That was our cue. All of us up front reached under the black drapery and brought out the plastic shopping bags we’d hidden there. Then Mickey held Logan in place as we pelted him with handfuls of multicolored birthday candles. Connor and Siobhan tossed them back into the crowd so we could hurl them again.
Once all seventeen hundred candles had been thrown (most of them two or three times), the band waved and dragged Logan away.
Megan and I and a few other friends scrambled onto the stage to collect the candles. The view from behind Logan’s microphone showed a darkened room ablaze with cell phones and lighters—and along the edges, more than a few ghosts.
The Keeley Brothers came back for an encore, a cover of blink-182’s “Dammit,” with Mickey singing the chorus. Then their own “Ghost in Green,” which gave everyone a chance to solo while Logan crowd-surfed, and ending with Flogging Molly’s “Devil’s Dance Floor”—the hottest, fastest song yet, as if to prove they had the stamina to start over and go all night long.
Finally they took one last bow, then sprang offstage, this time with their instruments.
Megan pulled me into a long, tight hug. “Aura, they did it, they really did it. That was their best show ever by a hundred times.”
Over her shoulder I got a glimpse of Logan backstage. He waved at me, then flashed both palms wide to signal ten minutes. Then Mickey walked up and spoke in his ear. Logan’s smile widened, then he signaled to me twenty minutes.
“The label guys.” I let go of Megan, sweat making our shirts stick together. “This is it.”
“Don’t worry, they can’t sign anything until they’re all eighteen, or Mr. Keeley will disown them. No car, no college, no food.”
I watched Logan fade into the darkness, his golden hair catching the last shred of stage light. Adrenaline crashed through my veins, making the blood pound in my ringing ears. The last song ran through my head, backward and forward.
I knew Logan would give up cars, college, and food for a chance to be a rock star. He’d sell his soul and wouldn’t miss it for a second. Because until everyone in the world loved him, he’d have no use for that soul anyway.
My boyfriend’s onstage invincibility was a pale preview of his birthday party.
The news was good—both recording labels wanted to sign them, and they were willing to wait until the Keeleys (and Brian’s parents, since he was a minor too) could call their lawyers. I was glad the boys and Siobhan had played hard to get. I’d heard stories about bands getting crappy contracts that would never make them money no matter how many records they sold.
The reps’ attention gave Logan enough ego juice to act like he was turning seven instead of seventeen that night. He seriously proposed to Mickey and Siobhan that they finish off the night by making a music video in the local graveyard.
“I’m telling you, it’ll be huge.” Standing in the downstairs hallway, Logan looped an arm around each of their necks, barely holding himself up. “For ‘Ghost in Green,’ right? I got it all planned out. We go up to Sacred Heart, okay, and just shoot the video like regular.” He flapped his hand in my direction. “Aura and Brian can let us know when the ghosts show up, and tell them to jam with us. Like, not for real or anything, ’cause they can’t hold instruments. I mean dance along. It would be”—his gaze roamed the ceiling, looking for the perfect word—“tremendous.”
“Yeah, tremendous,” Mickey said, “and we still wouldn’t be able to see them, even on film.”
“That’s not the point, dumb-ass.” Logan flicked the side of Mickey’s head. “Post-Shifters’ll see them. You gotta think forward.”
I snagged a blue corn chip from Siobhan’s paper plate. “But ghosts don’t hang out much in graveyards,” I told Logan, “We’d find more inside the church itself.”
“Aw, yeah! Let’s do it! Father Carrick would go for it, right?”
“Sure he would.” Mickey patted Logan’s hand. “How many drinks have you had?”
“None.” Logan shook his head emphatically. “None drinks. Officially.”
I held up a half-empty pint of Guinness. “Officially this is mine, even though it’s never touched my lips.”
“She’s lying,” Logan told them. “Never trust a girl who hates Guinness.”
“And how many of those have ‘you’ had?” Siobhan asked me, with air quotes.
“This is his fourth—I mean, my fourth.”
