“So, let me get a look at this kit Chris doesn’t know how to play, huh?” I glance at Jesse as I step into the garage. He’s doing that casual lean-sitting thing guys can pull off. He’s on the side of a motorcycle that doesn’t look like it runs, but I’m okay with the vision of him resting against it. I don’t care if it ever goes anywhere.

  I pull my denim jacket off and toss it on top of the shrinking pile of boxes.

  “You guys are getting moved in slowly, huh?”

  He rolls his eyes and runs his hands through his perfect hair, a little oily and curled at the ends.

  “The last place we lived, we had boxes for the first ten months. If I don’t do it, it doesn’t get done. My mom is busy at work and tired when she gets home, and my sister is super self-involved and weak-ass.”

  “Hey!” I say, picking up the sticks and pointing them at him as I nestle behind the drums. “Don’t shit on your sister. Girl power.”

  I stare him down and he doesn’t flinch, just sneering at me as if I have no idea.

  “Whatever. She’s eleven, and a prima donna.”

  “I love Madonna,” I say back quickly, ignoring his reaction for a few seconds. When he starts to correct me and explain the definition of the term, I let him off the hook and shake my head at him.

  “I know what you said,” I nod. I hold his gaze for a few seconds, both of our lips caught in this strange, hesitant smile. We both like being here. We both like being alone. We’re both nervous, and we’re both fronting. If he’s not, then he’s a better actor than I am, because I can read it in his expression and stilted stance.

  “My mom likes to decorate for Christmas,” he says, nodding to a pile. “That stack gets cracked open tonight. It’s the one thing I can get my baby brother and sister to help with.” His focus lingers on the boxes for a long couple of seconds, a fondness coloring his cheeks and curling his mouth.

  “It’s my favorite holiday,” I add, regretting it when his smile drops back into that serious, straight line.

  “It’s a’right,” he shrugs.

  I clear my throat and look down at the drums, reaching to my left then right, tapping each head and familiarizing myself with my surroundings. I give them all a few passes, speeding up until I feel like at least I won’t be embarrassed by whatever we do here.

  “Already better than Chris,” he says through a smile.

  “I feel bad. Chris seems like a nice guy.” I shrug, then tap at the snare and cymbal with a bada-bum-chang.

  “He’s a hippie. He’ll be fine.”

  I lower my eyes in question—he’ll be fine. Before I can pry out a meaning in that statement, though, Rag pulls into the driveway in a deep-blue Camaro. It was his I saw the other day. Jesse walks over to his cousin and they give each other a half hug.

  “Sorry I’m late. My class doesn’t get out until six-thirty on Mondays.” Rag reaches for my hand then pulls me up from my seat into an awkward bro-hug before letting go. That’s my first one of those. I hope I did it right.

  “What class?” I’ve figured out he probably goes to college nearby—because that’s the only way he’s not at Vista High, but also close enough to drop in for jam sessions. He’s too together to be a dropout.

  “Anthropology,” he grins.

  “Dumbass wants to be a professor,” Jesse says through a breath of a laugh. He moves to his guitar case, flipping it open and pulling it out to tune.

  “If I were a dumbass, I wouldn’t have a shot in hell at doing this, or getting my tuition for free. I’m pretty sure it’s gonna happen.”

  He stares his cousin down until Jesse looks up.

  “Oh, huh? Were you still talking to me?”

  Rag grimaces and flips Jesse off before walking back to his car and opening the trunk. He gets his guitar case and rests it on the stack of boxes near my jacket, stopping to point at the pin on my jacket pocket before he pulls his guitar out completely.

  “That’s Mott the Hoople.”

  My lip quirks. It’s rare that someone else knows who that is.

  “All the Young Dudes,” I say.

  “Shiiiiit,” Rag drags the word out, pulling his strap over his neck and holding his pick between his lips as his eyes pass mine then move to Jesse.

  “She’s cool, yeah?” Jesse’s eyes flash wide for just a second.

  Rag pulls the pick from his lips and strums a few times.

