Keep the Beat: A Band-Com for Romance Geeks

by Kata Čuić

  The song changes, and the mood does, too. The dancers stay on the floor, but they’re just randomly jumping around now in their own private mosh pit. Jimbo’s laugh carries over the noise of the party and the music. He has the best laugh. He always has. It’s loud, unabashed, and just slightly obnoxious. It’s proof he doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him.

  He’s in the center of the fray, and he raises his cup in the air, spilling a bit of the contents into his hair and not even noticing. Then, he does this weird move where he brings both his arms out to his sides. The dancers move back to give him room. He looks like an octopus. All those muscles are put to good use as he shimmies his body, and if he didn’t have the build he does, he’d look like a total dork.

  He’s a crap dancer, but he’s the life of the party.

  And they love him for it. He’s like everyone’s best friend.

  I’ve never seen this side of Jim before. He’s … fun.

  His smile is the best part. He’s not embarrassed in the slightest. Lines form around his white teeth, and his eyes are crinkled in the kind of happiness he can’t fake.

  He points at me and gestures with his index finger for me to come to him before pointing to the spot at his side. And then, like a total doofus, he hands off his cup to someone else and mimes pulling me in by a rope.

  “He is such an idiot,” Jared mutters. “I can’t believe he’s president this year.”

  I can. Who wouldn’t fall in love with him?

  I try to make as good of a show of being pulled into his orbit, but I’m not very successful. Mostly because I keep bumping into other people who laugh at the scene.

  But when I reach Jim, that doesn’t seem to matter anymore because he wraps his arms around me and smiles that real smile.

  “How did you get to be so good at dirty-dancing?” I ask with a laugh. The memory of his octopus arms is going to stay with me forever.

  He wrinkles his nose, but it’s another act. He’s still happy. “I’m not good at any kind of dancing.”

  The orgasm I had says otherwise. “Could have fooled me.”

  His pupils dilate, and he grins. This one is predatory. He thrusts his fist in the air again and shouts, “What kind of dancing do we like?”

  “Dirty!” the crowd responds.

  The music changes again, and he hauls me against him. With the mash of bodies surrounding us, we barely have room to move. That doesn’t stop him from firmly placing his hands on my ass while he grinds against me. It’s not nearly as sexy as the last time. I keep knocking my large travel mug into his shoulder, and I only have one free hand to wrap around his neck.

  He raises an eyebrow as he dips his lips to my ear to speak, “If I were a good dancer, I’d be able to make you come again.”

  “I thought you only did that as another competition,” I admit.

  “I’ve never thought of worship as competitive.”

  He opens his mouth against my neck and sucks with just enough pressure to send my eyes rolling into the back of my skull. A few more minutes of that, and he might get his wish. But he’s not satisfied to stay in one place for very long. His lips, tongue, and teeth roam over any bare skin I have to offer—shoulders, hollow of my neck, chin, the top of my breast, ear—before finally descending on my mouth. He’s better than he thinks because I’m panting with want. Begging for him to kiss me with every swivel of my hips against his hard length.

  And he does deliver. One hand stays on my ass, and the other wraps in my hair and gives a sharp tug before he plasters his palm on the back of my head to hold me to him. He tastes like cheap beer and smells like fine cologne and feels so solid beneath my arms, which have wrapped around his shoulders to keep this moment a little while longer. This kiss is the perfect mix of hard and soft, need and want.

  Yes, those are two different things.

  The stroke of his tongue deep in my mouth is indecent and makes me crave that much more the same motion with lower parts. But the firm glide of his lips against my own feels like a meal he’s consuming to sustain himself because he’ll die without it.

  I am giving in completely when a loud whistle close by startles me.

  Even Jim gets distracted, pulling away from me, only to find the entire basement staring at us before erupting into cheers and applause.

  His smile is blinding as he gazes at me. “This has been a long time coming.”

  “There will be no coming under these circumstances for me.”

