52. ROXANNE
Chapter fifty-two
The best Metal Queen ever.
That’s what I’m going to be tonight, and I’m hoping if I look the part, then I’ll really feel the part. I do as Lee Aaron watches my reflection while I carefully line my eyes with a thick sweep of black liner. Graduation might be around the corner, but tonight is the night that truly matters.
The Battle of the Bands.
Two long months of rehearsals in Stephanie’s hellfire garage, suffering the thick heat and the occasional broken string, have led to this. I don’t really give a shit about the recording package in New York. Maybe they can give that to the runner-up instead. It’s that thousand dollars I’m after.
That kind of money is life changing for me, combined with the two hundred I’ve managed to save over the past couple of months. I could definitely close my eyes, point to any spot on the map, hop on a Greyhound, and fucking go.
It’s late May, and the typical thick Midwestern heatwave has already made its round, reminding me of how badly I want to move as far north as possible. A few stray hairs are clinging to the back of my neck as I lean closer to the mirror, outlining my lips with a pencil in a dark brown.
I pack my eyelids with a dark gray shadow as my stereo blasts Concrete Blonde’s Bloodletting , the gritty sound matching exactly what I feel in my heart today. Which is, as Stephanie would say, a hot goth mom.
Weeks of thrift store scavenging with Angela paid off. Ripped Levi’s shorts over fishnets. My blood-red Docs, the ones that I bought to treat myself for actually doing this, because… yes, red is my color after all.
A cropped black halter vest shows off a glimpse of my stomach, and Angela told me to keep the top button undone so I can hit the maximum “hot rocker chick” effect with my ‘goods’ out. I’m listening to her, for now. I know myself and my nerves will wear out and I’ll inevitably button it right back up before the stage.
My newly acquired collection of ear piercings glitter against the sun filtering in through the window, thanks to Daniel’s skills with a needle and Stephanie’s skills at talking me into anything. A couple weeks ago, we were holed up in her garage with a sewing needle, a lighter, and a bottle of cheap vodka we swiped from her mom’s liquor cabinet.
“Trust me,” she’d grinned, as Daniel held the needle to the flame. “This is gonna look so badass.”
Seven piercings later, my ears were sore as hell and I was pretty sure I’d never drink vodka again, but the end result was pretty fucking rad.
The shiny studs and hoops catch the sun again, matching the shine of numerous rings and bracelets wrapped around my black painted fingers and wrists. With my messy hair (that I head banged to Quiet Riot for a solid twenty minutes to get that perfect ‘rolled out of bed’ look) and smoky eyes, I feel every inch like the gritty fucking frontwoman.
I wink at my reflection, the giddiness and nerves sending me into overdrive. Thank god Stephanie didn’t want to get ready together. She’d think I’d lost it, watching me twitch and dance in my seat every time I thought about our entrance on that stage.
Fuck, I’m so excited I can hardly stand it.
This really is it. My chance to take the stage and show this town what I’m fucking made of. No longer the girl who was in Noah’s or Riley’s band, no longer the girl who was the daughter of an alcoholic criminal, no longer the poor girl whose dad died with casseroles piling up on my doorstep. Tonight, I get to show them what I am while playing alongside my best friend in the band we’d poured so much goddamn blood and sweat into.
I swipe on one last coat of my usual lipstick, shove my drumsticks into my boot, and strut out my bedroom door, twisting the knob obsessively to really make sure that I’ve locked it. It’s only 4:30 and the first band doesn’t go on until 6:00, but I want to get there early to sip on Steph’s flask that I know she’s preparing for us. As good as I feel right now, I’m still nervous as hell about singing in front of the public.
The living room’s a shithole, as always. My mom is passed out cold on the couch, an empty wine bottle slipping from her limp fingers to the floor. The TV blares some daytime talk show no one was watching.
I shake my head in disgust at her half open mouth, drool making its way down her chin. I still can’t get over how she hasn’t apologized to me for what she did—or took—from my room, and only keeps sinking deeper and deeper into her haze of addiction and apathy.
She didn’t show up to my final parent-teacher conferences, and I know she won’t bother to acknowledge my graduation day. Not that I expected her to after she missed my sweet sixteen to go to the opening of a new bar.
Staring at her pathetic form, my spine straightens, reminding me of how far we’ve fallen from the life I once knew. Everything here is a bad seed compared to the warmth of what I grew up around.
