by Paula Stokes
Micah: Yup
Me: Okay. What time?
Micah: I’ll pick you up at 8. Wear something hot.
Me: Ha-ha. Everything I own is hot.
I call Bianca and give her the lowdown on last night’s date with Leo. Then I tell her about my plans with Micah.
“Do you want to come with?” I ask, crossing my fingers that she’ll say yes. “I’m sure Micah wouldn’t care. Two hot dates are better than one, right?”
Bee pauses on the other end of the line. I can almost hear her brain whirring as she tries to come up with a polite excuse. “The Devil’s Doorstep isn’t really my scene,” she says finally.
“Like it’s my scene?” My voice gets shrill. “I’m half expecting the bouncers to turn me away for being a fraud and a poser.” It’s kind of like those super-Goth stores at the mall. I like to peek in from the outside and I’m pretty sure there’s stuff in there I would want, but the thought of the sales clerk with the tattooed face and triple lip rings treating me like I don’t belong makes it not worth the hassle.
Bianca yawns. “You don’t need me for this, Lainey. You’ve got Micah. He’ll protect you. Meanwhile, I’ll probably be playing goalie for Elias and Miguelito.”
“I can’t believe you’d rather spend the night playing soccer with your brothers,” I whine. “You’re going to leave me all alone to be doused in pig’s blood by a bunch of guys wearing leather and face paint.” I sigh dramatically. “But whatever. I’ll survive. Micah and I made a deal and there’s no backing out now.”
Bianca giggles. “I doubt it will be that bad. And look on the bright side—”
“What bright side?”
“You’ll finally get to see what Amber is like.”
I guess I am a little curious about that.
Chapter 18
“THEREFORE, THE CLEVER COMBATANT IMPOSES HIS WILL ON THE ENEMY, BUT DOES NOT ALLOW THE ENEMY’S WILL TO BE IMPOSED ON HIM.”
—SUN TZU, The Art of War
“So hanging out with Leo went okay?” Micah asks.
We’re in his car on the way to The Devil’s Doorstep. I keep slouching lower and lower in my seat so no one will see me in what I’m now referring to as “the Beast.”
“Were you expecting it not to go okay?” I peek over at him.
He’s wearing the standard rocker-boy uniform: jeans, strategically frayed, with a black concert T-shirt. In addition to his barbed-wire bracelet, he’s also wearing a silver anarchy pendant, and his hair has been spiked to maximum height. “Well, I would have felt responsible if you had a miserable time since I hooked it up.”
“Stop talking about me like you’re my pimp,” I say, fiddling with my colored streak. “It was my decision to hang out with Leo.”
“Did it go better than okay?” Micah asks. I can see his lips curl into a smirk out of the corner of my eye. “You sound a little defensive.”
“And you sound a little jealous.” I arch an eyebrow.
Micah hums to himself as he pulls into the gravel parking lot behind the club. “Now you sound a little delusional.” He shuts off the ignition and checks his reflection in the rearview mirror.
“Whatever.” I pull out my compact to give myself a quick once-over. I’m wearing a flowy green-and-black sundress with a lace neckline and hem. Between my outfit and my bronze eye shadow, my eyes are looking supergreen tonight. “Who’s playing again?” I ask. He’s told me about six times but I keep forgetting. I reach down to retie the strap of my left platform sandal, frowning when I notice one of the tiny rhinestones has fallen off. My shoes are tall enough that I’ll tower over my fake date, but Micah doesn’t seem to care. “A bunch of bands that’ll make my ears bleed?”
“Arachne’s Revenge and Bottlegrate.”
“Right.” I nod, even though I don’t think I’ve heard anything by either one of them.
“You going to be okay?” Micah’s still wearing half a smirk, but his voice is serious. “I can assure you the place isn’t as scary as you think.”
“I’m fine,” I snap. “I’m not scared.”
He pulls a couple tall cans of beer out from under the seat. “We won’t be able to get served inside. I stole a couple of my mom’s just in case you needed something to take the edge off.”
