by Jamie Shaw
“Why are you so excited?” I ask, unable to stop myself from chuckling at him. Heavy bass is pulsing inside the club, making the summer-warmed hair on the back of my neck stand up. The lights, the music, the long line of people stretched around the block—they make midnight seem like a magic hour, a time for dancing and laughing, not for warm beds and sweet dreams.
“I’ve never been to one!” Adam answers.
“Are we even allowed to go in there?” Mike finishes scanning the long line and turns a skeptical eye on Leti.
“Of course you’re allowed,” Leti answers from beside me. He shoots Mike a grin and adds, “My people don’t discriminate.”
Joel, with his Mohawk dyed a kaleidoscope of rainbow colors in the reflection of Out’s flashing door, gives us an uneasy glance over his shoulder. “Won’t they think we’re gay?”
Leti chuckles and shakes his head, the bright lights illuminating his already-bright smile. “Trust me, they’ll be able to tell you’re straight in three-point-four seconds.”
“Doesn’t mean you’re not going to get hit on though,” I tease, and Leti winks at me before walking ahead of everyone toward the door. He bypasses the impossibly long line, full of mostly guys and a few pockets of girls, to flash his trademark grin at the bouncer, and after a minute of smooth talking, he waves us all over and we cut the line to get inside.
“They didn’t even check our IDs,” I note as we enter a pitch-black corridor that’s lit only by the rainfall of spots still peppering my vision.
“You’re rock stars,” I hear Leti’s voice explain as we make our way forward, toward a thin line of light on the floor. My arms spread as I attempt to feel my surroundings, but then a heavy arm curls around my shoulders, and a familiar scent envelops me in the dark. I cling to Shawn’s T-shirt and let him guide me toward the light, the music at the end of the dark tunnel growing louder and louder with every cautious step.
The click of a door, and then I’m blinded by blues, reds, yellows, greens. Lasers and glow sticks flood the room, and there is nothing I can see but dancers—dancers on the floor, dancers in cages suspended from the ceiling, women dancing with women, women dancing with men, and everywhere, men dancing with men. Everyone is dressed in something spectacular—or barely dressed at all—and in my faux-leather leggings and Dee-designed tank top, I almost fit in.
“How are we supposed to get anywhere?” I shout over the music, and Leti’s grin turns devilish a second before he grabs my brother’s hand and yanks him into the crowd. They disappear into the glittering sea of bodies, and I’m left standing with four straight guys who are busy looking at me like I have all the answers they don’t.
Shawn’s arm dropped from my shoulder sometime before the door opened, which is why I’m free for Mike to pull to his side when he says, “I call Kit!”
We get sucked into the crowd, leaving Adam, Shawn, and Joel standing there staring at each other with lost expressions on their faces.
Mike and I don’t dance so much as maneuver. We weave with each other in and out of free spaces until I finally spot an open set of stairs leading down to a long, glitter-topped silver bar at the other side of the room. “There!” I say, pointing at the bar and getting my hand snatched out of the air. A guy with wide pupils spins me around faster than the disco balls suspended from the ceiling, making me so dizzy that I’m not sure which is still spinning—me, the room, or the floor beneath my feet. When I’m thoroughly light-headed, he hands me back off to Mike, who steadies my still-spinning body, helps me to the bar, and deposits me in a vacant standing-room-only spot in front of the bartender.
“That was scary,” he says while chuckling behind me, and I turn around and laugh along with him.
“I wonder how Leti and Kale are doing.”
Mike flags the bartender over my shoulder, and I order raspberritas for the both of us before he can object. He’s sipping on the sugar rim and making a face at me, when I see a group of hot girls pass behind him to find a free spot at the bar.
“I bet you could find a nice girlfriend here,” I shout over the music, and Mike’s warm brown eyes follow mine to the group clustered a few spots away. They’re all wearing tight dresses, lots of makeup, and pounds of sparkling glitter. They look the way most girls look when they’re trying to be pretty for themselves instead of for someone else—shiny and colorful and happy.
“Don’t girls come here so that they don’t get asked out?” Mike counters.
