Havoc: Mayhem Series #4

by Jamie Shaw

  Outside, in the March chill, I sit on the metal railing lining the steps leading down from Mayhem’s side door, and Mike’s hands wrap around the metal beside my thighs. He frames me with his strong arms, sculpted from beating the drums since he was old enough to hold a pair of drumsticks.

  “What did you want to show me?” I ask, and a bashful smile plays around his perfect lips.

  “How I feel about you?”

  My cheeks dimple when I remember him using that line just before our first kiss, and I crawl my fingers up his shoulders as he steps in closer.

  “And how are you going to do that?”

  When Mike starts leaning in, my heart pounds in my chest just like it always does when I know he’s going to kiss me. I close my eyes, breathless, but then his cheek brushes against mine.

  “Don’t pull away,” his sultry voice whispers in my ear as the wind blows my wild curls from my face, and when his lips graze mine, I don’t. I melt against him as he takes his time, and I feel the sparks ignite all around us. They fire against my lips and inside my chest and up and down my skin—until I’m molten lava, his for the shaping.

  Van’s words echo in my mind: Mike’s waited a long time for you, Hailey.

  But as the sparks consume me—as they consume us both—I think of the happily-ever-after I’ve dreamt of since I was old enough to dream, and I realize I’ve waited for him too.

  I waited for my prince, I found him on a stage, and I’m going to hold on tight to him until the very, very end.

  Epilogue

  Mike

  Fans slept outside Mayhem last night. While I slept in my warm bed with my girl in my arms, dozens of kids lined up and slept outside on the sidewalk to guarantee a prime spot in the pit. The guys and I watched from backstage as the doors opened and they rushed in, a stampede of fans racing for the metal railing. Within minutes, Mayhem was packed from the stage to the bar, and even though we’ve played sold-out shows before, this one felt different.

  They’d slept outside. In March. I still can’t get over it.

  The first time the guys and I played Mayhem seven years ago, we were just a desperate garage band trying to make a name for ourselves. The owner couldn’t decide if he wanted this place to be a nightclub or a concert venue, so he built a stage, installed a bunch of high-tech lighting, made room for a DJ booth, and called it both. Mayhem: the name of a place that has no idea what it’s supposed to be, and the club we’ve called home since we moved here right after high school graduation.

  None of us ever considered settling for a nine-to-five. We never even thought about it. We just grabbed hold of this dream with both hands, and we formed a silent pact to follow it wherever it led us.

  Since then, it’s led us around the country. It’s led us around the whole world. And now it’s led us back here, to the same familiar stage, under the same blue and purple lights. They flash around me as I pound the drums for the wild beast in the pit. There are so many faces in the crowd tonight, I can’t even make them out. I play my heart out for the animal: the thrashing creature down below that grows restless with every hit song we play, every famous chorus we hit.

  Famous—our songs are famous. The kids sing every word by heart. I set the beat to the rhythm of their feet as they jump up and down, a sea of bodies rocking out to songs we wrote—the songs that Adam and Shawn and Joel and Kit and I wrote. Some of these songs were written while we were all still in high school, back when none of us could have imagined playing for a crowd this big or fans this loyal.

  They slept on the sidewalk. They slept on the freaking sidewalk.

  Cutting the Line opened for us tonight, and Cutting the Line opens for no one. But Van Erickson stood at the front of that stage introducing us each by name: Adam Everest. Shawn Scarlett. Joel Gibbon. Kit Larson. Mike Madden.

  Walking across the polished black floor to my drums tonight felt different than it had for the sold-out shows in China and Australia and England. It felt . . . it felt like we’d made it. It felt like I’d made it. And as my muscles burn and my sticks bang furiously against the drums stacked in front of me, I realize that feeling has as much to do with the girl waiting offstage for me as it does with the hundreds of fans screaming our names from the pit.

  Hailey Harper: I never even saw her coming. I was so sure I’d never end up with one of the girls waiting for me outside our tour bus, but there she was, waiting alongside my high school girlfriend on the night that changed my life.

