Chapter 20 #2
And apparently that’s all it takes. Evan reaches for my hand, guiding me away from our audience.
I can’t say for sure why I let him, but the answer probably lies somewhere in this view of Evan from behind.
In the way he mindlessly rakes his fingers through the perfectly undone black waves covering his head.
In the tattoos that snake across his upper body, following every defined muscle.
My eyes trace the intricate black and red ink that paints every bit of his exposed olive skin before disappearing under his loose black tank top.
When he’s satisfied with the distance we’ve achieved, he turns his slightly stubbled face back to mine.
I’m acutely aware of his hand on the newly exposed skin at the small of my back.
It’s not unpleasant, but it is foreign enough that I can’t stop thinking about the weight of it on me.
When Ro touched me there, I’d nearly forgotten to notice because of how familiar it felt.
Like he belonged there. Like he’d always held me that way.
I step back until I’m just barely out of Evan’s reach.
“Thought we could use some space to get to know each other,” he says, stepping closer with his fingers at my back again. He taps out a rhythm on my skin, making his presence even more impossible to ignore.
He scans my face for recognition. “We haven’t met before, right?”
My laughter eases a bit of the tension. Mine, anyway.
Evan’s brow quirks in confusion, but it’s just too fitting that he’d be the type of guy to forget women he ought to remember. I adjust my purse to form a buffer between us and shake my head, taking a couple big sips of my cocktail. “You guys any good?”
“Just wait,” he practically purrs. “You’re gonna see these people lose their fucking minds.”
I try to regain the composure of my earlier sobriety, but my blinks are lazy now, and even I hear new warmth dripping from my words as I tease, “Okay, rock star.” And it’s only when I’m removing my hand from his chest that I realize I’d touched him at all.
Thanks, tequila.
“Fair warning, though, this isn’t usually my thing.”
“Don’t knock it till you try it,” he says. And I can’t tell for sure if it’s his breath or his tongue that makes contact with my ear when he leans in to whisper, “It’s always the good girls.” Evan grabs my hips to pull me into him.
“Whoa,” I mutter, stumbling briefly before catching myself on his sculpted biceps.
“You were all the way over there,” he says. He dips his head down so his mouth is in my ear again. Lip jutting out as he pouts. “I feel like I’m yelling.”
Tipsy as I am, and tempting as he is, if this guy doesn’t keep his hands to himself, he’s going to need all his pretty muscles to defend himself against mine.
“I can hear you just fine.”
I take another step back from a shocked-looking Evan, just as Liv, Travis, and the rest of the guys appear to retrieve him.
Without another glance in my direction, Evan pushes through the newly formed group, and before he’s completely out of earshot, I hear him yell to the guys, “I need a fucking drink.”
“Come on,” Liv says, grabbing my hand. “Let’s go backstage.”
There’s just no fucking way.
But Liv looks drunk and happy and I’d like to keep it that way.
“Is it okay if we just stay out here?” I say, instead of telling her that her boyfriend sucks and his friend’s a creep.
Liv’s eyes follow Travis’s retreating frame as a gaggle of pick mes materialize from thin air, closing in on the band as they reach the red curtain by the stage.
I sense Liv’s silent debate.
“It’s cool if you want to go,” I offer, knowing she might be two seconds from choosing Travis anyway.
She shakes her head. “Just let me tell him. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be in the bathroom,” I yell to Liv’s back as she sprints toward her man as fast as her four-inch heels will allow.
10:58pm
Ro: If you end up in the mosh pit, I’m gonna need a video.
Me: unlikely
Ro: You good?
Before I can respond, Liv barrels through the bathroom door with fresh drinks, oblivious to the dirty looks coming from the line of girls she shoulders out of the way.
“Okay,” Liv says, breathless. “They’re officially onstage and safe from the Irvine Place sharks.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” I tell her, opening the camera on my phone to snap a selfie or ten.
My hair’s wild from the humidity, and my already smoky eyes have gone even more sultry on my dewy skin. For no reason at all I send a picture to Ro.
“So, Evan?” Liv asks. “So cute, right?”
She holds up her tall glass to cheers her approval.
With a very different reaction to his name, I leave her drink hanging, to take a swig of mine. “He seems like kind of an asshole.”
