CHAPTER SIX
Half an hour later, I’d come to the conclusion that Ms. Trajectory and I had different ideas about what “damn good” meant, at least vis-à-vis music. Maybe someone, somewhere enjoyed distorted, unintelligible songs with laser-zap sound effects and seemingly random bursts of tambourine, but that person was not in evidence at Ruby’s Rock Club and was certainly not me. The crowd remained as shiftless and noisy with Ultimate Trajectory thrashing and shrieking onstage as they had before the lights had gone down. In fact, most people seemed to be talking louder to overcome the music. Meredith and Tess were both quiet, Meredith from politeness and Tess from trying to get a better look at the girl with the nose ring.
Ms. Trajectory wailed one last time into the microphone and raised it above her head for a dramatic finish. It must have been hot under all those sequins, because her sleek hair was now stuck to her cheeks.
“Thank you, Philadelphia!” She bowed her head to a smattering of applause. Some guy in the crowd yelled out, “You’re welcome!” which set his friends laughing. The girl onstage looked a little confused and picked her way offstage slowly but clompingly, her male partner slumping along after her.
“Well,” Tess said brightly. “That was refreshing.”
“I think I finally see why adults hate rock music.” I pushed Zach’s shirt’s too-big sleeves up to my elbows for what felt like the zillionth time. “It’s bad for the youth.”
“What?” Meredith said. Frowning, she snapped a finger next to her head. “I think my ears are ringing.”
Tess yawned and looked at her watch. “Jeez. It’s not even ten. I feel like such an old lady.”
I wasn’t really listening, watching instead as two guys in black T-shirts came onstage and replaced the keyboard with a few amplifiers and a rack of guitars. One of them started fiddling with the knobs while the other stepped up to each microphone, giving it a “check, one two” and flipping hand signals up at an invisible sound booth. Behind them, I could just make out a big YL on the drum kit.
Two letters, just like that, and I was literally trembling with anticipation. I hadn’t seen Sebastian in months, hadn’t even talked to him since he drove away from my house, and now I was about to watch him come onstage and sing a song to a room full of people. In my conscious mind, I knew I should be freaking out. But the stammering, clammy-handed nervousness I had expected wasn’t coming. I just felt energized, like someone had jump-started my pulse.
The hum in the room grew and swelled. Meredith was snapping her fingers some more, trying to get her hearing back. Tess turned to me and started to say something about getting another Diet Coke or the girl or something else, but I didn’t hear it, because the lights were going down again and the band was coming onstage. All skinny guys in tight pants with varying degrees of beard, and then Sebastian.
“Hey.” He leaned into the microphone, and then back a bit, and then he smiled. Somewhere in the crowd, a cheer rose up, and his smile got a little wider. He stooped to sling on his guitar and then stepped back to the mic.
“We’re the Young Lungs, and these songs are just okay.”
“Woo!” Tess heaved her hands into the air, her exhaustion apparently forgotten, and immediately began to dance. The song was upbeat and syncopated and sounded worlds better than Ultimate Trajectory.
And Sebastian looked better than anything I’d seen all night.
He had this relaxed, liquid way of moving onstage, like he knew he was being watched but wasn’t trying to do anything too dancey and ridiculous—just play his music and maybe look good at the same time. His hair was cut at a new angle so that it just barely flipped into his eyes when he strummed, and his arms looked extra tan against the white edges of his T-shirt. He sang with his eyes darting all around the room and an angular smile, his face lightly stubbled like it was when it had been close to mine.
I was transfixed, and the song whirled forward into its second chorus. Before I knew it, the band was crunching into the final chord and the crowd was clapping, a few people even cheering.
“Not bad,” Tess said, catching her breath from her little fit of dancing.
“They’re pretty good!” Meredith yelled, a huge smile on her face. I restrained myself from doing the same and just nodded.
“Yeah.” I’d been so focused on watching Sebastian that I hadn’t listened so much to what the song sounded like, but then again, I didn’t really need to. The visuals were just as good.