  I was an idiot for hooking up with Danica that night, and I was an even bigger idiot for taking so long to realize we weren’t worth a second shot. But the mind has a funny way of playing tricks on you—like when you go to a theme park as a kid and you think it’s the greatest place in the entire world, but then you go back as an adult and you realize the rides are shit and the food is toxic.

  I started falling for Hailey that night—the first night we met—but I didn’t realize it until weeks later. I should have spent those weeks wanting to rekindle my relationship with Danica, but all I wanted to do was talk on the phone to her cousin, play video games with her cousin, hang out with her cousin. I convinced myself that Hailey was just a really cool girl and that we were just meant to be really good friends, but I couldn’t get her out of my head. I’d lie in bed at night wishing I was with her, or that I could at least hear her voice, and the day we scouted the pond for the music video, everything finally clicked.

  I knew even before we got to the clearing. The whole walk through the woods, I couldn’t stop stealing glances at her, and I felt like such an asshole. It’s not like she was trying to get my attention—she was wearing a baggy hoodie, loose jeans, and old boots—so why the hell couldn’t I stop looking at her? My hand twitched to free itself from Danica’s and latch on to Hailey’s, and the more Danica talked, the more frustrated I got. She complained the whole hike to the clearing, and then she wouldn’t shut up about being the star of our video, and the whole time, Kit just kept giving me looks like, I told you so.

  She and the entire band had been on my case for weeks, and I should have listened, but when I saw Danica outside of the bus that chilly night back in September, it all came rushing back. All of it. The pain, the doubt, and even a shadow of the feelings I’d had for her in high school, the crush I’d had on her since third grade. She was the prettiest girl in our school, and she’s still beautiful—but not like Hailey. She doesn’t have Hailey’s sexy curls or Hailey’s kind heart or Hailey’s contagious spark, and when I walked into the woods with Hailey that day at the pond, I knew I was in trouble.

  We’d stopped at a fallen tree, just before it started to rain, and as she sat on top of it . . . God, I wanted to kiss her. I should have felt terrible about it, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even think—not of Danica, not of anything. All I could do was stare at Hailey’s lips and wonder how soft they’d feel against mine.

  Thank God it started pouring rain, or I probably would have fucked everything up. Hailey made me laugh my ass off as she screamed about manatees and koalas and God knows what else as we raced to the cabin, and as I sat on those dusty wooden floors with her, watching the world fall apart outside, I realized I was the happiest I’d been in a long, long time.

  So I stuck my hat on her head. That was my genius move. I stuck my hat on her head, walked her back to the clearing, and made a silent promise to figure out my feelings. I was pretty sure it was time to call it quits with Danica, but then Hailey fell in the pond, and then she stopped responding to my calls and texts, and then I got sick, and . . . honestly, it’s a miracle we ever figured things out.

  “This next song is called ‘Ghost,’” Adam shouts from the front of the stage, and when the crowd goes wild, he chuckles. “Sounds like you’ve heard of it?”

  “I think most of them were in it,” Shawn quips into his backup mic, and Adam grins at him and then the rest of us before turning back around.

  “Scream if you were in it.”

  A smile stretches across my fa
ce as Mayhem fills with the rafter-shaking roar of our fans, and I glance at Hailey to find her eyes wide with surprise and her lips parted in awe. As if she can feel me watching, she meets my gaze, and my smile widens as I twirl a drumstick between my fingers—showing off a little even as I try to assure her that, in spite of all the fans and fame and noise, I’m still the same guy who squeezed into her pink bunny pajama shirt last night just to see her laugh.

  I know sometimes this “rock star” thing is a lot for her to process—sometimes it’s a lot for me to process—but beneath these blinding lights, I’m still me. I’m still me, and I’m still hers, and nothing is ever going to change that.

  “Now sing it with me if you know the words,” Adam instructs the crowd, and I take my cue, setting a rhythm on the drums as I remember the night we shot this music video.