“No!” she shouts. And this time, it’s the alcohol, not the music, responsible for her volume.
Liv’s still insisting what a great guy Evan is, when I hand her my mostly empty drink and duck into an open stall.
I check my phone mid-pee, curious if Ro got my picture:
Ro: Fuck!
Ro: Sorry. But damn.
I stifle a private smile. And the urge to ask him to send one back. Relax, tequila. Though I can’t blame the alcohol for the familiar tilt in my belly that I’ve come to expect around Ro.
—
The back half of the venue is nearly empty as the band begins their set. The audience, a giant mass of colliding bodies, inches their way toward the stage.
Evan might be one giant red flag offstage, but under the spotlights, he’s transformed into something else. His hands, once wandering and brazen, are deliberate, intentional, and fucking killing it. He’s doing his thing up there. All the guys are.
Beside me, Liv’s ponytail whips around with each enthusiastic nod of her head. She’s doing her thing too.
A waitress drops off two more drinks, pointing at Travis to let Liv know who sent them. It’s not a boom box hoisted overhead, but it’ll do. Even from this distance, Travis hasn’t taken his eyes off her. Maybe I’d been too quick to judge.
Back here, away from the madness, and with another cocktail coursing through me with renewed strength, I follow Liv’s lead—letting go and allowing the strobing lights to turn me into someone new for the night too. We’re completely lost to each other and the music. Our own two-man mosh pit.
The alcohol and exertion leave my skin glistening.
Rogue curls, slick with sweat, drape themselves across my face until I whip my head back to tousle them into the voluminous mess my hair has become.
I don’t know if it looks nearly as good as it feels—the movements aren’t pretty or perfect.
They’re not meant to be. And that, the freedom to move this way, to just exist exactly as we are, is liberating as hell. And sexy as fuck.
Evan’s eyes find me in the dark. The sight of him, shirtless and dripping, stirs something in me. Something I’d signed away months ago, contractually. But buoyed by the night’s energy, none of the old rules matter.
The thought of breaking those rules—of breaking my own—both stops me cold and sets me on fire.
Mine is the permission I didn’t realize I’d been waiting for, and once it’s granted, I can practically feel his skilled fingers digging into my flesh.
Rough and hurried with need. His sweat and mine, painting us both in a sheen of desire.
I want that. I want him. And tonight, my brain is just foggy enough to let my body act on it. Tonight, that wanting is reason enough for me to have sex with—
Liv and I both go still. A tiny scoff-laugh escapes from my lips, glossy and agape.
It’s my first time at one of these things, but by the way Liv’s mouth also dangles wide, it’s safe to assume the wannabe Instagram model running onstage to straddle Evan at his drum set isn’t part of the band’s usual programming.
She pushes her exposed cleavage against Evan’s bare chest, and Evan, to his credit, continues to play expertly. The crowd’s at a fever pitch at this show within the show.
The final cymbal is still reverberating through the club as she throws her head back, expectantly. Without missing a beat, Evan’s tongue sets out on a path from her bra up to her awaiting mouth.
I’m flushed and a little breathless from my earlier thoughts and the overtly sexual energy shift in the room that’s left me even more eager. All I can muster is a head tilt and an inquisitory, “Huh,” as I continue staring at the stage.
Liv and I watch them go at it for a while before my hand finds my back pocket to order a lifeline out of this place where I’d only ever been a visitor. I try not to look too excited as I brave my next words.
“Will you kill me if I go?”
“That depends.” Liv points a red manicured nail toward my phone. “Are you going home?”
When I quirk my brow suggestively, she swats me before pulling me into a sticky hug. “Finally! Go. Have fun.”
“I love you, you know that?” And though I’ve said it to her countless times, it sounds like a revelation. I’m always going to love her.
Liv brings both her palms to her lips to blow all her love right back to me.
The guys start their next song as I make my way toward the exit shouting, “Thank Travis for the drinks. And Evan for the show.”
And when I look back for the last time, everything is just as it should be—only one body behind the drum set, Liv already making her way backstage, and me, requesting what’s sure to be the most expensive Lyft I’ve ever taken. All the way back to Connecticut.
Because it was never going to be Evan.
Me: Hey. What’s your address?