Page 1 of Cherry Beats

Prologue

Hollings High’s Got Talent!

So far we’d seen a ginger kid juggling two satsumas, a dance troop of two boys and two girls perform to Britney Spears’sToxic, an exchange student from Italy stand on his head for six consecutive minutes, and our resident rapper perform his version of an explicit song—one that got him dragged off the stage by Mrs Rufus when he forgot to bleep out the bad words.

Four down, seventeen acts to go.

I was about to put my hand in the air and try to look sick so I could be excused when, beyond the black curtain of the school hall, I heard the gentle tapping of sticks followed by the heavy press of a drum pedal. I stilled, mouth agape as the hairs on the back of my neck slowly rose.

Music. Real music.

The curtains peeled back to reveal Joshua Smith at the front. He was the high school stud, and four years older than me. His brown eyes, already-broken voice, and his flawless black skin made Joshua the object of everyone’s affection, but it was the way his infectious bright white smile lit up the room that made us really giddy. As soon as the crowd realised who was standing there with a microphone in hand and his famous grin in place, the girls giggled, and the boys began to cheer.

Kimmie Brewer shoved my shoulder and whispered how she’d love to be that microphone just so she could be close to his lips, but I was eleven, and I’d not really had thoughts like that about boys yet.

Not until my eyes drifted to the drum kit behind Joshua.

There, sat a boy shuffling on a stool, his jaw set in place and long blonde hair hanging down as he twirled a drumstick in his hand and bounced his knee in time to a beat nobody else could hear. While Joshua introduced the band, my blonde-haired boy’s eyes were cast down to the floor, lost in a daydream.

“Beautiful,” I said on a breathy whisper, my mouth agape.

The boy wore a denim jacket with a black hoodie underneath, as well as a beanie hat perched on the back of his head—one that looked like it could fall off at any moment.

“Tessa?”

I blinked, tearing my eyes away from the drumming angel to look at Kimmie. Her smile was wide. “You okay?”

“Who is that?”

Kimmie looked up, frowning. “The drummer?” She leaned closer. “That’s Presley West. He only talks when he wants to. He always has his earphones in, but he’s super popular here. I overheard a year ten girl say he was the poster boy for any teenage girl addicted to angsty romance, whatever that means. Dreamy, though, right?”

I didn’t get time to answer. Presley tapped his sticks in the air three times, and it all began. The first live gig I’d ever witnessed, and the one that would stay with me for always. I knew there and then, sitting on the hardwood floor of my high school hall, that I could never forget that moment.

I couldn’t forget the way his eyes scrunched shut and his teeth sank into his bottom lip as his knees bunched up and his arms came down in wild, fluid movements that defied all laws of possibilities. Music had always been a part of my life, but looking at Presley, I saw how music could be a part of someone’s soul. The quiet boy who’d stared at the floor like he didn’t care had gone with the first hit of his stick on the snare drum. He’d been transformed into a rock god before my eyes, lost in the beat, the lashing of his arms coming down to hit every drum and cymbal with perfect precision.

“How old is he?”

“Fifteen? I think. Four years older than us.”

Fifteen and already so talented—so in tune with his passion.

And there I was enduring my first year of high school, staring up at the magician on the drums, feeling those flutters in my stomach, and a deep throbbing in my chest.

Respect.

Admiration.

Desire.

I had no idea boys like him existed before then. Or that I’d spend the next eight years wishing he could be mine.

Chapter One

Eight Years Later

I’d been wiping the same glass dry for five minutes, staring athimfrom across the almost-empty bar.

The girl sitting opposite him leaned over the small mahogany table they were sharing, her boobs pressed against the edge just enough to give him a peek of what was on offer. Her fake lashes fluttered every time he spoke, and she pretended to be hypnotised by what he was saying—like she wasn’t just there because he was our local rock star hottie everyone wanted a slice of.

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