by Jamie Shaw
Each stage is surrounded by a chainlink fence, and while it would be awesome to be that close, I’m excited about getting the full experience. A beach ball floats down from the sky, and my hands reach up with dozens of others to bat it back into the air. “No way. This is going to be awesome.”
“If anyone tries to pick you up in the air,” Joel warns, “kick them in the nuts, okay?”
I laugh. “But crowd surfing looks so fun!”
He shakes his head and shifts me in front of him, locking his arms around my shoulders. “The guys in this crowd would eat you alive . . .” His arms hug me tighter. “And I really don’t want to have to go to jail tonight.”
My giggle is drowned out by the collective scream of the crowd when the banner at the back of the stage unrolls to reveal the name of a huge, hardcore rock band. Joel’s arms unwrap from around me so we can both throw our hands into the air and cheer along with everyone else, and a second later, the band comes out and people lose their damn minds. The pushing begins even before the music does, and Joel and I surge toward the stage along with hundreds of other people. The music starts, blaring from stacks of speakers bigger than I am, and I’m laughing but can’t even hear the sound. I jump in time with everyone around me, singing familiar lyrics at the top of my lungs but hearing only the collective voice of the crowd and the roar of the lead singer onstage.
Crashing waves of people knock me from side to side and forward and back with each and every jump I take, but Joel manages to stay fixed at my back. His strong hands periodically wrap around my waist to steady me or tug me this way or that while I lose myself in the music, the jumping, the crush of everyone around me. I’m part of a living, breathing ocean, surfing waves that flood my body with chemicals that make me feel like I could sing at the top of my lungs every second of every day for the rest of my entire life.
By the time the band finishes its set, my throat is raw and my muscles are spent. Joel takes my hand and leads me out of the dispersing crowd, and once I have the room, I launch myself onto his back. With my arms wrapped tightly around his neck, I press my face against his shoulder and smile against his fire-hot skin.
“Joel?” I say as he hoists me up and carries me through the shallow pools of people that the performance left in its wake.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.” I squeeze him tighter, earning envious stares from every girl who had her eyes on him.
“For what?” he asks.
For everything. For the tickets, for the fun, for making me forget real life for a few hours. For catching me when I need to be caught and carrying me when I need to be carried. “For today.”
He glances over his shoulder at me, and I resist the urge to kiss him.
Smiling, he says, “I think the sun is getting to you.”
He walks me to the outskirts of the festival and drops me in the shade of a big oak tree, and we sprawl out next to each other on the dry grass, listening to the distant sounds of music being carried on the wind.
“What’s it like?” I ask, focusing on the leaves rustling in the branches above us. A kaleidoscope of green and yellow shifts in the canopy, dropping patterns of light and shadow all over our skin.
“What’s what like?”
“Being onstage. Performing in front of all those people.” When I glance over at him, Joel is staring up toward the sky, his face bathed in a glowing patch of sunlight. His blond mohawk cuts a line into the grass, his skin still flushed from the heat and exertion.
He takes a moment, and then his voice drifts toward the leaves. “Have you ever done something, and in that moment, you know you’re doing exactly what you’re meant to be doing?”
He says it with a surety I’ve never felt before, and in that moment, I ache for it. “Not really.”
“When we go onstage,” he continues, “and the kids sing our songs back to us . . . that’s what it’s like. That’s when I know I’m doing exactly what I was put on this Earth to do, because there’s no better feeling than that.”
I close my eyes, wishing for that kind of moment, wondering how it would feel, and doubting I’ll ever know. Rowan, my dad, guidance counselors, my academic advisor—they’ve all tried to help me discover what I want to do with my life, but maybe there’s nothing to find.
“Sorry,” Joel says after a while, “that was corny as shit. Adam can probably explain it better.”
My eyes are still closed when I shake my head. “That was perfect.”
When I sense him shift beside me, my eyes open and I find him propped on his elbow next to me. My gaze drifts to his lips, and mine begin to tingle with memories: him, kissing me inside Mayhem, outside Mayhem, in my car, on a truck, in a hallway.
