Chapter Ten. Mackenzie
chapter ten
MACKENZIE
The same way I never understood writer’s block, I never understood stage fright, either.
Even when I was a little kid hamming it up in school talent shows, the stage felt like an escape.
The one place I could throw my limbs and pitch my voice and let my heart tip over without my parents telling me I was too much .
If I earned a reputation for being chaotic onstage, it was because I laid my whole self out and didn’t leave a shred behind.
Only later did I put two and two together on my thyroid being completely out of whack.
But those symptoms are regulated with meds now. The exhaustion I feel coming off Hannah’s fashion show is nothing unusual— just the kind that comes with putting on a show and fighting yet another round with Serena, without making a shred of progress.
That said, nothing wakes me up faster than walking out to the sight of Sam and Grayson chatting each other up at the bar. They both spot me at the same time, Grayson waving, Sam tipping his head.
This is fine. Good, in fact. It will be easier to shake Sam off for my date if Grayson’s already here.
Still, Sam’s smirk is a bit too suspicious for my taste.
“The first one of you to make a Christmas pun gets banned from this bar for life,” I say, eyes aimed at him.
Sam only leans back on the bar with his usual cocky ease. Still, I don’t miss the quick twitch of his jaw when Grayson leans in to kiss me on the cheek.
“Sleigh it ain’t so,” Grayson jokes.
I squeeze an arm around him. “I’m only letting that slide so Hannah can put that on the holiday cocktail menu.”
“Speaking of,” Grayson says, holding out a deep red spice-rimmed cocktail with three glitter-infused cherries perched over it. “Figured you earned one after putting on quite a show.”
It’s a Shiny Ball of Chaos, a spicy cherry martini that Hannah put on the menu in honor of Rolling Stone dubbing me one. Before I can thank Grayson for it, someone calls his name from the front, and he offers me an apologetic smile.
“Is it okay if I meet you outside in a bit?” he asks. “The team wants to debrief at the cafe across the street while we’re all together.”
So much for pushing Sam out the door. “Sure thing. I’ll see you then.”
In the meantime, Sam takes a seat at the bar next to my usual stool, hooking his foot around the legs of it to beckon me to join him. I set my drink on the bar but don’t sit, watching him watching me.
“Here, Sparkles.” Sam pulls a Take 5 bar from his coat pocket and tosses it to me. “Trade you.”
It’s only a two-dollar candy bar. But it’s also evidence that Sam was paying attention back in the old days, even when he was pulling out every stop to make me think he wasn’t. Paying enough attention that he knows I don’t like to drink right after shows, either.
I don’t know what to make of it. More importantly, I don’t like not knowing what to make of it.
“What did I say about being nice to me?” I ask.
Sam liberates the cocktail from my hand. “Trust me, Sparkles. I’m being nice to me .” He takes a long sip. “This is your cocktail, right?” he asks, lips lingering on the spiced rim. “You taste delicious.”
Damn him. It’s stunts like this that are going to make it near impossible to write Seven’s last song.
“You think flattery is going to distract me from asking what on earth you’re doing here?”
Sam sets the cocktail on the bar, looking me up and down. “Aside from saving your Christmas-clad ass?” he asks. “Twyla and Isla said this was the best time for us to meet up here, if we were going to make it one of the haunts.”
“Did they, now?”
Sam raises his eyebrows, amused. “Don’t tell me they didn’t warn you I’d be here.”
This is classic Isla and Twyla. They love and support us, but also have no problem playing God when it suits them. Maybe they thought the surprise would make for a better song.
“Must have slipped their minds,” I say, finally taking the stool next to his.
Sam lets out one of those bright laughs of his. “They’re evil.”
“Devious,” I agree, ripping open the Take 5 bar with my teeth. “But I do owe you a thank-you for the assist earlier.”
Sam shakes his head, eyes bright with mischief. “Don’t thank me yet. Turns out you can play music and record video on your phone at the same time.”
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll burn that.” But the instant I bite into the bar, the salty, crunchy sweetness makes me forget my last shred of dignity. I close my eyes and sink my elbows into the bar, moaning. “Fuck, that hits the spot.”
Sam’s lip curls, undeniably smug. “I bet it does,” he says. He lifts his cocktail up for inspection. “And this is certainly a step up from—what did Serena call the old bar’s ‘house cocktail’?”
“Cough syrup,” I recall.
Sam makes a show of craning his head toward the back of the bar.
“Speaking of Serena,” he says out of the side of his mouth, “I assume she’s going to pop out to bite my head off any moment now.”
