair and curl them around my knees to stop myself from fidgeting.

  “Because I’m insanely talented?” He gives me a smirk that makes me want to start talking about blowjobs again, or kissing at the very least, because God knows I’m thinking about it. Instead, I manage to smirk right back at him.

  “You only think you’re talented because you haven’t heard me play that guitar yet.”

  “You haven’t put a good trade on the table yet,” he challenges with a suggestive smile.

  My heartbeat kicks up a gear, his smile widens, and I realize belatedly that we are flirting.

  In an instant, I wipe the smile from my face and clear my throat. “Do you have something for me to write with?”

  Shawn’s smile slowly fades into nothing but a curious spark that glints in his eye, and he goes back to tuning his guitar. “Yeah . . . I’ll get Peach to get you something in a minute.”

  I sit farther back against the couch to put a few extra inches of distance between us, resisting the pull he still has over me. I didn’t expect it to be this strong—not after this long, not after what he did to me.

  It’s like the best and worst form of nostalgia. It feels like being a teenager. Like feeling my heart beat for the first time.

  Like being in love.

  “Peach,” Shawn shouts when he’s almost finished tuning his guitar. “Can we have some paper and something to write with?”

  He roots a guitar pick from his pocket, and Rowan escapes Adam by hopping off of her stool with a handful of papers and a pencil. She sets them on the coffee table in front of me and plops down on the cushion at my side as Adam resigns himself to rooting through the fridge.

  “What are you guys doing?”

  I gather up the papers and pencil while Shawn answers for both of us. “Kit needs to write out the music.”

  “Just the old songs,” I correct, clarity finally reentering my cloudy head. Not being alone with Shawn means I can finally think again, can finally breathe again. “If I write my parts myself, I’ll have them memorized, but if I’m trying to memorize someone else’s—”

  “Here,” Adam interrupts, handing me a beer before setting another on the table for Shawn and collapsing into the armchair across from him.

  Good. Shawn and me plus two extra people. A group. I can deal with a group. Groups are good.

  “Oh,” Rowan answers, looking around like she’s just beginning to come out of her homework-induced stupor. Her blonde hair is up in a messy bun, and even though I don’t remember her wearing glasses the last time I saw her, they’re sliding down her nose today. “Hey, where’s Joel? Didn’t he make it to practice?”

  Adam and Shawn explain that he took off as soon as we got back, but I zone out, mesmerized as I watch as Shawn’s fingers continue working their magic. I’ve never gotten to admire his hands this closely before, so even though I know I shouldn’t, I lose myself in the way they move, the way they fine-tune the guitar like it’s an extension of his own body. They twist a spell into the pegs, bringing the ancient instrument back to life.

  “Ready?” he asks, and I jab the point of my pencil against the paper to pretend like I was paying attention. To the paper. Not to his hands. Definitely not to his hands.

  I nod.

  Shawn plays slowly enough for me to watch his strings and hear each one, naming the chords as he plays them, and eventually, Rowan and Adam leave us alone in the living room. But I’m too distracted to mind—by the sounds coming from the beautiful Fender, by the notes born of Shawn’s trained fingers.

  “Would you mind if I made some changes?” I ask when we get to a song that doesn’t sound quite as magical as the others.

  “You don’t like that one?” he asks.

  “It’s not bad . . . ” I’m hesitant to say more, but Shawn just grins.

  “Cody wrote that one. It sounds like shit to me too. What do you have in mind?”

  “Not sure yet.” I tap my pencil against my lips. Notes are running through my head, but I can’t pick out the right one until I hear them first. I need my guitar, and I stand up to get it, but I don’t get even half a step away from the couch before Shawn thrusts out the neck of his Fender, like . . .

  “Are you letting me play your guitar . . . ?” I ask.

  His fingers dance on the neck like he’s not sure, and they’re still dancing when he nods. “Maybe. I haven’t decided yet.”

  I reach out and gently take it from him before he can change his mind, settling back on the couch and taking a deep breath. Shawn watches me like I’m cradling his firstborn child, and I treasure the guitar like I am. I hold it softly, and strum my first string carefully. And then, with green eyes on me, I close my eyes and just play. I let the music consume me, carrying me to someplace outside Shawn’s apartment, outside myself. I try riff after riff, tweaking the notes as I go until I find something that feels right, something that feels perfect.

  “Here,” I say, abruptly thrusting Shawn’s guitar back at him. I rush to get mine and then order him to play lead. He plays his part, I play mine, and together, we’re flawless. The sound is amazing, and
by the time I stop playing, I’m sporting an ear-to-ear smile on my face. “Magic.”

  “Perfect,” he agrees, staring at me like I’m the one who’s magic and not the other way around.

  It’s a look that makes me nervous, so I do what I always do when I’m uncomfortable—I forget how to be a girl, and I become one of the guys instead. “Still think you’re so awesome?” I challenge.

  When Shawn laughs, I enjoy the sound too much to care about the way my cheeks are melting off or the way my heart is pounding behind my ribs. We continue going like that, song after song, until it’s just Shawn playing and me listening. I want to close my eyes, but I can’t—partly because Shawn might think it’s weird, and partly because I can’t stop staring at him. It feels like he doesn’t even know I’m here, and yet somehow is playing just for me. The songs become my songs, my serenades. I watch him unabashed, the papers on my lap long forgotten by both of us, and even when his eyes periodically find mine, I don’t look away.

  My fingers yearn to touch something—maybe his guitar . . . maybe his hands . . . maybe his lips.

  “I’m still working on it,” he says of the song he’s currently playing, his words slowing when we both realize I’m watching each one come out of his mouth.

  “Awesome,” I say in a rush, standing up so quickly that half of the papers on my lap end up spilling onto the floor. “Shit.”

  Shawn and I knock knees bending down to pick them up, get awkward when we make eye contact on the floor, and nearly jump out of our skin when Rowan pops up out of nowhere to ask if I’d like to stay for dinner.

  “I, er—” I’m trying to get my wobbly knees to work and am bumbling like an idiot while Shawn stands beside me watching me go up in flames. I know why the hell I’m dropping papers and bumping knees, but what the heck is his excuse?

  “Sweet,” Rowan says with a bright smile. “I’m making, um . . . ADAM!”

  “What?” he yells from somewhere down the hall.

  Shawn’s hand finds mine to give me the rest of the papers I dropped, and I nearly drop them all over again. I don’t thank him, because my voice isn’t working. I can’t even make freaking eye contact.