She has to wake up from all of this one day and realize what she’s done to me, how she sat back and stole my youth while I walked to the grocery store for three years before I was old enough to get my license. How it was my job to make sure I had a way to get to school during the heavy winter months, dragging myself through calf-deep snow to make it on time, setting my own alarms, scrounging for breakfast. I taught myself how to drive by reading books from the library, learned how to properly fry an egg through trial and error because I had no one to tell me that the best way is to splash water in the pan and cover it with a lid.
Two years from now, when I’m long gone, maybe she’ll care. But that doesn’t matter, because I’m done. I’m done waiting for her and miracles. We are two strangers occupying the same space, and I’m not going to make her my problem.
That slap she gave me four months ago still stings. I’d like to see her try again.
My gaze snags on the vodka bottle sweating on the coffee table. Fuck it . I cross the room in three strides, swipe the bottle, and start to walk out.
“What the hell are you doing?” My mother’s words slur around the sore throat she has from the cigarettes she chain smokes day in and day out.
I scoff and turn around, staring at the overflowing ashtray. Oh, so now she notices something?
“Do you even know who I am or where you are?” I challenge, bitterness seeping into my tone.
For the next thirty seconds, I watch as she struggles to peel one bloodshot eye open, swaying even as she lays prone on the couch. The eye drifts half-shut again and I’m tempted to hold the damn thing open for her.
“Course I know,” she mumbles, her words still thick and heavy. “You’re my daughter.”
I laugh, a harsh sound that jostles even her. “Really? Because you haven’t been acting like a mother for a long time now.”
“That’s not fair,” she whines, words oozing together. “Can’t you ever be patient with me? I’ve been going through a tough time, you know that, and I can’t take care of you right now.”
The anger inside me has my fingers clenching around the vodka bottle. She seriously still expects me to shoulder the burden of her dysfunction in silence. To put my life on hold while I let her drink herself into an early grave, day after endless day.
I needed you, Mom . I needed you, really fucking needed you.
When I bled for the first time and had to figure it out on my own. When I cried myself to sleep the first time girls at school mocked my clothes, wanting her to fight for me, to march into that school and raise hell. I needed her during those panic attacks in bathroom stalls after Dad passed, trembling hands unable to hold a pencil. I needed her to see the dark circles under my eyes, to notice I wasn’t eating. I needed her to be there for me, to support me, to give a shit about my life.
She wasn’t there. You’re never fucking there.
“I don’t need you to take care of me,” I spit out, the anger starting to feel as strong as her need for a drink. “I’ve been doing that just fucking fine on my own.”
Three years of working part-time jobs between school and band practice to keep food on the table. Four years of getting myself to the doctor when I was sick and attending parent-teacher meetings alone. Four years of silently crying myself to sleep, wishing she would wake up long enough to act like she cared. Long enough to see how cool and amazing and talented her only daughter was.
“I asked you if you knew who I was,” I continue, my voice rising with each word, “and you couldn’t even answer me. Because you don’t know me at all, do you? You have no idea who I am.”
After tonight, everyone in this town is going to know who I am.
Her single eye briefly refocuses on my face. “Of course I know who you are.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it. When was the last time you asked about my life? My dreams? Anything?”
“I’m sorry,” she sighs, her eye drifting shut again. “I’m not in a place where I can give you what you need right now so I don’t know what more you want from me. I’m trying, but it’s hard. You have to understand that.”
Understand? I’ve been understanding for five fucking years, putting her needs before my own.
“No, Mom, I don’t understand. I don’t understand how you can be so selfish, so wrapped up in your own misery that you can’t even see how much I’m hurting. Dad’s gone, and it hurts like hell, but I’m still here. I’m still alive!” I take a deep breath, forcing my muscles to relax. “I don’t understand how you can look me in the eye and tell me you can’t love me, like it’s some kind of fucking choice.”
I don’t need her love or want it. She doesn’t have anything left to give me.
Twisting off the cap, I raise the bottle in a mocking toast.
“I’m done waiting for you to get your shit together.” I shift my shoulders back, channeling that oak tree and getting stronger by the second. “I’m done with all of it. So, here’s to you winning Mother of the Year yet again.” I take a swig, nose wrinkling at the burn. I don’t know how she can drink this over and over. “Don’t bother showing up tonight, not that you ever do.”
My parting shot lingers in the depressing space of another afternoon lost to her drunk nap. I don’t care anymore. I have a battle to win.
