by Bella Abbott
She was interrupted by peals of laughter from the hall. The door swung open and two girls burst in, their eyes bright.
“Woohoo!” the taller of the pair exclaimed, her thick blonde mane straight out of a shampoo commercial. “You’ll never guess what happened!”
The other girl froze when she saw me. “Oh…”
Serena broke in. “Sarah, Kate, this is Lacey, our new roommate.” She eyed the blonde and then glanced at me. “Sarah’s the quiet one.”
Sarah gave Serena the finger with a good-natured smile. “Some juniors from the college invited us to Portland tonight! Jared announced a surprise concert yesterday. Fans have been standing in line all night for tickets.”
I didn’t want to seem clueless, but I was lost. “Jared?”
Sarah drew back in pretend shock. “Well! You’re obviously not from around here. Jared is only the hottest musician who ever lived.” She pointed to the poster that had struck me earlier. “And his music’s not bad either.”
Kate cut in. “He’s a total babe – he’s a local boy who hit it big last year with his first album. At first just around here, but he’s been getting national and even international attention. Trust me, he’s going to be huge. Huger than he already is, I mean. And we are going to see him!”
“How?” Serena asked skeptically.
“I told you, we met these guys,” Sarah said. “One of them has a cousin who’s working security for the show. He made a call and we can totally get in. He’s working the backstage door.”
“Where exactly did you meet these so-called guys? How, I mean?” Serena asked.
Sarah gave her hair a casual toss. “We were hanging out by the river. They were having a few beers, which they offered to share with us, and we got to talking, and one thing led to another…and they invited us to, oh, nothing, just the biggest show of the year.” She grinned at me and then faced the poster. “I plan to have his babies.”
Kate snorted. “You’re going to have to wait in line.”
Sarah turned eagerly at Serena. “You in? They said we could bring a couple of friends. They have a section of seats blocked off.”
Serena shook her head. “Much as I’d love to go off with guys I’ve never met on a hundred-mile drive, I’m going to pass. I’ve got stuff I need to finish here. And you know if you get caught drinking again, you’re going to be in a mess of trouble.”
Sarah shook her head. “Who at the academy doesn’t drink? This school is probably propping up the breath mint and chewing gum industries for the entire state. And tell me, what homework could you possibly have? School hasn’t even started yet.”
“I’m getting a jump on a few things, and then I had summer assignments, you know. As you probably did too. Some of us are here for something other than…socializing.”
Sarah and Kate looked at each other and rolled their eyes, almost in unison. “It’s Jared, Serena. Ja-red!”
Serena shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll have a great time.”
Kate then turned to me. “What about you? We already told them we had a roommate. You wanna come?”
I stared at the poster again and a chill ran up my spine. What was it about his image? I’d seen posters of supposedly “hot” guys before, and honestly, they did nothing for me. A flat image is meaningless. I only react to flesh and blood people. I’d never had a celebrity crush. But something about his image made my blood run cold and then hot again. Perhaps it was the pose or something, or the mood from some trick photography effect. I weighed my disinterest in boys against trying to be friendly. Did I want to go? I didn’t even know. “I…I just got here. I mean, literally five minutes ago. I’ve been on a bus all day.”
Sarah looked at her wristwatch. “I told them we’d meet them in half an hour. The show starts at nine, but I don’t care if we miss the opening act. So you’ve got time for a quick shower.”
Assume much? “I didn’t say yes.”
“Consider this your Ridley initiation. It’s mandatory,” Sarah said with a friendly grin. “Come on. It’s bad enough having one grind for a roomie. This is the end of vacation. Come have a little fun. Take in some local…sights.”
“And it’s okay if we just…leave? We don’t need permission or anything?”
“Nope. We just sign out. Technically we’re only allowed to go as far as downtown, though, so don’t go bragging about concert tickets to the whole dorm – that’s not cool. But unlike the Prep kids, we only have a few little rules.”
“Which you break all the time anyway,” Serena noted. Nobody contradicted her.
