Chapter 6 #2
Will grins, hands shoved into his pockets as he eyes the growing line of people who look nothing like the ones that pepper our campus.
The show is a mashup of performance and visual artists, but that’s all Autumn, my friend, said.
She’s been begging me to come into the city for one of these for months, and I can tell by the eager smile spread across her face as she waits by the door that finally agreeing to it is a big deal to her.
We’re friends—actually friends. Her girlfriend looms behind, dark hair falling around her shoulders as she scans the street for us.
“Andrew,” she says, her British accent swallowed whole the minute we enter the underground warehouse.
Slate, concrete walls run seamlessly into an identical floor, but you can barely even make it out because of the strobe lights that flicker across the sea of bodies.
“You’ve met Frida?” I glance over, nodding my head at her before she pulls me in for a hug.
“Refreshing, seeing you away from those pretentious douches,” she yells over the thumping bass before she notices Will. “Oh. Hello.”
“Will Chapman,” he says on a laugh, the corner of his mouth tugging up in a smirk that visibly softens Autumn’s usually unaffected girlfriend. “Some people call me a pretentious douche.”
“I didn’t mean—” she starts to explain, but I cut her off while Autumn fights her own amusement.
“No, no. He actually is a douche, so. No harm done.”
We’re all awash in a red glow, the music in sync with the way the lights flash as we slip through the room.
The yeasty scent of beer and acrid notes of liquor fills my senses as the bass rumbles against my skin, and I relax back into myself after the longest shift of my life.
The club was mostly dead, so everyone else got cut early.
Just me and my thoughts, all night. That Will answered and agreed to come into the city for a last minute art exhibition is a testament to how good of a friend he can be.
“Where’s the art?” Will asks as I snag a beer off the platter of someone dressed like an overly rotted zombie.
“Look up,” Autumn tells us and when I do, I almost laugh. The ceiling is an intricate web of plastics, soda cans, netting and water bottles, but some has been melted down and reshaped to mimic sea life. It’s kind of violent with the red lights, all the little pieces together.
“Is this PETA?” I turn to Frida. “Is this you converting me?”
“No.” Frida’s eyes roll dramatically. “The theme tonight is decay. Environmental decay, social decay, moral decay. You know.” She shrugs, inching past someone until we meet the bar.
“Okay, I have to check on my actors and Frida’s not allowed to leave my side,” Autumn says cheekily, tugging on her arm.
“But I’ll be back at some point. Wait—are either of you squeamish?
” Will and I shake our heads, but skepticism crosses between us.
“Okay. Just checking.” The girls dart away, and when I turn around toward the bar, I notice Will’s already grabbed a seat and ordered a drink, is already staring at the wall deep in thought.
“You good?” My brows pull together and I watch him all but slam his fresh beer onto the bar top.
“Yeah. I’ll catch up with you,” he tells me, breezily, like I imagined the lost expression I just clocked in his gaze, and I squint. “I have a girlfriend, Andy. Remember?” The bitterness shocks me.
My cheeks puff full of air before I let it out. “Right. Of course. I’ll…be back?”
“Dude, chill. I’m just gonna look at the…” he glances up. “The decay,” he huffs, a small smile pulling toward his eyes as his gaze locks on someone behind me. “Fucking Ian.”
“Huh?” My neck pricks as I turn and see him immediately, his attention already trained on me. “Oh. Weird,” I say as nonchalantly as possible, knowing that look. He needs to talk to me.
“Will Chapman seen at a PETA art party. Will he turn vegan?” he laughs, mimicking Ian’s snide tone as he knocks his beer back.
Someone’s hand lands on Will’s shoulder with a thud, and congratulations on his last season win start pouring out the stranger’s mouth as I pull away, discreetly trying to find Ian.
His blue buzzcut bobs behind a different head every few seconds as I nudge my way through the crowd of sweaty people swishing every which way to the music.
As carefully as I can, I step my way between people, keeping my eye on Ian’s hair, my hands softly brushing against the backs of strangers, until one with a too familiar mass of blonde waves spins into me, her own hands pressing against me as her chest glitters and heaves.
“Andrew?” Sloane says, breathless and flushed, her cheeks crimson with exertion, her lashes fluttering beneath the red glow.
I descend into someone different, entirely, when she says my name like that—the only way she’s said it. It’s becoming harder to ignore that she’s distinct from everyone and everything else as she stands here with her brows pulled tight, surprised wonder in her dark eyes.
“We’ve got to stop running into each other like this,” I manage to say as her palms glide up my shoulders until she’s looped her arms around my neck.
Head cocked to the side, her grin deepens until her dimples are obvious, and she rolls those eyes.
“If you asked me, I’d say you were followin’ me.
Are you followin’ me, Spellman?” she slurs, just slightly, but the heat of her hands on my neck and the languid ways she’s moving tell me she’s been here longer than me.
I let my eyes quickly scan the room as I scoff. “Definitely not.” No sight of Ian, and at the realization that he might’ve left, I relax, chuckling. “Maybe you’re following me.”
“Like I’ve got nothin’ better to do?” she asks, swaying to the beat. Gaze dipping, I catch the short hem of her dress, and those red cowboy boots, and smile to myself.
“I don’t know. What do you do? Other than paint.” I tell myself this is a useful question, not a selfish one. That knowing this could satisfy my dad or his client, not my own desire to sketch a picture of her in my mind that I could reference later.
