With a big sigh, he hugs me back. And then he lets me go.
It takes me an hour to drive to Mayfield. An hour of drumming my fingers against my Jeep’s steering wheel and blasting the music so loud that I can’t hear myself think. My GPS interrupts the eardrum massacre to give me directions to a club called Mayhem, and I park in the side parking lot of a massive square of a building.
With my Jeep in a spot and my ignition turned off, I drum on my steering wheel a few more times before smacking the heel of my palm against my glove compartment. It pops open, a hairbrush spills out, and I use it to tame my wind-tangled locks.
Earlier this week, the name of Shawn’s band—The Last Ones to Know—popped up on one of my favorite bands’ websites. I blinked once, twice, and then pushed my nose toward the screen to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.
They were looking for a new rhythm guitarist. After doing a little digging, I found out that their old one, Cody, got kicked out of the band. The website didn’t say why, and I didn’t care. There was an opening, and everything in me told me to send an email to the email address listed at the bottom of the online flyer.
I typed the email in a daze—as if my guitar-loving fingers wanted to be in the band even more than my spaced-out brain did. I wrote that I had been in a band in college but that we broke up to go our separate ways, I sent a YouTube link to one of our songs, I asked for an audition, and I signed my name.
Less than half an hour later, I received a reply overflowing with exclamation points and an audition time, and I wasn’t sure if I should smile or cry. It was a chance to make all my dreams come true. But in order to do that, I’d have to face the dream that had already been crushed.
These past six years, I’ve tried not to think about it. I’ve tried to erase his face from my mind. But that day, with that email in front of me, it all came back in a rush.
Green eyes. Messy black hair. An intoxicating scent that seemed to linger on my skin for days, weeks.
I give my head a little shake to clear Shawn from my mind. Then I finish brushing my hair and take one last glance in my rearview mirror. Satisfied I don’t look nearly as messy as I feel, I hop onto the asphalt and haul my guitar case from the backseat.
Now or never.
After a deep breath of city air, I begin making my way around the concrete fortress casting shadow over the parking lot. Unforgiving rays of afternoon sunshine wrap themselves around my neck and send beads of sweat trickling between my shoulder blades. My combat boots hit the sidewalk step by heavy step, and I force them to keep lifting and falling, lifting and falling. It isn’t until I’m at a massive set of double doors that I finally stop long enough to let myself think.
I raise my hand. I lower it. I raise it again. I flex my fingers.
I take a deep breath.
I knock.
During the seconds that tick away between my knock and the door opening, I think about grabbing my guitar case from where it’s propped against the wall and hightailing it back to my Jeep. I think about who will open the door. I think about Kale and wonder what in the hell I’m doing.
But then the door is swinging open and I’m stuck on the threshold of a decision that could make my life or ruin it.
Long dark chocolate hair. Fierce brown eyes. A piercing gaze that smacks me right in the face. The girl—who I’m guessing is the one who responded to my email and signed her name “Dee”—trails her eyes all the way down to my boots and then back up again. “The band isn’t here to sign shit or take pictures,” she says.
Apparently, I’ve offended her just by breathing. “Okay?” My eyebrow lifts from the sheer gust of hostility she throws at me, and I resist the urge to glance over my shoulder to make sure I’m in the right place. “I’m not here for autographs or pictures . . . ”
“Great.” She begins closing the door in my face, but I slap my hand against it before she can shut me out.
“Are you Dee?” I ask, and the girl’s glare hardens with either recognition or irritation. Maybe both. She’s so focused on trying to murder me with her eyes that she doesn’t even notice when a blonde-haired girl pops up behind her. With nothing to lose, I wedge my combat boot against the door and hold out my hand. “I’m Kit. We spoke over email?”
“You’re Kit?” the blonde asks, and the brown-haired girl that I’m assuming is Dee slowly offers up her hand.