He hasn’t made a move on me since Monday, and even though I’ve loved hanging out with him, I miss when we couldn’t be together for more than an hour or two before sneaking off somewhere to fool around. Now, it’s like the heat between us is gone, and all that’s left is his friendly smile and adorable laugh, which should be enough but isn’t.
I want to ask him why he isn’t kissing me, why he’s just hovering over me with his gorgeous lips and beautiful eyes, but then those lips open and he says, “Have you ever performed in front of a crowd before?”
“I had a few dance recitals,” I reluctantly answer, looking back to the leaves above us while remembering my dad with a video camera in his hand and my mom with a proud smile on her face. I only ever saw those smiles when I was dressed up like a plastic doll for recitals or parties or pictures. I never realized I was just a plaything to her until the year that she outgrew me.
“You dance?” Joel asks, and I shove my emotions back into the catacombs of my heart.
“Used to.”
“Why’d you stop?”
When my mom left, I grew to hate everything that reminded me of her. To this day, I still can’t stand the smell of coconut perfume or the taste of lemon meringue pie. She’s the reason I haven’t danced ballet since I was eleven years old, the reason I can’t bring myself to wear ballet flats even when they’re the height of college-girl fashion.
“Just grew out of it,” I say, rising to my feet to escape further interrogation. “You ready to head back to the bus?”
Joel doesn’t move to stand. Instead, his blue eyes track me from where he’s lying in the grass and he says, “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Shut me down every time I ask you something personal.”
“I don’t know anything personal about you,” I argue, citing it as evidence that it’s better this way. Instead, he takes it as a challenge.
“I used to draw,” he offers, and a line forms in my forehead.
“Huh?”
“I used to draw.” He pushes off the ground and rises to his feet, wiping the grass from his shorts. “Not many people know that about me. I used to paint a little too, but not as much. Music classes and art classes were pretty much the only reasons I stayed in school.”
“Why’d you quit doing it if you loved it so much?”
He straightens and says, “I’ll tell you if you tell me.”
After a moment, I offer a trade. “Tell me and draw me something, and we’ll call it a deal.”
Joel assesses me for a moment, and then he counters with, “When’s your birthday?”
“May thirtieth.”
“I’ll draw you something for your birthday. How’s that?”
I don’t know why I want him to draw me something, but I do. I want him to draw me something meant just for me, something I can keep. “Promise,” I demand, and he doesn’t hesitate.
“I promise.” The sincerity in his blue eyes tells me he means it.
“You first then,” I say.
“I quit because it just stopped mattering so much.”
“Why?”
He shrugs. “I used to draw mostly when I was alone, and I’m never alone anymore.”
I stare at him for a long moment before sighing and knowing
it’s my turn. “I quit dancing because it was my mom’s dream, not mine.”
It’s not the entire truth, but it’s the closest I’ve ever told anyone.
Chapter Eleven
“I’M JUST SAYING we should look at the evidence,” Rowan says as I toss clothes from my suitcase in a tornado of not-skirts and not-dresses. There’s a festival’s worth of rock stars outside—including one in particular who seems dead set on not noticing how hot I still am—and I’m stuck on the bus with a consignment shop wardrobe and a fashion-challenged best friend.
“I’m never going to forgive you,” I complain, cursing myself for letting her pack for me.
Ignoring me as if I said nothing at all, she begins counting on her fingers. “One, Joel got you these tickets.”
“I mean, what the hell is this?” I hold up an oversized T-shirt that looks like it could swallow me whole. “Do I look like I weigh five hundred pounds?”
“Two, he fixed your door.”
“And this!” I present a pair of ridiculously long shorts. “Even if I was a forty-year-old mother of five, I still wouldn’t be caught dead in these.”
“Three, he spent all day following you around.”
“I should just go to this party naked,” I grumble.