“So I guess you guys like music,” Sebastian said. “Here’s some more of that.” He began a quick, high-pitched strum and nodded his head as the bass thumped in after him, and then they were off. More cheers, and a few people sprang forward to dance.
“I could get used to this,” Tess called out over the noise. “Nattie?”
I gave her a smile and shrugged. She shoved me in the shoulder.
“Look at you, trying to be all casual.”
“I’m not trying to be all anything.” I adjusted the collar of Zach’s shirt around my neck. “I’m just out to enjoy a promising up-and-coming band.”
“Sure,” Tess said, but the look on her face said she knew better. She flung out an arm to pull us onto the dance floor, and Meredith shook her head, but, to my surprise, I accepted. Everyone seemed to be kind of twisting and swaying rather than full-on bump-and-grinding, and I found myself moving without feeling weird or self-conscious. Tess even twirled me, and we danced for the whole song, and kept going as the Young Lungs launched straight into the next one. Sebastian’s voice was all around me, singing something about fairy tales and second chances, and I let it flow over me. Tess danced me closer to the stage, but I hung back, just for safety’s sake. Not that anyone was judging me: for all anyone knew, I was a genuine hipster who actually owned this plaid shirt and went to dingy bars all the time. And whether anyone could tell or not, some part of me had once, however briefly, caught Sebastian’s eye. I didn’t know if he would notice me now and I realized I didn’t care. All I knew was that dancing was great and thinking about him made me practically glow.
The song died. I fell back toward a side wall, trying to catch my breath, but before I could get in so much as a second inhale they were off again with another, and then another, and soon I was literally panting with the effort to keep up. Finally, after a crisp rattle of drums, the band took a break.
“Wow.” Sebastian stood at the microphone, wiping a hand over his forehead. “Sucks that you guys hate to dance.”
The crowd yelled back something unintelligible and affirmative. He grinned.
“Yeah, okay. And I imagine no one’s ever had their heart broken?”
A mixed chorus of boos and cheers rose up. My heart leaped to my throat.
“Thought so. This one’s about that.”
He leaned back, strumming out the chords I recognized from this morning. Somewhere on the edge of my vision, I was aware of Tess swiveling around to me, but all I could see was Sebastian.
“Well, there’s curves like madness in her hips
And red like sin painted on her lips.”
It was beyond strange, watching the boy I’d Almost Kissed four months ago stand on a stage and sing about some other girl. It wasn’t like the initial shock of hearing his voice on the radio, and it wasn’t like anything he’d said to me for the short time we’d spent together. It was different, bigger, better.
“Got heat like wildfire in her eyes
A short short skirt riding up those thighs
Can’t keep myself thinking straight
’Cause she’s speaking a language I can’t translate.”
“I bet it’s French,” I called to Tess. “He sucked at French.”
“What?” She frowned, clearly not getting my stupid joke. I was about to try again, but that’s when I heard it.
“Oh, Natalie . . .”
I froze.
“Hair like a burning flame.”
A bolt of panic ricocheted through me. Had I just heard what I thought I�
�d heard?
“Natalie
I can’t forget her name.”
Tess widened her eyes at me and screamed. I grabbed her and shook my head furiously. Knowing Tess, she would think the appropriate reaction would be to gesture wildly at me and yell, “That’s her! He can’t forget her!”
“Natalie
Sets herself apart.”
Zach’s shirt was slipping off one shoulder. I shoved it back in place in a way that hopefully looked like a cool dance move and kept dancing like nothing was happening. What if Sebastian looked out and saw me? I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to know I was here, and now he was singing about me. Hell, he could practically be singing to me.
Then again, Sebastian probably couldn’t see me with lights in his eyes, and nobody except the bouncer outside knew what my name was. I moved from swaying to actual dancing again, back on the dance floor, shaking my head like I was anyone else. Like I actually was fiery.
“Natalie,
Why’d you break my heart, heart, heart?”
Tess did a big, closed-mouth smile as she whirled around me.
