Chapter 21
The VIP area near the stages is dotted with themed pop-up bars, including an orange kiosk offering apple cider spritzes, the outpost of a local brewery, and a stand selling drinks made with the cherry rum that’s haunting us.
There are food trucks and picnic tables under tassel garlands in varying shades of yellow.
On the side opposite the campground entrance sits another set of gates leading to the stages.
By the time we make it through, a band fronted by a woman in head-to-toe denim wielding a glittery guitar has just started their set.
I don’t recognize them or the song, but it’s high-energy country-rock, and Nate and I agree—in a nonverbal conversation involving just our facial expressions—that if Logan is here, he’s as close to the stage as possible.
We squeeze through the crowd. With every step, my feet sink into the sludgy grass or get squashed by the boot of an overeager dancer.
Nate grabs my hand and pulls me along, and I use his torso as a shield to protect my nose from flying elbows.
Yesterday, I thought cold and muddy was bad.
Turns out hot and muddy is worse. It’s splattering my legs and commingling with the sweat on the backs of my knees.
We manage to reach the front, but there’s no sign of Logan anywhere. I turn in a circle to assess how far the crowd stretches, but there’s a woman in a frilly gingham romper behind us jumping up and down aggressively.
“In my head this seemed like it would be easier,” I shout. The stage feels bigger up close, and it’s going to be impossible, I realize, to comb through every bit of the crowd to make sure we don’t miss Logan.
“I didn’t expect there to be so many people at the earliest show of the day. I’ve never even heard of this band,” Nate says.
“Then get the fuck out of the way!” the woman in gingham yells, her jumps turning angrier.
“That’s fair.” Nate crowds into me to give her more room to express herself through the medium of stomping giant divots into the ground. “Sorry, I just—”
“It’s okay.” My back is against his front. I try not to move, which makes it really hard not to move. Every inadvertent shift feels as shocking as if one of us started grinding on the other.
The guy in front of me bends over and gyrates rhythmically. To avoid inadvertent contact between his grimy cargo shorts and my crotch, I instinctively hinge at the hips, which means my back arches and my butt rolls backward right between Nate’s thighs.
“ Gah. ” He grabs me by the waist and separates our bodies.
“That wasn’t a dance move!”
“Trust me, I know.” His hands slide from my waist to my arms, where he maneuvers my elbows into a bent position, angles my wrists down, and grabs my hands. He moves them to the beat of the music the same way I do after two and a half cocktails. “ This is your dance move.”
“It’s a good one.” My skin lights up at the feeling of his arms around me. All I can think is more and closer. “When’s the last time you even saw me dance?”
“Probably the last time you went to Bailey’s birthday party.” He stops the marionette act but keeps hold of my hands. “And a million times over the years before that.”
“Seems like you’ve paid pretty close attention.”
He laughs and slides his thumbs across the insides of my wrists. “Yeah, I think that’s accurate.”
My blood is like the inside of a lava lamp. “That would be super creepy if I didn’t…” I lick my lips.
Didn’t what? Didn’t pay close attention to him too. Didn’t feel an electric current with him from the day we met. Didn’t keep him in a special pocket of my mind for years, as the guy who could’ve been right for me if only the circumstances allowed.
If only all of those didn’t s were really didn’t s. Nate must sense that we’ve gone from flirtation to something deeper, because he releases my hands. “Let’s get out of here. This isn’t how we’re going to find him.”
The afternoon passes without success. We try a multitude of strategies: walking the perimeter of the crowd at each stage, hovering outside the restrooms, patrolling the VIP section. Splitting up, sticking together.
When we pass the sunflower field, I gear up to ask Nate to take my picture, but he offers on his own.
He doesn’t even make a face. I post the photo while he looks for Logan in the activity field where people are playing dodgeball and tag.
Bailey, whom I haven’t spoken to since Denver, messages me immediately: Hahahaha wtf.
We go back to the campground twice to look for Logan and snag free snacks.
“I’m going to text Livvie,” Nate says when the golf cart drops us off at the security gate to reenter the festival for the third time. “It’s been a while since we ran into them.”
I check the schedule posted at the entrance. “Shaboozey is next on the main stage. Do you think Logan’s planning to go?”
“Might as well check.” Nate stacks his phone and wallet in a plastic dish, passes it to the security person, and walks through the metal detector.