  I knew I was going to kiss Hailey that night. I’d broken up with Danica, and I was supposed to leave on tour the next morning, but there was no way I was stepping foot on that plane until I’d kissed Hailey at least once. It was all I could think about as I watched her shoot scenes in that sexy red dress. I just wanted to steal her away, take her face in my hands, and see if I could make her feel the sparks she said she’d never felt before.

  I had no idea I’d never felt them either, but as her fingers scraped over my scalp and her body moved against mine as I kissed her in the woods—as she kissed me back—I felt like I was on fire, and I was sure my heart was going to explode in my chest. My heart, my body, my mind: they were all consumed by her, and now, when I glance at her standing offstage, smiling at me like only she can, I feel the same way.

  The girl is fireworks. She doesn’t even have to be doing anything special. She can just be sitting on my couch in a pair of cat pajama pants and one of my Guinness T-shirts, playing Deadzone with a pizza slice balanced on one leg and Phoenix’s front paws resting on the other, and all I want to do is drop to one knee in front of her and ask her to spend the rest of my life with me.

  I might have already asked if I didn’t know that Adam is planning on proposing to Rowan in Paris in a few months. We have a show set up, we’re bringing the girls with us, and he already bought the ring months ago. I don’t want to steal his thunder, but as soon as he pops the question, I’m not waiting. I’m not planning the rest of my life based on anyone else except me and Hailey—we’ve done enough of that already.

  Back in December, when I asked Hailey if she planned on spending Christmas with Danica’s family, she finally told me everything she’d been keeping from me while I was on tour. She told me about Danica’s ultimatum and how much she struggled with the decision, and she confessed it like she thought it would make me love her less, when really, it would have made me love her more, if loving her more was possible. I couldn’t believe that she had been faced with that choice—her lifelong dream or me—and she had chosen me. And when she told me about Danica punching her in the mouth, I was ready to lose my shit—right up until Hailey smiled wide and told me she punched Danica back, and that she broke her damn nose.

  My girl. Badass street fighter. She never stops surprising me.

  It’s one of the reasons why my grandmother’s wedding ring is currently burning a hole in the glove compartment of my truck. I asked my mom for it a few days after she met Hailey for the first time, and her eyes filled with happy tears as she removed it from her antique wooden jewelry box and slipped it into the palm of my hand. When I was in high school, I thought I’d someday give that ring to Danica, but it never felt like the right time, and I doubted my mom would give it to me anyway, considering how passionately she hated my girlfriend. Now, every day that I don’t put that ring on Hailey’s finger feels like an eternity too long.

  I try to concentrate on my drums, but I can’t. I try to concentrate on the crowd, but I can’t. I try to feel the heat of the lights pouring down over my shoulders, but I can’t. All I can feel is the way my heart is knocking against my ribs at the thought of that ring and what Hailey might say when I give it to her.

  I glance over at her again—standing with Rowan and Dee in the shadows of backstage—and she gives me a little wave. She’s wearing tennis shoes, tight jeans, a The Last Ones to Know T-shirt, and an oversized hoodie tied around her waist—and she’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen. She claps her hands in encouragement, and I have no idea how I’m going to wait five more months to put a ring on her left hand. But then she smiles—brighter than any star I’ve ever seen—and I know: I can’t. There’s only one thing that would make this night more perfect, and I can’t wait even one more day to do it.

  “I want to set them off tonight,” I tell Shawn after our encore, and his green eyes widen.

  “Tonight?”

  I nod, and Shawn glances at Adam, Joel, and Kit, who meet us backstage at the opposite side from the girls.

  “You want to set them off right now?”

  “Tonight?” Joel interrupts, his eyes even wider than Shawn’s. “Now?”

  I look at Adam and ask, “Is that okay?”

  The corners of my childhood friend’s mouth pull way up, and he claps me on the back before yanking me into a hug. “You’ve waited long enough, man. Tonight’s all yours.”

