“Can you come back?” he asked, leaning on the counter like before.
“No,” I said, ignoring the tingle of regret I felt as his eyes darkened.
“Let me walk you out.” And before I could protest, he was behind me, his hand on the small of my back as he guided us toward the door. Jazz was in the laundry room, my coat in her hand, chatting with Logan. Grayson acknowledged him with a tilt of his chin. The lie I’d told about Jazz feeling sick was obvious. Grayson’s eyes told me he knew it too.
“Feel okay?” he asked her.
Jazz handed me my coat. “Oh . . . no, I feel a migraine coming on. If I don’t get out of here now, I’m going to be doubled over in pain.” Score one for friend telepathy.
“I keep telling her a beer will fix that right up,” Logan said, raising his bottle. His remark was met with tense silence. Logan nodded to Jazz, then skulked back to the party.
I put on my coat, and we climbed up the stairs.
“Grayson, the band was great,” Jazz said, leading the way down the dark alley.
“Glad you could enjoy it before the migraine hit.”
We emptied out onto the street. A light dusting of snow was already on the ground, and flakes seemed to be falling sideways on us.
“Jazz, would you mind if I talked to Wren for a moment? Alone?” he asked. She prodded me toward him.
“No problem. I’ll wait by the corner,” she said to me. “Bye, Grayson.”
We watched her walk toward the streetlamp. Finally Grayson spoke.
“If Jazz has a migraine, then I have dengue fever,” he said, shrugging his shoulders against the cold. “Did I do something?”
“No, Grayson.”
“Then what is it? I thought we were having a good time,” he said.
“We were, I guess, then . . .” I trailed off, not knowing what to say. The truth made me sound pathetic.
“Come on, come back.”
“Gray, I suck at parties, okay? I thought I could deal, but it’s just not me.”
“Wren, it’s a party, not a pop quiz. What’s to deal with?”
How could he understand? He was the party.
“I don’t know half the people in there, and the people I do know I can’t stand.”
“And what half do I fit into?”
I toed the snow collecting at our feet. “Jazz wants to leave, and you’ll be playing another set soon, and then what would I do? Call me later if you want. Or I’ll just see you next week, at work,” I said, backing away from him.
“You’re sure we’re okay? You can get home all right?” he asked, stepping from one foot to the other.
“Yep. No worries.” I gave him an awkward wave and caught up to Jazz. What was I doing? Why was I walking away from him?
“Are you sure you want to leave? I’m fine leaving solo,” Jazz said, linking her arm through mine as we braced against the cold.
She’s not my girl. Just a friend.
“Yeah, totally.”
TWELVE
GRAYSON
WAS I DESTINED TO WATCH WREN WALK AWAY?
Why couldn’t it always be like earlier tonight, when I saw her in the crowd? That smile. Pow, like an electric jolt from across the room. I’d had to concentrate on not losing my sticks, focus on the song, play for her. That smile made me feel like Keith fucking Moon.
The snow fell faster. I closed my eyes and let the flakes hit my face. Part of me held out hope she’d change her mind and come back.
The other part of me was cold.
I walked back to Andy’s, trying to shake the feeling that I’d done some douchebag thing to screw this up.
Things had been good . . . hadn’t they? Why didn’t I kiss her again? She was right there, in front of me. I could taste the sweetness of her breath, would have licked the acai from her bottom lip.
Until Luke and his besties with testes and in-your-face sociopathic stare conveniently got in the way. What was he up to?
I didn’t realize how cold I really was until I walked back inside. My face and hands were numb. I stomped the snow off my Vans. I’d need another acai shot just to warm up; otherwise I wouldn’t be able to hold my sticks. Then I realized the fire I’d felt about playing earlier had more to do with Wren being there than hanging out with my so-called friends.
“You so want to nail that girl.”
Luke was at the foot of the stairs, holding on to the railing.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, not in the mood for a Dobson mindfuck.
