Hearts in Overtime: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (27 page)

No way.

I clapped a hand over my mouth and stared at my computer screen in disbelief. I’d just been going through my emails and opened up one from this promotional company that sends me event listings. Usually their emails go straight into the trash, but it was a slow day at work, so I figured I’d check and see if there was anything cool happening.

And I nearly squealed with excitement when I saw that Soar was coming to town. Soar! Wow, that really brought back memories.

My best friend in high school introduced me to Soar when I was fifteen, and I quickly became obsessed. A fairly obscure British guitar band from the nineties, the band consisted of four serious young musicians in ill-fitting sweatshirts and baggy jeans. They were all very cute, I thought. I loved all of them, but I was especially in love with the guitarist, Ian Hixon. He had the most adorable floppy blond hair, piercing blue eyes, sexy cheekbones and he had the cutest way of biting down on his lip during guitar solos.

Being fifteen—and admittedly kind of a weirdo—I started writing him fan letters. Lots and lots and lots of fan letters. As in one every two or three days. I’d scrawl out these fan letters (love letters, really) telling him how much I loved his music, begging him to come play a show in Toledo, and telling him just exactly how handsome and sexy he was. As the weeks and then months went by, my letters started to be more like diary entries. I’d tell Ian how I did on my geometry test; I’d tell him about the dress I was saving up my allowance to buy; I’d tell him about the stray dog who turned up on our doorstep and soon became a member of the family.

In addition to news of my life and the usual “I love you, you’re so cute, when are you going to come to Toledo” stuff, I sent Ian mix tapes. I send him bracelets I made. I sent him collages I made—pictures of him cut out from imported British music magazines glued next to pictures of me and decorated with metallic markers and plenty of glitter.

Oh, yes. I was obsessed. Apparently, my family had been talking about staging an intervention when I finally eased up.

What happened was that I turned sixteen and got my drivers license. That opened up a whole new world for me, and there were so many things to do, I kind of lost interest in Soar. Don’t get me wrong. I still loved Soar—and Ian Hixon in particular—but I stopped writing letters and sending gifts.

About a year later, I got wind of the best news ever. Soar was coming to the US on tour! I was beyond excited. Unfortunately, Toledo wasn’t one of the cities they were scheduled to play, but after lots of begging and pleading, my parents agreed to let me drive to Chicago with my best friend, Cathy, and so I got to see them live!

It was such an amazing show. Definitely one of the top five experiences in my entire life so far. I can still remember the blue and purple flashing lights, and all of that glorious guitar feedback.

After it was over, Cathy and I found our way to the back alley behind the club. I was determined to meet my idol and we were sure they would come out the back exit because there was a pretty decent sized bus parked back there that looked like it was probably their touring bus. We weren’t the only ones who had this idea—there were about a dozen other fans hanging around, hoping.

Not long after we planted ourselves out in the alley, the back door of the club opened and the guys came streaming out. I thought I was going to faint, but luckily Cathy had the presence of mind to grab me by the arm and lead me to the crowd that had quickly formed around the band.

We got our CDs and tee shirts ready for them to sign, and I chatted with all four guys. They were all incredibly nice—and tall. I hadn’t realized they were so tall. Which was awesome because I’m tall too.

“Who shall I make it out to?” Ian asked as I handed him the jacket of my CD to sign.

“Um…Selena. With an S.”

He quickly scrawled out a note along with his signature and handed the CD jacket back to me.

“Here you are, Selena with an S. Thanks for coming tonight.”

He smiled to reveal that adorable gap between his two front teeth that I’d gazed at a million times in the photo collage of him on the wall of my bedroom at home.

But I couldn’t let this end. Not just yet.

“Um…it’s Selena Mitchell,” I said. “I don’t know if you’ll remember—actually I don’t know if you ever even got them—but I used to send you a lot of fan letters and stuff like a year ago.”

“Blimey.” His eyes widened in recognition. “Selena Mitchell. Yes, I remember your letters. Quite a lot of them, weren’t there?”

“Um…yeah.”

My cheeks burned. I was so embarrassed, and couldn’t believe I had actually exposed myself as the major nerd that I was.

But Ian was so nice about it. He gave me a big, wide smile, and patted me on the shoulder.

“You’re very sweet. It was lovely to meet you, Selena.”

And then he was gone, before I could think of a cool response or even say “thanks, you too”. I stood there, mute and frozen as I watched Ian and the other guys board their tour bus.

“Are you crazy?” Cathy muttered. “He said you were sweet. He totally would have taken you back to whatever hotel they’re staying at and shagged your brains out.”

“Oh, don’t say that,” I moaned.

To this day, I don’t know if she was right about that or not. I was only seventeen after all—still a child in the eyes of the law, so Ian might have been wary. Then again, he was young himself—twenty-two, twenty-three tops, so it wasn’t like there was a big age difference between us or anything.

I wish I’d given it a try. How perfect would it have been to lose my virginity to the guy I’d loved from afar for so many years? And yes, it was only two years in reality, but at that age, two years seems like a very long time.

For at least one of those two years, I’d tell anyone who would listen (well my girlfriends, anyway) about how much I wanted to “shag” Ian Hixon. And I’m afraid I told him that too. I mentioned how much I wanted to shag him many, many,
many
times in the letters.

But I didn’t. Such is life. A year later, Soar broke up and I went off to college. I listened to them pretty regularly for the next couple of years or so, but then I moved onto other bands before losing my interest in music in general. It had been years—many years—since Soar even crossed my mind.

And then they crossed my computer screen. Wow. I couldn’t believe they were reforming and touring again. Almost twenty years after I saw them live in Chicago, I was going to be seeing them again, but this time it’d be in New York where I live now.

