Riot (9 page)

I want to ask him why he isn’t kissing me, why he’s just hovering over me with his gorgeous lips and beautiful eyes, but then those lips open and he says, “Have you ever performed in front of a crowd before?”

“I had a few dance recitals,” I reluctantly answer, looking back to the leaves above us while remembering my dad with a video camera in his hand and my mom with a proud smile on her face. I only ever saw those smiles when I was dressed up like a plastic doll for recitals or parties or pictures. I never realized I was just a plaything to her until the year that she outgrew me.

“You dance?” Joel asks, and I shove my emotions back into the catacombs of my heart.

“Used to.”

“Why’d you stop?”

When my mom left, I grew to hate everything that reminded me of her. To this day, I still can’t stand the smell of coconut perfume or the taste of lemon meringue pie. She’s the reason I haven’t danced ballet since I was eleven years old, the reason I can’t bring myself to wear ballet flats even when they’re the height of college-girl fashion.

“Just grew out of it,” I say, rising to my feet to escape further interrogation. “You ready to head back to the bus?”

Joel doesn’t move to stand. Instead, his blue eyes track me from where he’s lying in the grass and he says, “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Shut me down every time I ask you something personal.”

“I don’t know anything personal about you,” I argue, citing it as evidence that it’s better this way. Instead, he takes it as a challenge.

“I used to draw,” he offers, and a line forms in my forehead.

“Huh?”

“I used to draw.” He pushes off the ground and rises to his feet, wiping the grass from his shorts. “Not many people know that about me. I used to paint a little too, but not as much. Music classes and art classes were pretty much the only reasons I stayed in school.”

“Why’d you quit doing it if you loved it so much?”

He straightens and says, “I’ll tell you if you tell me.”

After a moment, I offer a trade. “Tell me
and
draw me something, and we’ll call it a deal.”

Joel assesses me for a moment, and then he counters with, “When’s your birthday?”

“May thirtieth.”

“I’ll draw you something for your birthday. How’s that?”

I don’t know why I want him to draw me something, but I do. I want him to draw me something meant just for me, something I can keep. “Promise,” I demand, and he doesn’t hesitate.

“I promise.” The sincerity in his blue eyes tells me he means it.

“You first then,” I say.

“I quit because it just stopped mattering so much.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “I used to draw mostly when I was alone, and I’m never alone anymore.”

I stare at him for a long moment before sighing and knowing it’s my turn. “I quit dancing because it was my mom’s dream, not mine.”

It’s not the entire truth, but it’s the closest I’ve ever told anyone.

Chapter Eleven

“I
’M JUST SAYING
we should look at the evidence,” Rowan says as I toss clothes from my suitcase in a tornado of not-skirts and not-dresses. There’s a festival’s worth of rock stars outside—including one in particular who seems dead set on not noticing how hot I still am—and I’m stuck on the bus with a consignment shop wardrobe and a fashion-challenged best friend.

“I’m never going to forgive you,” I complain, cursing myself for letting her pack for me.

Ignoring me as if I said nothing at all, she begins counting on her fingers. “One, Joel got you these tickets.”

“I mean, what the hell is this?” I hold up an oversized T-shirt that looks like it could swallow me whole. “Do I
look
like I weigh five hundred pounds?”

“Two, he fixed your door.”

“And this!” I present a pair of ridiculously long shorts. “Even if I was a forty-year-old mother of five, I still wouldn’t be caught
dead
in these.”

“Three, he spent all day following you around.”

“I should just go to this party naked,” I grumble.

“Four, he ignored every other girl who tried to get his attention—”

“ROWAN,” I interrupt, huffing and turning on my haunches to scowl at her, “do you know what all that evidence says? He wants to be
friends
.”

Not even two hours ago, I was lying on my back beside him, and instead of crawling over top of me or even just
kissing
me like he wouldn’t have been able to resist doing a few weeks ago, he insisted on talking about dancing. And drawing. And anything except why he’s no longer interested in me, which, as far as I’m concerned, is the only thing that really needs to be talked about.

Rowan lifts her eyebrow at me. “Do you remember when I thought Adam just wanted to be friends, and you told me I was an idiot?”

I turn my attention back to the suitcase, taking my frustration out on clothes that get thrown across the room.

“I hate to tell you this,” she continues, “but you’re an idiot.”

“He hasn’t even tried to kiss me at
all
this week,” I growl, standing up and dumping the suitcase on the bed. An avalanche of clothes tumbles from the mountain I create, none of them the kind I’m looking for. “We hang out, we have fun. He says he cares about me, but all he ever wants to do is
talk
. He doesn’t even want to have sex with me anymore!”

I’m so frustrated by what happened at the tree, I could scream, but I’m trying to put a cap on my crazy. I’m not going to try to make him jealous. I’m not going to beg. If he wants to be friends, I’ll be his friend.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t look hot doing it. He should be fully aware of what he’s missing.

“Maybe he wants
more
than sex,” Rowan counters, and I give her a look that says,
Are you freaking kidding me?

“Dee, I
live
with Joel, okay?
I’m
his friend, and trust me, he’d never carry my stuff around for me all day or let me drink the last of his water.”

