“Ha. Ha.”
Chuckling, Ellie reached for her jar of homemade shellac. It smelled like the devil’s aftershave. It was her secret formula: no one knew what was in it except for Ellie.
“Do you think it’s normal to get crushes on people, even if you’re really happy?”
With a knowing laugh, Ellie went back to her shoes. “Completely normal.”
Though she sounded certain, I wasn’t reassured. “Things are so good with Dave, you know? But I just keep having these weird . . . fantasies, I guess, about another guy.”
“It’s not against the law to think,” she pointed out. Then, sensing that I needed all her attention, she put her shoes aside. Wrapping her arms around me, she squeezed me tight. Her delicate perfume engulfed me.
“No matter how happy you are with somebody, it doesn’t make you blind. You see how Mom gets over Robert Downey Jr., and she’s been married to Dad for thirty years.”
Fair point, but the details bothered me. “Yeah, but there’s no chance she’s going to hook up with him.”
“Yes, but there’s a difference between what you want to do and what you choose to do.”
My mouth actually dropped open. I didn’t know how I’d missed that in all my ruminations, but it was so obvious now. Invisible forces weren’t at work. The universe wasn’t conspiring. Will had made me feel sexy; who wouldn’t fantasize about that? But the feeling should be enough; I didn’t have to act on it.
Dave was love; Will was lust. It felt so obvious now. I felt confident that a switch would flip for me and Dave if only I let it. Maybe prom night, maybe just some wonderful, random Tuesday night—everything would go from sweet to sultry, and I’d have everything I wanted.
Ellie gave me another squeeze. Then she poked at me, leaning around to grin. “Did I just blow your mind?”
Exhaling my relief in a laugh, I nodded. “You did, actually. Thank you.”
~
The Eden’s main stage felt like home.
The boards were uneven, their soundboard fought with our amps, and the lights were blinding. It was paradise. I loved the sting of a hot halogen on the back of my neck, and the way the music seemed to pound into me in waves. Tonight, Dave and I were Dasa, and we owned the club.
Fingers stung on the guitar strings, I smelled someone else’s beer on my mic, and I didn’t care. The crowd surged close to the stage. Most of the time, it was impossible to make out individual faces.
Except tonight, as Dave and I launched into the last song before our encore, I noticed a bright, redheaded gleam, right next to the footlights. It was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. The impression nagged at me for a verse and a half, until I realized who it was: Tricia Patten.
At first, I felt a pang of irrational fear. She’d found out about me and Will, and she was there to beat me down. Never mind that Tricia was five feet tall and made out of cotton candy.
Then all at once, the whole front row came into focus. It was the whole senior court, Tricia and her best friend, Nedda Coleman. Jake Thompson, center of the varsity baseball team; his girlfriend, Latonya Waite. Arjun Patel, Mason Sedgwick—it was like the entire A-list from Tricia’s party had transferred directly to the live room at the Eden.
Dave realized it the same time I did. With a crooked smile and a nudge, he nodded toward them. The popularity of the crowd wasn’t the impressive part. It was the connectedness. Tricia had paid us a hundred bucks for an hour of music. All these people had seen us there, and now they’d paid to see us again. On purpose. They were alive and bright and excited—they were there for a show.
By the time the final note rang out, my throat was raw and the crowd was roaring. Grabbing my mic, I leaned into it, introducing ourselves the way I always did. Then, I added, “And if you give me two minutes to grab a drink, we’ll be back to take your requests.”
They applauded, and I shrugged broadly at Dave. We didn’t usually take requests at the club, but we didn’t usually have an audience this enthusiastic. From his broad smile, I could tell he obviously didn’t mind.
Peeling off my guitar, I placed it in its stand and bounded down the back steps. They didn’t serve us at the bar, but there was plenty of bottled water in the office fridge. Sweaty and elated, music rang in my ears. I was probably making too much of it, but there was no high like coming off a great show.
Or so I thought.
