Holy shit. I stumbled from the compliment. Plus, with him touching me, there was enough electrical current buzzing inside me to light up the entire Southside power grid.
“Stupid ballet flats,” I muttered, feeling his eyes on me. “Got caught on a crack in the floor.”
“Oh, I didn’t see one.” His hand slid more firmly into position on my back. “But seen or unseen obstacles, I won’t let you fall. I’ve got you.”
I wasn’t going to argue with that. This was the boy I knew. Gentle, caring, teasing. But all that felt different now. Vastly different.
When we turned from the hall and entered the foyer, a few students were lingering by the office, and I noticed them tracking us.
“You seem to have developed a different style from when we were younger.” Removing his hand from my back, Bryan pushed open the door and held it open for me.
My hip brushed his as I scooted past. Heat jolted me, and my legs wobbled.
“Make the grades and look the part,” I said, being careful on my wobbly legs not to trip on the steps outside. “Plus, I have some income to make my own choices about what I wear.”
“Sexy and studious.” He returned his hand to my back, guiding me along the sidewalk in front of the school.
My body tingling, I didn’t protest his touch. I reveled in it.
“Not trying to be sexy,” I said as my brows drew together.
“You don’t have to try, Lace.”
The way he said my name made me warm, even though it was chilly outside.
“Hey, Bry.” A blonde with better curves than me and a cigarette dangling from her lips disengaged from the group she was in and waved at him from across the lawn.
“Hey, Janine.” He acknowledged her with a chin lift.
“See you tomorrow, Bry.” Another girl, this one with long inky dark hair and beautiful ice-blue eyes waved at him over her shoulder as she hurried past us.
“Who was that?” I asked, turning to him after scanning the girl. She was pretty, and her jeans were tighter and newer than mine.
“Missy Rivera,” he said after a long pause.
“Oh.” I stumbled again and he stabilized me, or he tried to. With him touching me, I didn’t feel steady at all.
Through the chain link fence, I tracked the girl who had given War a blow job. She climbed into the back seat of an old car with a bunch of guys. In the front passenger seat, another girl, a redhead, openly returned my stare.
“You okay?” Bryan asked.
“Yeah.” I looked back at him, but I wasn’t okay. Bryan wasn’t my Bryan anymore, but he certainly seemed to be for most of the girls at Southside High.
“All right.” He placed his hand on my lower back again.
We walked through the gate together, but soon I heard a car pulling up alongside us, and I knew even before I looked that it was the car Missy had gotten into.
“You coming to Kyle’s later?” The redhead asked her question with more than half of her body hanging out the passenger window. To my dismay, she was prettier up close.
“Maybe,” Bryan said. “I’ll talk to War.”
“I’ll save you both something special.” Laughing, she ducked back inside the car.
Bryan lifted a finger in the air in response to her wave. The bald tires on the car squealed, burning rubber as it peeled away from the curb, leaving a trail of acrid smoke behind.
Maybe this walk wasn’t such a good idea. Not for me, at least. Not with so many of the girls in love with Bryan, and me so susceptible to him. I could far too easily become just another one.
“You have a lot of friends,” I said carefully as we walked along the perimeter of the school property that took up a city block.
“Some.” He gave me a sidelong look. “I’ve been at Southside High longer than you.”
“A lot of friends that are girls.”
“I guess I do,” he said, holding my gaze. “But none that mean anything.”
“I’ve heard that one before,” I muttered. “From War.”
“Ah, right.” Releasing me, Bryan withdrew a package of cigarettes from his front jeans pocket. “He’s seriously into you,” he mumbled with the unlit cigarette bobbing between his firm lips.
“War, you mean?”
“Yeah.” His mouth tipped up at the edges. “Though I could see why you’d need me to be more specific.” Finding a lighter in his pocket, he flicked the flame on and lit his cigarette. “You’ve made an impression on a lot of guys around here in a very short amount of time.”
“You too. With all those girls.”
