Chapter 41
Forty-One
The Savage Saints are the main headliner. When they hit the stage, the entire field's energy instantly changes.
I feel the collective pull of forty thousand people waiting for a single moment. The energy flows like a tide. Then the opening chord hits, and everyone erupts.
I lose my mind. Just a little.
I know every word to every song on every album. Now they’re forty meters away, and the sound hits me in the chest before it even reaches my ears.
I grab Griffin’s arm. “Oh my God.”
He gazes down at me. Whatever he notices on my face makes a full smile spread across his. He puts his arm around my shoulders, and we’re in it together. The crowd, the noise, the day. For a song and a half, it’s perfect.
Then the crowd surges.
I’m five-foot-four, while the person in front of me isn’t, and the person in front of them definitely isn’t either.
Suddenly, the stage becomes something I can only hear.
I’m stuck watching the back of a very tall stranger’s head during what might be the best live version of Garden of Eden I’ll ever hear.
I try jumping. This helps for approximately two seconds.
“I can’t see anything,” I say.
Griffin looks at me for a long beat before he scans the crowd.
He’s thinking. I can tell because he gets that focused, calculated look. He turns and cranes his neck until he spots a group of men two rows back. They are big, cheerful, and clearly several beers in on a great day.
He wades toward them. I follow because the alternative is being lost in a sea of shoulders.
I watch him say something to the biggest one. The man’s face goes from neutral to absolutely delighted. Two of his friends turn around and give me the same expression.
Griffin comes back and pats his shoulders. “Get on.”
My mouth falls open. “What?”
“Up. On my shoulders.” He crouches slightly. “You can’t see. This is the solution.”
“Griffin, I’m wearing a dress.”
“Don’t care. They don’t care.” He nods toward the men, who are all grinning. “Nobody cares. Get on.”
“If I fall—”
“You won’t fall.”
I look at the stage, then at his shoulders, and finally at my outfit.
Oh, for the love of God.
With a squeal and very little dignity, I scramble onto his shoulders, gripping his hair and cackling like a maniac, boosted by the two huge men.
The second I’m up above the crowd, the beat drops again, and I scream into the sky, arms raised, heart pounding, hair soaked in sweat.
Griffin’s hands are on my thighs the whole time, anchoring me in place. He doesn’t even flinch under my weight. He just stands there in the thick of it while I lose my mind to the music.
I belt out the lyrics. The whole crowd is vibrating, surging, screaming, and bouncing with every beat.
Halfway through the second verse, I lean down, grab Griffin’s face, and press a kiss to the center of his forehead.
He blinks up at me.
For a split second, the world stills.
His mouth parts like I knocked the wind out of him. His eyes are wide with that look that says, What the hell are you doing to me?
And maybe I don’t know.
But I’m alive, I’m loud, and I’m laughing.
I know he sees it, all of it, because for once, I’m not hiding.
∞∞∞
“Hey, violin girl! Over here!”
I stop mid-stride. Griffin stops with me, his shadow falling over mine.
I turn and spot the group of hippies who bore witness to the absolute train wreck of my emotional state last night.
And with them?
The psychic.
They’re grouped in a loose circle near a cluster of tents, with instruments resting against their knees. A thin curl of smoke rises above them, smelling like damp earth.
The psychic lifts a hand, wiggling her fingers at us like she’s casting a spell. “Found you.” She shifts her gaze to Griffin, her eyes narrowing in a way that’s far too knowing. “Hello, soulmate.”
I lean into him. “Do I need to lick you again to make my point, or do we have an understanding?”
He looks down at me with dark eyes, and it makes my pulse skip a beat.
“Please do,” he says, his voice like gravel.
I jab an elbow into his ribs.
Someone in the group is rolling something. The familiar herbal scent drifts over, and the guitar player extends it toward me. My stomach, still recovering from the morning’s hangover, does a slow roll.
“No thanks. I’m good.”
He shrugs.
No offense given, none taken.
He reaches for a case leaning against a fence post, flips the latches, and takes out a violin. He holds it out across the circle as a silent challenge.
“Come on, violin girl. Give us a tune.”
I blink. “You just carry a violin around?”
“We’re a band. We’re playing at a bar in town tonight. Thought you knew.”
I definitely did not know.
I take it anyway. The wood is warm from the sun. It’s the first moment since waking up that I feel completely steady.
“Something classical?” someone asks. There’s a trace of gentle teasing in it—the assumption that I’m a conservatory girl who only plays things people have to sit in velvet chairs to listen to.
I look at the strings, and I think of my mother.
I think of Sunday afternoons when she was all the way herself.
She’d put something on the speakers and dance in the kitchen, telling us stories about the village where she grew up—the sessions in the pub, the music that didn’t need a stage or a hushed audience.
Music that just needed people and a pulse.
I bring the violin up, but I don’t use the formal posture—no chin up, no elbow out, none of the rigid discipline I spent years perfecting. I drop it lower, tucking it against my chest the way you hold a fiddle, the way I was taught in my socks when I was seven.
I play the opening of Red Haired Boy.
I go full speed from the first note. The reel opens in my fingers like a familiar road. It’s been there since childhood, buried under layers of formal training and the careful management of what my music was supposed to be.
I notice the group’s expression change in my peripheral vision, but I keep playing.
Then there’s a click of a case. The guitar comes in underneath me, finding the key in four bars and joining as if it’s been waiting for the opportunity. The tambourine hits the offbeat. The drummer taps out a rhythm on a wooden box.
A small crowd begins to gather. People pause, turn around, and remain in place. Nearby, a kid starts bouncing.
I play the second part, then the third, rolling back to the start. I laugh while I play, which is a total violation of concert hall etiquette and the best thing about this entire thing.
When I finish, there’s a heartbeat of silence before the applause hits.
“Holy shit,” the guitar player says. “Where are you tonight?”
“Excuse me?”
“Tonight. After the festival. Where are you going?”
I glance at Griffin. His face is doing the quiet, warm, completely undone version that I’ve decided is my new favorite.
“The town, I think. The bars.”
“We’re at The Anchor.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Are you free?”
The old response tries to claw its way up. Let me check. I’m not sure. I should probably rest. Then, the new version of me—the one that’s been taking over since I got into that car—speaks up.
“Yes.”
I feel Griffin’s hand find the small of my back. He leans in, his breath warm against my ear. “There’s my girl.”
“Where’d you learn to play like that?” someone asks.
I could talk about the years of teachers and the hours of practice. I could mention the formal education in precision and control.
It’s not what comes out.
“My mother is Irish,” I tell them.
The group look at each other and nod.
“Ah,” someone says. “That explains it.”
It does. It explains everything.
I’m playing at a bar called The Anchor, at a festival I’ve wanted to visit for years, and my mother’s music has always been in my hands, even when I forgot it was there.
I hand the violin back.
“Nine o’clock. The Anchor. Don’t be late.”
“I won’t,” I say.
And I mean it. I haven’t been this on time for myself in years.