“Four, he ignored every other girl who tried to get his attention—”
“ROWAN,” I interrupt, huffing and turning on my haunches to scowl at her, “do you know what all that evidence says? He wants to be friends.”
Not even two hours ago, I was lying on my back beside him, and instead of crawling over top of me or even just kissing me like he wouldn’t have been able to resist doing a few weeks ago, he insisted on talking about dancing. And drawing. And anything except why he’s no longer interested in me, which, as far as I’m concerned, is the only thing that really needs to be talked about.
Rowan lifts her eyebrow at me. “Do you remember when I thought Adam just wanted to be friends, and you told me I was an idiot?”
I turn my attention back to the suitcase, taking my frustration out on clothes that get thrown across the room.
“I hate to tell you this,” she continues, “but you’re an idiot.”
“He hasn’t even tried to kiss me at all this week,” I growl, standing up and dumping the suitcase on the bed. An avalanche of clothes tumbles from the mountain I create, none of them the kind I’m looking for. “We hang out, we have fun. He says he cares about me, but all he ever wants to do is talk. He doesn’t even want to have sex with me anymore!”
I’m so frustrated by what happened at the tree, I could scream, but I’m trying to put a cap on my crazy. I’m not going to try to make him jealous. I’m not going to beg. If he wants to be friends, I’ll be his friend.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t look hot doing it. He should be fully aware of what he’s missing.
“Maybe he wants more than sex,” Rowan counters, and I give her a look that says, Are you freaking kidding me?
“Dee, I live with Joel, okay? I’m his friend, and trust me, he’d never carry my stuff around for me all day or let me drink the last of his water.”
“It’s different when you go from being fuck-friends to just-friends,” I reason. Yes, Joel was sweet today. No, it doesn’t mean anything. “Maybe he thinks he has to do those things.” Or maybe he still feels like he owes me for what happened with Cody. One day, maybe he’ll consider us even and then we’ll be nothing at all.
Rowan sighs and flops flat on her back on the black-satin bed. I kick her foot and say, “I need scissors.”
“For what?”
“To murder you for convincing me to take your packing advice.” When she glares at me, I roll my eyes and say, “I need to go all fairy-godmother on one of these T-shirts.”
After she finds me a pair from downstairs, I spread one of my new band shirts flat on the bed and cut one of the sleeves off to make the shirt one-shouldered. Then I cut the other sleeve into a thin strap and tie the top of it into a cute knot. I continue cutting slits all the way down that side of the shirt, and then I cut a straight line through them and tie the ends of fabric together into more cute knots. With knots and peek-a-boo slits laddering the side of the shirt, I carefully pull the now fitted top over my head and ask Rowan how I look.
Even though she’s shaking her head, a smile sneaks onto her face. “You look like a freaking rock star.”
Outside, the air is thick with unshed rain, and in the open lot next to the buses, there are people everywhere, laughing and drinking and chasing each other with squirt guns. Singers and guitarists and drummers. Roadies and festival volunteers and girls. Sooo many girls.
Shadows intrude on the massive bonfire from all sides, and in the darkness, cigarette cherries twinkle like fireflies. Girls with dyed hair and piercings are prancing around with sparklers or draping themselves over guys who spent the day performing onstage. When a topless girl with big fake boobs skips up to us, I’m too busy staring at her bouncing tits to notice she’s trying to hand me a sparkler. Rowan takes it instead, and the girl frolics away. Some guys are gawking, some are drooling, and yet others are barely glancing in her direction. Rowan and I are both staring after her with our mouths hanging open.
“Oh . . .” I say.
“My . . .” Rowan adds.
“God.”
We look at each other, mirroring wide-eyed, open-mouthed expressions.
“What the hell was that?” Rowan asks, and I shake my head.
“A sparkler fairy?”
She lets that sink in for a moment, and then we both burst out laughing.
“Oh my GOD,” she says mid-laugh, grabbing my shoulders with a look of absolute horror on her face. “My boyfriend is here somewhere!”