His eyes narrowed above the twin trails of smoke he exhaled through his nostrils.
“What happened after you moved away?” I asked, tilting my head.
“How do you mean?” Beneath his tousled brown hair, his brow creased.
“You’re different. Harder,” I said, giving it to him real. “I used to know you so well. Now you’re difficult for me to read.”
“I’m still the same.”
He shrugged, and I got lost in the play of his muscles moving beneath the black T-shirt that clung to his chiseled chest.
“I don’t think that’s true,” I said.
Sure, some of the same basic ingredients remained. Bryan was gentle with me. He loved music, and was protective and loyal. But he was loyal to War, not to Dizzy and me.
“Why are you friends with War, Bryan? You don’t seem at all alike.”
“He’s a good guy, Lace.”
I snorted. “Good wouldn’t be a word I’d choose to describe War.”
“He’s confrontational. Has a temper. Doesn’t let people push him around, but that doesn’t make him a bad person.” Bryan glanced at me. “He’s never let me down. He’s a good friend.”
“Okay, if you say so.” I frowned. Not at him or his explanation, really, but at myself. Was I jealous of his friendship with War?
“You just don’t know him the way I do.” Bryan stopped suddenly, and not expecting it, I tripped on a heave in the concrete sidewalk. “Whoa there.” He flicked his cigarette aside and caught me.
“Thank you.” My hands landed on his chest, and my heart raced.
Bryan held me steady. His strong fingers circled my upper arms, his sure grip branding my skin. He was so close, his body hot, his chest hard. My breaths short, I tasted the smoke from his cigarette. And him.
Time seemed to slow. The air charged with our aligned expectations, a supercell thundercloud about to unleash a storm.
“Lace,” he said softly. Framing my face in his hands, he gazed at me as if he’d never seen anything as wondrous, or at least that was how I felt looking at him. He was so much more handsome, so much more of everything than I could ever have imagined.
He drew closer, lowering his head, and I lifted mine. When his lips almost touched mine, I started to close my eyes.
“No,” he said. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” He released me and took a big step back.
“What are you apologizing for?” Watching his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed, I pretended not to know, pretended not to have wanted him to kiss me.
“I need to apologize for War. He made a mistake last night. He feels terrible,” Bryan said, his voice much deeper now than it had been only a moment before.
Had I only imagined that he’d been about to kiss me?
“If he truly feels terrible,” I said bitterly, “then why isn’t he here telling me that, instead of you?”
“He didn’t think you’d listen to him. Also, he had a commitment today after school.” Bryan’s eyes searched mine.
“I’ll just bet he does.”
“Not like that. With the choir teacher. Mr. Garrett insisted.”
His lids lowering, Bryan’s gaze dipped to my mouth, and my breaths quickened. I gulped in a lungful of air scented with smoke and pine. If War was a deep forest, then Bryan was the alpine meadow high above it.
“The principal?” My mind spun as I watched Bryan’s tongue dart out to
moisten his lips.
“Yeah,” he said, easing back another inch, then two.
Did he need space to clear his mind of unmet expectations too?
“Let War talk to you, Lace. Give him another chance.”
“So, this walk is all about War. You didn’t really want to catch up with me after all. My bad.” I moved away from him, the chilled air icier after all his heat.
“Not true.” Bryan jogged to catch up to me, and I ducked beneath the curtain of my hair to hide my disappointment. “I do want us to be friends again. I missed talking to you. War and his bossy shit gets old after a while. Stop, Lace. Please listen.”
He stepped in front of me, and I had to stop. Sliding my hair from the front to the back, he removed my curtain, and I forced myself to look at him.
“Sure, let’s be friends again.” I gave him a fake smile. “That would be great.”
“Thank you,” Bryan said, apparently buying the fakery.
We resumed walking, but it wasn’t as comfortable as it had been before. Not for me. Probably not ever for me with him.