  “Yeah…she’s cooler than you.” Rag points at Jesse and flips him off again.

  “Everyone’s cooler than me, I thought,” Jesse says, winking at me, and in the process making my arms go completely numb.

  I’m cool.

  He winked at me.

  They both like me here.

  I’m playing…with a band.

  Oh fuck…Chris will be fine.

  This is an audition.

  I bite onto the inside of my right cheek and glance from Rag to Jesse, neither of them paying attention to me while they tune. My lips part to announce my discovery, but I decide that it’s better this way—better pretending I’m in the dark. I’m just not sure if I should blow this or kill it. I’m not sure what I want. Do I want to be in a band?

  Yeah. I’ve always wanted to be in a band.

  But do I want to be in a band with Jesse? That’s the catch here. And it’s just a catch for me. I’m the silly girl with a crush.

  “Ready?” Jesse’s eyes get soft as they land on me.

  I take a deep breath and blow so my cheeks puff out and lips get wider.

  “Sure,” I say with a shake of my head. My hair is pulled up into a pile on top of my head and my legs are free in my leggings, a strategic move so I could feel the beat and keep time. I’m not a headbanger like Chris, but I like to get into it. I get into it the right way.

  “One…two…” Jesse starts, the parenthesis back around his lips, his freckles diving into the crease. His lips mouth the rest. “One, two, three…”

  I kick in, and his eyes close. Rag picks up as if we were always playing together, and I study my hands with too much intensity. I hope they don’t hear it, but I know I’m not relaxed. This beat—it needs jelly in my bones. I remember to breathe, and make eye contact with Rag, who nods with my bass, sneering in that good way that means he likes it.

  Jesse doesn’t look, thank the fucking lord! I loosen up as he starts to play, and I adjust my position to give my feet room to really feel the pedal. The kick is what sells this. The rest is subtle. Just like Jesse’s voice.

  The second his lips part with a breath and his head turns enough to give me a clear shot of his periphery, I decide. I’m going to kill it. Chris doesn’t deserve to give rhythm to a song like this and play behind a guy like that. He’s nowhere in the same league. Plus, I am drunk on Jesse. If I had any ability to draw at all, I would make a comic-book boy just like him, and his lip would curl…just…like…that.

  I exhale, like a lover. He begins to sing, and I let my eyes close. I feel it. I think of how he cried, just a little this morning, and how he cries harder with his voice now. It’s so powerful, and I’m not sure if those words would mean as much from anyone else’s lips, in any other timber.

  I haven’t heard this song go on this far before. With Chris, they never made it much past the bridge. I do my best to hang on, but eventually, Jesse has to cut it. I clench my jaw, bracing myself, instantly upset I disappointed him.

  “Sorry…” I start, but he takes my sticks from my hands as I’m mid-verse.

  “Don’t be,” he interjects, waving them. “You don’t know this.”

  I nod, nervously, and glance up to meet Rag’s grin. He gives me a thumbs up, so I give one back and then turn my attention back to Jesse, who’s already working out something on the snare and toms.

  “This isn’t perfect, but it’s what we had Chris doing. Just…if you can kinda get how this goes with my voice…”

  My breath hitches, and I feel my red skin creeping in. I should have worn longer sleeves, but I’m glad the neck of my T-shirt is high, almost a choker. My lips are quivering with nerves and anticipation. He’s so close I could lick his neck if I wanted to. I mean…I want to. It would just be weird. He smells like honey and shampoo, which means he probably showered for me. Not for me, but before I came.

  His voice begins and my thought-racing halts.

  “You made me; then you left this, with this, with that, with all of it. You left me; you left this; you took this, took that, took all of it. Selfish bastard, lunatic. Just a little crazy. Just like you, that’s how I knew. Nobody knows, but everyone. Let’s just pretend and get to the end.”

