by Ella Fields
My eyes squeezed shut as every muscle braced for impact. Then arms came around me, and the inertia sent me and Everett tumbling onto the neighbor’s front lawn.
“Ow,” I moaned, my ankle protesting the weird angle it’d found itself in.
“Yeah, ow,” Everett grumbled beneath me, wincing as he tried to lift his head.
I pushed my hands to the grass, gazing down at him. The second our eyes connected, laughter howled from us both, dizzying and oxygen depriving.
Drawing a few deep breaths, I settled and stared at his smile, hypnotized by the low chuckles still vacating his mouth. “You okay?”
“I’m good.” He heaved out a loud breath, squinting at me. “You?”
“Perfect.” His body was hard everywhere, and I swallowed, my gaze unwilling to drift far from his. “My hero.”
He grinned, blinding and breath-stealing. “I’m no one’s hero, Clover.”
“You kept your promise.”
Huffing, he groaned, cracking his neck. “Guess I did.”
“That makes you a hero in my eyes.” His body grew even more taut. Sensing the change in his mood, I climbed off him, then went in search of Hendrix’s skateboard.
It’d wedged itself before the opening of a drain. I pulled it free and joined Everett, who was waiting for me on the street.
“You were fucking flying,” he said.
“It’s made the top five most terrifying moments of my life.”
He chuckled, sighing as we reached the driveway to my house. “Do me a favor?”
“What?” I used my hand to block the sun, trying to find his eyes.
They refused to be found, and instead, they drifted across the street. “Don’t get on that thing again.”
I laughed, grabbing the melted shake, and watched him cross the street before heading inside.
I was nearing seventeen when I agreed to go out on my first date.
I’d been asked out a few times, but I’d always said no. It took Adela asking if I was gay or a love-sick fool to finally realize what I’d been doing.
I’d been waiting for something that wasn’t ever going to happen.
And so when Clive Went asked me out, I shrugged, and said, “Sure, why not.”
He was cute, the captain of the swim team, and best of all, he was not friends with my brother.
Judging by the gathering of his dark brows, my answer didn’t exactly thrill him, but he still said he’d pick me up at seven and take me to the drive-in theater down by the beach.
“What do you mean, you need to go to college?” Hendrix shouted from the garage.
My eyes snapped up from my textbook as the garage door opened and the guys filtered into the kitchen. “Mom said I’ll be wasting my time, and they can’t afford to put me through school. I need to take this scholarship.”
“Who hands out scholarships this late?” Everett muttered, nabbing a bottle of water from the fridge.
“Colleges who offered it to other kids who turned it down.”
Everett’s forehead creased as if he couldn’t understand why someone would do that.
“We leave in three months, man,” Hendrix said, sounding close to begging.
“Yeah? Leave with what, huh?” Graham spread his hands; his laughter drenched with scorn. “We’re all working minimum wage jobs, earning fuck all, and we don’t even have a bus that runs.”
I closed my book, thinking I’d go and re-check my mascara. Oftentimes, it felt like the band thought of me as wallpaper. They forgot I was there when I watched them play, heard them bicker and fight, and even when they shared details of their weekend escapades.
“What, you just expected it to be easy, is that it?” Hendrix said. “Nothing good comes easy, dick face. Nothing. We need to get our asses out there and work for it just like every other person has.”
“That’s just it, Hendrix,” Graham said, adjusting his glasses. “It’s us against a world full of musicians all thirsty for the same elusive thing. What makes us so different that we’ll catch a break?” The quiet that followed his words had Graham wincing, tension suffocating everyone in the room. “Fuck it, I’m out.”
“Wait,” Everett finally spoke, stalking after him.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Hendrix groaned, folding over the kitchen counter like a wilting flower. “Asshole.” His forehead banged against the countertop. “What a fucking asshole.”
I kept quiet, worried that announcing my presence might only make it worse.
“Steve?” Hendrix asked after a while.
