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My eyes drift around our little area. “I’m fine. There are no chairs anyway. ”
“Why were you sitting in the dirt?” Quinton glances at me for first time since he returned, and I have this crazy impulse to hug him and say I’m sorry for not being able to find him, but I don’t.
“I went looking for you,” I say with a shrug. “And then everyone went crazy when the band started to play. ”
“So you just sat down?” he asks, gaping at me unfathomably. “In the middle of a fucking concert?”
I shrug again. “Just another thing to make me amusing, I guess. ”
The two of them gape at me and then they bust up laughing. I feel kind of stupid and all the problems and worries I’d been having shift to the fact that they think I’m insane. I debate whether to pretend I have to go to the bathroom or just dive into the tent.
Their laughter dies down and Quinton wipes a tear from his eye as he beckons to me. “Come here,” he says.
I briefly dither and shuffle over to him. “I told you concerts are too noisy. It’s messing with my head. ”
He sets his empty beer bottle into the cup holder on the arm of the chair and stretches his arm out to the side, keeping the smoke as far away from me as possible. “Did you really go looking for me?”
I nod. “Yeah, you looked sad. ”
I can feel Tristan’s eyes on me, even though it looks like he’s staring at the crowd.
Quinton scans my face and then reaches up and spreads his fingers around my hips. Pulling me down, he sits me on his lap, then he sweeps my hair to the side, and places his lips next to my ear. His breath is hot against my skin and smells pungently of weed. “I’m really okay. You don’t need to worry about me. ” He moves away and releases my hips from his grip.
I’m uncertain if he wants me to stay on his lap or get up, or if I want to stay put or run like hell. “Yeah, I do,” I say, and we trade a look that neither of us really understand. All I know is that something is changing inside me. I don’t know what it is or if it’s good or bad, because it’s unknown and unplanned and surprising and new. I’m terrified, because it feels like I’m tumbling off a cliff and I have no idea when I’m going to hit the bottom. Or if I ever will.
Chapter 13
Quinton
She’s sitting on my lap and she shouldn’t be. For many different reasons, one being that Tristan is sitting right next to us. But he’s pretty stoned and doesn’t seem to care. He even says something to a few girls that wander by with their tops off, smiling when one of them blows a kiss at him. Still, I don’t deserve any of this. Nova. Tristan’s forgiveness and understanding. What I deserve is to be fucking dead instead of Ryder and Lexi.
But Nova said she went looking for me. No one ever goes looking for me or cared enough to worry about me. When she says it, I’m pretty certain my worthless heart shatters inside my chest, and she steals one of the pieces. If it didn’t already belong to someone else I probably would have handed her all the pieces right then and there.
She sits on my lap for an eternity, chatting about music, while Tristan and I take turns passing the cigarette back and forth. She seems happier than she did a little while ago, and it makes me happy watching her eyes light up as she talks about lyrics and her favorite bands, always putting an emphasis on the s.
“No way,” she disagrees with something Tristan has said, and he grins because he has her attention. “They’re not better, and their drummer totally sucks. ”
Leaning over, Tristan grabs the handle of the cooler and hauls it over. He puts it in front of his chair and uses it for a footrest. “What makes you the expert?” he asks Nova.
“Because I’m a drummer and therefore I know these things. ” Nova shoves his feet off the cooler and, bending forward, she lifts the cooler lid. Her shorts slip down a little as she digs a beer out of the ice, and I have to fight back a smile because her panties are black and lacy. Honestly, I would have pinpointed her as a white-cotton kind of girl, considering how embarrassed she got when she made a joke about popping her outdoor-concert cherry.
“Just because you can play the drums”—Tristan grazes his thumb across the bottom of the cigarette, scattering ashes onto the ground “—doesn’t mean you can decide who plays the drums better and who sucks. ”
“Yeah, it does. ” Nova’s getting sassier with the more beers she drinks. She extends her arm out toward the cigarette, like she’s going to grab it and take a hit.
This time I choose to do things differently and put a moment of good in the world, despite the fact that I have to be a hypocrite to do it. I swat her hand out of the way and shake my head. “No way. ”
“Hey,” she protests with a frown. “What the hell was that for?”
I shift my arm so my hand falls down into my lap, just beside her hip. “So do I ever get to see you play?” I dodge around the subject to keep her mind diverted from getting high.
“The drums?” she asks, still frowning, and when I nod, she seems reluctant to answer. She tips her head back and places the mouth of the bottle to her lips, sipping out the beer. Her hair falls down her back and softly brushes my arm, and it sends a silent quiver through my body. She lowers the bottle and licks her lips. “I don’t know…” She inquiringly looks me in the eye. “Do you want to watch me play?”