  My chest caves in at the chorus. Knowing what I know now, about Jesse and his father—who is, without any better definition, famous for being a one-hit-wonder and a loser. Alton Barringer had a killer song about twenty years ago, and then he washed up barely alive on the Miami shore after a cocaine bender on a yacht. That was his first trip to rehab. Three more strikes, because rock stars always get four, and he went to prison. He’s supposedly sober now. For now. He’s also irrelevant.

  And apparently, he’s a really shitty father.

  “You got that?” Jesse’s eyes flit up to mine, and I lick my dry lips. His eyes move to my mouth.

  “I think so,” I say, barely above a whisper. I take the sticks from him and feel the same touch as earlier, his fingers brushing against mine and sending a jolt through my veins, my hands suddenly gripped with energy. I shake them out, one at a time, knowing I can’t play when I’m all tense. I favor smooth.

  Jesse begins again, a few bars back, and Rag and I pick up, easing into this new part through the refrain. This time, Jesse looks at me, as if seeing him say the words will somehow lead me through. My hands work independently of the rest of my body. My foot somehow manages the pedal, my chest flowing with the emotion, my hands working it out until it feels just right. The sound…it’s not snare at all. This has to be the high hat and the bass. It has to build…to something. My neck swivels and Jesse closes his eyes, settling in. I feel it coming, the sneer that paints his lips and scrunches his eyes tightly as his mouth opens wider, until he’s nearly shouting. This song is not just therapy. It’s his anthem. It’s his fuck you, and so help me, I’m going to make it just right—just how he needs it.

  I ratchet the sound up, picking up the beat; I hammer the kick and the cymbals and I let it all get messy for just a hiccup before it stops. I clutch the crash and ride in my palms, squelching their massive vibration while Jesse breathes. That’s it. That’s where it ends.

  He starts to laugh, leaning back on his heels a little topsy-turvy as his free hand clutches at his hair and his other one swings his guitar to his back.

  “Hell yeah!” He hoots a few times, like he did earlier, then looks to his cousin, who nods with this pompous and satisfactory smile. My body pulses. It throbs. It takes a while for a drummer to lose the beat. This one, it’s going to stay with me for a long while.

  Chapter Five

  I’ve learned that his mother’s last name is Quaker. Amanda Quaker. I didn’t ask him questions or gain anything through normal methods. That would require us to sit down and talk and get to know each other, and it’s becoming clearer and clearer that whatever this evolution is between Jesse Barringer and me, it’s strange and unquantifiable.

  I found out by breaking into her mail.

  I know. It’s a shitty thing to do. But mailboxes here come in clusters, and they’re always being broken into. The other day, someone left the front contraption that covers all of our boxes open, so I went nosing around. Sam told me to look for Christmas cards with money inside, but I’m not a thief. I’m just a spy.

  Correction…stalker.

  My best guess is that Jesse’s brother and sister—who I now know are named Conner and AmberLynn, not a prima donna—are from a failed marriage sometime after Jesse came into the picture. I guess they could be two separate marriages, but they look a lot alike, so my gut says one. They look nothing like Jesse.

  Jesse looks a lot like Alton.

  Alton Barringer, who showed up in Jesse’s driveway about twenty minutes ago, right before I left my house for what will be my third official rehearsal with the band since they booted Chris to make room for me. Our first gig is in a week—a Christmas party at a burger joint one suburb closer to L.A. I don’t even feel remotely prepared, but Jesse told me two days ago that I’m already a thousand times better than Chris. I just feel like I’m winging it all the time. Maybe that’s how this band works. This band that still needs a name.

  Rag stopped me on my way, rolling down the window of his Camaro that was parked a house down from mine. I got inside, and ever since we’ve been sitting in here with the lights knocked out but the motor humming to keep the radio on.

  “He’s been dreading this.” It’s the first words Rag has said, other than “Alton’s here…get in.”

  “He knew he was coming?” I only have bits and pieces of the story from things I found on Google and assumptions I drew from Jesse’s lyrics. But I was pretty sure Jesse and his dad never talked. There was also that little bit about him trying to kill his father. I googled that the second I got home the night he said it. Even though I couldn’t find an article about it, I still have a strange feeling Jesse wasn’t bluffing.