As I checked my Instagram, someone reached from the shadows and hauled me into an alcove. It was a cool recess where the club stored extra cases of soda and old music equipment. Before I realized it, I was pressed against a concrete wall, and strong, broad hands enveloped mine.
“Tag,” Will murmured, then branded me with a searing kiss. “You’re it.”
Pinning my hands to the wall beside my head, he parted my lips with a teasing tongue. Slick and sensual, he covered me completely with his body. That’s all it took to burn away everything I’d just shared with Dave. One touch. One kiss.
I tightened my fingers in his and surged back. It was just the way I imagined it, like he’d read my mind. The connection was there, I realized, half-savage and hungry for more of him. It wasn’t something I’d created to explain the attraction. It was the attraction, a fierce and undeniable pull that left me aching for more of him than I could possibly have.
Shifting, Will pressed his knee between my thighs. It was a subtle movement, but it made me ache. Shameless, I pushed back; if I was going to have to spend the rest of the night throbbing with want, so was he. Will murmured low in surprise, and I swept in for another kiss.
It didn’t matter that we were dangerously in the open. That our significant others were both nearby. That we had nothing else in common. That I didn’t even really know him. Will wasn’t comfortable or predictable or safe, and I liked that. I needed it.
Short of breath, Will broke away and pierced me with his pale blue eyes. “I’ve been trying to get you alone for two weeks. I thought we had an agreement.”
“You’re the one who disappeared,” I said. Jealousy pricked at me. “With your girlfriend.”
Will swayed into me, deliberately. His thigh rasped against mine. “Says the girl eye-fucking her boyfriend out there on stage.”
With that, I kissed him yet again. I wanted to taste how dark he could be, how wrong we could be together. I was glad I wasn’t wearing a skirt, because I’m not sure I would have pushed his hands away if they’d slipped beneath it. My face was hot, but for once it wasn’t with an embarrassed blush. It was with flash heat, and need.
All but panting, I freed my fingers from his. My mouth stung, and so did the rest of my body. I was glad I had to get back to the stage, and fast. One, because the crowd was intoxicating, and two, because I was afraid of what I might do if I were alone with Will much longer. I was reckless under his touch.
Both hands on the concrete wall, he pushed away from me. It was like all the light and heat had suddenly gone out of me. My fingers curled wantonly. I wanted him back; I wanted to grab him back, but he let the cold fill the space between us.
Pink tongue darting at the part of his lips, he looked away. “You better get back before somebody catches us.”
Twisting a bottle of water off one of the cases, I nodded. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t trust myself to speak. My body still trembled, my knees coltish and weak. It was afraid it would be obvious to anybody who looked at me, that I was slick with heat that had nothing to do with the show.
But I had to. I had to get back to Dave. He would come looking if I was away too long. Just like Tricia would eventually come looking for Will. Swallowing down the bitterness of that, I took a deep drink of the water and made myself walk.
Breath hot in my throat, I stepped into the hall, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to look back. It was wrong, but it was so good to realize that he was out of breath, too. He looked torn and ravenous,
and his eyes burned just for me.
By sheer determination, I managed to ask him, “What do you want from me, Will?”
His voice broke, and his eyes flashed. And he said the one thing I had no defense for. It rang in my head, and haunted me, even as I took the stage again.
Even as I returned to stand beside Dave, Will had said the one thing that guaranteed I would come back to him. When I asked Will Spencer what he wanted from me, he said:
“Everything.”
I wasn’t prepared for just how much that meant.
TEN
Somehow, after our set, we ended up at a private party with the senior A-Team. When Arjun asked if we wanted to roll with them, Dave accepted enthusiastically. Jane was invited, and I was glad for that.
She was my touchstone, the lucid center of an insane situation. I was also relieved when the party took us to a park on the far end of town instead of Tricia’s house. That would have been too much.
But after Jake broke out the beer and Dave decided to play solo from the edge of the picnic table, I started to wish I was somewhere else. Anywhere else, especially when Tricia shimmied up to me with a Coors Light and a smile.
