by Jamie Shaw
Come over after school.
Why?
Do I need a reason?
Actually, now you need 10 or I’m not coming over.
I smile wide when the texts start coming through one at a time.
1. I miss your hot body.
2. I miss your hot face.
3. I want to see what you’re wearing.
4. I’m bored and hungry so we should go eat.
5. Adam is busy writing and won’t let me help.
6. Shawn won’t let me borrow his car b/c he’s lame.
7. Have I mentioned you’re hot?
8. You’re smiling right now.
9. I care about you. ;)
When a shadow falls over me, I look up into the scowling face of an angry Mrs. Doubtfire. “Didn’t you see the sign?”
Of course I saw the sign. The stupid one about turning your phone off in the building. The one no one pays attention to. “What sign?”
“You need to turn your phone off,” she orders.
I turn it on silent and shove it back in my purse, killing her with an oversweet smile. My name is called a few minutes later and I’m taken to a patient room where a rookie doctor buys my sob story. He writes me a note—and a prescription, which I toss into the trash on my way out—and then I’m walking to my car and rooting my phone back out of my purse.
10. I have a surprise for you.
Oh, that boy likes to play dirty.
What kind of surprise?
The kind you’ll need to come here to get.
When I find myself glaring and smiling at the same time, I growl at my phone and bury it back in my purse. Twenty minutes later, my car is parked in front of Adam’s apartment building and my heels are clicking down the fourth-floor hall.
I knock on the door to apartment 4E and immediately hear Rowan yell, “NO! You stay in the kitchen!” A few seconds later, she swings the door open, her face twisted with exasperation. I reach forward to wipe a smudge of flour off her nose before following her into the living room.
Adam is sitting at the breakfast bar, his foot swinging back and forth as he picks a cluster of chocolate chips out of a glass bowl and tilts his head back to eat them. Rowan launches forward and captures his wrist before he can, dragging his hand back over the bowl and smacking at it until he drops the chips back in with the rest.
Shawn, leaning against a kitchen wall, laughs and reaches his hand into the bag of chocolate chips he’s holding, tossing a whopping handful into his mouth.
“How come he gets to eat them?” Adam whines as he eyes Shawn.
“Because he went to the store and bought extra,” Rowan answers. On the kitchen side of the breakfast bar, she sidles up next to Joel, who is smiling at me like he has a secret he can barely contain.
“Share with me,” Adam orders Shawn, and Shawn pops another choking-hazard-sized handful into his mouth before directing a shit-eating grin at Adam.
“Share with yourself,” he teases with his mouth full.
“Shawn,” Rowan barks, “give Adam some damn chocolate or I’m going to beat you with a wooden spoon.” She waves her weapon of choice at him. “And you know I will!”
Shawn and Adam both laugh, and Shawn sets a single chocolate chip on the counter in front of Adam. Adam glares at it and then at Shawn before popping it in his mouth.
“Cookies?” I ask, hoisting myself up onto the stool next to Adam.
“Joel wouldn’t stop whining about how bored he was and how much he wanted them,” Rowan explains, “so he’s going to learn how to make them.”
“I changed my mind . . .” Joel says, dipping his finger into the cookie batter.
“YOU’RE GOING TO LEARN,” Rowan barks, and I bite back a laugh. I know that living with three guys grinds on her nerves sometimes, but today they must have really sent her overboard.
“You realize you guys are rock stars, right?” I swing my gaze between the three of them. Sometimes, it’s hard to reconcile the performers I’ve watched command the stage with the guys who hang around doing Disney-appropriate things like baking chocolate-chip cookies.
They stare back at me like it just occurred to them, and Joel smiles wide. “She’s right. I’m too cool for this shit.”
Rowan whacks him on the arm with the wooden spoon, and Joel yelps and resumes stirring the cookie batter.
Trying not to laugh, I say, “Is this my surprise?”
Joel’s blue eyes swing to mine, his expression bright with excitement. “Come on, Peach,” he begs, “I need to give her the surprise!”