Feeling fucking resilient, I turn heel and snatch my keys up from the kitchen counter, listening to see if she will say something to fix what she’s broken. The house stays quiet as I pat Jasmine curled up in the recliner until the front door creaks as I pull it open. The knot is cut and I am no longer giving her the power to dull my shine.
Never again.
I've got myself, my music, my talent, my friends, my scars. I've learned that home isn't a zip code or a welcome mat anyway. It's not the house that reeks of vodka and broken promises, where I've been both daughter and parent for the last five years. It's not in the pitying glances of neighbors or the deafening silence of a mother lost in her own grief.
I used to think home was all about the physicals—the house where I first learned to sing, the street where I skinned my knees, the scratched-up covers of my dad's records, or the knick-knacks carrying all of the memories of the girl I used to be. I've learned that all of that can turn to dust in a heartbeat.
Things can get lost or stolen, neighborhoods can mutate into unrecognizable beasts, and people you love can betray you or fade away. The whole world we mistake for solid ground is really just quicksand waiting to take you down—except for one thing.
Me.
I've been razed and reborn a thousand times, so they can try to strip me bare, but they'll never take me away from myself. I am my own fucking sanctuary, a cathedral built of bone and sinew, where every scar is a stained-glass window, every heartbeat a sacred hymn. Home isn't picket fences and apple pie, it's inside me.
That's the real foundation. As long as I hold tight to who I am, and where I'm going, I'm home free. The realest home a kid like me could know.
One worth never leaving.
My soul’s foundations are storm-proof now. Brick by brick, I’ve rebuilt from within every single fucking time life tried to demolish me, and it’s the one place I’ll always belong. I’ll never feel homesick again.
My car door slams, vodka tucked in the front passenger seat as I rev the struggling engine. The bottle rolls around as I tear through the neighborhood, my boot pressing hard on the gas, ready to unleash holy hell on stage. Those fuckers won’t know what hit them.
The drumsticks vibrate against my calf as I drive one handed and roll the window down with my other, a warm, wet breeze kissing my face as I light a cigarette.
I take the long way to The Velvet Ostrich, swinging past Lake Lickrage, heading for the southeast side of town—the grittier, less polished side. There is surprisingly a bit of traffic this weekend and I assume it’s for the show, but most people are uptown, near the safe places. Though nowhere in Bellpond really feels safe, they can keep their sanitized theaters and skating rinks.
Good character comes from basements with questionable wiring, hole-in-the-wall bars with sticky floors, and bowling alleys with crooked tables and balls that don’t roll straight.
I roll my window up as I pull into the cigarette stained parking lot across from The Velvet Ostrich, the blue neon sign flickering as everyone piles inside. The battleground is waiting and I cannot fucking wait to conquer it.
My heart beats in the middle of my throat as I pat at the dashboard, then slam my car door and walk across the street, heading toward the back alley entrance. There’s a few smokers back here, and the music from inside is bleeding out into the streets while others are shotgunning beers, tossing their crushed cans to the ground. I grab onto the metal handle of the door, letting a guy roll amp stacks in as a voice calls out.
“Roxy, wait up!”
I turn to see Stephanie scurrying up, blowing her mom a kiss with her acoustic guitar bouncing against her back. While Steph is normally found in cable knit sweaters and pink lip gloss, and not dirty venues like this, tonight she tried her best.
Acid-washed high-waisted jeans cling to her legs, paired with a black cropped band tee for The Cult that she probably bought this morning. Her eyeliner is about as heavy as mine, except paired with rusty shadow, and she swapped out her usual studs for big dangling red hoops. Her kinky curls are wild around her face, and she put on combat boots instead of her customary white Keds. Watching her carefully pick her way down the alleyway, navigating the obstacle course of beer cans and cigarette butts, I have to smile.
Stephanie will always be a neon pink marshmallow peep at heart.
“Did your mom really drop you off and you blew her a kiss?”
“What, not punk rock?”
“Not at all. Let me guess, the flask is already decked out in glitter for us too?” I tease as she reaches me. She smirks as she pulls out a silver flask from her back pocket that’s glittering with rhinestone letters spelling out “Rock On.”
“Did you really make this?” I laugh, taking it from her and tilting it around to look at all the cheetah print she painted around it too. It’s totally over-the-top, just like Steph.
“I only get to be in a band once, so… yes, I did.”
“Come on,” I chuckle, handing it back to her. “You’re gonna need some of this the first time those speakers vibrate your skin.”