I stiffened. “Uh, yeah?”
“You wouldn’t happen to know any drummers, would you?”
“Um,” I started, searching for something to say, something helpful. “No, but maybe I can have my friend, Jean, put an ad in the school paper.”
Hendrix sighed. “Unless they wanna drop out, they’d be no good.”
“You’re still planning on going?”
Straightening, he didn’t answer and left the room.
The front door slammed a second later, and then Everett rounded the corner as I was checking the time. Clive would be here any minute.
I snatched my purse and stood. “He’s gone?” I asked Everett, keeping my eyes from his.
“Yeah. He’s just freaked. School’s out in a month, and shit’s getting real. I get it.” He shifted in his skate shoes. “I think he’ll come around.”
I nodded, praying he did while also hoping they’d part on good terms if Graham decided to go to college. It might not have been what he’d wanted. Graham had been playing drums since he got his first kit as an energetic toddler, but I understood it might not be what he needed.
“Clover, where are you going?”
I still couldn’t meet his gaze, but I could feel it. Hot and probing. “Oh, ah…” The doorbell rang, jarring me. No one ever used it, and instead just came and went as they wanted. “Movies,” I said, skirting around him.
Everett grabbed my hand, and shocked, I stopped, turning to pull it back.
His brows cinched as he stared at his empty hand. “With Adela?”
I couldn’t lie and wasn’t even sure why I was tempted to. “No, um. With Clive. From school.”
Darkening, his eyes changed to a mixture of black and green as he said, “The asshole on the swim team?”
I could feel my shoulders square. “He’s not an asshole.”
“Seriously?” Everett scoffed. “He’s a player, Clover. He only wants one thing from you.”
I rolled my eyes and started walking down the hall.
“Stevie,” he said, voice hard, and the sound of my real name had me almost stumbling as I opened the door. “Stevie, don’t let him fuck with you.”
Clive, dressed in a navy polo and light blue jeans, stepped back, hearing Everett’s words, and I inwardly cursed. “Hey, ignore him. Let’s go.”
Swiping a hand over his slicked back hair, Clive looked from the now closed door to me, and back again. “Yeah, hey.”
I didn’t know if it was Everett’s warning or if he really was being a perfect gentleman, but Clive kept things respectful. Maybe a little too respectful as his eyes stayed trained firmly on the bloodbath decorating the screen three rows of cars ahead of his old Ford.
Bored and grossed out, I plucked my phone from my purse to find a text from Adela.
Adela: He make a move yet?
Pursing my lips, I eyed Clive’s handsome, clean-shaven profile, then shoved a handful of popcorn into my mouth.
Me: Negative.
Adela: What gives???
Me: No idea, but I’m bored to tears.
Huffing, I made an effort to seem extra invested in my phone, hoping that might rally some kind of reaction from him.
Adela: Want me to call? Pretend it’s your mom?
I snorted, and still, Clive’s dedication to the movie didn’t waver. I was tempted to go, but Mom had already told me I could text her and have her bail me out.
Me: Nah. I’ll call you whe
n I get home.
I tucked my phone back inside my purse, stole the entire box of popcorn for myself, then settled into the seat.
Purse in hand, I opened the door. “I had a nice time, thank you.”
“Me too. I’ll, ah…” Clive paused, eyeing the big bus through the stream of his headlights, and the males surrounding it. “I’ll see you at school?”
Still confused about his lack of interest, I nodded and shut the door a little too hard behind me.
The bus was now in the drive, and I narrowly rounded it, ignoring the snorts and laughter the idiots on the other side of it tried to muffle, and headed for the door.
Mom opened it before I got there. “Well, how was it?”
“The movie was horrible.” I crinkled my nose at the memory of the gore. “So, kind of boring.” I kicked off my shoes inside and headed down the hall as Mom closed the front door. “Where’s Dad?”