I reached for my handbag in the bottom drawer of my desk and pulled out my wallet to buy a ticket online. I was going to see Soar live in concert in only two weeks time. I couldn’t wait.

* * * *

“This is crazy,” said my friend, Beth, as she looked around at the crowd in the small music venue.

“I know, right?” My friend, Paul, chimed in. “It’s like we’re in a time warp or something.

I knew exactly what they meant. Aside from the fact that a fair number of the men are bald and people in general are probably a bit more…robust than they were twenty years ago (me, for instance, with an extra thirty odd pounds on my frame). Aside from those two things, it does seem like we’ve just time traveled to a live show circa 1995. There are people in flannel shirts, Doc Marten boots, and some even unearthed their Soar concert tee shirts and pulled them on. Some of these Soar tee shirts even still fit!

“So, how come these guys decided to reform and go on tour?” Paul asked. “Are they broke?”

“Not quite.” I laughed. “They’re all involved in other projects these days—lucrative projects—Ian especially. He owns his own record label in London, and he’s also been scoring music for all these huge Hollywood blockbusters. But according to the articles I found online, the guys were feeling nostalgic, and that’s why they decided to get together and play some live shows.”

Naturally, right after I purchased my ticket, I got on Google and read up on the members of Soar to see what they’d been up to for the past twenty years. And also, I must admit, I wanted to see how their looks had held up. I was pleased to find that they still looked really hot, although different, more mature.

Baz, the drummer, now had a huge tattoo on his forearm that hadn’t been there before, and he looked like he’d been pumping iron. The singer (and another guitarist), Kevin, now sported a bit of scruff, and in all the promo photos, he was wearing a hat—you didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that the long, floppy brown mane he was known for had fallen out by the root. The bass player, Simon, had a full on beard and was now wearing glasses.

As for Ian, his floppy blond hair had been razed into a short, spiky ‘do, and like Baz, he had packed on quite a bit of muscle. As much as I had loved the look of Nineties Ian with his long, slim limbs and jutting cheekbones, the Ian of today with his broad chest and muscular arms was much more my type these days. It was a very nice surprise.

“So are you going to try to corner Ian Hixon tonight and charm him with your feminine wiles?” Beth asked me.

Even though we didn’t know each other back then, she knew all about my lost opportunity at the Soar show back in Chicago. I told her and Paul about it when I was trying to convince them to come to this show with me.

“Yeah right.” I laughed, and took a sip of beer.

“What do you mean?” She looked bewildered. “I thought you said you were going to try to seduce him this time.”

“Are you high? I was joking.”

I turned to Paul to share an eye roll moment, but he apparently wasn’t feeling it.

“You should totally go for it, Selena. Why not?” he said.

“Why not?” I echoed. I couldn’t believe the two of them were serious. “Maybe because I’m not twenty-two years old? Maybe because I don’t have some young, hot body? Maybe because I’m not reckless and crazy because I’ve grown up a bit since then?”

“So what? Ian Hixon isn’t twenty-two either. And while he does have a hot body, it’s certainly not young,” Beth pointed out.

We paused for a moment to honor Ian Hixon’s hot body, or at least that’s why I paused.

“Yeah, I know, but don’t you think it’d be the saddest thing in the world for a practically middle aged woman to start acting like a silly little groupie?” I asked.

They groaned in unison.

“First of all, don’t you dare call yourself middle aged. You shouldn’t be doing that until you hit fifty at least,” said Beth.

“And second of all, we’re not suggesting you throw your panties on stage and flash your tits,” said Paul with a mischievous smile. “We’re suggesting you seek the guy out, chat a little, flirt a little and see if you get a vibe.”

I shrugged. That sounded reasonable enough.

“He’s not with anyone, right? Like a wife or a girlfriend?” Beth asked.

“Not as far as I know,” I said. “He was married for about ten years, but that ended four years ago and there’s no mention of a girlfriend or anything. Not that I could find anyway.”

“Then you definitely have to go for it,” she said.

“Absolutely,” Paul agreed. “If you don’t you’ll always wonder what could have been. Like you wonder that about the show you went to in Chicago so many years ago.”

Ugh. I knew he was right, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around the thought of actually trying to seduce my former teen idol. It was just too crazy.

“I’m going for another round,” Paul announced.

“That’s the spirit. Let’s ply her with booze,” said Beth.

“But the band’s about to come on,” I pointed out.

If memory served, I was right about this. All the instruments were in place, and the roadies were done fiddling with amps and whatnot.

“That’s okay. I’m glad to be here, but we all know this is your night, babe,” Paul said, putting an arm around my shoulder and squeezing me tight.

“Aww. I love my friends.”

Not two minutes later, the lights in the venue dimmed drastically and the stage lit up with a gorgeous display of green and blue lights. This was it! I was so excited! I turned to Beth with a huge smile. She laughed and gave me a shoulder bump.

The substantial crowd burst into applause as the guys came out onstage, and I clapped so hard my hands hurt. They launched right into “Chemical Dreams” and the crowd went wild.

Talk about being in a time warp. I found myself singing along with lyrics long forgotten as Soar played the music that was the soundtrack of my life for the better part of my teen years.

They were absolutely amazing. Ian’s guitar solo in “Hypersonic” was out of this world. I danced like there was no tomorrow as the feedback came charging out of his amp. I swayed along with the crowd as Kevin crooned the lyrics to “Hit the Pavement.” I jumped up and down along with Baz’s pounding drumbeats in “Rubbish.”

But before I knew it, the set was complete. They came out for an encore, of course, but all too soon, it was over. When the lights in the venue brightened, my heart cried just a little.

“Well, what did you guys think?” Beth asked.

“Ohmigod.
Such
a good show,” I said, wishing I could see the whole thing all over again.