  “He called last week. Said he wanted to see him—repenting and shit…you know, in the spirit of the holidays.”

  Last week…probably in the morning. The morning I was hiding so poorly behind his fence and overheard him cry.

  I nod slowly, wishing I knew more about their relationship.

  It starts to rain, and Rag and I both roll up our windows, sad we can’t hear what’s going on in the house now, not that there was anything to hear.

  “Where are his brother and sister?” I ask.

  “Probably upstairs pretending to be asleep. They don’t really know who Alton is or why a man is visiting. He and his mom keep it very separate from them. They’ve got enough to deal with now that their dad is remarried.”

  “His sister has to know a little.” I twist my lips with doubt and look at Rag.

  He shrugs.

  “Probably, but she goes on pretending she doesn’t,” he says.

  I look back at the quiet house, such a quaint portrait it makes with the rain pattering around it and the porchlight welcoming guests. It looks like any other home, maybe even more homey than most of the others around here now that the grass and weeds have been cut down. Christmas lights blink in sections along the roof, a few of the strands dead and needing to be replaced. Jesse just wanted them up. I don’t know that he’s once really come out to look at them. His brother and sister do though—every night for the last week.

  “I wonder what they’re saying in there?” I sigh, but I’m unable to lose the tension gripping at my neck and shoulders.

  “I don’t know, but I guarantee you Jesse’s not going to feel like playing much tonight. And I bet he’s also going to get high the second that fancy king-cab truck with new temporary plates pulls out of the driveway.”

  Rag slips a pack of gum from his center console and offers me a piece. I take one, figuring chewing is better than gnashing. He takes one, too, and starts to pop and snap the gum nervously against the roof of his mouth.

  “Jesse…gets high a lot?” I push the gum against the back of my teeth, anxious about the answer. I don’t want him to be high all the time, but I also oddly don’t care if he is. I’m still so very interested in him.

  “It goes in waves. It’s a stress thing, really. Self-medicating, ya know?” He winks at me, and I give him a fake smile in return. Self-medicating isn’t something I do or have ever done. Real medication, however, is well practiced in the Wakefield house.

  “He said something weird to me the other night,” I spill out. I’ve been dying to ask, and it feels like just as good of a time as any.

  “Yeah?” Rag’s tone is curious.

  “He said he tried to kill Alton once. He was probably just being figurative, or whatever, but…”

  “Oh no, he had him dead to rights,” Rag cuts in.

  I swallow, not expecting the truth to come so easily.

  “How?”

  Rag blows out a heavy breath and wraps his right hand around the steering wheel, stretching his arm until it’s straight and stiff as he pushes into his seat. He sucks in his top lip for a few seconds and pulls in his brow.

  “He was young…the age I’m not so sure on, but young,” he begins. I hug myself, checking my nerves. They’re on high alert. “It was a surprise visit, kinda like this one, on Christmas of all days. Alton was on a major bender. He only came around when he wanted money, which is so jacked because at one point, he was literally drowning in dough, ya know?”

  He looks at me with a lifted brow. I nod. I’d heard he lost everything, but the new truck in the driveway looks like he’s maybe gotten back on his feet.

  “Alton showed up, and Jesse’s mom was married to her ex. That guy’s a douchebag too, but that’s another story. Anyhow, she was pregnant with AmberLynn, and Alton wasn’t expecting to look her up and come rolling in to find some starter family decorating a damn tree…so he tried to take Jesse back.”

  “Take him back? Back where?” My stomach instantly gets sour imagining him as a small boy being forcefully stolen from his home.

  “I don’t know where. I meant take him back like property. He was taking back this kid he refused to admit was his because he didn’t want to give up any of his precious money. It got to the point that they almost went to court to test for paternity until Amanda decided her son was better off not knowing his real dad. Now here he was violently taking what he saw as rightfully his.”

  “How violent?” I swallow at the thought.