Page 50 of Making New Plans

Before long, the lights of the Twin Cities glowed on the horizon. We parked in a city garage and walked to the venue. Once inside, Hunter asked if I wanted anything to drink. I shook my head, already keyed up. The venue, with its black walls and crazy, dancing lasers, felt like a different world. A secret world where everyone could just be themselves.

We weren’t the oldest or the youngest people there, but the energy was palpable and infectious. I grinned at Hunter, and he jerked his head toward the stage, where the opening band was warming up. I nodded and followed him as he plowed a path through the sea of leather clothing, tattooed arms, spiked hair, and piercings galore.

We nodded along to the two opening bands. Good but not why we were there. By the time the second band strutted off the stage, the crowd had gotten bigger, drunker, and more amped up.

When the lights went out and the first strain of an electric guitar blasted through the venue, every muscle in my body tensed with excitement. I hadn’t experienced this since I was a teenager.

Without thinking, I grabbed Hunter’s hand and crushed it in my grip, practically jumping up and down. His rich laugh rumbled next to me. I could get dangerously addicted to that sound.

His thumb stroked my hand as the band sauntered onto the stage one by one under strobing lights. The drummer with a few flips of his sticks. The bassist strumming a few deep throbs. And the guitarist to a wailing riff on his axe. Then the lead singer charged out, and the crowd surged forward with a roar. We were so close I could see the singer’s wild, lightning-blue eyes. I let go of Hunter’s hand to jump and shout with the rest.

In the same heartbeat, Hunter slipped behind me, a barrier against the wild crowd, packed into every inch of my body. His fingertips brushed my hips, a soft caress in a violent mob. I didn’t know if my heart could burst from adrenaline, but, what the hell, we might as well find out.

“Are you READY?” the singer roared, pumping his fist.

The crowd detonated in response and became a living thing under the band’s energy as they pumped out their first song, a fan favorite from their first album.

I shouted the lyrics along with hundreds of other voices. The song burned full of fury and frustration, of wanting to fight back. And I embraced every emotion in each word. It’d been a favorite of mine to blast after a particularly rough day at school or some of my mother’s jabs.

Little by little, whatever thorny beast had burrowed into my chest lately, or even the last decade, loosened its grip and fell away. Borne on the collective venting of every other person in the room, I could breathe fully and deeply. I’d felt something similar when talking to Hunter by the fire. But this was more. Like freedom. Like I could do whatever I wanted, and it was okay. I wondered if Hunter felt the same.

Rocking back against him, I heard him shouting the lyrics too and angled my head back to yell in his ear. “You know this song?”

His lips brushed my cheek when he answered, “I’m not as buttoned-up as I look, you know.”

I continued to crane my neck to gaze back at him, still trembling from his lips on my cheek yet warmed by his chest. He smiled down at me, and, for the first time, in the middle of a chaotic, screaming crowd and crazy lights, he looked totally at ease. I caught my breath. Dear lord, was there anything sexier?

His smile melted into something more intense as his hypnotic eyes searched mine. He leaned down again, his lips grazing my earlobe this time. “Do you feel relaxed yet?”

My heart shivered. Relaxed was the last word that came to mind for how I was feeling. Not with his breath in my ear and his body molded against mine. I guessed that wasn’t a lead pipe he was packing in his pants, and the realization sent a thrill through my core.

Instead of answering him, I grinned up at him with all the euphoria coursing through my veins. Scorching hunger flashed through his eyes. But then someone slammed into him from behind, and he had to strain to keep from toppling us. His arm snaked around my waist, his hand clamping on my hip.

“I’ve got you,” he growled into my ear.

Riding the wave of my newfound freedom, I reached back and stroked his slightly stubbled cheek. “I know,” I mouthed at him.

His gaze softened, but his mouth remained a hard line.

Another blood-pumping song picked up after the first trailed off, and the lead singer jumped up and down on the stage, motioning the crowd to join. Seamlessly, Hunter and I jumped together, rubbing against other bodies but not caring. A bunch of guys stripped out of their sweat-soaked shirts, and after a beat of hesitation, Hunter released me to quickly do the same and tied it around his hips.

I lost my footing as I gaped at his slick, smooth chest and noticed that yes, indeed, his boxer’s waistband was visible, as was the distinctive bulge under it. He caught me before I tumbled to the sticky floor. Giving me a wicked smirk, he tucked me against his bare, muscled chest.

My breath came in stuttered gasps and not just because of the constant motion. His arm was still looped around me, and I could feel every one of his body’s movements. His hips even rocked with mine to the music. When I jumped, he jumped. When I pushed forward, he braced to propel us forward. Our bodies moved with a fluidity that stirred my imagination.

I’d never been so in tune with someone. Let alone experienced so much wild emotion together.

I was losing control. I could feel it.

The seams of my rule-following, ever-anxious, ever-wary-of-judgment self were unraveling, brushed aside by my heart’s beating wings and some bright emotion fighting to spill out.

But I couldn’t give in. I shouldn’t.

If I gave in, things would happen. My feverish mind couldn’t locate exactly what those dire things were, but I knew they would happen. There were always consequences to big emotions, big choices.

But my big emotions didn’t care.

I grew still in Hunter’s arms, gripping his forearms with all my strength as if I could keep the crazy inside.

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