I looked from Kate to Sarah and back to Kate. I didn’t usually like snap decisions, let alone going out with people I didn’t even know, but on the other hand, it wasn’t like I had anything pressing to do. Unpacking would take ten minutes if I stopped for a rest in the middle. And I didn’t want to start off with my roommates on the wrong foot. I guess I was actually hoping to be talked into it; I just didn’t want to give in too quickly. Who knew what sort of precedent that might set?
I glanced at the poster again and forced a smile that I hoped seemed casual, like I did this sort of thing all the time. “Fine. But I would like to just rinse off first…plus I don’t really have anything to wear…”
Sarah’s smile broadened. “You’re totally dressed for it. Stompers, all black…goes with anything. Hella cool.”
“What kind of music is it, anyway?”
Sarah glanced at the poster and shrugged. “He does a lot of stuff, actually. And does it matter? You’ll see. Come on. It’s an adventure, and best of all, it’s free. Live a little.”
Twenty minutes later I was tromping down the path, my hair still damp from a hurried shower. I’d pulled a black and yellow lumberjack shirt over a purple tank top. Sarah easily managed the treacherous path in four-inch hooker heels and a miniskirt short enough to be a halter top, while Kate was wearing leggings and boots that could have been twins of my own.
When we reached the gate, I could just make out a heavyset man in a security guard uniform seated on a folding chair beneath an overhang. Sarah gave the man a wave and called out to him with a flirtatious lilt. “Yo, Cliff. Nice night, isn’t it?”
I could see him smile in the gloom. “Best time of year. You girls headed into town?”
“Maybe. Unless you make us a better offer,” she said with a giggle.
“Stay out of trouble,” he warned, his tone equally playful, as he appreciatively eyed Sarah’s long tanned legs.
Sarah led us to where a sixties-era Pontiac in perfect condition was waiting two hundred yards from the gate. She lowered her voice to a stage whisper and leaned into us. “That’s them. Luke, Kurt, and…oh, crap…”
“Kevin,” Kate finished for her. “Or maybe Kenneth. But probably Kevin.”
“And they’re juniors at the college?” I asked, trying to sound enthusiastic.
“Yeah,” Sarah said. “Rich boys out for a good time.”
Kate smirked at me. “She eats those for breakfast.”
Sarah shrugged. “It got us to the show, didn’t it?”
Kate gave me a sidelong glance. “So what’s your deal, Lacey? What brought you here? And where are you from?”
It was my turn to shrug, and I could feel my face color. “Nowhere, really. Total boonies. A little town outside Pottsville, Pennsylvania. You’ve never heard of it.”
Kate shrugged. “That’s a safe bet since I’ve never heard of Pottsville.” She paused. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Me too. Are you going to go to the college when you finish here?”
“I…I haven’t decided yet. Maybe? Or maybe I’ll go straight for a job. I’m learning coding, so I’ve heard that’s possible. You?”
“I’m going to be a drama major,” Sarah said, beaming. “Gonna be a famous actress.”
Kate snorted. “Porn, maybe.”
If Sarah was annoyed, she didn’t show it. “Long as I wind up with a Ferrari.”
&nb
sp; Kate slowed her walk to let Sarah get ahead of her by a few steps, and spoke to me in a low voice. “She’d kill me for telling you this, but she’s actually trying to decide between math or physics. But might wind up doing both.”
“Really?” I said, doing my best not to sound doubtful and totally failing.
Kate gave a low chuckle. “She’s actually super bright. Just a little wild at the same time. She got thrown out of some pretty good prep schools, then all the way down to the public high school, and then her parents kind of gave up. But she took her college entrance exams early and had phenomenal scores – that’s what got her in here. They didn’t even make her get a GED.”
So much for the accuracy of first impressions. We reached the car, and I caught a whiff of cigarettes and something else…a joint. Sarah sashayed over to the passenger-side window and leaned down to look inside. “Well, hello, boys,” she said, her voice theatrically flirtatious.