“I didn’t get a chance to talk to you at the club!”
My throat constricted. It felt like a trap. Like, any minute, she was going to rip the friendly look off her own face and call me out. Trying to fight the dizzy sense of terror, I plastered on a smile of my own and struggled to sound sincere. “I know, I’m so glad we’re here now. Way quieter.”
Slinging an arm around my shoulder, Tricia nodded. “You know, I was telling Dave, you guys are really good. If I turned on the radio tomorrow and you were on the top-twenty countdown, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.”
“Thanks, that’s really nice of you.”
If Tricia knew the truth, she wouldn’t be playing besties with me. A low weight settled in my stomach. I wasn’t sure what felt worse: realizing that I was the trashiest person in the world, or the fact that Tricia didn’t. When she leaned her head close to mine, I stiffened. What if she smelled Will’s cologne on me? What if she suddenly came to her senses and saw the filthy evidence all over me—
“I have time for polite,” Tricia said, airily unaware. “I’m only nice when I mean it. Which reminds me. I had a thought . . .”
“What’s that?” I said. I sucked down half my beer, looking around plaintively.
Laying her head on my shoulder, Tricia held up a finger. She stopped to listen to Dave, who was charming a crowd by covering Ryan Adams’s arrangement of “Wonderwall.” I had to admit, it was beautiful. It was no wonder everybody gathered close to him. I didn’t find it any less bothersome than before. When Tricia broke free of his spell, she sighed.
“We have a deejay for prom, but he kind of sucks,” she said. Fixing me in her bright, determined gaze, she said, “So you guys should play instead.”
I didn’t know what to say. Prom was crazy soon, and a really big deal. We had played the Eden, and plenty of parties, but senior prom was a couple of hours with a huge and captive audience. And because the most popular students in school were the prom committee, it was like a seal of approval. Go forth, it told the masses. Buy Dave and Sarah’s digital EP.
Tricia took my silence for hesitation. Steamrolling right ahead, she said, “I know it’s next week, but you’ve played stuff on short notice before, right? My party, for one.”
“Right, we have,” I agreed uneasily.
“We have a grand to throw around. And it would make everybody really, really happy if you’d play.”
A thousand dollars? I hadn’t even expected payment. I wanted to faint. I couldn’t think of a single reason to say no. At least, not a single reason that didn’t have to do with poaching her boyfriend and taking advantage of her good nature at the same time. That was a pretty big reason, but not one that I was willing to admit out loud.
Lowering her voice, Tricia said, “We can get you into the after-parties, too.”
“To play?” I asked.
Before Tricia could answer, Dave called out. He was flush with swagger, rolling his shoulders and nodding at me like I was just some peon waiting for his beck and call. “Hey, Sare, come play ‘Scrambled Eggs’ for us.”
Nedda giggled, a sound that bored right into my brain. What was he thinking? He knew that song wasn’t finished. And he knew those weren’t permanent lyrics. With all the fawning attention around him, it really felt like he was trying to embarrass me intentionally.
Tricia sat up, giving me an encouraging push. “Think about it, okay?”
“We’ll do it,” I said. To Dave, I called out, “Let me go get my guitar from the car.”
Waving off any company, I stalked toward the road where we’d parked the cars. The river whispered, and the trees seemed to close around me. It felt private here in the dark, secluded enough that I could risk something. With a few quick strokes on my phone’s screen, I sent a message into the dark.
Then I stood beneath a white ash tree and waited—for Tricia’s boyfriend to come help me forget about mine.
~
When Dave arrived at my door on prom night, he wasn’t wearing a tux. That was fine, because I wasn’t wearing a gown, either.
We were dressed for a show, but my clothes had a secret twist. The waterfall skirt mimicked the shape of my costume at Tricia’s party. Ellie recreated the chignon from that night, too. Will had to be there with Tricia, but he had to see me, too. I wanted him to watch. To miss me, and want me.