War
“You talk to her?” I asked Bryan, my hands draped over the mic as I glanced at Lace. Sitting behind her keyboard, she avoided my gaze like she’d been avoiding me since I arrived at practice.
“I talked,” he said, turning his head to follow the direction of my gaze. “Not sure she listened.”
Fuck. That didn’t sound promising, and unfortunately, I had to table trying to fix things with her until after band practice.
“You losers ready to play?” I asked, hurling my question at the two newcomers.
“Born ready, ese.” King drummed a beat on his snare.
Sager Reed just gave me a chin lift. He was a quiet guy.
I’d talked to him some, gotten him to open up a little, enough that I now understood why there were shadows in his eyes. He’d been through rough stuff, but this was Southside. We all had.
King had lost a brother. Bryan and I had asshole fathers. I knew from the hint my best friend had dropped that there was darkness in Dizzy and Lace’s past too. We were all a bunch of sad fucks that life had shit on. What we needed was to harness that bad energy and release it into the only thing that reliably made sense—music.
“Lace?” I turned to look at her again. “You ready?”
She lifted her chin. Glittering gold with flecks of fire, her eyes met mine, and she nodded. I might have messed things up with her, but she wasn’t unresponsive to me. I could work with that. I had to work with that.
“What song we doing first?” Dizzy asked.
“A couple of covers to get warmed up,” I said. “Then we’ll play around with that riff I heard you playing when I first came in.”
“Cool.” He grinned.
“First up, ‘Nothing Else Matters.’”
A sharp inhale came from Lace. I could practically feel her presence behind me, I was so focused on her. I knew Bryan loved Metallica. Maybe she did too, or this song had some other significance for her, like it did for me. Another plus was that it began slow and would give the band a chance to feel each other out musically.
Dizzy and Bryan strummed the intro, playing off each other. I pivoted slightly, so I could watch Lace.
She smiled, and it rocked me hard. She was pretty, but her smile made her pretty spectacular.
What my guitarists were doing was spectacular too. But I could do better, and I wanted her to witness it.
Unclipping my mic, I turned to her. As King crashed on his drums, I sang the lyrics, ones about being yourself and that being enough. Did she get it? What I was trying to say by choosing this song and singing those words to her?
Everyone came together on the chorus. Our harmony was so seamless, chill bumps broke out on my arms. Bryan wailed on a guitar solo, and Lace added in a few twinkling complementary notes on her keyboard. Inspired, I elevated my voice, doing a little operatic improv on the remaining lyrics. When we reached the end of the song, it was just my two guitarists playing off each other again.
As the final notes faded, I stared at Lace. She looked thunderstruck, and I was as well. A glance around revealed everyone else was too.
Now it was time to fix things with her.
I clipped my mic into the pole and crossed to her. “I’m sorry.” I wondered if the words sounded as alien to her hearing them as they felt to me speaking them. “I made a mistake. Can you give me another chance?”
She stared at me, and I held my breath. The garage went completely silent as everyone else watched us.
When she glanced at Bryan, that pissed me off, but I didn’t let it show. I counted one slowing beat of my heart, then two, and her gaze met mine again. Her eyes still flickered with flames, but the fire didn’t feel as hot.
“Yeah. I can do that.” She nodded, and I pulled in an easier breath.
“Great. I’d like to go for a walk with you after we’re through with practice. Talk some. Let you in on some things about me most people don’t know. Would you be up for that?”
“Sure, but I can’t stay out long. I have more studying to do.”
“I’ll get you back in a couple of hours.” I played it casual, turning away from her to refocus on the band. But I was far from feeling casual. I’d been raw all day, wondering if she would give me a second chance.
“We’re going to be the next big thing,” I said, making eye contact with each individual band member, including Lace. No one said a word to counter me. They felt it. They knew I was right. “We need a name.”
“Tempest,” Lace said, and I froze. “A violent storm. A tumult. An uproar. To raise a tempest in or around.”
“Babe.” I shook my head, my expression revealing my disbelief. “That’s perfect. I love it, but you sound like a dictionary.”
