Wesley
T he crowd was eager, leaning forward and hungry for more after Avery’s performance. She’d set us up perfectly.
But we ruined it after two songs. Originally, we were booked until eleven, but were off that stage at ten thirty, Dave opting for the jukebox over us.
Safe to say, none of us felt like sticking around.
We didn’t speak as we hauled our equipment out.
We’d gotten big heads, thinking we were too good for dusty county fairs.
To give us some credit, it took talent to be so bad that drunk people didn’t want to listen to you, and that reality hit us like a meteor.
It started raining while we were inside.
Fat drops pelted us as we sprinted to Luca’s mom’s van, covering any exposed electronics with jackets.
Our clothes were soaked through in minutes, but I couldn’t feel the cold.
The heat of raw embarrassment kept me warm.
What were we trying to do? We were teenagers chasing the same damn dream as thousands of people. Nothing about us was special.
I was ready to go back to Luca’s garage and never take the stage again.
“Fuck,” Jared shouted, kicking at the ground. His momentum and the slick sidewalk sent him falling backward on his ass, knocking the breath from his lungs on impact.
Avery was the one to help him up, unimpressed with our dramatics. “Yeah, we’re so not doing this right now.”
“Easy for you to say,” Garrett grunted out.
“Hey!” I jabbed my index finger at him. “She got up there and covered for us. You saw the last bit.” I was one second away from grabbing the collar of his shirt and snarling in his face.
“Stop it!” Avery tore my hands off Garrett, planting herself between us on the sidewalk.
Her wet hair stuck to her face. I could tell she dyed it recently, because red water seeped into the light fabric of her shirt.
“What happens next time, huh? Are you going to fight every time something doesn’t work out the way you wanted it too? ”
“As if there will be a next gig,” Jared said. “There’s no way we’re getting invited back.”
“I’ll find another gig. And when I do, you’ll brush this off. If you fail again, you fail.” She turned slowly, stopping to make eye contact with each of us. “Did you think you were going to go up there and prove you were God’s gift to music? Half of your set is covers. Get better.”
“What are we supposed to do now?” Luca asked, the rare interruption of his soft voice caused the rest of us to pause and listen.
Jared was levelheaded enough, but there to have fun. Garrett was a flight risk. I was desperate. But Avery and Luca? Those two kept us grounded in their own ways.
“Like I said”—she swiped a rained-soaked strand of hair from her face and shrugged—“try again.”
I thought she meant try again tomorrow, next week, or at the very least when we weren’t at risk of catching hypothermia. Instead, she gave Luca directions to a damn karaoke bar.
Fifteen minutes later, we found ourselves in a dimly lit private room with musty pink velvet sofas, a disco ball, and a TV precariously mounted to one wood paneled wall that looked a moment away from crushing whoever stood under it.
We were soaked to the bone, beaten down, and just wanted to go home, but still, we sat and watched as Avery cleared her throat and threw herself into the song.
We didn’t stand a chance. When a redhead with a wolfishly eager smile and something to prove sings every part to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” you get your ass up and sing too.
By the third verse, we were up there with her smiling as we crowded around the single microphone.
“Your turn,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder, some of it hitting Garrett in the face.
“All right, what are we singing?” I asked. “Something from tonight? I bet they have The Killers in the system.”
“How about you ‘Take it Easy,’” Avery said, pressing a button and starting up the iconic Eagles song. I got the message, stop thinking so hard and have fun you idiots.
She watched us from the couch, long limbs stretched out as she filmed us on Mom’s camcorder.
Avery picked up the pieces, and it wouldn’t be the last time.
Mom and Hudson came to the city in the morning and took all five of us out for breakfast to celebrate. Our knees knocked together as we smooshed into a booth at a place with laminated menus and the word “endless” tacked on to so many specials, you had to wonder how the place stayed in business.
Avery pulled up a video she took on the camcorder, propping it up using napkin-wrapped utensils to engineer an angle so we could all see. She had conveniently “forgotten” to press play at Dave’s, so all she had to share was a few minutes from karaoke.