“Exactly! Which is why their defenses are down!” When he laughs like I’m joking, I pout. “Seriously Mike, you should ask one out.”
“Why?”
“You deserve someone.”
“So do you,” he counters. “But you don’t see me pushing you at anyone.”
“That’s because everyone here is gay!” I protest, but Mike’s response comes quick.
“Not everyone.”
My eyes narrow with suspicion, and I swing a finger back and forth between us. “You don’t mean . . . ”
“God, no,” he rushes to say, his hands out like he’s going to physically stop me from dropping to one knee and proposing to him or something. “You and me?” He starts laughing again—hard.
I prop a fist on my hip in mock offense. “Are you saying I’m not your type?” When he can’t stop laughing, I hold back a smile. “What’s your type then?”
“Someone . . . not-mean,” he says, and when I burst out laughing too, it only encourages him. “Someone not-loud, someone not-crazy.”
“I get it,” I interrupt. “Someone nice and calm and sane.”
Mike grins and nods his chin toward the girls I pointed out earlier. “A.K.A., definitely not those girls.”
When I turn my head to find them cackling like drunken hyenas and falling over each other, Mike and I laugh even harder. Those girls would be a sure thing, a trio of one-night stands he’d never have to call again, but I should’ve known Mike better than to think he’d go for glitter and glam and easy. Whoever captures his heart is going to be class and brains and worth waiting for.
By the time Shawn, Adam, and Joel finally track us down, Mike has finished a beer and a half, and I’m double-fisting raspberritas—mine, and what’s left of his.
“Are those raspberry margaritas?” Adam immediately asks, stealing one from my hand and taking a big swallow before I can answer.
“You fit right in here,” Mike teases him, and Adam flicks him off with a black-painted fingernail while still taking a long drink from my glass.
“What happened to your shirt?” I ask, my eyes traveling past Adam’s newly acquired glow necklace, past the Magic 8 Ball tattoo inked on his left pectoral, and down to a unicorn stenciled on his stomach. Mike wasn’t exactly wrong about him fitting in.
“Some dude offered to trade him a glow necklace for it,” Shawn explains, and Adam chuckles into the raspberrita at Shawn’s disapproving tone. He coughs and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and I stiffen when Shawn squeezes into the space half beside, half behind me to order a drink of his own. His front is pressed tight against my back, and his fingers find my side as he places his order.
“Where are Leti and your brother?” Joel asks me, oblivious to the way Shawn’s hand on my side is making it impossible for me to talk.
“Still haven’t come back yet,” Mike answers for me, still shaking his head at Adam’s bare chest. Adam wraps an arm around his shoulder and flashes him a white smile.
“Is he gay?” Joel asks me point-blank, tearing my attention from Adam and Mike. “Your brother?” His voice holds no disapproval, no judgment, but I avoid the question anyway.
“Is Adam?” I reach out and poke Adam’s unicorn, and he barks out a laugh, snapping Mike’s head forward when his arms jerk down to protect himself.
The boys get into a scuffle that forces me even tighter against Shawn, and it’s impossible to miss the way his body reacts to mine. We both feel him between us, but neither of us moves an inch, and neither of us says a wor
d. Instead, I nibble at the inside of my lip when his fingers close even tighter around my waist.
Shawn and I stand like that, listening to the guys act like idiots under the downpour of techno bass—and ignoring one big, pressing, unspoken thing between us—until Leti and my brother emerge from the crowd, looking like they just danced twenty pounds off. My brother’s cheeks are red—from exertion or from crushing on Leti too hard, it’s impossible to tell. I try to shift away from Shawn before they can reach our group, but he catches the curve of my waist and refuses to let me budge. And all I can do is stand there, my heart doing flips and tumbles and cartwheels in my chest.
Does he know what he’s doing? He has to know what he’s doing. Why is he doing it? And why does he feel so. fucking. good? I purposely shift against him, and his fingers draw me even closer.
“Dude.” Leti laughs as he practically skips up to our group. Kale is right beside him, but they don’t so much as brush elbows. Leti may have gotten my brother out of the house, but he’s still firmly in the closet. “You know what those mean, right?” He points at Adam’s glow necklace, and when Adam simply lifts it up and raises an eyebrow, Leti starts laughing again. “They mean you’re DTF.”