I grab a can out of Micah’s hand and pop the top. It’s a brand I don’t recognize and it tastes awful, like someone took the cheapest beer they could find and spiked it with nail polish remover. Still, for some reason I chug almost the whole can before I come up for air.
“Damn, girl.” He stares at me in disbelief. “That’s kind of hot.”
I smile. “Jason would have told me to quit being a dude.”
Micah pops open his own beer. “This Jason guy seems to have a lot of issues, almost like a chick.”
“Funny.” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and let out a satisfying belch.
“Okay, that’s less hot, but I’ll let it slide.” Micah slams his beer and makes a point of belching even louder. “Almost like hanging out with C-4,” he teases, slipping the empty beer cans back under the seat and then getting out of the car. I hop out on my own side and gingerly close the door behind me. Micah walks around the back of the car so that we’re standing next to each other. He’s wearing Jason’s aftershave again. “If C-4 were an insanely tall soccer diva.”
“I’m not that tall,” I insist, even though I have to look down at Micah to say it.
“You are tonight,” Micah says, nudging my platform sandal with one of his black boots. “Very supermodelesque.”
I give him a skeptical look as we walk side by side toward the front door of the club. “I had one beer,” I say. “I’m not drunk enough for you to schmooze your way into my pants.”
“You’re not wearing pants.” Micah glances down at my bare legs. “Looks like I’m halfway there.” He winks at me and I give him my “back the hell up” look in response.
We get our hands stamped by a bald guy who looks like an ogre, and then pass through a dingy hall into an even dingier main room.
I’ve never been inside The Devil’s Doorstep before, but it looks pretty much like I expected. The floor is made of wood, scraped in some places and warping in others. A narrow bar runs along one side of the room. Three-legged barstools are lined up in front of it, their cushions bleeding stuffing out of various rips and tears. Behind the bar, pictures and posters, most of them autographed, hang at various angles. The walls of the place are painted black. A pair of red fiberglass devils flank the stage.
Above our heads, half-rotted wooden ceiling beams dip low. An exposed wire dangles from a hole in the wood. The whole place looks about one equipment malfunction short of burning to the ground.
People stand around in little clusters talking and drinking. I see a girl in a rubber dress and I think of Phoenix, of her slicked-back blonde hair and giant tattoo. I peer around, trying to pick Amber out of the crowd. She’ll probably make Micah look normal.
“Where’s Amber?” I ask. “Do you see her?”
He glances around the club. “Not yet, but she’ll be here.”
“Should I look for a girl who’s more tattoo than person?”
Micah laughs. “I think you’ll be surprised at how normal she is,” he says. “She doesn’t have any tattoos, in fact.”
“Really? And here I would have thought that was one of your requirements.”
A bank of round lights above the stage snaps to life with a sharp hum. I watch as someone cycles through the lighting options: bright white, pale blue, green, white spotlight. The stage goes dark again.
“What are your requirements?” Micah asks. “Chiseled abs? Fake tan? A shelf full of sports trophies?”
“Dude, you think I’m such a bad person,” I say.
A bald guy in oversized headphones makes his way to the middle of the stage. He taps the microphone twice and says. “Check. Check two.”
“Not bad,” Micah says. “Maybe a little shallow.” He nudges me in the ribs
to show me he’s kidding, but his words sting.
“Just because I’m popular and in love with a guy who is also popular doesn’t make me shallow, does it?”
“I was only—”
“It’s not like I can just change who I am or what I like. I can’t just turn off feelings and quit giving a crap about stuff that’s important to me.” I lift my chin. “I think of shallow more like only caring about owning fancy stuff and being beautiful. Most girls want to feel beautiful, but it’s not my number one goal in life or anything.”
“Hey.” Micah gives my shoulder a squeeze. “Chill. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
I look away, part of me still feeling wounded and the rest of me trying to figure out why I even care what he thinks.
“So what is your number one goal then?” he asks.
“Getting a soccer scholarship, I guess. I know I can’t turn that into a paying job, but I’m not like Bianca—I don’t have the next twelve years already planned out.” I frown. “Still, I want to do something meaningful too. I just haven’t figured out what yet.”