  He throws his head back in laughter. His Adam’s apple ripples with the sound until he straightens again. Another quick kiss to my lips, and then, “Come on. Let’s go play some pong and see if I can make you mad enough to win.”

  Chapter Thirty

  I am not mad, and so we are not winning. We barely scraped by on the last game, and that was wholly due to Jim.

  Nate grins from across the table. “Aww, don’t look so upset, Highness. Do you want us to pretend you’re letting us win because you feel bad for us?”

  “She doesn’t feel bad for anyone, and you just wait until I unleash my secret weapon on you,” Jim retorts, lining up his shot, which he misses.

  “You’ve been saying that for the past hour!” Tim howls. “We’re still waiting!”

  I think Jim tries to flip them off, but all he does is knock over the empty cups stacked on the corner of the table. In all fairness, he’s been chugging the warm beer, so I don’t have to. That means he’s back to drunk. And he’s getting increasingly frustrated because I am also buzzed enough for the perpetual ringing in my ears to drown out his words.

  Tim sinks a ball, and Jim chugs more cheap beer.

  He wipes his arm across his mouth then turns to me, gripping my shoulders in his hands roughly enough that it would hurt if I wasn’t so deliciously tingly. “All right, I’m done playing around. It’s time to break out the big guns.” He pauses a moment, purses his lips, then lets loose. “I have slept with nearly every woman at this party tonight.”

  “I thought you said you’d only slept with three women since freshman year?”

  “I lied.”

  I roll my eyes and take the shot. And miss.

  Nate and Tim laugh their asses off.

  Jim’s mouth drops open, and he extends his arm as if to say, What the fuck?

  “That was a lie.”

  “How do you know which is the lie?”

  “Because you don’t want to be anything like Alex.”

  He does this entire body shake. Like a little kid throwing a temper tantrum. “Fuck! Work with me here!”

  “Okay … even if you really had slept with all these women, telling me that would hurt. Not make me mad.”

  “Oh. I gotcha. I haven’t found the right formula yet. Okay.” He lifts his gaze to the ceiling and clamps his hand over his mouth. He’s either holding back puke or thinking really hard.

  He doesn’t even move when Nate sails another ball right into one of our cups. His voice comes out mumbled. “You’re drinking that one. I’m still thinking.”

  Fine.

  I tip the cup to my lips and take a tentative sip as Nate and Tim start a chant of, “Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!”

  Blech. Nasty. Maybe if I hold my breath …

  Nope. It’s no good. I gag.

  And the guys laugh some more.

  “You’re gonna get world-class blow jobs from this one!” Tim shouts.

  “Christ.” Jim rips the cup out of my hand as my cheeks heat with embarrassment on more than one count. “Gimme that.”

  He chugs it all down and throws the ball without even looking.

  And obviously misses.

  Tim does not.

  I try again and actually get about half of it down before my throat locks up.

  Jim pulls the cup away, downs it, and looks all too pleased with himself. “I’ve got it.”

  I’m actually a little afraid by the gleam in his eyes.

  He leans in and curls his lips into mean Jimbo. “When I was sitting outside th
at bathroom all night, I recorded the sounds of your shitfest on my phone, and so help me God, if you do not make this next shot, I will play it for the entire band to hear in every sordid detail.”

  The horror. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  He pats my cheek a little too roughly. “Oh, sweetheart. You should know me by now.”

  I do. And he would. Or the old Jimbo would. Not my James. Jimmy might. Fuck, why is this so hard?

  I make the shot.

  Jim’s entire face lights up, and he raises his arms and shouts like he just won the Super Bowl.

  “Dude.” Nate laughs. “You already lost.”

  “No! We just found our groove!” He gestures wildly, solidly hitting me in the boobs. That hurts, not gonna lie. “Bring me fresh opponents! And more beer! Pledge!”

  Really-drunk Jimbo is not as fun as sort-of-drunk Jimbo. Or maybe I’m not drunk enough to appreciate him.