I set the chocolate down on the bar. “She left.”
“What a shame,” says Sam. “I miss fearing for my mortal soul.”
My eyes linger on the door as if Serena will magically reappear through it. Sam nudges my boot with his sneaker. “Still in there?”
Maybe I’m just tired, or the chocolate has loosened up my guard. But instead of brushing it off, I tell Sam the truth.
“Serena’s not happy about this,” I say. “Mack & Sam, I mean.”
“Neither am I,” says Sam somberly. “‘Sam & Mack’ has a much better ring to it.”
I pluck the umbrella perched on his drink between my fingers, spinning it. “After Thunder Hearts broke up, she wanted us to team up,” I tell him.
Sam’s expression loses its teasing edge. “Damn,” he says. “Why didn’t you?”
I didn’t mean to keep the thyroid situation from Sam.
In fact, I almost told him on that last phone call we had, just before the surgery to remove the growth they found.
But it felt like a clear line had been drawn.
I asked him if there was anything I could do to help with Ben, and he said no.
Kindly, but firmly. It defined what we were by defining what we weren’t—if he wouldn’t let me take on any of his burdens, I didn’t want to put any of mine on him, either.
Then so much time passed. Enough that I never imagined seeing Sam again, let alone telling him what happened to my voice.
Let alone worrying the instant he heard it, he’d recognize it as Seven.
It’s that quick lurch of unease that makes me brush the whole thing aside. “There were a few reasons,” I say. “But I could have handled it better at the time.”
Sam watches me carefully. When I don’t elaborate, he gives me one of those easy, confident shrugs. “You’ll work it out.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Not all of us can rely on our ‘bad-boy charm’ to win people over.”
“Aw. You think I’m charming?”
“Did you conveniently miss the part where I called you bad?”
Sam lightly kicks my stool, and surprises me with the sincerity in his voice. “Serena loves you. Anyone can see that. Hell, she was in full guard dog mode with you whenever I was around.”
My head tilts at that. Serena was certainly not Sam’s biggest fan after that episode of Noted Scene had me spiraling, but he never came up much, outside of rehearsals and shows. “She was not.”
Sam raises a finger, a quiet Just you wait.
“Unlike you, I actually did some homework for our assignment for today.” He reaches back into his bag and out come a bunch of Polaroids, these ones with kitschy flowers on the borders.
They must be the ones Divya took. We all used my camera with different film borders, so we’d know whose photos were whose.
It’s oddly sweet, imagining Sam tracking her down in the city to collect them.
“See for yourself,” he says, putting one of them on the top of the pile.
In the photo I’m teetering on my stool, leaning into Hannah and looking self-satisfied.
Sam is just barely in the frame, a blur poised to stick a plastic fork in the slice of cake I had on the bar only to be stopped in his tracks by Serena, who is standing in front of him brandishing a plastic knife.
I throw my head back laughing. It’s the best I’ve felt all day.
“By all means, have a laugh at my near murder.”
“‘Candy Shard Front Man Killed in Cake-Related Manslaughter,’” I say, gesturing in front of me like I’m reading the headline. “You could have been a legend.”
Sam hums regretfully. “Guess I’ll have to settle for all those Billboard 100 hits.”
I reach for the rest of the photos. Rob trying to nap in the corner of the bar with a baseball cap over his head as Divya and Serena shake glitter all over him.
One of me and Hannah trying to tip drinks into each other’s mouths.
One of Divya, Sam, and Hannah huddled over a phone screen trying to get tickets for a late-night showing of some indie movie playing at the Times Square AMC.
The truth is that for everyone else, the rivalry between our bands was just an act. This bar was one of the few places we could safely shake it.
“The worst part was it was my slice,” says Sam about the photo. “You stole it.”
“Excuse you,” I say. I hold up another Polaroid, where I am standing beside him, triumphant, with his sleeve yanked up to show a lopsided temporary tattoo. “I won it fair and square.”
“You cheated,” Sam accuses.
“There’s no cheating in Sweet Spot. Just winning and losing. Sore losing, apparently.”
Sweet Spot was a game Rob made up that quicky devolved into madness.
It started when he ordered dozens of temporary tattoos that were supposed to look like Candy Shard’s broken-candy logo, and instead looked like they’d been drawn by a drunk toddler.
Every week he’d choose one of us at random to hide a tattoo on their person, and choose—within reason—where they put it.
He’d announce the start of the game, and each of us would have one guess as to who it was and where the tattoo was hidden.