“You’ve got plenty of time to decide what you want to do,” Micah says. “That’s what college is for.”
Headphones Guy moves from microphone to microphone checking each one. Then he picks up a guitar and strums it lightly, producing a barrage of chords that sounds more like a car accident than music.
“Please tell me he’s not in the band,” I say.
“He’s not.” Micah is looking across the room at a pair of girls sitting behind a card table selling T-shirts and stuff.
A flash of jealousy sparks through me. I can’t believe he’s checking out other girls while we’re supposed to be acting like we’re a couple. “So, is Amber prettier than me?” I blurt out, mentally kicking myself as soon as the words leave my mouth. It’s one of those things you think, but never actually mean to say, but once it’s out there you’ve got no choice but to own it.
“Relax, Lainey,” Micah says. “It’s not a competition.”
I think of The Art of War tucked inside my purse. “It’s totally a competition,” I mutter under my breath. “It’s a battle.”
But Amber isn’t my enemy.
Right. It doesn’t matter if Micah’s ex is hotter than I am, so then why do I want him to like me better? I feel a twinge of shame. Maybe I am shallow. Kendall is all about collecting “fan club members” as she calls them, but I’ve never been one to lead on boys I wasn’t interested in. Again, I wonder if being without Jason is wrecking my self-esteem.
The lights in the club dim and the stage lights flare to life again. “Come on.” Micah urges me forward and I stomp on the toes of the guy in front of me.
“Sorry,” I mutter. People from the back of the club and the bar area are flocking to the small rectangle of space in front of the stage, jostling me from all sides. I’m not sure where Micah wants me to go. I try to turn around and ask, but then I feel his hands on me. Fingertips, really. Barely grazing my sides, right below where my rib cage ends. I let him guide me through the people. When we stop moving, my arms are actually resting on top of the stage. Micah is directly to my right. To the right of him, stacks of black amplifiers hum with energy.
The crowd starts clapping and whistling as the opening band, Arachne’s Revenge, walks out onto the stage. The drummer is an overweight guy wearing a backward baseball cap and a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. The guitarist and bassist (I can never tell which is which) are both lanky and tall. One has dark skin and dreadlocks. The other is pale with unruly, curly blond hair. The lead singer is a Kendall-pretty girl who looks a few years older than me. She’s wearing a black-and-red kimono with a layer of black mesh peeking out from beneath the hem. Her heavy combat boots are half unlaced, but she glides across the stage like she’s part swan and part panther.
“Wow,” I say. I’m impressed and she hasn’t even started to sing.
“I know, right?” Micah’s eyes follow the girl as she walks from one side of the stage to the other, stopping to ruffle her bassist’s (I think) dreadlocks. He tugs on one of her pale fish-bone braids and winks, as if they’re sharing a secret joke.
The girl heads back to center stage and sidles up to the microphone. “What’s up, Hazelton?” she asks. The crowd roars in response. The guy standing next to me, whose toes I smashed, reaches out to touch the singer’s boot. She smiles down at him but steps back out of his reach.
The first two songs aren’t bad. The lead singer has a decent voice but it’s being swallowed up by the screaming guitars. Still, it’s way better than one of those shows where the band dresses up like grim reapers and throws buckets of pig guts into the audience.
Then the drummer leaves the stage and returns with a dual keyboard setup. A guy wearing a staff T-shirt brings the lead singer a violin.
“This is called ‘Wake Up Dreaming,’” the lead singer says. Her voice is a mix of throaty and little girlish. “Someday we hope to perform it with a full symphony.” Around me, people are pulling out their cell phones, lighting up the screens and holding them above their heads. The girl counts out a beat and the whole band begins to play at once. It’s one of the songs Micah played on the way to Mizz Creant’s. The song that almost made me cry.
The bright lights blink off and suddenly the stage is awash in rotating blue circles. I can feel vibrations from the amps, from the floor. I swear I can even feel the individual notes moving through the air. My blood hums in my veins. I look over at Micah. He’s got his eyes closed.
