Remix (19 page)

I feel like one of those wooden donkeys with tubes for legs held straight by taut strings that collapse when you press a button. Taut, loose, taut, loose. If I wasn’t concentrating so hard on walking, I’d probably slide sideways and fall right over.

That last beer hit me hard. Or that kiss.

I can’t work out which I find harder to believe: that I went in for a snog with a rock god or that he actually kissed me back.

Adam Wexler. Kissed me
.

Suddenly my legs are very loose and I have to stop for a second.

With tongues
.

Now my whole body appears to have gone floppy.

Such a hot kiss
.

It barely seems real given how many times I’ve fantasized about it, but I suck my bottom lip into my mouth and run my tongue across the most tender part, where his tooth scored the skin.

Definitely real
.

I’ve come over all fuggy. Beer? Sunshine? Lust?

My brain is incapable of sensible thought. My mouth incapable of sensible action.

I am all over incapable of sensible anything.

But then I’ve never been the sensible one.

I need to find Kaz…

“Where’s Ruby?” Lauren asks when I tell her it’s time to go. “I thought Gold’ntone was going to be the highlight of her year?”

When we tell the others where we’re going, Ferris rolls his eyes and Nick comes out with, “Blinded by your vaginas, like everyone else.” Which earns him a punch on the arm from Eve.

“Don’t be a dick.” Eve smiles at me. “Some men feel threatened by hotness.”

“Who says I’m threatened?” Nick looks outraged. “I know I’m hot. I wouldn’t have landed a girl as gorgeous as you otherwise.”

He puts an arm around Eve and kisses her cheek, his nose mashing into the side of her head as she tries to push him off. Lauren looks uncomfortable about this – whatever she feels for Tom, it hasn’t stopped her attention from wandering – first Stu, now Nick… Guilt punches me in the lungs and I’m winded by my own hypocrisy.

“I take it you guys are staying here, then?” Sebastian says, sliding off the table to stand next to me. Another of those glances pass between Nick and Ferris, and Eve tells him they’re going to wake the guitarist and catch the band headlining the Mellow Tent later.

“We’ll see you by the van at midnight if we don’t hear from you before.” This time it’s Eve who’s giving me a funny look and I feel myself burning up under the scrutiny. As Sebastian nods his agreement, Eve reaches over to give me a hug. “It was nice to meet you,” she says, before halving the volume to add, “He likes you. This doesn’t happen often, so be gentle with him.”

It’s exactly the sort of thing that Ruby would say to Sebastian.

Where is she?

I call her on our way to the exit.

“Where are you?” I say.

“Bins.”

“Which bins?”
And why?

“Ones opposite the bar, near the gate.”

I tap Lauren on the arm and point in that direction, before brushing my fingers down Sebastian’s arm to guide him. Or just as an excuse to touch him.

Still on the phone to Ruby, I say, “We’re heading over. Are you OK?”

“Not sure.”

“What about this hot boy you promised me?”

“Not sure.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Not sure.”

“For God’s sake, Ruby!” I’m not in the mood for cryptic. She’s been awkward all day and I’ve run out of patience … and that’s when I see her, leaning heavily on an overflowing bin. She’s resting her head on one hand, holding the phone to her face with the other, even though I’ve just hung up.

Lauren’s seen her too. “Is Ruby drunk?”

Lauren’s mouth is open, eyebrows puckered together in a perfect depiction of what Ruby would call Scandalized Face. For the first time today, I suspect that Ruby’s right to think that Lauren doesn’t like her – although after last night, I’m hardly enamoured of Drunk Ruby either.

“Not sure,” I say to Lauren.

We plunge into the crowd together, me at the front of our little snake, Lauren following, Kaz behind her with Sebastian. I asked where the rest of the band went, but now I can’t remember what the answer was. I push forwards, careless of the people I’m trampling in my haste.

The first thing Kaz said was, “You’re drunk.” Which I probably am but is not the point.

And then Lauren asked me where my fabled hot boy was.

Fabled
.

“I sent Kaz a photo.”