“Right.” Mickey snatched the glass from me. “You’re cut off.”
“Thank you.” I took Logan’s hand and tried not to yank him in my annoyance. “Come dance with me.”
Siobhan sidled over to the stereo. “I’ll switch to something slow so he doesn’t puke on you.”
Logan took the lead, guiding me through the scattered partyers to the center of the living room floor, where he wrapped his arms around me. The music’s beat dropped to a slow throb.
He gave a warm sigh into my scalp. “This is better.”
“Much.”
“Let me know when I get too obnoxious.”
“ ‘Too’?”
“Okay, okay.” Logan kissed my forehead. “This is such an amazing night, Aura. We did something spectacular on that stage. I never felt that kind of energy before.”
“I know.”
“But it wouldn’t mean shit without you there.”
My heart thudded. I wanted him to promise he’d always feel that way. But I couldn’t ask that of him, and even if he said it, I wouldn’t believe.
“Wow,” he whispered. “I’m suddenly sober.”
I tugged one of the black streaks in his spiky blond hair. “You are not.”
“Feels like it.” Logan slid his hand over my waist, following the curve of my ribs. “I’m nervous. I’m afraid I’ll do something wrong again tonight, like I did a couple weeks ago.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong then. It’s supposed to hurt a little the first time. I shouldn’t have wussed out and made us stop.”
“It was my fault. If I knew what I was doing, maybe it would’ve been easier for you.”
“I was probably just worried Aunt Gina would come home early.” I rested my cheek against his warm chest and watched Megan and Mickey dance, their bodies in perfect sync. “I just want to get it over with.”
“Don’t say that.” Logan pulled away a few inches, blue eyes bleary but determined. “I won’t be able to go through with it if I know you’re dying for it to end.”
“Logan, just shut up. It’ll be fine. It’ll be great.” I tried to coax my mouth into a convincing smile.
He looked strangely vulnerable. “You wanna get out of here?”
One last heart-slam. “Definitely.”
We headed for the stairs, making sure no one was following.
“Hey, birthday boy.”
Brian Knox stood in our path, flanked by Nadine Ross and Emily McFarland, girls I recognized from Logan’s school here in Hunt Valley. Brian held two glasses of a clear drink.
Nadine took one of the glasses and pressed it into Logan’s hand. He held it up to the light.
“What the hell is this?” he asked Brian.
“My new invention.” The drummer bowed. “I call it Liquid Stupid.”
Nadine giggled. “Liquid Stupid.”
“Guaranteed to lower your IQ twenty points with the first sip.” Brian put the other glass in my hand. “Aura, why don’t you take five sips and come down to our level?”
“Who’d be dumb enough to drink something called Liquid Stupid?” I turned to Logan, who was downing the first half of his glass. “What are you doing? You don’t even know what’s in it!”
Logan swallowed, then whooshed out a hard breath. “What’s in it?”
Brian counted off on his fingers. “Grain alcohol, Aftershock, and uh, some other stuff. Guess I should’ve written it down before I drank some.”
“You like it?” Nadine brushed her hand over Logan’s arm in a way that made me want to bite it off.
“Tastes like Fi
reballs and battery acid,” he said.
“The second half is better, after it kills your taste buds.” She lifted Logan’s wrist toward his mouth.
“Easy now.” He gently removed her hand. “I want to remember this night tomorrow.”
“I bet you do.” Brian threw a greedy glance over my body.
“Hey.” Logan stepped between us and poked Brian in the chest. “Don’t make me lose those sticks of yours up your ass.”
Brian barked a laugh. “If anyone here has a stick up their little diva ass, it’s—”
Logan shoved him against the wall, knocking off his cap. The thud of Brian’s shoulder blades caught everyone’s attention.
Brian lifted his hands in surrender, even though with his beefiness, he could’ve slammed Logan into the floor. “Dude, I’m kidding.”
“About what?” Logan snarled.