  I hug him back, and when Shawn yanks on my shoulder, I hug him too. I hug Joel, and I hug Kit, and when I finally meet Hailey at the other side of the stage, I take her hand in mine. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

  In my truck, my fingers race as quickly as my thoughts. I know Hailey picked me over school, but is she sure she wants me for the rest of her life? Does she want to grow old with me like I want to grow old with her? Does she picture the same picket fence, the same porch swing, the same orange sunflowers growing outside our bedroom window and the same banana pepper garden planted out back? My fingertips drum a mile a minute against my leg, and when Hailey looks over at me, she says, “You seem nervous.”

  “How?”

  She reaches over and clasps her fingers with mine, and I try to stop fidgeting. “Just leftover excitement,” I lie. “Tonight’s show was awesome, wasn’t it?”

  Hailey’s eyes light up with her smile. God, she’s beautiful. “I never thought being in the pit could be so much fun,” she says, and I squeeze her hand, remembering what a blast we’d had watching Cutting the Line.

  Before the show, Adam had asked what she thought of us when she first watched us perform at Mayhem back in September, and Hailey groaned as she recalled “Armpit Guy” and the terrible time she’d had with Danica. I decided she needed a better memory, and I convinced two kids right up front to let me and Hailey take their spots in exchange for backstage passes. I helped them crawl over the railing, and then I lifted Hailey up and set her down in the pit, front and center. I hopped in after her and stood at her back, my arms protecting her on both sides, and when Cutting the Line came out, the crowd went absolutely insane. I’ve always been more of a balcony guy than a pit guy, but as my body got pinned against Hailey’s backside, I decided this was one show I was definitely going to enjoy.

  We jumped up and down together, screaming lyrics Hailey learned on the spot, and the harder she laughed, the harder I laughed with her. By the time it was my turn to take the stage, I was so full of happy energy, I felt like I could float right up to my drums.

  “That was definitely the most fun I’ve ever had at a show,” I tell her, and Hailey smirks.

  “You just liked that you got to dry-hump me for an hour.”

  I can’t help chuckling as I hold on to her hand. “It was my favorite part.”

  She blushes in spite of her teasing, and I brush my thumb over her hand as I stare back out at the road.

  “Where are we going?” she asks, and my thumb gets restless again, threatening to start drumming against her knuckles.

  “Wait and see.”

  Fifteen minutes later, we pull down the access road leading to the pond, and I help Hailey out of my truck before sticking my head back inside the passenger door t
o reach inside my glove compartment. “I think I’ve got a flashlight in here,” I tell her, and I rummage around before closing the glove compartment and joining her outside. I hold the flashlight with one hand and sneak the other into my pocket.

  As we walk, I tell her, “I came up here after I got back from touring to make sure they cleaned up, and I found a generator they left up here.”

  Hailey looks up at me, and I slip my hand from my pocket to wrap my arm around her. “They just forgot it?”

  “Seems like it.”

  “Did you tell them?”

  “Yeah, but they never came back to get it.”

  We reach the clearing, and I tell her to wait for me as I walk inside the tree line to where I know the generator is hidden behind some branches. I flip a switch, and the whole forest flickers to life.

  Hailey’s mouth is hanging open when I emerge from the woods, and I smile as she admires the million white Christmas lights I’ve hung in the surrounding trees. It’s been my day project—when I haven’t been writing music or practicing with the guys, I’ve been buying out Home Depot’s holiday lighting section and becoming an expert light hanger.

  “Wow,” Hailey breathes, and I take her hand in mine as we stare around the clearing.

  “Do you like it?” I ask. I had planned for far more lights than this—by the time I brought her out here this summer, I wanted this place to look like it was filled with millions of tiny fireflies. But so far, I’ve only managed to hang lights in the trees immediately surrounding the clearing.

  “It’s beautiful,” Hailey admires, and the tightness in my chest relaxes. “Did you do this?” she asks, and I start walking her toward the pond.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I knew you’d like it.”

  I steal a kiss as we continue walking, and each step we take toward the steel platform in the middle of the meadow makes my heart pound harder, and harder, and harder.