“Yeah, what do you have to say for yourself?” she yelled.
My heart was throbbing.
“Um,” I called back. “My bad?”
“You!” She screamed with laughter and twisted around behind me. “This is insane! You are insane! Sebastian is totally in love with you!”
“Yeah, well . . . so?” I called back. He launched into the second verse, but I could barely hear the lyrics. Our encounter had been so . . . brief, and kind of awkward. And maybe it was just that “Natalie” fit into the song.
But everything about this moment had gone wiggly around the edges—surreal. The song was pumping, we were dancing, and just for the tiniest flash of a second, I was totally careless, totally cool.
It couldn’t be about me, except that it could. I wanted it to be. And then, just like that, it was over.
“Thank you, Philly!” Sebastian said into the microphone. His face was a little flushed. “If you want to hear more of us, you can buy our album out front. Or you can wait for the guy who buys our album out front to put it on the internet.”
The crowd laughed, but Sebastian just shrugged.
“Good to come home. You’ve been awesome. Get hype for the Forty Thieves!”
He flashed a final grin, then slung off his guitar and walked away to some dark and invisible area to the side of the stage. The lights came up, the roadies reappeared to cart stuff off, and the bar began to hum again. The spell was broken, and yet my heart was going like I was still dancing.
Tess said something, but I completely missed it, watching as Sebastian’s lanky form disappeared in the darkness.
“What?” I turned back to her.
“I said, I have not danced that much in at least two days.”
“I haven’t danced that much in ever,” I said.
“Whatever. NATALIE!” She practically screamed it. Quick as a reflex, I jabbed my heel onto her toes.
“Shut up,” I said.
“Nattie,” she said again, her voice lower. “You are the woman of Sebastian’s dreams.”
“I’m not,” I said, but even I had to admit, the evidence was pretty convincing.
“You have to go find him! You have to.”
“I . . . don’t know,” I confessed. “The next band’s going to be on soon. Where would I even find him now?”
Tess had no time to waste.
“Who cares about the next band? Just find Sebastian.”
“Shouldn’t I be . . . aloof?”
“Okay, one, who even says aloof, and two, no.” Tess punched my shoulder. “Je am frappe-ing some sense into you.”
I rubbed where she’d hit me. Sebastian already thought I was cool. And I definitely thought he was attractive. I could just keep being the mysterious girl he seemed to think I was. Say a quick hello, do a deep-voiced laugh, maybe find someone to give me a cigarette so I’d seem reckless enough to endanger the health of my lungs.
“You’re totally blushing,” Tess said.
“Shut up. It’s just the lights,” I said. I glanced around the bar.
“What about Meredith?”
“I’ll tell her you went to the bathroom or something. Besides, we have to split soon anyway. It’s eleven already, and it’ll take us at least half an hour to get home. I love you and want to indulge your Sebastian lust as much as reasonably possible, but I am not risking getting grounded.” For all her tendency toward hedonism, Tess was no-nonsense when it came to her midnight curfew.
I reached my hand into my pocket and gingerly pulled out my phone, like it was a grenade.
“Okay.” I was cool. I was calm. I could do this. “How do I look?”
Tess skimmed an appraising glance over me. “Hot. Very hot.”
“Thanks.”
“No, I mean—you’re all red. Here.” Tess sidestepped to my back and shucked Zach’s shirt off my shoulders, leaving me bare-armed and bra-exposed.
“There.” She wadded up the shirt under her arms. “Much better.”
“Is it?” I folded my arms. Even the humid club air felt cold on my skin.
“Abso-freaking-lutely.” Tess grabbed a wrist and yanked my arms apart. “I’ll go get Meredith and our stuff. You have fun.”
“Yeah.” I swallowed hard, swiped open my phone, and pulled up a new Pixstagram message. I didn’t have Sebastian’s number, but he seemed like the type who’d be checking his inbox a lot.
Don’t overthink it, I reminded myself. Keep it simple. Just go find him, and then—
“Hey.”