Rowan sighs and dismisses him with a wave of her hand before pulling out a roll of parchment paper. “Whatever. Go, but I’m not giving you any cookies.”
Joel’s face falls in a pout. “Seriously?”
“Fine,” Rowan growls, “you can have some. Just go before I stick my head in the oven.”
Adam and Shawn chuckle, and Joel swoops down to plant a kiss on my best friend’s cheek. “Love you, Peach!”
He breezes past me into the living room, and I hop off of my stool to join Rowan on the other side of the counter. She lines the pan while I start rolling the cookie dough into balls. We’ve fallen into a wordless rhythm when Joel finishes rooting something out of a backpack by the couch. He stands next to Adam and smiles at me, holding something behind his back.
“You ready?”
“This had better be the best surprise ever,” I warn. He’s built this up to epic proportions.
“Remember how you said you wanted to go to ManiFest?”
“You didn’t . . .” I say. My hands stop balling the dough as I gape at him. ManiFest is a huge music festival that’s held each year, but the where and when is as unpredictable as the entertainers who perform. A few weeks ago, the festival was announced, but tickets sold out within twenty-four hours.
Joel sweeps his hand out from behind his back in a dramatic gesture, and I stare at the tickets in his hand.
“Oh my God!” I squeal, grabbing his hand over the bar and pulling it close to my face. Six tickets. Six freaking tickets to a sold-out freaking show! “Oh my GOD!”
I’m frozen, and Joel says, “What? I don’t even get a kiss?”
I rush around the bar and launch myself into his arms. “How did you get them?”
He squeezes me tight and sets me back on my feet, smiling like I just gave him the surprise instead of the other way around. “We have a ton of friends performing.”
Adam and Shawn start rattling off the names of bands they know, and I just stare at the tickets while feeling overwhelmed and kind of nauseous.
“I don’t think I can go,” I mutter.
“What?!” Joel says. “Next week is Spring Break! Why can’t you go?”
I know he’s doing this to prove he cares about me. If I accept it, what will that mean? “I have a project.”
“Since when do you care about projects?” Rowan asks, her brow furrowed with suspicion.
“Since I promised my dad I’d pull my grades up.” I do have a project, and I did make a promise.
Shawn pushes off the wall and hands Adam the bag of chocolate chips. “What kind of project?”
“For my marketing class,” I explain. “I have to find a local company and come up with some advertising materials for them, and then research how the materials affect the business. It’s a semester-long project and our proposal was due last week, but I never turned mine in.” I avoid Rowan’s frown. I had promised her I’d do it last weekend, but . . . things came up. “It’s worth most of our grade,” I finish.
There’s a long moment of silence, and then Adam pipes in with his mouth full of chocolate chips, “What about a band?”
“Huh?”
“What about doing the project for a band instead of a company?” His chocolate chips struggle to get down his throat, and he seems cautious when he adds, “We need to find a new guitarist . . .”
Right. Because I ruined things with the last one.
Resisting the guilt wr
apping its icy fingers around my throat, I say, “Why not just bring Cody back?”
All three guys stare at me like I just suggested we lick cookie dough off the floor.
The clang of the oven slamming startles me, and Rowan whirls around with an exaggerated smile on her face. She wipes her hands on her jeans and says, “I think doing a band project sounds like a great idea. You could come up with flyers and advertise online and stuff. And researching how well it works would be simple, because if they find a guitarist, it worked.” The corners of her mouth tip up in a triumph, and I begin envisioning the flyers in my head.
“I could advertise at the festival,” I muse. This project would be easy, and it’s the least I could do for the guys after what they did for me.
“So you’re coming?” Joel asks, spinning me around by my shoulders to give me a hopeful smile that’s impossible to resist.
I pluck a ticket from his hand, steal Adam’s chocolate chips, and plop down on the couch to write an overdue proposal.