“Everything. Anything. Whatever.” Brian seemed amused but a little worried, and I sensed something was going on that I wasn’t aware of, that maybe I didn’t want to know. Emily looked as confused as I felt, while Nadine watched the guys like they were characters on her favorite reality show.
I put a hand on Logan’s back. “Come on. Let’s get something to eat.”
He blinked at me. “Right.” He let Brian go with another slight shove. “Sorry, man.”
“S’okay.” Brian picked up his cap, avoiding my eyes.
I led Logan through the kitchen.
“You still hungry,” he said, “after all that pizza?”
“No, but you need a time-out.”
“I’m not a little kid.”
“Yeah?” Without looking back, I walked through the side hallway toward the stairs. “Come prove it.”
“I wrote a song for you.” Logan picked up his acoustic guitar and sank onto his bed with a whump! that made the instrument hum. “For tonight.”
I sat beside him. “A private performance. I feel so privileged.” I didn’t mean it as sarcastically as it came out.
He strummed quietly with the pick, then adjusted the pegs. I twisted my hands in my lap, knuckles scraping my palms, wishing simultaneously that the night would end Now and Never.
Logan’s room was spotless—at least as far as I could see in the warm, dim light from his desk lamp. The Irish flag hung on one wall, a smaller version of the one in the basement. (The Keeleys’ ancestors left Dublin in the 1840s, but they acted like they just hopped off the boat last week. Their wet bar had a slow-pour keg tap specially designed for Guinness, and Notre Dame football was a second religion.)
Another wall was all shelves—CDs and music books. There was no obvious order, but Logan could always find what he needed in two seconds. In the far corner, his battered skateboard sat abandoned. I thought I could see a layer of dust on it, but that might’ve just been the angle of the light.
On the wall above his bed hung posters of his two heroes—the entire lineup of the Baltimore Ravens, and the Pogues’ front man, Shane McGowan. His parents didn’t approve of the second—anybody who could get kicked out of an Irish punk band for drinking too much was a bad role model, they said.
After a minute or two of tuning, Logan shifted his position and gave me the shy smile I hadn’t seen since we were ten. “Ready?”
As soon as he hit the first jangled chord, we knew something was wrong.
“Huh.” Logan flexed his fingers, then did another quick strum. “My hands are tingly.” His speech was slower than usual. “Maybe worn out from the show. Sorry about that.”
“Just play what you can. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
“Yes, it does.” His voice gained a hard edge, obliterating the slur. “I promise tomorrow night it will be. The song, I mean.” He switched on the CD player with the remote control. “Go pick something while I put this away.”
I fished out the first nonpunk CD I could find, one from a new Danish band with fuzzy guitars and a lumbering beat that echoed in my gut. The music made the room feel like it was on a different planet from the rest of the house. I closed my eyes for a moment and let the wall of sound soothe my mind.
Logan snapped the catches on his guitar case, then stood, wavering as his knees straightened.
“I have a present for you.” He glanced down at his body. “And you get to unwrap it.”
Ew, I thought.
Then his eyes widened. “No, I don’t mean that!” he said. “Well, yeah, that too, but not yet.” He took my hands and placed my fingers on his shirt’s top button. “Ready, go.”
I tried to keep my hands from shaking as they unbuttoned his shirt. His lips folded under his teeth, and I knew he was as nervous as I was.
I reached up to push the shirt off his left shoulder. That’s when I saw it.
Over his heart, a tattoo with four letters written in a Celtic font:
AURA.
My hand froze. “God.”
“Do you like it?”
I couldn’t breathe. It felt like I’d never breathe again. “When did you get this?”
“Last week. It was my birthday present to myself. And no, I don’t expect you to get a matching one. Your aunt would have a stroke. After she finished killing me.”
I traced the smooth black lines where my name met his flesh. “Does your mom know?”
“No one knows, except me and you. My dad’ll probably have a heart attack when he finds out, but that’s why we have the defibrillator.”
I didn’t laugh. Mr. Keeley had had too many close calls. This cruise had been on his cardiologist’s orders.