“Hey,” the passenger said, and grinned. “We thought you bailed on us.”
“On you?” Sarah asked. “Never. Just had to do some girl stuff.” She motioned to me. “This is our roommate Lacey.”
We went through some brief introductions as we girls piled into the back seat – Luke was driving, and then Kurt was next to him, and by the door was Kevin. Or Kenneth? Damn. Now I was going to have to avoid saying his name all evening.
Luke, a handsome jock with a dusting of stubble on his face, cranked the stereo and gunned the motor, and the big car roared off, speakers wailing over a thumping bass beat. Kurt offered us beers from a twelve-pack in the front, which Sarah and Kate accepted. I declined (beer tastes like dirt to me), and we sped along the road I’d just traversed on the bus only a few hours before.
We made it to the venue just before ten, and I was taken aback by the throng milling outside the hall. Who knew there were so many people in Maine? Make that “so many women,” who made up the vast majority of the crowd, many still asking anyone who would listen if they had tickets for sale. Luke pushed his way to the backstage area and spoke to one of the security guards. After a ten-minute delay, a tall muscular man in his mid-twenties, his arms covered in tribal ink, appeared and motioned us past the checkpoint.
Luke high-fived him, and he guided us through the backstage door and down a passageway below the stage. The opening band’s road crew was clearing equipment onto a loading area. We brushed past them on the way to a barricaded area at the front of the stage, where we’d have front-row views of the concert.
Drumming began pounding above us, and the crowd’s roar drowned out the beat, and then music blasted at high volume through the sound system as we neared the audience section. A guitar riffed over the din, and then a sea of female screams sliced through the concrete wall as a male voice began singing.
Sarah’s eyes were bright with excitement, and she grabbed Kate’s arm. “It’s him!”
“Shocker that he’d be singing at his own concert,” Kate sniped.
The security guards at the stage door nodded to Luke’s cousin, and one of them pushed it open. The volume of the music quadrupled, and then we were walking into the no-man’s-land between the elevated stage and an ocean of humanity watching the show with almost religious rapture. I took in the expressions of the young women, some of them crying and clutching their clothes as though hysterical, and shook my head. What was I doing here?
Kate’s touch on my arm directed me to the stage. I blinked at the glare of lights, barely resisting the urge to plug my ears with my fingers at the sound system’s blare.
But I forgot about the unpleasantness of the deafening music when the most incredible-looking male I’d ever seen stared directly at me from the stage. As we locked eyes, a sensation like an electric shock surged through my body. As incredible as Jared had looked on the poster, he was orders of magnitude more impressive live. His magnetism was palpable. His flowing shirt was open to his navel, and his chest and ridged abs glistened with perspiration. His upper body was bent halfway backward, with his free arm behind him, fingers spread, as he held a high note that seemed to continue forever. When it finally faded, his eyes remained fixed on mine while the band churned behind him, his perfect features frozen in mild puzzlement.
Sarah elbowed me, snapping me out of my trance. “Looks like he forgot the lyrics,” she crowed.
I was trying to frame a response when the moment passed, and he tore his eyes from mine and resumed singing, grinning at the audience and offering a good-humored shrug at dropping the line. I watched, mesmerized, as he prowled the stage like a jungle cat, his movements lithe and effortless, graceful as a dancer’s, black leather pants accentuating his physique.
When he finished the song, the crowd went wild. He stood in the center of the stage, soaking in the applause before offering a small bow, as though embarrassed by the intensity of the ovation. When it finally began to diminish, he raised the mic to his perfect face and spoke – and if anything, his speaking voice was more captivating than his singing.
“Whooo! Well, thank you, Portland! It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to sing for my hometown, but after touring the world, I can honestly say there’s nothing like you guys. It’s good to be back! Thanks for coming out!”
Cheers rose from the crowd, and then the band launched into the next song as Jared pirouetted and strode to the drum riser – but not before he threw me a sidelong glance, one filled with as much suspicion as curiosity. And something else, although I must have been imagining it; something that almost seemed like it could be…fear.
