by Rae Kennedy
“Someone very special is going to join me to sing this one, so give her some love.” The audience starts clapping as Colin looks directly at me.
“That’s you, Blondie,” Dean whispers from behind.
“Go on.” Logan gives my shoulder a nudge toward the stage.
I don’t move. Just stand here, confused, but then Colin crooks a tattooed finger at me and smiles his same stupid fucking happy, beautiful smile, and I step out of the shadows and onto the stage.
The light from overhead is a bright white that softens to orange at the edges. When I look out to the crowd, the light is all I can see—a solid cone filled with the haze of the air and obscuring everything else. I can’t even tell how big the room is or how many people are watching me. I’ve never been shy about performing but my heart is pounding.
The wood stage creaks under my foot. The black paint on it is worn down and chipping off more as I make it to the center of the stage. I keep my eyes on Colin and he starts to play as I sit across from him, our knees touching. The spotlight is warm on my skin.
The audience goes quiet.
There’s no sound but the music he’s making. And then he starts singing and it’s only me and him. He’s singing for me and I feel every note, every word.
I sing the words with him on the second verse, my voice feathery light to his low and gritty. The audience is still, quiet. But I can feel them. Energy sizzles through the room as the song builds. Colin’s fingers move faster as he plays and I let go, belting out the chorus with him and I’m lost in it. In the words, and him, and the song, and how perfectly our voices can harmonize and mix one moment then contrast and stand apart on the next note. I keep singing before I realize he’s stopped. He’s playing and watching me with his dark eyes and a wicked little smile as he lets me sing the last verse before the final refrain.
I feel a shudder whisper through the crowd as he joins me on the last few lines. Soft. Slow. If you want me, too.
The song is over and he and I are quiet. I’m vaguely aware that the audience is clapping and cheering and lights are flashing and chairs are scraping against the floor. But I’m only looking at him. And he’s only looking at me.
He’s closer, his hand on my jaw, his thumb soft on my cheek. And he’s leaning toward me. Everything is in slow motion.
His gaze lingers on my mouth and I don’t even think I’m breathing. His lips are dark, moistened, his jaw line a sharp contrast against the black rose and skull tattoos on his neck, but I keep being pulled back to his eyes. They’re asking the same question. Drawing me in. Closer.
Closer.
I put my hand on his knee to steady myself as his hand curves around the back of my neck, pulling me in, closing the last inch between us until our lips meet.
He kisses me soft. Too soft. Too gentle. His lips are warm, perfect, as he presses more firmly against me and the entire room spins.
He breaks the kiss too soon, our faces linger in place and I’m dizzy with him—the scent of him, the feel of his fingers on the nape of my neck. He presses a second quick kiss to my lips before pulling away.
CHAPTER 17
After the show and all through dinner, I’m going crazy trying to figure out what happened on stage. He’d kissed me. I’d kissed him back, obviously. But he’d kissed me. Was it real? Or was it just for the show? It had been quick and there hadn’t been any tongue or anything, so maybe it wasn’t a big deal to him.
It’s been two hours and I still can’t stop thinking about it.
Colin is acting like he always does when we’re around everybody—like he’s my boyfriend, which doesn’t help me out any. He held my hand the entire time until we sat down to eat and now he has his arm resting on the back of my chair around my shoulders as he talks with Dean and actively ignores Jace’s attempts to get his attention.
“Hey, you guys going to play tonight?” Logan asks, his left eye twitching a little, already several shots into the night. “We’re playing Truth or Dare.”
Colin tilts his head toward me, asking a silent question. His blue eyes are bright, almost sparkling, as if he couldn’t be happier to defer to me.
I don’t blink or look away from him, just shake my head slightly.
He gives me an almost imperceptible grin. “No,” he says to Logan, “we’re just going to head back to the bus.”
My cheeks heat at the thought of going back alone with him. I want to talk to him about the kiss. I want to do it again.
But I’m also terrified he’ll tell me it didn’t mean anything and when he realizes I’m starting to catch feelings he will decide to end this—whatever this is. Whatever this is, I want it, even if it’s fake. I’d rather have a fake Colin than no Colin.
Dean leans over to us. “You better take Joey with you. He’s one drink away from challenging random people to an arm wrestling match.”
Across the table, Joey’s normally pale, freckled skin is as red as a tomato and starting to sweat. Our server, an older woman with a thick helmet of blonde hair, walks over to see if we’d like another round of drinks, and when Joey starts commenting on the size of her biceps and asking if she lifts, we know it’s time to intervene.
“But I don’t want to go back to the bus.” Joey pouts, looking at his empty glass.
“What if...we get ice cream?” Colin says.
Joey looks up, eyes brightening. “Can I get a waffle cone?”
* * *
We emerge onto the street, triumphant with our ice cream cones in hand after an agonizingly long thirty minute wait in line. Joey got three giant scoops of some sort of peanut-butter-brownie-fudge-pecan-brittle swirl that tower precariously above his chocolate-dipped and sprinkle-covered cone. He giddily goes for the top scoop, tongue out and waggling. He barely gets a taste before his overzealous tongue knocks the scoop right off and to the sidewalk with a thud. Ice cream is streaked down his arm and as he looks around, trying to figure out what happened, the entire cone slips out of his hand, crashing to the concrete and splitting down the center.