“Excuse me?” The question comes from somewhere over my shoulder. I turn around, my own plastic dish of personal items in hand.
A young woman with a long dark braid threaded with pink hair tinsel gives me a tentative wave. “Are you Quinn Ray?”
“Yes!” CycleLove riders occasionally recognize me in public, but it’s not a regular occurrence. I straighten my shoulders and turn on my smile, hoping I don’t look too disheveled. “Are you a CycleLove rider?”
“Uh, no.” Her nose wrinkles. “Those bikes are expensive. I follow you on Instagram because that speech you gave about relationships was so inspiring. My boyfriend of five years broke up with me this summer, and you said a lot of things I needed to hear.”
“Oh!” I can feel how freakishly wide my eyes have gone.
This is…good. Right? It’s good. One of the things I love about my job is making people’s days a little better through a good workout, and this is the same thing, just in a new way.
“I’m glad. Breakups are tough, but I hope you’ve been hanging in there. ”
She nods rapidly and lifts her phone. “Can I get a photo?”
I step out of the security line, and she waves over one of her friends, who snaps the picture. “Thanks,” she says as her friend heads back to their group. Then she ducks her chin and mumbles, “Um, can I ask you something really quick?”
“Sure.”
“Now that I’m single, hanging out with my friends sucks because they’re all in relationships, so I’m always the third wheel. Or the seventh wheel. What advice do you have for dealing with that?”
As she waits for me to answer, every memory of every breakup I’ve ever experienced or witnessed a friend go through buries itself deep in the inaccessible parts of my brain, and I’m left with a blank mental dry-erase board. “Well,” I start. “First of all, that sounds hard.”
It’s the Edible Arrangements of sympathetic statements: not groundbreaking, but it works for almost any situation. She nods vehemently, which emboldens me.
“The good news is, if you’re hanging out in a big group with couples, they probably bring their single friends around sometimes too, right? So maybe it gives you a chance to meet someone new?”
She shrugs, and it feels like a game show’s wrong-answer buzzer.
“Not that you need to meet someone new, obviously.” She can’t be more than twenty-one or so, which means she’s unattached for the first time since she was sixteen years old.
Hurrying into another relationship just to make group hangouts more pleasant is definitely the wrong solution, and I don’t need to be an advice columnist to know that.
But I have read an advice column once or twice.
I can come up with something here. And then I remember Camila and Rosie from the club in Vegas.
“It’s okay to want time with your friends without their significant others around,” I continue.
“It’s good for you and them, and while it’s unfortunate they haven’t realized it on their own, you shouldn’t feel bad about communicating what you want.
Whether or not they’re receptive, this might be a good time for you to branch out.
Explore your hobbies, figure out who you are on your own.
Take an art class, read in the park, play some pickleball.
You may make new friends, and some of them will be in a similar situation as you. ”
The smile is back on her face. “I was actually thinking of trying intramural soccer.”
I’m about to tell her that’s great, but the words die on my tongue. Over her shoulder—farther than that, past the fence and over Nate’s shoulder, in the VIP area—I catch a glimpse of floppy dark hair and an oddball cabana shirt in a sky-blue-and-hunter-green block print.
I know someone with that hairstyle who would definitely wear that shirt. If it’s him, when he turns to the side, I’ll catch a glimpse of his god-awful—
“Mustache!” I yell, because there it is. There Logan is, walking away from the orange kiosk with a spritz in hand, holding a beach ball under his other arm.
Nate looks up from his phone, cocking his head. “Excuse me,” I say to the girl. “I have to…” I trail off and move back toward security, but the line has grown longer. “Nate!” I cup my hands around my mouth. “I see him! Blue-and-green shirt! Beach ball! Go! ”
He sprints off. Sheepish apologies get me to the front of the line in a couple minutes, but when I pass through the metal detector, neither of them is in sight.
By the time I find Nate, he’s leaning against the fence on the other side, near the entrance to the main festival area, with his arms draped over the railing.
“Where is he?”
Nate’s jaw is locked. He nods at the other side of the fence, where it’s gotten more densely packed over the course of the day, with three shows going on at once. “He ran that way.”
“What are you doing? Let’s go, then!”
He shakes his head. “No, Quinn. He saw me, and then he literally ran away from me.”