  “We don’t have any pledges yet,” I remind him.

  He turns to me with another scary gleam in his eyes. “Oh, the rest of the brothers might not, but I do.” He leans in and licks his lips. “Sophie, my personal little wench, fetch us fresh beer.”

  “I will burn you to the ground,” I grind out.

  He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, if you could channel that feeling into our next game, that’d be great.” He makes a shooing motion. “Go on. Be a good little wife and bring me more beer.” He grins. “If you’re fast enough, I promise to knock you up later with our fifth kid.”

  I push my way toward the bar while I fantasize about castrating him, so he can’t make babies with anyone.

  Shannon meets me halfway. “Jake and I called dibs! We’re playing you next! I wanna see this great weapon Jimbo keeps bragging about!”

  At least, with Shannon’s help, I refill the pong table faster.

  “All right,” Jake announces, “let’s do this. A battle royale for the position of ultimate power band couple.”

  Jim and I exchange a glance. We only compete with each other.

  He starts first. “I’m giving up world-class blow jobs to be with you.”

  I miss.

  He cocks his head to the side, waiting. On something.

  Oh! Oh! I get it!

  “Hurtful.” I tap his arm. He might not even remember any of this tomorrow. Maybe I can get some valuable information out of this, too. And have some fun. “If you ever call me your personal little beer wench again, I’ll cut off your balls. You’ll never make babies with anyone.”

  He misses his shot. “Hurtful.”

  Wow. Really? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Men are sensitive about their man parts.

  “That time last year when you swore your mouthpiece tasted like ranch dressing, and no one believed you, and you missed half a day of camp because they sent you to the health center for what they thought was heatstroke?” He grins. “I did that.”

  My eyes pop out of my skull. I make the shot. “You ass! But also … helpful. Your favorite hoodie you thought some rando stole from the field during practice? I wear it around my apartment whenever I’m mad at you.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “But do you wear anything else with it?”

  My grin is just a shade evil. “Not always.”

  He makes the shot and gets this faraway glaze to his eyes. “Definite spank-bank material. When all your sheet music mysteriously got wet and you had to do twenty push-ups in front of the whole section for being irresponsible? Also me.”

  “The glitter bomb in the bell of your trumpet that sprayed your entire squad? I did that.”

  He rolls his eyes and makes his shot. “I knew you had done that even if I couldn’t prove it. A guy would never use glitter. That scarf you left behind in the band room—the one you found a week later, covered in weird stains that you figured was just spilled latte, so you put it on anyway because it was freezing that day? Yeah, those were cum stains. I jerked off into it.”

  “Disgusting!” I make the shot. “Also, weirdly flattering.”

  He laughs.

  “When you were using your best pick-up lines and laying on the charm thick for weeks to get with Jenn, that cymbal player who quit band halfway through sophomore year? Yeah …” I’m not necessarily proud to admit this, but he claims he enjoys my jealousy. “I might have confided in her privately that I’d overheard a conversation where you admitted to having genital herpes, and you were so glad your most recent flare-up had died down before picking her up for your date that she’d finally agreed to.”

  He shakes his head, but his smile isn’t as bright. And he misses his shot.

  “You were too good for her,” I insist. “I actually did overhear a conversation where she told the rest of the cymbals she hoped to get invited to Alex’s mansion in Florida for spring break.”

  A look of absolute disgust passes across his face before it softens into something else. “When your first boyfriend,” he spits out the word like rancid meat, “dumped you, I was the one who sent those flowers to the band room. You were definitely too good for him.”

  “I always thought it was Shannon who had done that.”

  Shannon is not even at the other end of the pong table anymore because we switched out opponents without me realizing. I have no idea if we even won that last game.

  Jim misses his next shot against the newcomers.

  “When you failed that principles of democracy test because you’d been sick with strep throat all week and just couldn’t get caught up, I was the one who convinced the professor to give you a make-up test after you were feeling better.”