Joey looks up at us with wide eyes and then back to the ice cream shop, where customers are still lined up out the door, then back to the sad, broken waffle cone on the ground, ice cream already starting to melt and ooze out the cracks. He looks so helpless, his wide shoulders rounded in a slump and his mouth turned down. Even his bright neon yellow hair is giving him a sad clown vibe.
“Here.” I offer him my single-scoop of mint chocolate chip.
“No, that’s okay. I couldn’t—” He looks like he might drunk cry.
“Really, I’m not even hungry. I just got it because you guys were. Please, take it.” I hold it out to him.
“You sure?” But he’s already reaching for it and I hand it to him gladly.
“That was really sweet of you.” Colin leans over, whispering in my ear.
I shrug. “It’s not a big deal.”
“You can share mine, if you want.”
“Thanks, but I’m okay.” I wasn’t lying about the not being hungry part, my stomach has been so twisted up all evening because of that kiss.
We walk down the sidewalk toward where the bus is parked. The sky is black with low-hanging, fluffy gray clouds covering most of the stars. There’s a warm breeze but Colin’s hand light on my back as we walk makes me shiver. It’s not an unusual place for him to put his hand, but I don’t typically wear backless things, and for some reason, his hand on my bare skin, gently caressing over my spine, feels like the most intimate touch I’ve ever experienced.
I look up at him as he eats, at the tattoos that contour under his jaw, at his soft lips—those lips were on mine earlier—and at his pink tongue as it peeks out from those lips to lick and lap up his quickly melting huckleberry ice cream. What I wouldn’t give to have felt that tongue inside my mouth, mingling with mine...
He notices me ogling him and quirks his head toward me, raising an eyebrow. I probably have a crazed, desperate expression on my face.
“Want some a
fter all?” He points his cone toward me.
He thinks I’m desperately looking at the ice cream. Right. I’m definitely hungry for the ice cream and not your mouth. Totally.
I nod to save face. We stop and he lowers it to me—Joey happily walking on with his cone, oblivious. I lift up to my tippy toes and swipe my tongue over the sweet and tart ice cream. I’m not trying to go slow or be particularly sexy about it, but when I look up and lock eyes with Colin, my tongue moving up his cone, I feel like I’m doing something naughty.
He watches me lick and bites his lower lip. At the same time, the hand on my back tightens, curling around the side of my ribs, his fingertips inching just inside the edge of my jumpsuit and I wonder if he isn’t thinking the same thing I am.
After finishing our ice cream on the bus, I doggedly ask Joey about all of his tattoos. His sleeves are all bright and colorful cartoon characters—mostly from nineties-era Nickelodeon. Some obscure, but some classics too. Some of them he drew himself and I’m amazed. I had no idea how talented of an artist he is.
Dean strides onto the bus around three in the morning, lamenting about how he went to three different clubs and didn’t see even one bear.
“I mean, we’re surrounded by mountains and forests and shit. I figured I’d be swarmed by bears.”
“I think any bears around here would stay away from the city,” I say, a little confused why he wants to see a bear anyway.
Dean presses his hand over his mouth and Colin gives my arm a little squeeze before running his fingertips down from my shoulder to elbow and back.
Joey gives a hearty chuckle and stands up. “I’m going to bed.” His shoulders are still bouncing as he disappears to the back of the bus.
“What?” I’m missing something.
“When I say bear, I don’t mean the lions, tigers, and bears kind. I mean the twinks, bears, and daddies kind,” Dean says.
“Oh.” Oh. I want to ask what classifies someone as a bear but I think I’ve already made an ass out of myself.
Luckily, as if reading my thoughts, Dean continues. “I like them big and burly and a little bit squishy, with a huge beard and as much body hair as possible.” Dean looks off into the distance, as if he can perfectly see this beautiful, hairy man of his dreams. “Where are we heading next? Chicago?”
Colin nods, still lightly rubbing my arm. So light it tickles and gives me goosebumps.
“Fuck, there’s got to be some bears there. I mean, the Chicago Bears! It’s a thing, right?”
“It’s a football team.”
“I could get on board with a football player.”
Dean says goodnight not much later and then it’s just Colin and me.
Alone.
Colin unwraps his arm from around me and clasps his hands on top of the table. I already feel cold without his touch.
“So... Chicago...” Colin says after a few minutes of silence. “That’s just a few hours from where you live.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sure we’d be able to make the detour and take you back home. If you want.”
His words are like a bucket of ice water. “Do you want me to leave?”
He looks at me soberly. “No.”
Relief washes through me and I try to stifle the smile that’s tugging on my lips. “Good, because I don’t want to go back.” Not yet, at least.
A tiny crease deepens between his brows. “Is everything okay at home? You never told me why you ran away.” His concern is so sincere it makes my heart want to burst.
“No, no. It’s nothing like that. Everything at home is fine. Wonderful. My family is great.”
He keeps looking at me, his head slightly tilted, hoping I’ll explain.