As I swing open the door, the stench of unwashed bodies punches my nostrils. Ah, The Velvet Ostrich—where the music is loud, the judgments are few, and the air quality is a notch above a gas station bathroom.
Steph gulps behind me but follows me inside, taking my hand as I shoulder our way through the back corridor. Her eyes keep darting over the graffitied walls with words taller than us, and groups of rough looking musicians. Everyone definitely keeps looking at her attempt to blend in with the crowd.
It’s adorable. The poor girl has no idea what she’s gotten herself into.
The air gets stuffier as we near the stage entrance, the people inside the bar getting louder at the same time feedback and faint strains of guitars being tuned crackle through amps.
Damn, I love that sound. It’s as comforting as slipping into a hot bath after a shitty day—a full-body exhale I’ve learned to expect from the many nights spent in this dive.
I tap at the bouncer’s shoulder, a giant of a man with arms thicker than my thighs, and flash him our wristbands we picked up last week. He nods us through, and we squeeze out into the main hall, down through the main room where there are already hundreds of people crammed along the open floor.
I knew it was going to be crazy tonight, but this…
Stephanie clutches my hand harder, either to comfort herself or me. The stage standing tall to my direct right, the giant rear brick wall towering over the platform, with huge blue curtains bracketing the edges, stained with years of sweat, and god knows what else.
Yeah. The bar hasn’t changed since I was last here.
I steer us to the right, skirting around the edge of the audience. Every time I glance back at Steph, her eyes are enormous, reflecting the disco ball in the center of the room sending shards of light spinning through the smoke. We break free from the crush of people into a small space near the main front door, the stage still in full view.
To my right sprawls the iconic blue bar, blue light fixtures washing the bottles of whiskey and rum in a neon glow, blue leather stools creaking underneath people’s asses.
The air is a fucking sonic warzone, shrapnel of screams from people here to watch and those here to perform. The whole damn space convulses with frenetic energy, months' worth of anticipation primed like a dirty bomb ready to level the block.
This is our world tonight and I fucking love it already.
“I should’ve brought two flasks,” Stephanie whispers, eyes still wide as people hustle crates of gear toward the stage. A massive drum kit is being wheeled past us, cymbals gleaming under the lights.
“That's the house set all the bands are gonna share tonight,” I mutter, watching as they position it center stage. It's practical as hell—drummers hauling their shit after every set would turn this gig into an all-night affair—but it still feels like I'm about to play someone else's instrument. I'm gonna be naked up there without my own skins to hide behind.
Stephanie nods, still looking overwhelmed. “What do we do now?”
“Well, I do have a bottle of vodka with our names on it in the car.” I gesture back the way we came, turning to face her. Stephanie nods her head fast as she fidgets with the rhinestone encrusted flask. “Let me go grab it and we’ll get this party started.”
I scan the packed room, my eyes landing on a couple of gig posters taped to the wall and a raised table draped in black velvet in the middle of the crowd. Likely for the judges to sit once everyone starts to perform. There’s a homemade sign taped near the left curtained wing that catches my attention, and spelled out in blocky permanent marker is the full lineup for tonight’s show. I hold back a smile seeing our band slated to perform last.
I don’t know why I’m smiling. It fucking terrifies me since blowing the doors off this joint as the audience waits with bated breath through eight other bands’ first sounds is a heavy ass order. All those rowdy eyes judging, seeing if we can hang with the big energy acts that have been grinding away in garages and bars for years.
No pressure or anything.
“We’re the closers tonight,” I inform Steph, trying to keep my face neutral so she doesn’t panic.
She nibbles her thumbnail anyway. “More time to metabolize the liquid courage then,” she frets. “Please don’t leave me alone here too long!”
I laugh, smacking at her shoulder with the back of my palm. “Yeah, I’ll hurry. When does Daniel get here?”
“I don’t know. He said he would before the show starts at least, but you know how he is with time,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“Give 'em hell if anyone messes with you before I get back!” I call over my shoulder as I rush off towards the entrance we came from.
I elbow my way through the crowd, keeping my head down to avoid conversation, my boots crunching on bottle caps. The last thing I need is to run into—
“Roxy!”
I freeze, swearing under my breath. What I was trying to say was the last thing I need tonight is to cross paths with anyone out and about from school or my past who might try to clip my wings ahead of the show.
Screw you, fate.