“We’re studying Shakespeare in Mr. Schubert’s class.” Smiling, she shrugged. “The definition was in the notes he sent me.”
“Done,” I said, not bothering to put it to a vote. We were a group, but it was my group. “Now, let’s move on to Mötley Crüe’s ‘Shout at the Devil.’ Give me the beat, King.”
Lace
After practice, I was talking to King and Sager when War came to claim me for a walk.
“Let’s go.” Without an apology for interrupting, he offered me his hand.
“I’m not a little puppy you can order around.” Translation: I’m not like those other girls who drop to their knees if you just look at me a certain way. But I took his hand.
“I know you’re not, Lacey.” His brows dipping, he closed his fingers around mine. “If you’ll put a pause on the attitude, I’ll show you what I think, what I want for you, for us.”
In the jaw-dropping silence that followed that statement, the latches on Bryan’s guitar case sounded overly loud as he snapped them closed.
“All right, War.” I didn’t protest his nickname for me again. At this point, I didn’t think it would do any good. With his personality, I needed to pick which battles to fight, and choose ones that were critical to win.
“We’re taking off,” King said, inclining his head toward the driveway. “Adios.”
“See you tomorrow, same time.” War fist-bumped King, who had his sticks in one hand, and then Sager next, who held his bass.
The plan was for King to store his drums in the garage. Like my keyboards, his kit was a pain in the ass to move around, something we would have to consider when and if we got a gig. War had mentioned us having one soon, as if it were a done deal. Our lead singer had a lot of grandiose ideas about the band. He was unreasonably stubborn and convincingly certain, making him easier to believe than to oppose.
“You coming by Kyle’s later?” Bryan asked War as he sauntered over to us, his muscles flexing distractingly.
Unlike my brother, Bryan had hung around after practice. I wasn’t exactly sure why. It wasn’t to speak to me. He hadn’t tried to talk to me since our walk. Was all the stuff about wanting us to reconnect and be friends again o
nly a line?
“That’s a no to Kyle’s.” War’s brow creased. “But come by my place later. I wanna run some things by you.”
“Okay. I’ll go solo to Kyle’s place first, then your house after.” Bryan glanced at me. His expression was hard, closed off, unreadable. “Later, Lace.”
“See you tomorrow,” I told him evenly, though my stomach knotted.
Was Kyle’s where War had hooked up with Missy? Was Bryan going there to hook up with her too? Or would he choose the girl who’d been hanging out of the car, the redhead?
Suddenly, I felt alone and much too inexperienced for guys like Bryan and War.
“Here, Lace.” War grabbed the zip-up hoodie he’d thrown aside when he arrived. Securing it around my shoulders, he gave me a long look, his gaze drifting over me. “You look good in my clothing.” His eyes darkened to a richer brown, and his lips curved.
“I’m gone.” Bryan’s voice cracked like a whip, and he frowned at me on his way out of the garage.
What had I done to piss him off?
“Thank you for lending it to me,” I said, turning to face War while holding the edges of his hoodie in place at my neck.
“You’re welcome.”
I didn’t slip my arms into the sleeves. It was chilly tonight, but I was warm knowing War was being careful to look out for me. It also seemed like it would mean something significant if I put my arms in the sleeves and zipped it up. Like maybe he’d already secured me, which of course he hadn’t.
I wasn’t sure exactly what was on his mind. But he was in for a surprise if he thought he had me after Missy. War and I were far from a done deal.
War helped me close and lock the garage. Afterward, we walked together side by side to the end of the driveway.
“We’re heading this way,” he said, turning left like he and Bryan had the night before. He took my hand, closing his fingers around mine.
I started to protest, but he gave me a look, one that made it seem like it might hurt him if I refused. So I remained silent, admitting to myself that I liked him holding my hand. The warmth of him beside me. The foreboding presence of him. No one would mess with Warren Jinkins.
Southside High Page 9