“It’s different when you go from being fuck-friends to just-friends,” I reason. Yes, Joel was sweet today. No, it doesn’t mean anything. “Maybe he thinks he has to do those things.” Or maybe he still feels like he owes me for what happened with Cody. One day, maybe he’ll consider us even and then we’ll be nothing at all.

Rowan sighs and flops flat on her back on the black-satin bed. I kick her foot and say, “I need scissors.”

“For what?”

“To murder you for convincing me to take your packing advice.” When she glares at me, I roll my eyes and say, “I need to go all fairy-godmother on one of these T-shirts.”

After she finds me a pair from downstairs, I spread one of my new band shirts flat on the bed and cut one of the sleeves off to make the shirt one-shouldered. Then I cut the other sleeve into a thin strap and tie the top of it into a cute knot. I continue cutting slits all the way down that side of the shirt, and then I cut a straight line through them and tie the ends of fabric together into more cute knots. With knots and peek-a-boo slits laddering the side of the shirt, I carefully pull the now fitted top over my head and ask Rowan how I look.

Even though she’s shaking her head, a smile sneaks onto her face. “You look like a freaking rock star.”

Outside, the air is thick with unshed rain, and in the open lot next to the buses, there are people
everywhere
, laughing and drinking and chasing each other with squirt guns. Singers and guitarists and drummers. Roadies and festival volunteers and girls. Sooo many girls.

Shadows intrude on the massive bonfire from all sides, and in the darkness, cigarette cherries twinkle like fireflies. Girls with dyed hair and piercings are prancing around with sparklers or draping themselves over guys who spent the day performing onstage. When a topless girl with big fake boobs skips up to us, I’m too busy staring at her bouncing tits to notice she’s trying to hand me a sparkler. Rowan takes it instead, and the girl frolics away. Some guys are gawking, some are drooling, and yet others are barely glancing in her direction. Rowan and I are both staring after her with our mouths hanging open.

“Oh . . .” I say.

“My . . .” Rowan adds.

“God.”

We look at each other, mirroring wide-eyed, open-mouthed expressions.

“What the hell was
that
?” Rowan asks, and I shake my head.

“A sparkler fairy?”

She lets that sink in for a moment, and then we both burst out laughing.

“Oh my GOD,” she says mid-laugh, grabbing my shoulders with a look of absolute horror on her face. “My
boyfriend
is here somewhere!”

When we find Adam, he’s already unsteady on his feet, standing in a group of around a dozen people while warding off a pair of groupies with two sparklers crossed like a crucifix. When he spots Rowan, he shouts, “Peach! Did you bring the holy water?”

Joel, Shawn, and Mike are standing nearby laughing their asses off with a bunch of other guys, and the girls in front of Adam are pouting.

“Do you need something?” Rowan asks the girls, fully accustomed by now to putting groupie bitches in their place. She sidles next to Adam and gives them a look that could kill.

“Who the hell are you?” one of them asks.

“Are you deaf?” I taunt from behind them. “She’s Peach!”

“And who the hell are
you
?” the girl snarls, turning her scowl on me.

Rowan smiles my way and says, “She’s Sparkler Fairy’s understudy!”

I crack a wide smile and take a flourished bow, and the girls huff and walk away with confused looks on their sour faces.

“Sparkler Fairy?” Joel asks. His shirt is off, flaunting toned muscles shadowed under golden skin, and a pair of cargo shorts is slung low on his hips, barely held up by a mesh belt. My tongue curls against the back of my teeth, missing the cold bite of his nipple ring.

“Oh, you know the one,” I say, snapping myself from my ogling and holding my hand up a little higher than my head. “About this tall. Hasn’t eaten a cheeseburger in her entire life. Boobs out to here.” I hold my palms a foot away from my chest, and Joel laughs while Shawn grins into his red Solo cup. His arm is slung around a cute brunette—this one with her top on, thank God—and I’m surprised Joel hasn’t picked up some arm candy of his own.

As if on cue, he moves to my side and wraps his arm around my waist. “You must mean Izzy.”

I lift an eyebrow at him but don’t bother asking how he knows her name. There are some things I just do
not
want to know.

The guys introduce Rowan and me to the rest of the people in the circle, punctuating some of the names with inside jokes I’m not paying attention to—because I’m too busy trying not to notice Joel’s bare skin pressed against my side or the way his fingers are finding the side-slits in my shirt and teasing my goose-bumped skin.

“You should’ve done this to one of our shirts,” he whispers in my ear, his fingers sliding deep into the slits. If he wants to be nothing but friends, he’s doing a fucking terrible job, because my brain is flash firing with all sorts of not-just-friendly ideas.

“Why?” I manage to ask, my voice miraculously steady.

“Because I’m never going to hear the end of it.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, my brow furrowing up at him.

He points his chin toward the other side of the circle, and I look across it just in time to see the lead singer of Cutting the Line join our group. Van Erickson claps hands and gives hugs to people he’s apparently friends with, including Adam, Mike, and Shawn, and his eyes travel around the circle. They land on me, they stick, and my brain sputters. Joel’s fingers tighten around my side.

