Page 21 of Tulips and Lost Time

It’s hard work playing our set, not only of the songs we’re covering from other bands, but originals too, made up of the music Scotch pens, and the few songs I’ve put together over the years.

It shouldn’t be hard.

Fuck knows I’m in my element, smashing away at my drum kit and rocking out under the spotlights we’ve set up to illuminate the grassy area of the lake while our peers dance and grind.

All the things we don’t mind, typically.

But the girls are here tonight. Their smiles, too large. Their ability to find trouble, too fucking smooth. And oh look, there goes Kari fucking Macchio. Wearing black like she promised, and ducking between trees while Marc’s back is to her.

“Dude.” Angelo stands over a keyboard, his hair curling from sweat and his shirt sticking to his sculpted chest because of the heat from the bright lights. He scowls when I fuck up the beat. Scotch sings, covering my mistakes and shooting me a glare that says he’s gonna smack me upside the head later.

Meanwhile, no one has any damn clue that my brain is currently running between the trees as a guy—Garth Beaterman, junior varsity nobody—follows Kari into the shadows.

“What are you doing?” Angelo growls. He leans over his keyboard to get closer. “Luc?”

“I gotta piss.” I set my sticks down and draw ire from both of our guitar players. “Go acoustic for a few minutes,” I tell Scotch. Then I look at Marc, my best friend in the whole fucking world, and clear my throat. “Sorry, man. I ate some weird tacos this afternoon. Cover for me.”

I clap his back and pray he doesn’t follow me, then I step off the edge of our temporary stage and ignore Sassy St James when she places her hand on my chest.

“Where are you going?” She digs her nails into my shirt—into my flesh—and stumbles when I keep walking. “Luca?”

“I’ve got the runs.” I grab her hand and un-peel her fingers from the fabric covering me. But I pull her in when her eyes fire up with what I know will turn to a full fucking tantrum if I brush her off. I set my hand on her hip and bring my lips to her ear. “I’m running to the toilet, then I gotta get back on stage. Are you having fun?”

“Your set is really hot.” She pulls back just far enough to search my eyes. Her lips are already naturally full and thick, sensual, though I know high schoolers really shouldn’t be aiming for that look. But she draws attention to them even more when she runs her tongue over the glossy covering. Humming in the back of her throat so I feel the vibration from where I stand. “You should stay and dance with me for a bit.” She tilts her head toward the stage. “They’re playing fine without you.”

“Just long enough to find a bathroom.” I lean in and press a kiss to the very corner of her lips. It’s a trade. A placation so she doesn’t keep her claws in my skin and follow me to the shadows. Then I pull back and drop my hand. “I’ll come find you later. We can probably go for a ride or something after the show.”

“On your bike?” Her eyes glow under an almost full moon. “Really?”

“Yeah. Ang just serviced it, so it’s running real smooth right now.” Fuck knows, if I really had the runs, she should be walking the other way and spraying a little Lysol in her wake.

That’s what I’d do.

Not climbing onto the back of my bike and snuggling in.

“But I really have to go for now.” I catch movement fifty yards away, under the massive weeping willow that sweeps down to touch the grass. So I take a step back, brushing up against kids I go to school with. Some I don’t. Faces I recognize from around town, and others, I’ve literally never seen before in my life.

I have no clue how word travels to let everyone know we’re playing a show.

But that’s how these things go, I suppose.

I duck through the crowd and make a show of walking one way, so when I glance back and find Marcus’ heated gaze following my steps, his fingers strumming the strings of his bass guitar, I can be doing what he expects of me. Finding a toilet. Taking care of business.

But the second he looks down at his instrument and his fingers get busy working through a riff he takes extra pride in performing, I drop my head and cut left, bolting through the stragglers and sprinting toward the willow.

“Kari fucking Macchio!” I race past my sisters and Britt, whose eyes stick to the back of my neck. Their hands coming up. Their triple intakes of air, knowing their fourth is doing something she shouldn’t. But I don’t stop to chastise them. I don’t even comment on their dresses which are way too short for their ages.

I’m not Marc, and I’m not X. I don’t involve myself so long as everyone is having a good time.

But fuck, Sassy St James wears clothes like that, and look how she turned out: lusting after a guy who hardly even wants her and licking her lips in a way that we both know she’s not verbalizing.

But she’s offering.

She has in the past. And she will again in the future.

That’s not a life for Kari.

“Bear!” I snarl her name and catch a gasp of surprise in the trees. The rustle of a dude moving fast. Then the crunch of bark, dirt, and rocks beneath a girl’s high-top shoes.

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