“Grayson, come on. I know the Barrett work over when I see it. She seems a little pure for you, don’t you think?”
Before I knew what was happening, I was down the stairs, my hands on Luke’s chest, shoving him across the small walk space between the stairs and the door, until he hit the back wall. Shock flashed in his eyes when I put my forearm across his neck, pinning him. He turned his face sideways. I leaned into him with all my weight, got right in his face.
“Stay outta this, Dobson,” I said through clenched teeth. I held him against the wall, panting harder than if I’d just run a full field clear.
“Are you done?” he asked.
I held him there, fighting every urge to crush his windpipe, until my breathing returned to normal. I backed off.
He grabbed my wrist, twisted my arm back behind me until a jagged pain shot through my biceps to my shoulder. My cheek met the wall, hard.
“What’s happened to you, Barrett? You’re as flabby as a chick,” Luke breathed into my ear.
“Screw you.”
He gave my arm another twist, just to the edge of pain, and let go.
“Dude, ‘besties with testes,’ really?” I asked, shaking the pain out of my arm.
Luke leaned back on the stairwell, grinning.
“You didn’t like it? Thought it was catchy, myself. So what’s up with the quiet chick if she’s not a thrill or kill?”
Thrill or kill. This was Luke code—kill meaning a great hit, thrill meaning a great lay. Hearing him saying it, especially in reference to Wren, made me ashamed I’d ever thought it was funny. I wanted to deck him.
“Why can’t you believe I’d be friends with a girl?”
Luke walked over to the dryer and pushed aside a leather jacket.
“Ah, Logan and his Stellas. Don’t think he’ll mind if we grabbed a few,” he said, pulling two bottles out of the case. Logan preferred his beer from the bottle and would notoriously hoard his own secret stash during parties. It was something we kidded him about, but whenever the keg was tapped out he became the most popular guy in the room. After three years, we knew all of his hiding places.
Luke used the edge of the stairwell to pry off the caps, then handed me one of the bottles.
“Drop the friends bit. You were about to taste her tonsils before I broke it up.”
“Fine. Why did you do that?” I asked, tipping the bottle to my mouth.
He swigged his beer. “Because Wren seems like the kind of girl to get serious with. And I need you not to be serious.”
“Really?”
“Grayson, come on, why are you here? You’re not that good a drummer. Are you forgetting the summer of debauchery? The five of us crossing Europe, big finish in Amsterdam?”
“Not interested.”
Luke’s eyes sharpened. “Rosse buurt was your idea. Beer, coffee shops with legal weed, chicks behind glass ready to do anything you want. And you’re giving it up just because you got in trouble for the term-paper thing?”
“That ‘term-paper thing’? You make it sound like all I got was detention.”
“I know you’ve been through some heavy shit the past few months, but that’s all the more reason to—”
“I’m out.”
He stared at me, searching my face for some hint that I was messing with him.
“You can’t back out. My old man changed his mind about financing my airfare—he set up an internship for me at the stock exchange next summer. Wants to brainwash me;
thinks liberal arts is for pussies. So I have to get serious about this again.”
“Hey, here’s an idea . . . why don’t you just get a job?”
“Yeah, keep up a four-point-eight GPA, get us to another championship, and hold down a real job. Even I can’t do all that. C’mon, Grayson, you’re the one who got the best hits. Andy, Dev, and Logan suck at that part. You can’t tell me you’re satisfied with the minimum wage you get from being a . . . wow, I can’t even say it . . . wa . . . wa . . . wa . . . waiter. The hunt used to get you high.”
He was right. It did get me high. Rarely a thought that what we were doing was wrong, that anyone would get hurt or caught. All a game.
“Just bang this chick if that’s what you want. Get it out of your system.”
I shoved him away from me.
“So that’s what’s stopping you, isn’t it, this girl? The one who saved you.”