I turn slowly to see Harley’s small frame cutting through the mob, eyes locked on me, hair falling to his shoulders now. The very sight of his face still manages to rub me wrong even months later. He’s left me alone ever since homecoming, and I overheard in the school bathroom recently that he and Riley called it quits, which, good. I think I would have felt bad for him if he stayed.
Still don’t want to be friends, though. I learned my lesson a long time ago.
“I don’t have time to talk,” I say flatly, avoiding his outstretched hand.
“That’s okay.” He shrugs. “I only wanted to say hey and wish you luck tonight.”
I cross my arms, silent. After almost a year, I have nothing left to give him. No rage, no tears, just cold indifference as if he’s a stranger on the street.
He finally drops his hand. “Well, good luck anyway,” he mutters awkwardly. “Go get 'em.”
Then he vanishes back into the crowd as quickly as he appeared.
The past is dead. Now, I have a battle to win.
I make my way back behind the stage, avoiding all the big guys trying to step on my toes, and shove open the door into the alleyway.
Now where had I left that vodka...?
Shit, the first band must be starting already because I hear Hot Girls In Love blasting from inside. I run quickly back across the street and lean into the front seat of my car, shoving aside crumpled fast food bags and flyers for shows I never made it to. My kneecaps grind into the cigarette burned seat as I stretch toward the bottom of the floor, my fingers closing around the glass neck.
“Yes!” I squeal, yanking it out from under the seat.
I scramble backward, banging my head on the roof in my rush to get back inside. Cursing, I struggle my way out, my boot catching on the twisted seatbelt.
I spill out of the car and onto the pavement in an ungraceful heap, a few stray butts and ripped burger wrappers coming out with me, and scrape my palms on the cement as the bottle slips out from my fingers. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Time seems to slow down, each second stretching out like neverending taffy as I unhook my foot from the seat belt and watch the vodka roll towards the storm drain, its mouth open wide and waiting its whole life to swallow up my savior for the night.
A solid black Chuck Taylor with brown laces darts out, trapping the runaway bottle.
I blink, my breath catching. I don’t know those shoes, but I know those legs.
Slowly, my eyes raise, already knowing who I will see standing over me before our eyes lock.
Noah Jackson.
His face blocks out the sun, leaving his shape only surrounded by dark waves, slender fingers curling around the bottle as he picks it up. That smirk I know is playing about his lips—the one I can’t rid my mind of even when I close my eyes.
We stare at each other for a breath, the cars passing by and the venue muted.
It’s been five months since our fight ended everything—the band, us . Five months of feeling like I’m eating dirt and missing him so much that I find bullshit excuses to drop by Tyler's place, just because he lives in the same complex as Phillips. I'd loiter there in hopes of seeing him walk out.
My eyes drink him in. He’s wearing those same black jeans that are always too tight, with a belt keeping them held up. It’s not like he needs it when the jeans are painted on. He’s half-naked too, of course, because he’s a little shit who knows he’s hot as hell. The only thing covering him is a red leather biker vest with black and white accents, like he’d spray painted small designs all over it.
Without saying anything, he holds the bottle out towards me, a single eyebrow quirked up when a curl falls in front of it. My stomach flips.
I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and lean up on my knees, fishnets leaving indentations in my skin.
I take it from him, our fingers not quite brushing. Then his eyes move all over me as I’d done to him. It’s an impact I couldn’t have prepared myself for.
Instantly, a rush of heat crawls up my spine and spreads over my neck as if he’s looking through me, past skin and bone, straight to my very center. To the part of me I’ve tried so hard to lock away these past five months.
“Nice shoes,” he says—no, purrs. His voice is still so filthy like blood dripping from a knife.
Noah takes a step closer, his presence overwhelming, intoxicating, more potent than the vodka in my hand. My heart stops when he crouches down, bringing us eye to eye, and I have to relearn all about his tiny mole above his eyebrow and the black flecks in his eyes.
He reaches out, his hand moving towards my face, and I forget how to breathe.
I want to lean into his touch, craving more, always more…
But his hand moves up higher, plucking something out of my hair and tossing it behind me.
A fucking pebble.
“Might want to be more careful next time you’re rolling around on the ground.”
I swallow hard, my tongue darting out to wet my lips, and his eyes briefly follow the movement before he stands up. Then that lethal gaze cuts to mine with a wink as he slides his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, and walks off.
I’m left kneeling on the ground in the parking lot, stunned and aching and so fucking confused as I watch the muscles on the back of his arms shift as he walks across the street, and long after the closing door cuts off the view of his back.