  Jim’s laugh isn’t as vibrant as it was at the beginning of the night. “What made him believe you enough to let me do a retake? I emailed him when I’d missed those classes, and he sort of implied he thought I was lying about being too sick to show up for lecture.”

  I shrug and make the next shot. “I guess he figured I was your biggest competition in the class, so why would I lie about it? I’m also the one who left the coffee on your desk to get you through the exam.”

  “You did that?” Jim chuckles. “I thought that was the prof’s way of apologizing for being a bastard.”

  Other opponents come and go, but we stay on our end of the table because Jim and I are playing an entirely new, different sort of game. One where we learn the rules by trial and error. Some of the confessions are enlightening; a few make me feel warmer than the alcohol. The competition shifts from compelling each other to play the game better to confessing all the secret ways we’ve been doing that all along.

  A familiar, old song plays on the speakers, and Jim’s eyes widen. “Shit! How long have we been playing?”

  I shrug. I’m exhausted and pretty drunk. I’ve gotten the hang of chugging nasty beer, but if I had to guess, I’d say that’s because I’ve been practicing for hours. There aren’t nearly as many bodies packing the basement as there were at the beginning of the party.

  He latches on to my hand and drags me behind him to the other side of the basement where all the ITK brothers seem to have gathered in a circle for yet another ritual. Maybe this is where they sacrifice a virgin.

  I dunno. I’m just glad I’m not one.

  “There you are!” Nate opens the circle to let us in. “We thought you’d passed out already!”

  “What?” Jim scoffs. “And miss this? No way!”

  They wrap their arms around each other and sing. They sing along to a song about friendship, brotherhood, and sacrificing themselves to be there for each other, no matter what.

  It’s beautiful and saddening. I’ve missed out on so much.

  When the song ends, they throw their hands into a pile and form a huddle of the coolest band geeks to have ever marched. I’ve heard this ITK chant before on the field numerous times, but I don’t try to join in.

  I feel more like an outsider than ever.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The circle breaks, and the music doesn’t start up again. There are only brothers left now. The party is
over.

  Instead of straggling to their own places or heading upstairs for bed, a flurry of activity breaks out. Jim calls out orders, and brothers rush to do his bidding.

  “Nate!” he calls. “What’d we clear for tonight?”

  Nate’s behind the bar, shuffling a pile of bills in his hands, mouth moving a mile a minute as he counts. “Almost a grand!”

  “Sweet.” Jim looks less impressed than what he says aloud. “We can do better for the Halloween party though. Didn’t we make almost three thousand from that last year?”

  Nate squints to read a notebook in the dim light. “Looks like it, yeah. We made almost five on the Suck me/Eat me party for Valentine’s Day. I guess Eric was right. The higher cover charges aren’t hurting our bottom line.”

  “Who’s Eric?” I whisper, not wanting to offend if there’s a bandie here I actually don’t know.

  “Eric Kyle. You know him. He played tuba. Graduated last year. He was the treasurer until he handed all the books over to Nate. He suggested raising our door price since we hadn’t in a couple years, and he knew we’d still be cheaper than the frat parties. Plus, this way, we have more slush funds to work with for some new things we’d like to try this year.”

  “Nate is the treasurer,” I repeat. It’s not that I didn’t know ITK had officers; I just thought it was a silly title to make the seniors feel important. “I can’t believe ITK has an actual treasurer.”

  He smiles. “We might not be a national frat or even officially recognized by the university, but yeah, we’re a pretty well-oiled machine. And we give the band a more casual way to socialize than the other organizations that are bound by national sanctions. Open parties are also a good way for the rest of the student body to get to know the band. To realize we’re not just a bunch of dorks slobbering into instruments, who entertain them on game days.”

  Huh. I really never thought about it that way before.

  Tim strides up to us with another notebook that he hands over to Jim. “So, out of the rookies we flagged at camp, this is who showed up tonight. There are a couple of upperclassmen we were on the fence about last year, who I think might be ready for a bid.”