She wets her lips before tugging the corner of her bottom one between her teeth, glancing away thoughtfully. “I used to like goin’ to the beach with Delilah. Drivin’ around anywhere in her, really.”
“And Delilah is a…?”
“A car,” she laughs, and she might as well run her fingers across my skin before sinking them into me because I can’t imagine it would invade me any less.
“When she gets here, I can take you for a spin.” She grins up at me like nothing else matters, and I wish I was even a little bit drunk so I could delude myself with her. “She’s vintage. You’d like her.”
“So you’re moving here? For good?” Worry pools low in my stomach.
Her head falls back on a groan, the sound electric against my skin. “Andy,” she moans, and I have to glance away. “Don’t be a joy kill,” she whispers when her head falls forward, leveling her gaze with mine as she closes the distance between us. “I don’t wanna think about all that.”
I just want to kiss her. I want to cradle her face in one hand and pull her flush against me with the other. Tangle that hand in her golden waves, brush my lips across hers and taste her—kiss her senseless and not think about anything at all.
“Why’d you come to Boston?” I ask abruptly, unwinding her arms from around my neck, unsurprised by the scowl that blooms on her face.
“What are you doin’ at an art exhibition?” Trying not to think about you. “There wasn’t a house party you could loiter at?” Her hand rests in the dip of her waist as she kicks out the opposite leg, but her own amusement threatens to flood the scowl away.
“Oh, I forgot. You know me.” I stifle my grin, rolling my lips together where the ghost of a kiss that’ll never happen burns me. “Didn’t answer my question, though.”
“I assumed you were smart enough to know my non answer was an answer.”
I feign feeling wounded, my hand pressing against my chest as I watch for her own smile to break free. Which it does. Her head shakes on the sound of her laughter and holy fuck I wish this was different. I’d spend the rest of the night listening to her laugh like this.
I dip my head, flicking my gaze up at her, knowing I need to cut this off. “Goodnight, Sloane.”
“You’re lettin’ me go?” Genuine shock laces her tone, her lashes blinking one too many times before she recovers, but the damage is done. Now I know there’s something there; that she wasn’t posturing. That she felt it, too. “You’re just usually a dog with a bone.”
“Thought you said this was never gonna happen?” I tease, watching her blush travel across her cheekbones, taking in everything.
The freckles on her cheeks, the fullness of her lips, the honeyed sound of that voice, the stubborn cut of her jaw—all of it, because I hope to God I’m never this close again.
I don’t know what I’ll do the next time she’s in my arms, so there can’t be a next time. “Something about your brother…?”
She clears her throat, sobering up at his mention like I threw a bucket of ice on her. “I was flirtin’ with you, Spellman. If I wanted to fuck you, you would know,” she says, eyes narrowed as I flick my gaze to the floor so she won’t see my amusement.
“Jesus Christ, Sloane, I thought I lost you,” a familiar voice croons over the music, and I turn to see Jean wedging his way between a cluster of people. “Andy? What are you doing here?”
I open my mouth to answer, but my half brother—Ian Rivers—steps around his boyfriend and slyly grins at me. “He has theater connections. Autumn from his theater survey section sophomore year probably invited him, didn’t she?” he says, perky and unbothered, as my blood runs cold.
“Okay, it’s creepy that you just know things about everyone,” Jean says, rolling his eyes. “You know Andy?” he asks Sloane, confused.
I watch as Ian glances between Sloane and I, a wealth of knowledge lodged in the look.
“Barely,” she says at the same time I say, “Hardly,” and Jean’s brow draws tight.
“Okay…” he chuckles nervously. “You ready to go?” He turns toward Sloane, who’s already looped her arm through his and began dragging him to the entrance, but not before he presses a quick kiss on Ian’s cheek. “Bye. Text you after I drop her off!”
Jean’s voice slips away as he disappears into the crowd, and suddenly, she’s not here anymore. It should be a relief but it’s not—it’s just more want for something I can’t have.
“What’s troubling you, brother?” Ian’s voice is glib and way too fucking chummy for one o’clock in the morning, and I narrow my gaze at my half-brother: the prodigal son who’s only marginally less shady than our father. But give him time. He’ll get there.
“What is it?” I sigh, shooting a quick glance toward the bar. Will is nowhere in sight. “I’ve gotta find—”
“Will? In the bathroom. Doing something illicit. I didn’t ask.”
“What do you need, Ian?” I say behind gritted teeth.
“Will’s not doing well,” he says like it’s this grave, objective thing.
“Okay? His brother just came back and ripped captain out from under him. He’s coping.”
“He hasn’t mentioned anything else?”
“No,” I say emphatically, feeling my voice turn hoarse from talking over the metal now clanging through the speakers. “And I’m not your source, Ian. So fuck off.”
I storm away, reaching the smokey bathroom within seconds where I find Will with eyes red rimmed as he grins over at me.
“Come on. Time to go,” I tell him, nodding toward the door.
“Five more minutes?” he pleads, a smile cracked wide across his face as he stands up straight and sighs. “Yeah, okay. Not really my scene. A fucking zombie gave me this.” He holds up a small joint, and I snatch it away, tossing it in the trash can.
“Probably shouldn’t take weed from a zombie,” I laugh, smacking his back as we make our way through the warehouse.
Will glances back at me, squinting. “I could really go for more of that banana bread.”
“I’m sure you could.”