“I know you’re worried,” Logan said. “You think the second I sign a deal, I’ll turn into some kind of man-slut.” He put his hands over mine, pressing my palms against his chest. “You’ve always been the only one, and you always will be.”
I knew I should step away, tell him he was crazy, that we were too young to talk like that. But I wanted this crazy more than anything.
“I love you, Logan.” I breathed in his scent, sweet and heady as hot cider. “Happy birthday.”
“So far, yeah.” He bent over, picked me up, and stumbled to the bed. He knocked his shin against the frame, and I spilled out of his grip. I was laughing before my face hit the pillow.
By the time I flipped onto my back, he had crashed next to me, arms and legs everywhere. “Sorry,” he said. “I suck at this.”
I couldn’t stop laughing, mostly at myself for being so afraid. This was Logan, after all, the boy I’d thrown snowballs at and chased ice cream trucks with. Not Logan the rock star.
He stretched out beside me, his eyes sharper now. “Don’t tell me no this time, Aura. Please. Don’t make me stop.”
As my laughter died, my thumb traced a trembling line along his bottom lip. “I won’t.”
Logan kissed me, before and after removing my shirts, and told me I was beautiful. Unlike the last time, he was slow and patient, and when his fingers brushed my skin, I melted instead of freezing. I could feel our happiness radiating off each other in waves, like the music pulsing from Logan’s speakers.
But then his touch grew heavy and his kisses sloppy, making me squirm.
“What the hell?” he muttered as he fumbled with my bra clasp.
“I think you twist it. The lady at Victoria’s Secret said it was easy.” I examined it in the dim light, trying to remember how I’d put it on.
But Logan was staring at his hand, not at the clasp.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
He wiggled his fingers. “I can’t feel my face.”
“Oh my God, are you sick? Should I get Mickey?”
He laughed. “No, no, no—definitely no.” He slumped back onto his pillow. “I’m just wasted. It’s really hitting me.” He looked at the ceiling, then shut his eyes hard. “Wow.”
“How wasted?”
He spoke slowly. “I have absolutely no feeling in my extremities.”
A horrible thought hit me. “All your extremities?”
Logan gave me a guilty loo
k. “Sorry. I guess that’s why they call it Liquid Stupid.” His lashes fluttered. “Man, this is hard-core.” He laughed again—high-pitched, like a stoner.
“How could you do this to me?” I sat up, afraid I would punch him if I didn’t get out of range. “I was ready. Yeah, I was scared, but I was ready, Logan. And now you can’t even—”
“We can try again tomorrow.” He touched the half-empty glass on the nightstand. “Hey, you should have some too, get floaty with me.” His voice drifted off. “I bet this is better than sex.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know, would I?” I kicked his foot. “They don’t call it Liquid Stupid because it makes you stupid. It’s what you have to be to drink it in the first place.”
“Said I was sorry.” After a moment, Logan’s eyes opened wide, like he was forcing them. “I have an idea. Help me up.”
I pulled his arm until he was sitting on the side of the bed.
“I’ll take a shower,” he slurred, “wake myself up.” He pushed himself to his feet and staggered to the dresser. “I’ll make it all better. We are not done here yet.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” I asked, hoping he’d say no.
“No! I mean, it’ll be a cold shower. Not fun for you.” He withdrew something small from his top drawer, which he slipped into the front pocket of his baggy shorts.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. New shampoo, sample pack.” He ruffled his hair. “Supposed to be good for getting all this spiky gel crap out.”
Logan was always trying new hair products. He had more styling goops than most salons.
“Lock the door after me,” he said.
I stood behind him as he opened the door slowly and peeked out. The upper hall was empty, and so was the bathroom halfway down on the left.
Logan kissed me, then turned away. The soles of his shoes scraped the carpet.
I touched my lips. His kiss had been clumsy and cold.
Down the hall, Logan slowed, fingers trickling along the wall to stop his momentum. With what looked like a great effort, he turned, shuffled back to my side, and carefully cupped my chin.
This time when he kissed me, his lips were still cool, but they felt like his again.
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