Chapter Ten
THE WEEK BEFORE the festival passes in a blur of quitting my job, attending classes, getting the guys to finally fix my door, and dreaming of Cody. Every night since Saturday—with the exception of the one night I dreamt of my mom—I’ve woken in a cold sweat with Cody’s face fading from the backs of my eyelids. He always looks at me like he wants to eat me alive, telling me how hot I am and how much he wants me. Each morning when I’ve gotten ready for school, I’ve been tempted to wear yoga pants and hoodies—baggy clothes to hide my curves and prevent anyone from getting the wrong idea.
So instead, I’ve worn my shortest skirts, my highest heels, and my fiercest smile. I refuse to let him make me hide, even if my clothes are fitting looser against my frame because I can’t eat, can’t sleep, and feel smaller than I am. The fading bruises on my wrists are a constant reminder that he was more than just a nightmare, and I’ve decorated them with bracelets and bangles and cute fingerless gloves. Every day, I’ve treated life like a runway, strutting with a confidence I hope to someday feel again.
On Friday, I’m standing with Rowan in the only private room of the band’s tour bus staring down at the clothes she’s dressed me in. The oversized purple tank top, I can deal with. The cut-off jean shorts, those are okay too. But the black-and-white Chuck Taylors on my feet? “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Rowan giggles. We’re parked at the music festival, preparing for our first day of shows and general mayhem, and she’s enjoying this way too much. Normally, I’m the one dressing her, not the other way around.
She’s made me into her personal scene-kid Barbie.
This has got to be what hell feels like.
“Do I need to put my hair up into a messy bun, too?” I scoff, wiggling my toes in the world’s flattest shoes. They might be cute if they had a wedge heel or something, but the guys insisted that if I didn’t wear flats, my feet would fall off—which led to a long, disturbing conversation about amputation that I’ll probably have nightmares about for weeks to come.
“Actually, you probably should,” Rowan says, offering me a hair tie. “It’s hot as hell out there.”
I point a manicured fingernail at her like I’m warding off the hounds of hell. Even though we’re in the middle of some ungodly hot, middle-of-March heat-wave in crocodile-country Georgia, I have no intention of rocking Rowan’s college-bum hairstyle. “No freaking way. If I’m going to wear these grungy shoes, I’m at least keeping my hair down.”
A few hours later, my chocolate locks are melted against the back of my neck and my feet are dragging as I walk with my best friend and four sizzling-hot rock stars along a row of tents. When the guys emphasized that the festival was ‘down South’ and that it was going to be ‘warm’, I had no idea it would feel like sunbathing on the equator. Distant music drifts to my sweat-sprinkled ears from the area where the stages are, but right now we’re searching for food. “Can I borrow your hair tie?” I beg Rowan. “Just for like . . . an hour.”
She shakes her head. “I told you to wear one. You should’ve brought one along.”
I throw both arms in the air. “And put it where? I’m wearing like fifty billion wristbands!” I’ve purchased one at almost every band merchandise tent we’ve stopped at because they cover my faded bruises, help me fit in, and are way cuter than I’d ever willingly admit.
Without warning, Joel steps in front of me and scoops me over his good shoulder. His other is still healing, but the stitches in his knuckles were removed yesterday, so he’s looking like less of a mess. “There,” he says while I hang upside down like a soggy noodle, “now your hair is off your neck and your feet don’t hurt. Stop whining.”
Adam, Shawn, and Mike all laugh, but I’m too busy enjoying the reprieve from walking to mind. “Thank God.”
Joel chuckles and carries me all the way to the barbecue pit, where he sets me back on my feet and we all get in line. I insist I don’t want anything, but Joel orders a sandwich for me anyway, and the band covers the tab before we commandeer a long picnic table.
Today, I taped neon-green flyers everywhere. Between the handouts and the ads I posted online, I’m hoping we’ll have a good turnout for auditions next weekend. I’m taking this project and my debt to the band as seriously as I’ve ever taken anything—I’m going to sit in on auditions and make sure to see this through. The sooner Cody is replaced, the sooner I can feel like he’s not missing, like he’s not going to pop back up and finish what he started.
“So are you having fun?” Adam asks Rowan and me as he puffs on a freshly lit cigarette, and I pull a smile back onto my face as I watch his free hand distractedly tug strands of hair from Rowan’s messy bun.