“Outside with the boys. Determined as hell,” she quipped, putting on the kettle. “I don’t know why. It’s not like he actually wants them to leave. Tea?”
“Please,” I said, dumping my purse on the dining table.
“So it was boring, huh?” She dunked two tea bags into mugs, pouring water in once the kettle clicked. “Not exactly what I want to hear about your very first date.”
“Technically, it wasn’t. Remember Ben from the third grade?”
“That was a playdate, honey.”
“Try telling him that.” He’d never let me forget he was my first boyfriend. Ben was now openly gay but loved to tell our friends we’d once “had a thing.”
I sat with Mom a while as we drank our tea, filling her in on Clive’s weirdness, the horrible movie, and then we spoke about Graham’s probable departure from the band.
She left not long before the front door opened and Everett strolled into the kitchen, taking a seat on Mom’s recently vacated stool beside mine at the counter.
“Have fun?” he asked.
I didn’t answer and sipped my tea. The airy note to his tone bothered me. The last thing I wanted was to admit to him it was… “Wait.” I placed my mug down. “You guys didn’t do something, did you?”
Staring at me point blank, he didn’t even try to deny it.
“Everett,” I growled.
“It wasn’t me.”
I raised my brows, then stood, glowering at him. “The audacity. You get to go out, do whatever and whomever you want, and I try to go on one freaking date with a perfectly nice guy, and you won’t even let me have that?”
He blinked up at me, smooth lips parting. “Clover, what?” He shook his head, and his forehead crinkled. “Hendrix. He texted Clive. Warned him he’d tell the school he’d been hooking up with the swim coach if he so much as touched you.”
I fell back, almost missing the stool, my shoulders and heart falling. “What?” I rasped.
Everett poked his lip with his tongue, then sighed. “He told me after you left.”
Heat crawled up my neck, infiltrating my cheeks, and I ripped my eyes from his searching ones.
I’d never felt so mortified. I’d basically admitted that I had a thing for Everett by accusing him like that. “God,” I breathed, standing and hightailing it to my room.
Everett followed, barging in as I tried to slam the door. “Clover, what you said—”
“Ignore it. It came out all wrong and wasn’t what I meant to say.” I flapped my trembling hands about, then raked them through my hair. “It’s nothing.”
He shut the door, striding close enough to halt my pacing. “I told you not to lie to me.”
I had nothing to say to that, so I took the pins out of my hair, allowing it all to cascade around my shoulders as I set them on the nightstand. “This is different, Everett.”
“Yeah?” He took a life-changing step closer and then another one. “How so?”
He was close now, too close. So close I could smell that clean soapy scent on his skin that mingled with that of tobacco. So close that when I lifted my eyes from his heaving chest, letting them drift slowly up to take in the scruff coating his strong, stubborn jaw and outlining those parted, full lips, I struggled to breathe. It was a task easier said than done when all I could see, smell, and hear was everything I’d been wanting, standing before me, just one word or movement away from touching me.
“Clover,” he said, gravel filling the word. “Answer me.”
“You really don’t want me to do that,” I said, finally meeting his eyes.
That was a mistake. I knew it before they even collided, but the wreckage couldn’t be salvaged now.
A hissed curse flew past his lips, and then his hands were cupping my face, his turbulent eyes darting back and forth between mine, looking for something I couldn’t name. He must’ve found whatever he was searching for because then it happened.
His lips lowered, landing on my own and stilling. I could feel it, the way both our bodies seemed to turn to stone, the air shifting and warping around us, cocooning us in a forbidden but oh, so perfect bubble.
“Clover,” he whispered, mouth parting.
Soft and warm, his lips held mine between them, a hint of mint and whiskey on his breath. Breaking the spell, I raised my arms, wrapping them around his neck as I tilted my head to press my mouth over his gently, carefully until I grew more confident and tried to lick my way inside to meet his tongue. I wanted it so bad, my knees trembled, and I whimpered when he grabbed my shoulders and moved me back a step.