Mom tried to play the video again, but Hudson intervened, stretching his arm across the table to pluck up the camcorder and move it out of reach.
“I’ll make a DVD when we get home. You can watch it on repeat then.
” He nodded toward us with a seriousness I’ll never forget.
“You boys have something good. Keep going.”
The acknowledgement from him was rejuvenating. He was an artist in his own right but I looked up to him for other reasons. He was the guy you called because you knew he’d come through.
Hudson paid the bill, and we headed out to our separate cars. The plan was for Avery to drop me at the dorms before she headed back to Caper.
She didn’t start the Jeep when we got in. One of her hands gripped the key, the other tapping against the center console.
Things had been shifting between us over the last year as we poured ourselves into the band.
She drove hours to meet us or listened to practice over the phone.
It was technically my band, but still, she showed up.
Again and again she was there. Not just with music, I’d called her more than once telling her I was terrified Mom’s cancer would come back, and she’d stay on the line with me until we fell asleep.
What I felt for her was bone deep. I didn’t know what to call it.
Love. Need. Devotion. I wanted to tell her but didn’t know how.
I wished I could just say “You know how ‘Fade Into You’ feels when we listened to it? Yeah, that’s how I feel about you.
” It would be easy to use someone else’s poetry, but it felt like a cop out.
Instead, I said, “Thank you.”
“You’d do the same for me.” Her eyes met mine. Brown with streaks of green and pinpricks of gold.
A loud buzzing sounded and Avery jumped in her seat, her knee colliding with the door. She grabbed her phone, flicked it open, and climbed out of the car to answer.
I couldn’t hear the conversation, but I watched as her expression soured but then slowly bloomed into an unrestrained grin. The moment she closed her phone, I yanked open the passenger side door and came around the front of the car to meet her.
“Dave asked us to come back on Wednesday. It will be a smaller crowd and he made me promise that you’d be on time, but it’s another chance,” she said breathlessly.
I didn’t think. I just picked her up and swung her around, letting out a whoop that echoed against the buildings around us.
“Put me down!” she got out through gasps of laughter.
I held her in the air for a second longer, and even when her feet returned to the ground, my arms stayed around her.
She didn’t move. Her face was an inch from mine.
It was the first time I ever thought about kissing her.
Not just imagined it, I’d done that plenty.
I actually considered it, tilting forward but not completely closing the gap.
I always knew she was beautiful, but on some level I treated it like a universal law, like gravity.
I moved through the world, constantly aware of her, often without ever thinking about it.
But the night before, as she fearlessly commanded the stage without giving it a second thought, I couldn’t stop staring at her. I watched, helpless against her pull.
“I can’t believe it. What did he say?” I asked as I studied her, this girl who never gave up on me.
“He saw potential,” she said, finally stepping away, teeth sinking into her bottom lip.
My optimism waned at her expression. I tilted my head to catch her gaze as I coaxed. “Just tell me, Ave. It’s the two of us.”
“He wanted me to come back.” She slumped in my arms, shoulders curling in.
“He thinks you have potential.” Of course he wanted her back. He’d be stupid not to.
“I told him I’d do it if you guys could have another slot, that we’re a package deal.”
“Fuck.” I felt like I’d let her down. I was building up the band so much, and she was helping with the songs and getting gigs. Meanwhile, we couldn’t fucking perform. And I hadn’t even asked if she wanted to. “Just do it yourself. You don’t need us dragging you down.”
“What are you talking about?” She reeled back, glaring at me. “I wouldn’t have been up there without you. I don’t want to be up there if you’re not there too. Take this chance.”
“It’s not a chance. It’s pity.”
“It’s something. Take it.” Her eyes blazed, flecks of gold burning bright. “I’m not being nice, I’m being selfish. Because I don’t want to do this unless I’m doing it with you. So, whether you like it or not, I’ll drag your ass there if I have to. We’re doing it together.”
Together, that’s how I always wanted it to be too.
We went back the next week, and by some miracle, didn’t fuck it up.