When we find Adam, he’s already unsteady on his feet, standing in a group of around a dozen people while warding off a pair of groupies with two sparklers crossed like a crucifix. When he spots Rowan, he shouts, “Peach! Did you bring the holy water?”
Joel, Shawn, and Mike are standing nearby laughing their asses off with a bunch of other guys, and the girls in front of Adam are pouting.
“Do you need something?” Rowan asks the girls, fully accustomed by now to putting groupie bitches in their place. She sidles next to Adam and gives them a look that could kill.
“Who the hell are you?” one of them asks.
“Are you deaf?” I taunt from behind them. “She’s Peach!”
“And who the hell are you?” the girl snarls, turning her scowl on me.
Rowan smiles my way and says, “She’s Sparkler Fairy’s understudy!”
I crack a wide smile and take a flourished bow, and the girls huff and walk away with confused looks on their sour faces.
“Sparkler Fairy?” Joel asks. His shirt is off, flaunting toned muscles shadowed under golden skin, and a pair of cargo shorts is slung low on his hips, barely held up by a mesh belt. My tongue curls against the back of my teeth, missing the cold bite of his nipple ring.
“Oh, you know the one,” I say, snapping myself from my ogling and holding my hand up a little higher than my head. “About this tall. Hasn’t eaten a cheeseburger in her entire life. Boobs out to here.” I hold my palms a foot away from my chest, and Joel laughs while Shawn grins into his red Solo cup. His arm is slung around a cute brunette—this one with her top on, thank God—and I’m surprised Joel hasn’t picked up some arm candy of his own.
As if on cue, he moves to my side and wraps his arm around my waist. “You must mean Izzy.”
I lift an eyebrow at him but don’t bother asking how he knows her name. There are some things I just do not want to know.
The guys introduce Rowan and me to the rest of the people in the circle, punctuating some of the names with inside jokes I’m not paying attention to—because I’m too busy trying not to notice Joel’s bare skin pressed against my side or the way his fingers are finding the side-slits in my shirt and teasing my goose-bumped skin.
“You should’ve done th
is to one of our shirts,” he whispers in my ear, his fingers sliding deep into the slits. If he wants to be nothing but friends, he’s doing a fucking terrible job, because my brain is flash firing with all sorts of not-just-friendly ideas.
“Why?” I manage to ask, my voice miraculously steady.
“Because I’m never going to hear the end of it.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, my brow furrowing up at him.
He points his chin toward the other side of the circle, and I look across it just in time to see the lead singer of Cutting the Line join our group. Van Erickson claps hands and gives hugs to people he’s apparently friends with, including Adam, Mike, and Shawn, and his eyes travel around the circle. They land on me, they stick, and my brain sputters. Joel’s fingers tighten around my side.
“I like your shirt,” Van says, a confident smirk curling his wide lips. With messy black hair bleached at the ends, and barbells in his ears and eyebrow, he looks like he just walked off of the cover of a rock magazine.
I gaze down at my shirt, understanding what Joel meant. I’m wearing the name of Van’s band, and he’s definitely flirting with me. I’ve seen enough guys use that look and that voice to know what he’s doing. And Joel must know too because he squeezes me even tighter against his side, and that small gesture gives me a million more butterflies than seeing Van Erickson did.
“Thanks,” I say, unable to prevent the smile that consumes my whole face.
“Why didn’t you wear one of theirs?” Van asks, nodding toward Joel. It’s obvious he’s doing that thing guys do where they fuck with each other, so even though he’s Van freaking Erickson, I decide to pay Joel back for all the favors he did me this week.
“Oh, I didn’t want to cut one of theirs up,” I say, pinching the hem of my black Cutting the Line T-shirt and staring down at the design. “I’ve never heard of these guys. Are they any good?”
When I glance back up at Van, he’s staring at me like I just told him I was born with a split tongue. I maintain a straight, innocent face, but Joel doesn’t last more than a few seconds before he breaks into a guy-giggle that makes the corners of my mouth twitch.