Lauren laughed a “HA!” with such a sharp little yap that it made me wince. Then Kaz told me it didn’t matter and that we’d be late for Gold’ntone, and the beautiful-but-not Sebastian was looking at me like I was something to pity and I couldn’t bear it…

“Wait up, Ruby!” Lauren catches hold of my sleeve and I yank it from her grasp.

“Don’t touch me!” I yell, loud enough that Kaz and Sebastian and the twenty people crushed into a two-metre radius hear me.

“No need to bite my head off!” Lauren looks offended and Kaz puts a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Ruby…” It’s her telling-me-off voice. Kaz has decided that I am drunk and everything I do from now on is entirely unreasonable.

I HAVEN’T EVEN DRUNK THAT MUCH.

I probably HAVEN’T EVEN DRUNK THAT MUCH.

Kaz is supposed to be the person I can trust to see straight through all my bullshit. When did the pair of us get so fucking blind that we couldn’t even read the truth in each other?

I turn away. “I want to get closer.”

As I storm on, ignoring the tuts and squeals and “watch where you’re going”s, I bump my chin on someone’s elbow and bite through the sore spot on my lip. The pain is sharp and welcome and sobering, but it doesn’t last long enough to distract me from how upset I am about Kaz.

The only other thing to think about is the band. The music. The man making it.

It’s stupid in a crowd this size to hope that he’ll find me, but I don’t stop until we’re as near to the stage as we’re likely to get.

“Ruby!” Lauren holds me back as a bottle of suspiciously yellow fluid flies from above and plummets to the ground. The pissile explodes, but I’m clear.

“We should move further back,” Lauren’s saying to Kaz, who’s nodding.

“It’s a pretty intense crowd,” adds Sebastian. But Kaz looks at me and I forget that I’m hurt, because my best friend is not immediately doing whatever pleases Lauren.

“I don’t want to move,” I say, cheek pressed against the back of the girl in front as the crowd lifts me off my feet.

“OK.” I hear Kaz loud and clear because the crowd has moved her closer. “But if I faint, promise me you’ll illegally crowd-surf me out of here?”

I squeeze her hand by way of a promise since my mouth is full of someone else’s hair.

When the stage lights flare, most of the band burst on, creating a space around the microphone at the front of the stage, waiting for the heart of the band to start beating. Mine
thud thuds
in time with the bass drum. The second he steps into the spotlight, the crowd heaves amidst a swell of screams. Wexler is wearing a suit jacket, the vest underneath cut low enough to show off the new tattoo we’ve all been speculating about. The possibility of seeing more of it if I go backstage superheats my core and I start trembling.

I want to tell Kaz, but I don’t think it’s the wisest thing to shout that I’ve snogged Adam Wexler in the midst of some girls wearing tees with “I want to sex the Wex” scrawled in lipstick. Or blood.

“Ruby!” Kaz is yanking at my hand. “It’s our song!”

And she throws our arms in the air, squeezing my hand tight as I jump and scream in joy when the familiar chords sound out. I look up to see our hands locked together above the crowd, silhouetted against the stage lights.

Ruby running up the stairs into my room shouting, “Listen to this, listen to this!” jamming one of her headphones into my ear so hard that I fell off my chair.

The email I got on my phone with the subject
PLAY ME NOW!
and clicking through to the video when it only had 73 views.

Dancing round the classroom in a conga when it came on the radio one lunchtime.

The print Ruby made of my favourite lyric that she had framed for my birthday. The tears I cried because she knew me so well.

Friday nights by the DJ booth, putting in at least twenty requests for this song, giggling too hard to write the words properly on the Post-its.

The “Kaz, Kaz, Kaz!” when it came on the playlist in Owen’s van on the way here – the marks on my leg after she’d gripped it in excitement at the thought of seeing them tonight.

I’m squeezing Ruby’s hand tighter with each memory, until her fingers are half-crushed. Music has made me cry for the love of it before, but now I feel like crying for the love of my best friend. My crazy, jealous, moody (possibly drunk) best friend who I love more than anyone else in the world.

More than I ever loved Tom. More than I could ever love Lauren.

“Everything Ends Midnight”
–
but not tonight.

Not me and Ruby.