“Of course,” I say, reminding myself that we’re just friends. Just friends. “That’s why I asked. ”
She wets her lips with her tongue, deliberately this time, and I wonder if she’s doing it on purpose so I’ll focus on her lips. “When we get back to town… if you want… you can come over and watch me play. ” Her voice shakes as she says it, like the words are thick in her throat and she’s struggling to enunciate each letter.
“Hey, what about me?” Tristan asks, offended, as he flicks the cigarette onto the ground and stomps on it with his bare feet. Then he starts cursing as his skin begins to burn. “Shit, that’s hot. ”
She ignores him, her eyes fastened on me as she takes a faltering breath, balling her hands into fists. “But I get to pick which song. ”
I nod, nervous about how personal this is getting. “Okay, sounds like a plan, Nova Reed. ”
Tristan huffs a frustrated breath, then takes his cell phone out of his pocket and starts texting.
Nova rotates around so her back’s to me and she’s facing the stage. She relaxes against my chest with her legs hanging over my knees. I tense, but she doesn’t seem to notice. In fact, I think she’s extremely comfortable, and the more she stays there, the more comfortable I get.
“My dad taught me to play,” she says and downs another mouthful of beer. “When I was six. ”
“He taught you to play the drums?” I keep my tone light, remembering how when I first met her she told me her dad died.
She nods, spinning the bottle around in between the palms of her hands. “He also played the guitar, but for some reason I could never figure out that instrument. ”
She sounds like she’s choking up, and I want to console her. I open and close my hands, then place my palms on the tops of her thighs, so she’s trapped between my arms. Her leg muscles spasm underneath my touch, but she doesn’t move away.
“How old were you when he died?” I ask, kneading her soft skin with my fingertips. What the fuck am I doing?
“Twelve. ” Her breath hitches in her throat. From the stage, the singer shouts out something about every girl taking their top off. She clears her throat multiple times. “Can I ask you a question?”
Even though I’m certain I’m not going to like her question, considering the topic we’re on, I nod. “Sure. ”
She wavers, staring up at the stars across the ash-black sky. “Have you ever lost someone close to you?”
I hear Tristan cough several times beside me and then he turns to the side in his chair, like he wants to escape this conversation. The band starts playing again, hammering on the drums and shouting in th
e microphone, and Nova starts thrumming her fingers on top of her legs to the rhythm.
It takes me a while to respond. “Yeah, I have. ”
She nods and doesn’t say anything more. Most people would have asked me who and how. I remember right after the accident everyone wanted to know what happened, not just to Lexi and Ryder but to me, too. I was in the hospital for quite a while. Miraculously the guy I hardly knew that was kissing Ryder in the backseat barely had any bruises and scrapes, and the driver of the other car broke her leg. That was it. Two with minor injuries and three deaths, if I include myself, which I do. Even though I was revived that day, I still think of myself as dead.
“Are you okay?” Nova turns her head to look at me. “You seem tense. ”
“I’m fine,” I assure her.
“Are you sure?” She looks doubtful as she searches my eyes.
It’s been a while since someone has been so concerned about me. Not even Lexi worried about me this much, even when I’d get low about my dad’s distant parenting tactics.
“I’m sure,” I tell Nova. “Now stop worrying about me. ”
“Okay,” she says, working to smile, like she doesn’t believe me. She coils a strand of her brown hair around her finger. “Do you think that somewhere in the world, at this very moment, someone is doing this exact same thing?”
“What? Sitting around and getting high?” Tristan jokes, glancing up from his cell phone screen.
“No, sitting under the stars, listening to music. ” She unwinds her hair around her finger.
Tristan shrugs, sliding his finger across the screen of the phone as he gets to his feet. “You’re a very strange girl,” he says and heads for the tent, then at the last second veers off in the direction the topless girls went.
“I’m just curious,” she mutters to herself. “About what other people do with their time… with their lives. ”
I sit there for a while, drinking in her words. Somewhere between the weed, watching her lips move, and her strange yet insightful words, I get caught up in it all—in her—and suddenly I’m pressing my lips against hers. I’ve done this a lot before, as a way to distract myself from my life. But this isn’t the same. This means something, but I’m still trying to figure out what and if I want it or even deserve to get it.
At first she stiffens, but then she hooks her arms around the back of my neck and inches closer, opening her mouth to me as she spreads her legs open, and my hands travel higher toward the bottom of her shorts. She tastes like beer and smells like pot. Tristan’s gone, but he could come back at any moment. I should stop this. I should care enough to stop Tristan from seeing this, but my will to care about doing the right thing at this moment has died. My thoughts are blurred by the lingering high and the scent and feel of Nova. All I seem to care about is caressing her tongue with mine and feeling her skin because it’s soft and soothing, and in another life I’d touch it all the time.