I huff out a breath and tell him the truth. About how I was supposed to be in a prestigious program this summer, but I lost my spot because I failed half my classes last semester and the ones I didn’t outright fail, I either barely passed or took incompletes.
“Do your parents put a lot of pressure on you to do well in school? Are they super strict, harsh?”
“No. I just... I’ve never even gotten a C in school before, and I guess I was embarrassed. And I didn’t want them to be disappointed in me.” I look down so my hair falls over my face. “I also probably lost my spot in my program and my scholarship.”
He flattens his hands on the table. “I don’t know your parents, but from what you’ve said about them and knowing that you’ve never had problems with school before, I’d guess they’d be more concerned about you than your grades or money. Obviously something was wrong.” He moves his hand closer to mine on the table, our pinkies almost touching.
I swallow the thickness in my throat. I hadn’t thought much past my hurt pride. He’s probably right.
“So, what happened? What was wrong?” Colin’s voice is quiet as he slides his hand over just enough to hook his pinky with mine.
“I don’t know. It started slow, I guess. I did okay first semester—mostly Bs—even though I had no social life and studied constantly. I probably took a few too many credits.” Scratch that, I’d definitely taken too many credits.
He listens intently as I continue, but I can’t look at him as I speak.
“The first day of second semester, I couldn’t find one of my classrooms and I walked in late. The professor decided to make an example of me and point it out to the whole class. I was mortified.”
He’s still quiet and I focus on our intertwined pinkies. A silent comfort. And I feel safe opening up.
“I dreaded going to that class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I started becoming paranoid about oversleeping or being late. And then a month into the semester, I got the flu and missed a week of classes. I missed a test. Got a bad grade on a paper. Everything seemed to be spiraling further out of control. Some days, I’d wake up feeling so stressed about what might go wrong that day I would just stay in bed and do nothing at all. Missing more class only made things worse, which would make me more stressed, and then I’d feel guilty and angry for sabotaging myself.”
He slides his hand so it covers mine. He holds it tight, giving it a warm squeeze and I finally look over to him.
He’s regarding me with his pensive gaze—the one I’d felt when I first saw him across the dance floor, when he sang to me, the one that I swear can see into my soul. I know he sees me.
“It sounds like you put a lot of pressure on yourself to meet some high expectations.”
I remember Kyla telling me I don’t always need to be perfect. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“It also seems like you were having some anxiety.”
“I was just stressed.” I shrug off the words.
“It’s not anything to be ashamed about. It’s a struggle for many people. It was probably made worse by the fact you didn’t have any of your support system around. And it might help, before you go back to school, to talk to someone about it. Someone who knows a lot more than me and can give you strategies to cope with it in the future.”
A month ago, I don’t think I could have handled having a conversation like this, but something in the way Colin is holding my hand and looking into my eyes makes me feel safe. And cared for.
“Sorry. This whole thing probably sounds dumb.”
He rubs his thumb over my knuckles. “No. I get anxious sometimes, too.”
“Really?”
“Mostly when I have to fly. But also right before we go on tour.”
“Do you not like touring? I would have guessed you loved it.”
“I do. But there are a lot of triggers for me on tour—a lot of temptations and opportunities to fall off the wagon. When we’re on tour, I have to stay vigilant and I always feel like I’m on edge. I can’t just relax and have fun like the other guys. My career is at stake—my friends’ careers, and my life.”
I hold my breath, like if I move or make noise I’ll scare him off, and I want him to keep talking. I want to know everything about him.
“I’v
e never really had a problem with alcohol or pot. It was the harder stuff. On tour if I drink, I only have one beer. I don’t go out partying and I don’t participate in Logan’s games.”
“But you played Logan’s games with us.” I notice how close we’re sitting. His thigh is rubbing up against my knee and he’s angled toward me, looming over me close enough we could almost touch foreheads.
“I only played because you were there.”
Oh yeah. The babysitting. But calling it that doesn’t seem to fit anymore. “You wanted to watch over me.” I warm at the thought.
He gives a small nod. “I’ve told you that I have this fierce need to protect you. But it’s more than that.”
“More?”
He licks his lips. “Definitely more.”
He swoops down, his mouth capturing mine. I don’t even have a chance to suck in a breath before he’s swallowing me up, pulling my body tight to his. He parts my lips with his, immediately seeking entrance. His tongue sensual and strong as it glides inside. He still tastes like ice cream, sweet and tart.
I’m not sure if I’m breathing. But I don’t want to come up for air—not if it means stopping. I’m being devoured, pulled under the water, happy to drown with him.
I don’t know if I climbed onto his lap or he pulled me here but I’m consumed by the feel of him—his hands on me, his hips as I squeeze them between my knees, my fingers sunken into his hair as I hold him to me, determined to never let this kiss end.
“Whoa, sorry guys.” Logan’s words are a bit slurred from behind us.
Colin is breathing hard when we break the kiss and watch Logan stagger onto the bus. The sight of Colin’s lips swollen from kissing, his eyes black with desire, his chest still rising and falling erratically makes my entire being contract with need.
The heat in Colin’s eyes is quickly replaced with concern and he stands to lend Logan a steadying hand, but Logan shrugs him off.