“How did—”
“Ava’s all nuclear about it. Gave me a friggin’ earful when I went over there. She doesn’t think Wren is good enough for you. But that has more to do with the thing she still has for you than anything else.”
My lip curled thinking of the thing Ava had for me. About a year ago, at another Andy Foley party, I’d been hammered to the point of stupidity. So gone, I’d checked out upstairs on the couch, wishing like hell my head would just stop spinning. It was pitch-dark, and someone snuggled up next to me.
“Grayson,” a girl whispered, and then lips were on mine.
As sick as it sounded, this wasn’t out of the ordinary at Foley’s house. I’d been talking to so many chicks that night and just went with it. Then the lights clicked on. Luke stood across the room, fists clenched.
Ava. She’d been coming on to me for months, but I’d never given her any reason to think I was interested. Besides, Luke was into her, so even if I’d been remotely attracted, I would have made it a point to stay away.
The moment I realized what was happening, I sprung away with such force that I nearly knocked myself out on the corner of the coffee table. Without a beat Ava gasped and looked at Luke.
“Omigod, baby, you told me to meet you up here! I thought he was you.”
Luke and I were the same height and build, so it wasn’t completely off the wall, except for one thing. She’d said my name.
That night he either bought it or was too blitzed to care. Luke may have joked about Ava liking me, but I knew somewhere in the recesses of his twisted brain it had to bother him.
“How do you stand that?”
“What? Being her second choice? Easy. She’s a warm body, no strings. What’s not to like? We’ve got our whole lives to be serious. You used to understand that.”
The door opened. Andy popped his head out.
“Dude, the girls are threatening to put on Gaga. We have to go back on.”
“Yeah, be right there.”
Andy came out to the laundry room, shutting the door behind him.
“So are you with us again?” he asked me, sliding his hands in his pockets. Then it hit me—being here wasn’t about the drums or hanging out with my friends. They wanted me back, but not really me. They wanted Grayson the playah.
“He’s undecided,” Luke said, stepping back. “But I think we can convince him.”
Andy clapped his hand on my shoulder. A small plastic Baggie filled with something dark fell from his pocket and landed with a thwap at his feet. I picked it up.
“Dude, really, do you have to travel with that?” I asked, handing it back to him.
“Gray, come on, you have to go to Amsterdam. Just keep thinking . . . legal weed,” he said, shaking the Baggie in front of my face like he’d just won a carnival fish. “Fucking Mardi Gras and Christmas all wrapped up into one, man.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m thinking about it.”
“Cool, come on. Let’s go.”
“Give us a minute,” Luke said. Andy grabbed a Stella and went back to the party.
“Here’s the truth,” Luke said, pointing at me with the neck of his beer bottle. “Ava’s got it wrong. Wren Caswell is too good for you. Imagine how she’d react if she ever found out about all the chicks you’ve been with? She has no clue what you’re really like, does she?”
“Stay away from her,” I said. “She’s got nothing to do with this.”
“Well, she’s screwing with your head. And I need you. You know I wouldn’t mind having that conversation with her. Or maybe I could get Ava to do it. She sees her. Every day. You know how chicks can be so catty.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I need my wingman, Grayson. All there is to it.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said, knowing this was the only thing that would get him to drop it for now.
“Don’t take too long,” he said, finishing the rest of his beer. “We need to get our cash flow going again. And Christ, Grayson, lighten up. It’s a party. I can name about ten girls in there who would wrap themselves around you and make you forget all about Wren.”
“Shut up,” I said, heading back into the party with Luke close behind.
I tore across the room to the drums, practically shoving people out of my way. Andy had scribbled a set list. Only one song I wasn’t familiar with, one song I’d have to think about. I smashed the drums, refueling myself from the conversation with Luke. Everything fell away, and I got lost in the sound. Picking up my head now and then. Wishing I could see Wren there.
Instead I saw Ava with that stupid silver flower in her hair. Draped across Luke, but eye-fucking me just the same. I kept my head down after that.