“DTF?” Mike says.
“Have you never watched Jersey Shore?” Leti asks like it’s a crime.
“It means you’re down to fuck,” Kale answers, and Adam looks around to find that no fewer than ten guys are eyeing him up.
My bandmates get into a hilarious conversation about why Adam won’t take it off—with him insisting that he’s used to the attention and that glow necklaces are “cool as hell,” and Joel teasing that he’s been away from Rowan too long—while Shawn and I stay quiet on the fringes of the group, his front glued to my back and his hand stuck to my hip. I pretend that the way he’s touching me is normal, that this is what friends do, that I’m not tuned in to every breath he takes or every line of his fingerprints indenting themselves in my skin.
When I feel eyes on me, my gaze drifts to Leti to find him grinning my way. My brother, standing beside him, is busy glaring at Shawn’s hand.
“Come dance with us,” Leti coaxes, tugging my reluctant body away from Shawn’s.
Shawn’s hand slowly slides from my waist, and Kale finally meets my eyes.
“No way,” my twin says. “I’m not dancing with my sister.”
But Leti is on a mission, and he starts walking backward with my hands ensnared in his. “Suit yourself.”
He lures me up the stairs and onto the floor, and we drift deep, deep into the crowd. In the middle of it, Leti rests his big hands on my shoulders, his golden-honey eyes flashing with glee as multicolored lasers cut across our skin. He presses his mouth into my purple-and-black hair and shouts over the throbbing music, “He is so into you!”
When he pulls away, I simply shake my head. Shawn’s body might be into me, but the rest of him? That would be into a girl like me, if he was into anyone at all. I’m not even on his radar. I’m just one of the guys, which is a good thing. A really good thing. Definitely good.
I pull Leti down and rise to my tiptoes. “He said he could date a girl like me. Like me.”
“That’s a good thing!” he shouts back.
I shake my head against his cheek. “I’m not even an option.”
Leti is frowning when I pull away. He lowers his arms to wrap them around my waist, pulling me close and pressing his lips into my hair again. “You didn’t see the way he kept looking at you while you guys performed onstage tonight.”
I rest my forehead against Leti’s shoulder, because I know no amount of trying to convince him is going to make him believe that Shawn and I were over before we even began. I feel him sigh against me, and then the room is spinning, laser lights blurring as he twirls me in circles and makes me squeal and laugh. We dance until one song ends and another begins, until I finally feel far enough away from Shawn to think of something—anything—else.
“You and Kale . . . ” I question with Leti’s arms around me, and he grins down at me, the honeycomb in his eyes sparkling.
“He’s a really good kisser.”
My jaw drops in a gasp, and Leti’s cheeks burn red as he chuckles and I enter freak-out territory. “YOU KISSED HIM? HERE? JUST NOW?”
When Leti shakes his head, that grin still plastered all over his face, I furrow my brows in confusion until he explains.
“He kissed me!”
My eyes open saucer-wide, and he laughs again before spinning me some more. I have a million more questions I want to ask—questions I need to ask before I explode—but the music between us blares loud and Leti spins me and twirls me and dances me like a marionette until I’m light-headed and loving it. My arms become weightless, my legs become lighter than air, and I float behind Leti all the way back to the sunken bar. I grin at my brother as I glide down the stairs, delighting in the way he blushes when he tunes in to our twin frequency and realizes I know what he did. I know he kissed Leti.
“Where’d everyone go?” Leti asks our group, sidling up to Kale while still keeping an ambiguous distance.
“Out for a smoke break,” Shawn answers as he takes in my sweat-tipped hair, my damp top, my pink skin. I’m sure I look like a hot mess, but there’s no point in trying to fix it. “Adam kept getting hit on.”
“Did he take the necklace off?” I ask, and Shawn makes me laugh when he shakes his head.
He hands me a full raspberrita he must have ordered while I was away, and I can’t help the shy smile that dimples my cheek as I lift it to my lips.