The music pitches and swells, violin and guitars, drumbeats and thudding bass. As I sway back and forth in front of the stage, it’s like being in the eye of a tornado, where it’s calm, but everything is going crazy, whirling around me. I can’t stop looking at Micah, at the way the lights reflect off his mohawk, at the way he’s completely lost in the storm of overlapping chords.
I see every part of him, tiny pieces I never knew existed. The slight bend in his nose, the wedge-shaped scar on his right temple, the outline of his bicep hiding beneath the pyramid tattoo. His lips part, just barely, when he exhales. As I imagine the invisible mist of his breath hanging in the air, I inch closer to him. Here, in the strange blue light, while the bass pulses and pounds, all I can think about is touching him. Our fingertips brush. A shock wave courses through me. I want to grab him and pull him into my calm spot, closing my eyes and kissing him while the world spins topsy-turvy around us.
My thoughts feel hot inside my head, like they should be radiating a laser beam across the club, but Micah’s eyes are still closed, his body loose. He’s oblivious to the fact I’m thinking about kissing him. He has no idea my eyes are skimming their way down the lines of his body. His cheekbones. His beard stubble. The ridge of muscle connecting his jaw to the center of his chest. The faintest trace of sweat glistens where his neck meets his right shoulder. I want to touch my lips to it.
This is crazy. It’s Micah. I don’t like Micah. He doesn’t like me. We have about as much in common as, well, nothing. I sneak another glimpse at him. He’s still completely entranced by the song. He’s still completely kissable. It has to be the beer, or the music, the violins and guitars and electronic pulsing, the whole otherworldly quality to this song. Or maybe it’s just because I’m not myself here, and I don’t have to obey the rules of Lainey.
Micah’s eyes snap open and he looks over at me, as if he can finally sense the strange intensity of my thoughts. My heart does a somersault in my chest. I mutter something about needing air even though I know he can’t hear me.
Turning, I thread my way through the crowd. The music is crescendoing now. Louder and louder. I feel it pounding in my skin, my blood, my ears, my head. Every beat is punctuated with the split-second image of Micah and me kissing. His lips, white-hot on mine. I plunge forward, swimming through swaying arms and sweaty torsos.
I swear he says my name, but I don’t turn around. I’m imagining it. I have to be. There’s no way I’d be able to hear him over the mu
sic. Besides, I don’t dare look back. If I do, he’ll know. He’ll see everything reflected in my eyes.
I escape out into the night, embracing the breeze that cools my skin and dries the damp tendrils of hair at the nape of my neck. My heart gallops painfully in my chest, a tiny horse trying to burst through my rib cage. The music fades away as the song comes to an end, but I am still drowning in spiky hair and glimmering sweat. And lips, those barely parted lips.
Stop. I will the image from my head.
Me. Micah.
Kissing.
Impossible.
So then why do I want it so much?
Chapter 19
“THERE IS A PROPER SEASON FOR MAKING ATTACKS WITH FIRE . . .”
—SUN TZU, The Art of War
I suck in breath after breath of warm night air, waiting for my heartbeat to slow, waiting for my whole body to stop tingling.
What the hell was that? Get a grip, Lainey. The idea is not to fall for your fake boyfriend.
A handful of kids hover right outside the doors to the club. Two are smoking; the rest are clearly too young for the fourteen-and-over show. They’re hanging around, peeking through the door of the club whenever someone goes in or out, probably hoping the bouncer will eventually take pity on them and let them in. One of the smokers whistles at me.
Ignoring him, I turn and wander half a block up the street, just far enough away to feel alone. This is a busy area of town, but it’s after ten and all the stores are closed. The only things open are The Devil’s Doorstep and Alpha, the pizza place across the street. Gathering my dress around me, I carefully lower myself to the rough sidewalk. I lean my head back against the dirt-encrusted glass window of a vintage clothing store and pull The Art of War from my purse. I need more ancient Chinese wisdom to make it through the night.
The clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy but does not allow the enemy’s will to be imposed on him. Right. I’m supposed to be tricking Jason and Amber with this little charade. I’m not supposed to be tricking myself.