Chapter 2
Jared dominated the theater’s attention for an hour. The audience sang along with every song. Apparently I was, like, the only one there who didn’t know his catalog by heart. After three encores, the last of which spotlighted Jared on classical piano, the house lights went on and the dream was broken.
“Tell me that wasn’t amazing,” Sarah said to me.
“He’s really something,” I agreed.
“A total babe,” Kate said. “I need to find one of those.”
“I need two or three, but I’d settle for one,” Sarah said. She turned to me. “What was that all about?”
“What?” I asked, blushing.
“He was totally eyeing you.”
“Me?” I stammered. “You sure he wasn’t checking you out?”
Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think so.”
I changed the subject. “He can really sing, can’t he?”
“Doesn’t move too bad, either,” Kate agreed.
Luke, Kurt, and Kevin/Kenneth were scoping out the crowd, murmuring to each other. Luke glanced over at us and grinned. “So what did you think?”
“That was da bomb,” Sarah said. “Thank you so much. You guys rock.”
“You bet we do. Ready to go backstage?”
Sarah’s eyes widened. “For real?”
“Just chill, have a beer, and be cool. Show like this, there will be lots of people there,” Luke assured us. “Besides, pretty girls are always welcome backstage.”
Kurt nodded solemnly, his eyes so red from toking they seemed to glow. “It’s like a rule or something.”
Luke laughed. “Follow me.”
Luke escorted us back to the stage door, where at least a hundred young women were milling around the security cordon, hoping to be invited backstage. His cousin saw Luke and held a velvet rope to the side, and we moved past him and through the door. The passage we’d traversed earlier was now filled with people, many holding sweating bottles of beer. A few eyed us curiously, but Luke walked with authority, this obviously not his first time backstage at the venue.
We turned a corner, and Luke approached one of three oversized metal coolers filled with drinks – beer, champagne, water, sodas. Luke smiled at us. “Free for the asking. What’s your poison?”
“Oooh. Is that champagne?” Sarah asked in a tone so fake it made me cringe.
“Nothing’s too good for you,” Kevin assured her, fishing
a bottle from the ice and looking around for glasses. Finding none, he held the bottle to his mouth and took a swig, which went sour on him when a froth of fizz spurted from his nose, ending with a coughing fit. Luke and Kurt laughed till they were red in the face, and Kevin handed Sarah the champagne. Luke reached into the ice, extracted a beer, and handed it to me. I was going to refuse, but Kate caught my arm and whispered to me, “We’re backstage at a concert, Lacey. Just go with it.”
“But it’s against the law,” I protested. I didn’t want to admit I didn’t even want it.
“I don’t see any cops checking ID, do you?”
I felt dumb for my impulse to say no, so I sipped at the beer, which tasted as disgusting as always. Maybe I could leave it on a table later, when no one was watching. Luke was attempting to hold a conversation, but I kept trying to process what had happened during the concert, and wasn’t much company. The way Jared’s eyes seemed to look into my soul had shaken me, and I hadn’t completely recovered. It must have been the whole crowd euphoria thing, I thought.
Although he’d definitely missed a line when he’d spotted me.
Which made zero sense.
Still, there was no denying the thrill I’d felt when we locked eyes – more than a thrill, if I was being honest with myself. More like a piano had fallen on me. Which had never happened before.
“What do you think?” Luke asked.
I returned to the present. “Huh? Oh. Um, yeah. Sure.”
“Were you even listening?”
I tried a smile. “Sort of. I don’t drink much, and the beer…”
He peered at it. “You’ve only drunk a quarter of the bottle.”
“What can I say? I’m a lightweight.” I glanced at Sarah, who was gulping down champagne like it was water and she’d just come out of the desert, and that familiar inadequacy hit me. Who was I kidding? I didn’t belong backstage. I should have been back at the dorm, in bed, like Serena, who apparently was the only sensible one of the bunch. I was at school to study and learn stuff and hopefully make a future for myself, not to party or hook up. I was completely out of my element.