Seven songs in and they’ve got to be near to closing the set. As if on cue, Wexler, now jacketless, ribbed vest clinging to his body, tells us that this is the last song. His gaze sweeps the audience, as it has so many times already, and I imagine that he’s looking for me, when I know he’s really just seeking adoration. I stare at the stage, hoping, dreaming that this time he will see me.

Just as it seems he won’t, his eyes rest on my patch of the crowd.

And he points.

“For revenge,” he says into the microphone. The breath whooshes from my lungs like I’ve been punched in the chest as he sings the song the crowd’s been waiting for.
“When a kiss becomes a knife…”

My blood floods hot with excitement: I really, actually am going to do this, aren’t I?

When this song finishes, when the band leave the stage, I will use my fake pass and I will find Adam Wexler backstage.

And then…

At the thought of what happens next all that hot blood is redirected to a less-than-vital organ. It’s certainly drained right out of my brain because even though I’ll get mobbed if anyone hears me, I’m turning to Kaz, desperate to tell her and I’m opening my mouth, finding the words…

But she’s gone. The girl at my shoulder is not my best friend. She’s not even someone I know. I look desperately around, but Kaz is nowhere to be seen. I start pushing against the people behind me, burrowing under their raised arms, slipping through gaps between bodies and standing on tiptoes, desperate to catch sight of Kaz or Sebastian – even Lauren.

Kaz has gone. Left me. Abandoned me when I needed her most, because she is the person I tell when I want things to be real. She
makes
them real…

Right now the only thing made real is my fear that I have lost her to Lauren.

How did it happen? Where’s Ruby? She was there a second ago and now I can’t find her. I’m panicking, trying to push through the crowd back to where I think she’ll be, but when I get there she isn’t anywhere to be seen. I try to line myself up with the stage. We were right below Adam Wexler, who’s reaching out towards the crowd, even though the barriers have us penned so far back he’d have to turn into Mr Tickle to stand a chance of reaching us.

He looks almost
dangerous
– preying on the crowd’s adulation to feed his ego. Stripped back to his vest, his muscles stand out as he puts everything into his performance. His eyes are wild. Savage. And he’s sexier than ever. I think of him whispering in my ear at the signing tent.

Enjoy the show
.

I felt so special when he said it. No doubt so did all the other girls who are here now, desperate for him to notice them…

“Kaz!” There’s a shout from behind me, but it’s only Lauren, pulling me back, away from where I think Ruby will be. I don’t want to go, but Lauren looks frightened and when I reach her, Sebastian’s there too, saying we should go – Lauren’s breathing really fast as if she might faint. We get to where the crowd thins out as the music fades and the band wave, before stepping offstage to deafening cheers. The sinking sun casts a golden light across the heads and hands of the crowd, dust clouds puffing up as everyone starts to shift, and I worry about little Ruby, lost amongst them.

“Excuse me, love. Can I see your pass, please?”

Crap
.

I hold out my wrist and the security guard clocks the safety pin immediately.

“Back out into the main arena, please.”

I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.

“Go on. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last.” The guard holds out an arm, shepherding me like I’m a lost little lamb separated from the herd in the arena, but as I’m about to turn away, someone steps out of the flow of people coming back from the stage.

“Is there a problem here?”

Frozen, I watch as Wexler fixes the festival guy with a look. There’s an energy about him that wasn’t there earlier and it’s both scary and seductive.

“This young lady hasn’t got permission to be back here.”

“She’s with me.”

The security guard looks at Wexler for an unimpressed second, then back at me. “You’re with this guy?”

“Hell, yeah,” I mutter, because that guy is just about the most terrifyingly sexy human my eyes have ever seen. Saying nothing, Wexler guides me round a couple of tents, past the bar and into a dead end behind a cluster of cabins. The tension inside me twists tighter and tighter until I think I’m going to be sick if I don’t release it.

He’s wired, high from his performance, and there’s a dangerous edge to him now that I didn’t see earlier. Leaning in, his fingers latching on to the grille of the barrier behind me, he brings his face level with mine. I can hear him breathing, fast and deep to match the pulse in my throat.

The tension in the air between us would be enough to get me off, but already he’s drawing closer and I’m riding the moments towards our kiss like they’re the last of my life.