“I like your shirt,” Van says, a confident smirk curling his wide lips. With messy black hair bleached at the ends, and barbells in his ears and eyebrow, he looks like he just walked off of the cover of a rock magazine.

I gaze down at my shirt, understanding what Joel meant. I’m wearing the name of Van’s band, and he’s definitely flirting with me. I’ve seen enough guys use that look and that voice to know what he’s doing. And Joel must know too because he squeezes me even tighter against his side, and that small gesture gives me a million more butterflies than seeing Van Erickson did.

“Thanks,” I say, unable to prevent the smile that consumes my whole face.

“Why didn’t you wear one of theirs?” Van asks, nodding toward Joel. It’s obvious he’s doing that thing guys do where they fuck with each other, so even though he’s Van freaking Erickson, I decide to pay Joel back for all the favors he did me this week.

“Oh, I didn’t want to cut one of theirs up,” I say, pinching the hem of my black Cutting the Line T-shirt and staring down at the design. “I’ve never heard of these guys. Are they any good?”

When I glance back up at Van, he’s staring at me like I just told him I was born with a split tongue. I maintain a straight, innocent face, but Joel doesn’t last more than a few seconds before he breaks into a guy-giggle that makes the corners of my mouth twitch.

“She’s kidding, man,” Joel says, and I break into a wide smile. “She knows who you are. She’s a big fan.”

To my relief, Van laughs too. “You had me going,” he tells me as he takes a beer from a girl he doesn’t bother to acknowledge. “What’s your name?”

“Dee,” I answer, and he walks across the circle to shake my hand.

“I’m Van.”

A million introductions and three beers later, I’m sitting on the grass between Joel’s spread legs listening to Van talk about the international tour his band has been on and how crazy the shows have been. Joel’s chin is cradled in the curve of my bare shoulder, his arms are coiled around my waist, and Rowan calling me an idiot is stuck on replay in my brain.

Friends don’t touch each other like Joel has been touching me. His fingers have been playing with the fringes of my cut-off shorts, exploiting the open slits in the side of my shirt, and brushing through my hair. It’s like he knows I haven’t gotten off in over a week and is dead-set on making me explode.

“Oh!” he suddenly says, breaking me from my internal countdown. “Dee actually asked me a question today you guys should weigh in on. She wanted to know what it feels like to be onstage at a show.”

A bunch of cliché answers get tossed out by random people in the circle—it’s like being high, like being in a dream, like being a hero—and then Van muses, “It’s like getting your dick sucked by a thousand chicks at once.”

A round of laughter sounds, and I roll my eyes.

“I don’t know,” Joel chides. “Dee can do this thing with her tongue that—”

I shut him up with an elbow to his stomach, which makes everyone laugh even harder.

“Damn,” Van says, sporting a shit-eating grin. “Now I’m curious. Dee, want to show me?”

“Sure,” I say, flashing him a bright smile as Joel tenses behind me. Van’s grin stretches even wider, but it falters when I wrap my fingers around Joel’s wrist and bring his hand to my mouth. I shift to the side so Joel can watch me as I lick my stiff tongue up the length of his index finger and suck the tip into my mouth. I draw it out slowly, part my lips, and roll the flat of my tongue in lush waves over his fingerprint. I finish him off by sucking the entire length of his finger deep into my mouth and lavishing it with my tongue as I slowly draw it back out, gently scraping my teeth over the pad of his finger before I finally release his wrist.

When I’m finished putting on my little show, Joel is staring at me like he wants to fuck me right there in front of everyone, and I smirk with satisfaction.

“Holy shit,” someone near us breathes, and Joel snaps out of his daze, shifting me off his lap and hauling me to my feet. A second later, his fingers are laced with mine and I’m being dragged toward the buses.

“Lucky bastard,” someone says, initiating a chorus of catcalls that get drowned out by the sounds of my blood rushing in my ears and my heart pounding in my chest.

We don’t even make it to the bus before Joel spins around and crushes his lips against mine. I wrap my arms around his neck, breathing him in like air I’ve desperately needed to breathe. His hands grab my ass and lift me off my feet, and I wrap my legs around him, clinging to every hard edge of his capable body as he carries me further into the dark.

My back flattens against some other band’s bus, and Joel breaks his lips from mine. “Fuck,” he breathes, his voice rough with need.

Suffocating without him, I grab his jaw and bring his lips back to mine, moaning when his tongue slips back into my mouth and his hips grind against me. He fries every neuron in my brain, making my closed eyes roll back in my head. “Joel,” I gasp, tightening the circle of my legs around him, fitting him where I want him most.

His lips break from mine again when he pins his forehead to the bus behind me, the stubble on his jaw brushing against my cheek. “Dee, if you’re not ready for this . . . you need to tell me now. And you can’t be doing that fucking thing . . . with your tongue.” His hips twitch forward reflexively with the memory, and he groans when the hardness in his shorts grinds between my legs. His fingers tighten around the bottoms of my thighs, and his forehead is still resting on the bus when he says, “God, I’m such an asshole.”