“Aside from the stalking, yeah,” she grumbles, batting Adam’s hand away while I chuckle. At home, most people are used to having the guys around. Fans ask for pictures and try to hang out, but they usually don’t lose their minds or do weird things like follow us around. Here, the guys are one of the smaller bands, but there have been a few diehard fans who have been hard to get rid of, including one weird little girl wearing a The Last Ones to Know T-shirt who screamed so loudly I thought she was going to pass out.
Adam smiles and leans in to kiss the corner of Rowan’s mouth, slow in a way that makes my cheeks just as red as it makes hers. I look away and add, “I just wish we knew where and when all the bands are playing.”
ManiFest is like Mayhem in that it’s organized chaos. Part of the gimmick is that they don’t reveal the performance schedule ahead of time. The philosophy is that attendees should pick stages at random and experience new music and become fans of new bands—which is awesome up until you miss your favorite band because you had no clue where or when they’d be performing.
“What band do you want to see?” Joel asks, gazing over at me from behind black shades. He’s dressed in long black jean shorts and a royal-blue tank top with extra long armholes. It hangs loosely over his fit body, revealing the tattooed script running down his side and making him look deliciously rocker. Even girls who had no idea he’s a rock star have stared at him like he’s a rock star, and I’ve pretended not to notice.
“Cutting the Line,” I say without needing to think about it, “and maybe the Lost Keys.” Both bands are huge right now—so huge that I’d recognize most of the members if I saw them walking around. I’ve kept an eye out, but so far, no luck.
“Alright,” Joel says, pulling out his phone, “I have Phil’s number. Who has Van’s?”
My eyes widen when I realize he’s in the process of texting one of the guitarists of the Lost Keys and has just asked the guys who has the number for the lead singer of Cutting the Line. Van Erickson is a God right now, and Cutting the Line is the main reason I wanted to come to the festival.
“Are you serious?” I breathe.
Joel’s black sunglasses are staring down at his phone, but the corner of his lips tugs into an amused smirk.
“I have Van’s,” Adam says, already tex
ting a message.
Rowan and I share a look, and a minute later, Joel tells me where and when the Lost Keys are performing and Adam tells us where and when Cutting the Line is set to play.
“I can’t believe you know them,” I say, too stunned to bother eating the pulled-pork sandwich on the slip of foil in front of me. Joel lifts his up and takes a big bite.
“We opened for the Lost Keys a few times last summer,” Shawn explains from down the table. “And Cutting the Line came to one of our shows out near where they live.”
I’m still gaping when Adam blows a string of smoke downwind from Rowan and says, “They’ll all be at the bonfire tonight.”
Our bus is parked in the designated campsite for the headlining bands since the guys were given special permission to park there. The organizers of the festival did the guys the favor since they want them to perform next year, and I was reminded once again that no matter how well I get to know Joel, Adam, Shawn, and Mike, they’re are all freaking rock stars. One day, they might even be as big as Van Erickson.
After lunch, we all part ways—Ro and Adam go back to the bus to, I assume, screw each other’s brains out; Shawn and Mike head to the main offices to thank the organizers for the parking spot; and Joel volunteers to take me wherever I want to go.
With the sun casting pink ribbons all around us, I point to a random stage area. “That one’s huge. I bet a big band is playing there.”
Joel follows my finger and smiles. His shades are hanging from the loose neck of his tank, his skin absorbing a golden tan despite the sunscreen we’ve kept applying. “Sometimes they put small bands on big stages to throw people off.”
“Only one way to find out!” I tug him deep into the crowd, weaving through the growing crush of bodies until we’re snug in the middle of it. Between the all-nighters I’ve spent trying to pull my grades up and the nightmares I’ve had almost every night about Cody, this week has been a haze of sleep deprivation. My body is running on caffeine and manic excitement, and I plan to ride the wave until it crashes.
“Have you ever been right in the pit before?” Joel asks, gazing around us like we’re swimming in a fishbowl of piranhas. “I could see who’s playing and see if we could go in the cage . . .”