It wasn’t ‘goodbye,’ but it wasn’t ‘hello again’ either. With Noah, it never is simple.
Shaking my head at myself, I rise and brush off my knees, tucking away that encounter to analyze the hell out of later. I can’t let him throw me off tonight.
I had a feeling he’d be here tonight, but I was hoping I could avoid having proof of that. Having to see him watch me from the crowd with that unreadable expression, feel the weight of his eyes on me as I take the stage, wondering if he still believes I have what it takes… It is sure to mess me up.
Just when I thought I’d be able to go all day without thinking about him. Ugh . Punkass .
Gripping the vodka like a talisman, I head back inside, nerves jangling for more reasons than performing now. I keep my face angled down as I hide behind my hair and snake through the thickening crowd. Noah’s eyes are touching me, tracking me, but I refuse to lift my chin and confirm it.
I make it to Stephanie’s huddle by the front corner of the bar, Tyler now standing with her to watch the show, and snag an abandoned cup from a nearby table as I go. I slosh in a hefty pour of vodka before slugging a burning gulp and passing it off to Steph.
“Damn, going hard already, Rox?” Tyler whistles, eyes widening as the nail polish remover fumes waft over. “Save some fuel in the tank for the stage.”
I shoot him a withering look, taking the cup back and swigging again for emphasis. “Please.” I squeeze my eyes shut as it torches a path down my throat. “If you think this is as dangerous as I get, you clearly haven’t been paying attention.”
He laughs, shaking his head as his black hair flops into his eyes. “Clearly,” he drawls, his Southern accent creeping in, a remnant of his upbringing in Texas before his mom brought him all the way here. He pokes my ribs. “Though I do remember a time when you were an innocent little punk, blasting ABBA records alone in your room.”
My jaw drops in feigned outrage as Steph’s cackle pierces the air beside me. “Innocent? Hardly,” I scoff, swiping my tongue over my bottom lip and cringing when I taste leftover vodka. “Pretty sure I can recall a certain someone helping spike the holiday punch at our very first Thanksgiving together too...” With a smile, I reach over and ruffle Steph’s platinum mane until she squeals and swats me away.
“Hey! We literally promised each other to never speak of that again!”
Tyler tenses when she buries her face in his arm, gaze catching on something over my shoulder. The grin slips from his lips as he murmurs, “Uh, heads up, Rox. Looks like you’ve got company.”
Expecting the absolute worst, I slowly turn to follow his sightline. But it’s not some authority figure, Mr. Hayes, or someone from school closing in.
No, it’s someone far more dangerous.
Noah is lounging casually against the far corner of the bar, his chuck propped up on the silver rail, his chin tipped down as he observes me over the rim of a cup. Fire burns under my hair at his focused stare, like he doesn’t care at all about being caught looking. He wants me to know exactly what he’s thinking, what he’s remembering.
And he doesn’t stop looking.
The rest of the rowdy madness blurs away as it did outside, everything except Noah. I can’t tear my eyes away as his lips turn into that stupid, hot smirk, the one that always annoyed me. He maintains our eye contact as he raises the cup to those perfect lips, and takes a slow sip, his throat working as he swallows.
I can hear that low rasp in my ear all over again: “Something wrong, Roxanne?”
Abruptly he drops his eyes, pushing off from the counter with easy grace. Before the shifting bodies can conceal him from view, he fires off one last look at me, his eyes promising things I can’t let myself think about. And then he’s gone.
A low whistle pierces the air beside me.
“Damn,” Steph mutters, eyes wide over the top of her cup. “That boy is still stupidly smoldering, huh?”
Tyler, as delicate as a sledgehammer to a watermelon, groans, “Good god I am so depressingly fucking single. If you guys ever bang again, can I watch that time?”
I shoot Tyler the same deathly look again, though I can't quite suppress the twitch at the corner of my mouth. I've got bigger fish to fry tonight than Noah's stupid, perfect... everything.
Grabbing the cup from Steph's hand, I take another swig of the liquor at the bottom of the cup.
Then another, just to be sure those mental shutters are closed up nice and tight.
On cue, a squeal of feedback lights off from the stage as the second opener launches into their set.
I can’t let anything rile me up so early in the night. Noah and his assortment of shiv-like stares and insinuations can get in fucking line for once. I toss back another sip of our shared drink, fire in my veins as the guitar starts to fly through the venue.
Hell, yes . The battle is officially on, but it feels like I now have more than the judges’ vote to win tonight.