23. Stone
STONE
I still can’t believe it—this blasphemy I’m hearing.
I set my empty glass on the table, staring hard at Jackson. “You can’t possibly count Imagine Dragons as alt.”
“I can, and I do,” Jackson says.
I shake my head. “That’s wrong. That’s sacrilege. That’s like what my sixteen-year-old sister listens to.”
He rolls his hazel eyes, laughing. “You don’t have a sixteen-year-old sister.”
“That’s my point,” I say, sputtering.
He narrows his brow. “Your point is you just made up a sister you don’t have?”
I smack a palm on the table. “Yes, because that’s who listens to Imagine Dragons. Therefore, they’re not alt-rock, even if they started on college radio stations.”
Jackson crosses his arms over his beefy chest. “Ah, I get it now. You don’t like music that teen girls listen to. If a teen girl listens to it, it doesn’t count as quality.”
“No, that’s not what I said,” I fire back.
“It kind of is, and that’s kind of judgy.
I actually have a sixteen-year-old sister, and she is quite the music aficionado.
She likes Imagine Dragons and Nirvana, The Beatles and Alanis Morissette, and show tunes and Greyson Chance.
Also, Beethoven. She has wide and varied tastes.
Also, incidentally, Imagine Dragons’ ‘Radioactive’ was first released on alt radio before major labels picked it up. ”
I huff, dragging a hand through my hair. This guy. He is killing me. “Whatever. You are suddenly, like, the music oracle. And the teen oracle. Also, why are you just now mentioning you have a younger sister?”
He picks up his club soda, drains the glass, and sets it down. “You never asked.” He sighs heavily, then runs a hand through his dark blond hair. “Come to think of it, you’ve never really talked about anything besides yourself.”
I sit up straighter, pointing a finger at him. “That is not true. Say that’s not true. Because that is a bald-faced lie. We talk about every city we go to. The restaurants, the clubs, the vibe.”
He gives a careless shrug. “Yeah, true. But I know you have a little brother, and you didn’t know I had a little sister.”
I roll my eyes, spreading my arms out wide. “Disqualified. That comeback is disqualified. Everyone knows I have a little brother.” I stab my finger against my chest. “Everyone knows everything about me. So that doesn’t count.”
“Fine, now you know I have a sister. Do you know where I grew up?”
I rack my brain, cycling through cities. Savannah? No, he has no accent. Los Angeles? Maybe, but he seems too tightly wound for Cali. New York? He doesn’t talk like a New Yorker.
Jackson smirks. “I guess that’s a no.”
“Fine,” I say, with an aggrieved sigh. “Where did you grow up?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Oh, that’s how we’re doing it now? Playing little breadcrumb games? You giveth and you taketh away?”
Jackson laughs with a smile that spreads across his carved face and shows off his straight white teeth. “That’s me. Doling it out like the cannibalistic witch in Hansel and Gretel.”
“Yeah, I’d say. And I bet the witch told Hansel and Gretel that she had a little sister who was a teenybopper.”
He leans forward, elbows on the table. “You do know there is nothing wrong with teenyboppers? I mean, do you actually look at the audience at your shows? You don’t only attract the twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings. There are plenty of young girls calling your name in the crowd.”
I shoot him a satisfied smile. “As it should be. As it absolutely should be.”
“So cocky, from a man who acts like he needs no one, but texts his mom before nearly every show.”
“Like I said, you know everything about me. Not fair, man, and not cool.”
“Some things in life aren’t fair,” Jackson says, then he looks at his watch. “My shift ends soon. Are you going to your suite?” He swallows roughly, his jaw tightening. “Or are you going back to your private party?”
My forehead knits as I try to figure out the subtext of his question, but I’m not sure I can read between his lines.
I’m not sure at all.
And it’s making me a little bit crazy.