“Shawn,” Leti asks, “want to dance?”
Shawn coughs out a laugh that does nothing to dim Leti’s smile.
“Oh, come on. You haven’t danced at all!” Leti complains. “If you’re not going to dance with me, you should at least dance with Kit.”
I find myself shaking my head as everyone watches—because I remember all too well what happened the last time I danced with Shawn. I made a damn fool of myself and then nearly barfed in his mouth.
“I’m actually getting tired,” I say, turning my not-at-all-tired gaze on Shawn. “Think the guys would be cool with heading back to the bus yet?”
“Nooo,” Leti whines. “You can’t leave.”
I flash him a secret smile. “Kale can stay with you! We’ll catch a cab back.”
Even though Leti pouts about me leaving early and putting the kibosh on his evil plan to hook me up with Shawn, he lets us go. Kale hugs me tight before I do, warning in my ear, “I don’t like him, Kit. I came up here because I was worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” I say back, kissing his cheek. He frowns at me as I back away. “And you have better things to do than worry about me!” I wink at him and yell at Leti to make sure my brother gets home safe, and then I turn around and walk out to the sidewalk with Shawn to join our three missing rock stars. We hail a cab driver, tip him in advance for letting the five of us break the law by cramming into his taxi, and pile inside.
On the way to the club, Kale had driven and we’d all squished in tight, with me on Leti’s lap. This time, Adam calls shotgun; Shawn, Joel, and Mike claim the backseat; and I end up on Shawn’s lap with my legs tangled with his. The night is dark, with the city lights flashing in and out of the car, and this time, when Shawn’s fingers find my hip, there’s no music pounding in my ears, no lasers filling the room. It’s just us in the dark, my skintight leggings heavy on his lap and his fingers slipping under my loose tank top to caress my goose-bumped skin.
In the dim glow of the cab, while the other guys are talking, I gaze down at him. My arm is curled behind his neck, and those impossibly green eyes are all mine, staring up at me from under black lashes that look soft enough to kiss. The streetlights flash across his face over and over and over again, highlighting the emerald specks in his eyes, the perfect shape of his nose, the shadow on his jaw. Each span of darkness makes me want to kiss him, and each flash of light reminds me that I can’t.
When the cab drops us back off at the bus, I stumble out of the backseat first, not waiting for the rest of the guys before I climb on board our gray-and-silver sleeper. I immediately grab my bag from a cabinet and head for the shower, taking it cold. The water rains over my face, washing away makeup and dancing and the heat on my skin. The cold makes Shawn feel like a dream, even though the ghost of his fingertips clings like an invisible print on my sides—one I can feel, one that’s impossible to wash away.
I take a deep breath and run my hands over my face, standing under the ice water until both my body and my memories are numb, until the entire night seems like yesterday. When I step out of the bathroom in fresh pajamas, with a fresh-washed face, it’s a new day, one I can face. One that doesn’t make my heart hurt.
The guys, including Driver, are all gathered in the kitchen, drinking and gaming and watching TV, and I say a quick goodnight to all of them, careful to avoid meeting Shawn’s eyes before I close the curtain and slip into my bunk.
My pillow, my blankets . . . My entire bed smells like him. After I switched his sheets with mine this morning, I didn’t think to take both sets to the Laundromat with us, and now I’ll be sleeping in his scent. It wraps itself around me when I pull the covers up to my chin and close my eyes. I can almost imagine I’m waiting for him in his bed, that he’ll crawl in next to me at any moment and hold me even tighter than he did inside the club.
My thoughts drift to what would happen after the holding . . .
And after the kissing . . .
I toss and turn, turn and toss. I’m alone, lying on my back while staring at the wooden beams above me, thinking of that night six years ago and how it feels like a lifetime ago, when a sliver of light cuts onto the aisle floor. When Shawn lets the curtain fall shut behind him, that sliver disappears again, leaving nothing but the dim glow of city light sneaking in through gaps in the curtains and blinds. I keep my eyes glued to the bunk above me as he slips out of his jeans, crawls under his covers, and settles in his bed. But when I feel his eyes on me, I roll onto my side to face him.