When we finished the set, I was soaking wet and ready to bolt. I found Andy.
“Dude, hey, I gotta cut out, not feeling so well,” I said, putting a hand over my stomach.
“Ya sure, Gray? You can go upstairs and crash for a while if you want. It’s only twelve thirty, my man. Early.”
“Nah, I’ll pick up my kit tomorrow, ’kay?”
I grabbed my jacket from behind the bar.
“Hey, how about one of those acai shots for me?”
Ava stood in my way, Luke right next to her.
“Luke knows how to make them,” I said, maneuvering around them.
“Dude, where you off to?”
I shrugged him off as I darted through the crowd to the door. I took the stairs two at a time and burst out the side door. The cold air hitting my face felt good for about two seconds. Then it went right through me, practically turning my sweat to ice. What was wrong with me? I’d wanted to come. Parties used to be my thing. Now I couldn’t get away fast enough. Luke’s threat had pissed me off, but without Wren . . . the room felt full of strangers. How could I have ever thought this was a good idea?
After brushing the snow off the Chrysler, I drove away, even though I knew I should have footed it home. The adrenaline from the last set counteracted most of my buzz, and I drove extra slow, one destination in mind. Wren’s house. She had said to call her, right? I knew where she lived, but this was the first time I’d gone there.
It was a large stone house, decorated with icicle lights for Christmas. A place I’d imagine Wren living. With the snow falling, it looked like a Christmas card. I wondered which window was hers. Was she awake? Sleeping? Thinking of me? I did feel like a stalker. I took out my phone to text her, then paused.
Was Luke right? Was Wren something I had to get out of my system?
No.
I’d never felt like this before.
Something had made her leave though, and if it wasn’t a sick friend then it was me. I’d had such hopes for this night: to kiss her again, to move past friendship . . . wait. She had to know I wanted more, that my intro to Luke was just . . . Grayson, you effing moron.
I drove off, heading for home.
Being with Wren meant something to me. I wanted to be serious. Whatever serious meant. Was this what it felt like to fall in love with someone? Was it too soon to know? And after all I’d done—could we ever h
ave a normal relationship?
But when she’d run her hand through my hair, touched me, asked me, Did it hurt? . . . it was like everything else in the room had faded to black. Except her. And me.
And that was too important not to fight for.
THIRTEEN
WREN
“WREN, YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED,” JAZZ SAID, bringing her mug to her lips.
Our hot party personas had quickly returned to their former state—the two of us in flannel jammies sipping hot chocolate with a half-eaten package of double-chocolate Milanos between us on my bedroom floor.
“In my movie Grayson would be outside right now, throwing a snowball at this window to get my attention,” I said, peeking out my bedroom curtain at the sound of a car passing. Two red taillights pierced the falling snow as they disappeared down the street. I let the curtain drop.
“And you’d race downstairs . . .” Jazz continued.
“. . . and throw my arms around him, and he’d take my face in his hands, and we’d have one of those movie kisses that make you shift in your seat just imagining what it would feel like,” I said, thunking back down on the floor next to her.
“‘Since the invention of the kiss, there have only been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind,’” Jazz said, tilting back her head, eyes closed, smiling. “The Princess Bride. I bet your kiss with Grayson would be more epic than that.”
I sighed. “Yeah, well. I got nothing, not exactly the après-party debrief Mads was hoping for.”
We sat silent, the party ghosts of what might have been dancing around us. The night had started with such . . . possibility.
“We’ll call her tomorrow,” I said. “Maybe the Darby details will be enough.”
“How I wish I could unhear that,” Jazz said.
“You really can’t tell me?”
“Nope. What I don’t get is why she told me. Maybe because she was drunk . . . no, wait, schnockered . . . off her ass and wanted to shock the science geek. But it’s the way she said it, like she could have been telling me how she ordered her sandwich at Subway.”
“Sandwich?” Maybe some things were better left to my imagination.
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