I whirled around and found not Sebastian, but the guy with the hat from before. He was a little shorter than me, with a leather jacket on that was a size or two too big for him. I slid my phone locked and tucked it back into my pocket.
“Hi,” I said, folding my arms.
“You’re a good dancer.”
“Thanks,” I said. I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and sized him up. He wasn’t bad looking, but then again, he was no Sebastian. And he smelled kind of like beer.
“What’s your name?” He was practically yelling over the din of the crowd.
I jumped again, but this time, it was from the buzzing of my phone. I could barely make my fingers move fast enough to get it open.
From: Tess Kozlowski
Meredith is getting her car. Meet outside in TEN MINUTES, WOMAN!!!
The guy in the hat was saying something else, drowned out by the throb of some gnarly punk song that was crunching out over the PA.
“What?” I yelled back at him.
“I said, you do have a name, right?”
“Natalie.”
It was my name, spoken so softly in my ear that I jumped a third time. And I definitely recognized the voice. I turned, and there he was.
“Sebastian,” I said. I blinked once, wordless. He was standing close to me, forced closer by the crush of the crowd as more people poured in to see the Forty Thieves, and he looked . . . nervous. Or maybe surprised. But he was still smiling, and still, obviously, attractive.
“Hey,” I said.
The energy of before was flooding my body, making me move without a second thought, and I had no choice but to make an apologetic face at the hat guy.
“Sorry, I have to go.”
Hat guy shrugged, but I could tell he was a little miffed for being thrown over. But honestly, the choice was down to him and Sebastian. What did he expect?
I turned back to Sebastian and smiled again.
“Nice set.”
It was all I could do not to fist-pump in victory over saying something normal. But I resisted, and instead tipped my head at him as if to say, your move.
“You’re here,” he said.
My brain immediately launched into a quicksilver monologue of dumb thoughts. Of course I’m here. Do you not remember when we shared an incredibly intimate face-touching moment in the front seat of your Crown Vic?! “Yup.”
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“You wanna get some air?”
Wait, of course you remember it, because you wrote a song about me. You wrote a song about parts of my body that you didn’t even see except under poor-visibility conditions, and definitely not without clothes.
Also, wait, yes, air. Good. “Sure.”
I trailed out after him, up the tiny set of steps at the side of the stage and then out a back door to a grimy alleyway bathed in orange fluorescent light. A few paces away, Sebastian’s car was parked on an angle, trunk open and full of a jumble of amps, instruments, and cords. Sebastian grabbed an already-open can of something energizing from off the back bumper. I leaned against the wall of the club as he took a long pull, staring at me the entire time.
“Nice set,” I said, not wanting to waste a moment of my now-nine-minute time span.
“You said that already.”
Shoot—abort. Recover. Think of something. I instinctively went to push up a sagging plaid sleeve that was no longer there. “Well, it was . . . really nice.”
“We try.”
“You, uh, succeed.”
Sebastian drained the can and crumpled it into a nearby Dumpster. I looked at the heap of equipment in his car, which seemed like it had been thrown in rather than carefully loaded.
“The guys are off getting beers,” he said, answering my unasked question. “Said they’d finish the gear stuff later.”
“Ah,” I said. “Well, it . . . looks like they pay better than they plack. I mean, um”—shoot—“play better. Than packing.”
“Thanks, I think.” Sebastian looked at his shoes for a second, then came over next to me and leaned against the wall, too. His eyes were intensely dark, in a probing kind of way, and I realized that, excepting some oral presentations in French, this was the longest uninterrupted stretch he’d ever spent looking at me.
“You’re welcome, I think,” I said. My heart was pulsing in the weird space between chest and stomach, but in an exciting way, like we were back in the car during the the Almost Kiss. If I could just keep my cool, I could have a legitimate, prelude-to-an-Actual-Kiss conversation. But that felt like a big if.
“How’s Newy—New York?” My tongue felt huge. Newy New York? I wasn’t making sense. I clenched my jaw and tried to articulate better. “And umschool?”
Who's That Girl Page 6