“Look what you’ve gone and done now,” he murmured, though not a trace of regret filled the words, only rough, complicated lust.
“Me?” I asked, incredulous.
He nodded, gripping my chin and kissing my forehead. “Don’t go kissing anyone else, or I’ll rip their tongues out and decorate your precious gardens with them.”
My heart dipped. “Everett.” Panic and want warred when he went to open my door. “What…?” I started, then shook my head. “Ugh, I just… I don’t understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand.” He ran a hand over his hair, sinking his thick fingers into the mussed strands. “We shouldn’t have done that.”
“Huh?” Something began to sink inside me, plummeting and pulling. “You can’t tell me not to kiss anyone else and a heartbeat later decide we can’t kiss again.”
Laughing, he smirked down at the ground, the sound quiet and filled with resignation. “I never said we wouldn’t do it again.” He opened the door, not looking back as he left me with, “Just that we shouldn’t.”
“What is going on, then?” Adela asked.
It’d been a whole week since Everett had first laid his lips upon mine.
One whole week of waiting and watching, desperate to see what would happen next. Desperate to know if his last words to me meant anything would even happen. He’d been at the garage, though, much to the band’s dismay as they tried to squeeze in some practice that week. Everyone was tied up with jobs and school ending for the year, so I hadn’t seen the guys together since the week before.
“Two months?” I heard from the kitchen.
“One sec,” I said to Adela, cracking open my bedroom door to listen.
“But Graham’s out,” Hendrix said. “How are we supposed to find another drummer in two months?”
“It doesn’t matter,” came the voice I’d been waiting to hear. “We’ll find someone. If we don’t go, we probably never will, and then what? We’ll just waste away here with no other plans?”
There was a beat of silence before Hendrix cursed, and then the sound of their voices faded as they no doubt went outside to work on the bus.
Two months until they leave.
My heart thudded hard.
“Stevie?” Adela called.
I pressed the phone back to my ear. “Sorry, the guys were saying they’re leaving in two months.”
“Wow,” she said. “But what does that mean for you and Everett?”
Nothing, I almost said. Instead, I
sighed. “Not sure. We’re not… something anyway. I don’t know what we are or what even possessed him to kiss me in the first place.” All true words, yet they still jabbed like needles.
We spoke some more about a date she was going on that night before deciding to chat after she got back.
After I hung up, I tossed my phone onto the dresser, my nails raking over my scalp as my eyes skidded over the posters hanging on my wall. Stevie Nicks—my namesake—Florence Welch, and Joan Jett.
Warring with the urge to lay eyes on Everett, I filled the tiny watering can I kept in my room and gave some love to the succulents that dotted the windowsill.
“Your room looks different during the daylight hours.”
Almost dropping the can, I turned to find Everett leaning in the doorway to my room. “Where’s Hendrix?”
“Outside. Dale just arrived with some auto electrician friend of his.” He moved into the room, closing the door with a quiet click. “He’ll be busy for a while.”
I nodded, tucking some hair behind my ear as he strode toward me, the laces of his boots undone and slapping against the worn leather.
Warm skin met my chin, tipping it up as the rough pad of his thumb brushed beneath my bottom lip and his other hand took the watering can from me. “Can’t look at me now?”
I licked my lips, then moved out of his hold to sit on the bed. “It’s just…”
“Just?” A thick brow quirked. My little pink watering can looked tiny in his large hand.
“I haven’t seen you since, you know, and I don’t know.” I let my eyes find his, noticing the red rimming them and littering the white globes. Concern had me forgetting my eager heart. “How are you?”
“How am I?” he asked, setting the can back where it usually sat in the corner of my windowsill. “That’s not what I expected you to ask.”
“What did you expect me to ask?”
Rubbing his hand over the scruff on his cheek, he exhaled a tired breath and sat beside me. “Don’t know. The usual girly shit.”