“Next year, when you guys are seniors, I’m going to take so many pictures,” Ellie said.
“I brought a wrist thingy,” Dave said, offering me a plastic clamshell full of stargazer lily. “If you want to take pictures this year.”
Shaking my head, I murmured to Dave, “Dad doesn’t realize it’s prom night—let’s keep it quiet.”
Secretly, I had admitted to myself that I had no choice but to make a break with Dave. As good as I sometimes felt when I was with him, there were times when I felt equally bad. Everything felt sweet and safe and secure with him, until it didn’t. He still walked into the crowd to soak up the attention. And he still wasn’t taking my songwriting seriously.
None of that erased our history together. I wondered if I wanted too much. But then I got angry with myself. Was it really too much to expect my boyfriend to respect me?
Maybe it was insane to look to a playboy to make me feel like the only girl in the world, but I had to face it. That’s what it was like when I was with Will.
In my heart, I felt selfish because I wanted to keep Dave, too. I wanted him to be there in case I was wrong about Will—if it turned out that Dave was the right one after all. We had the band and our history and had shared so many firsts together. Maybe the broken things could be fixed . . .
Though Jane remained neutral, I kept coming back to the first conversation we’d had. Especially because it had become the running theme of my texts with Will. Pick somebody. Decide. They made it sound so easy, but it wasn’t. I had more to lose with Dave than just a first love.
“Nervous?” Dave asked as we headed for the venue.
I guess I had been quiet, but I shook my head. “It’s just prom.”
With a nod, he reached for my hand. “Next year, we’ll go together. If they don’t want us to play again.”
He said it so simply, so confidently. Like it had never occurred to him that one day we might not be together. The realization nearly broke my heart.
Rooting around in his glove box, I pulled out Dave’s bottle of vocal spray. It tasted like juniper and glue, and it felt like a thin wash of slime. But doing the throat-coat routine meant he wouldn’t try to talk to me until we got on stage. I hated that I wanted that, but I needed the quiet to put myself together.
The hotel ballroom was much more than I expected. I guess I ha
d my brain trained for movie prom. I’d seen enough of them: school gym, paper streamers, butcher paper, and tempera paint backdrops announcing the theme. This was a glittering wonderland, café lights like stars draped everywhere, swaths of organza draping the walls. Hundreds of tiny glittered balls dangled from the ceiling. They cast flashes of rainbows everywhere. Since we were there early to set up, we weren’t even seeing it at peak perfection.
Unpacking my amp and a new pack of strings, I took to the stage to set up. Even with my head down, I saw glimpses of what could have been in the shadows. Will in a fitted tux, and me in something vintage and ethereal from ModCloth. My red lipstick and his blue eyes, the only splashes of color as we danced.
That’s exactly what I saw when Will walked in with Tricia, just as I segued into our third song. Fashionably late, they moved through the sea of seniors like the royalty they were.
Tricia floated in a champagne lace mini, layered with matching silk that fell in a creamy train behind her. In a garish sea of bright cummerbunds, Will stood out in his black-on-black tux. It cut perfectly across his shoulders and his hips, setting off his equally black hair and brows. When he looked across the floor, his eyes pierced, bluer than ever. He would have been at home on a red carpet or on the cover of GQ.
When I missed my cue in the chorus, Dave frowned. He looked concerned, not angry, but there was no way to explain why I was suddenly distracted.
Seeing Will smile at Tricia was torture; somehow it was worse to realize that he planned to dance with all the girls. His friends, virtual strangers—I knew for a fact he didn’t know at least two of the girls he swept across the floor. They walked away from their encounter with Will Spencer like new foals, long-legged and clumsy.
Song after song, dance after dance. None of those smiles were for me. None of those touches. This was all my fault, a whole night spent watching Will adore everyone in the room but me. I let the guitar strings dig into my fingers. If they cut through my skin, down to the bone, it didn’t matter. I couldn’t possibly hurt more.
While You're Away Page 7
