“My time.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut at his predictable words.

  His voice booms even when it’s quiet. A six-foot-four, two-hundred-seventy-pound black man, my favorite teacher put himself through the Berklee College of Music by singing baritone in a four-part harmony. Why the hell he’s teaching music at a school in a bankrupt city in Northern California beats me, but I know I basically won the lottery to get to learn things from him. I also know that the baritone comes naturally—and it comes out loud.

  “Yes, sir. He was just being a gentleman.” I flash my eyes to Jesse as a short laugh slips from his mouth.

  “I’m pretty sure Mr. Barringer here was just being a distraction,” my teacher says, turning his focus back to Jesse.

  The wry smile that precedes one of Jesse’s signature smart-ass comments begins its stretch. My sticks in his hands, Jesse pounds out the punchline rhythm and gives my teacher a sideways glance.

  “Do we know each other?” Jesse studies Mr. Williams, who spends the brief silence drawing in a frustrated breath.

  They don’t know each other. My teacher just knows of Jesse. His guitar sessions at lunch and his last name got around fast, and while not everyone is impressed that the son of Alton Barringer goes to our school, they can’t help but recognize it. That one hit he had has been in various commercials, movie soundtracks, and TV shows.

  “Jesse Barringer, barely any relation.” His charming smile punctuates the stretch of his palm for a formal introduction. The hairs on the back of my neck bristle at the sharp tone Jesse uses, but in a strange turn, the fact that he disowns his father so openly impresses my teacher. His shoulders visibly relax and the tightness in his face eases to make room for what almost hints at a smile.

  “John Williams,” he says, reaching his hand out to take Jesse’s. The joke is inevitable; we’ve all made it.

  “Like the composer?” Jesse muses.

  “Yeah, yeah…” Mr. Williams flings his hand loose from their shake quickly, right back to being annoyed with my distraction.

  “No, it’s just funny because you’re the band director and all, and the other John Williams wrote the score for like…well…everything.”

  “I got it. Now put the damn snare down and get to your first hour, Mr. Barringer. Last I checked, you weren’t enrolled in band,” Mr. Williams says, his eyes meeting mine one more time in warning. Get rid of this turkey before I make you both run laps.

  “Maybe I was thinking about joining…” Jesse’s dragging this out, enjoying the tangle with authority. He stands at attention and holds my sticks out over the drumhead, quirking his head to the side just a hint, then starting a smooth drumroll. It lasts longer than a natural one, longer than anyone but Jesse really wants it to, and I start to feel my heart patter nervously. I’m not a big fan of confrontation.

  I can hear Mr. Williams’ annoyance mounting in his deep breaths that gurgle in his chest at the end of each one. He and Jesse are locked in a stare-off, and band students are starting to circle around us like schoolyard kids ready to watch a fight. Jesse loves every minute of this.

  I do not.

  Impulsively, I grab a stick from his right hand and flatten it, crossed over the one he’s still holding, ceasing the noise.

  “Come on,” I sigh. Jesse’s smirk lingers and there is no hint of apology in his expression. What the hell was all of this?

  “Carry it yourself then. Whatever,” he says, pulling the harness from his shoulders and carelessly dropping my drum and gear on the grass.

  “Hey!” Mr. Williams is more protective over the band equipment than his students. He had to write a lot of grants to get these things—whereas we just showed up based on a boundary map, nothing he could do. His ire doesn’t even register with Jesse, though. He’s already left the field and rounded the bleachers. He is headed in the direction of his first-hour hallway, which means he’s going to make some other teacher miserable for the next forty-five minutes.

  I sling my harness over my head and groan inwardly at the slow trickle of sweat I feel making its way from my neck down to my waistband. That was awful.

  “He wasn’t serious, was he?” Josh taps one of his sticks gently against my arm as we both walk toward the band room behind Mr. Williams and the rest of our class. A few people glance over their shoulders. They’re talking about me—about Jesse.

  “Serious about what?” I ask.

  “Joining. About joining our line? We have State this weekend, and there isn’t any time for him to get up to speed, and if he’s going to stick around for jazz and concert, I don’t think he’ll like it, but…”

  Josh feels threatened. He shouldn’t be. Jesse was just escalating. I’ve seen him do it at rehearsal, with his cousin and Logan. He’s never done it with me before, and I guess technically I wasn’t the one he was provoking, but this show was definitely for my benefit. I just don’t get why.

  “He wouldn’t be caught dead on this field with us, Josh. Relax,” I say, looking at him sideways with a grimace.

  He studies me for a beat to make sure I’m telling the truth, then lets out the breath he’s been holding.

  “Yeah, sure…you’re right. Good. That’s good.” He pulls his lips in tight and turns his focus straight ahead. Josh and I aren’t really close friends, but we end up spending a lot of time together. He’s trying not to dis the guy he thinks is my boyfriend, but I can tell he wants to. I could let him off the hook and tell him we aren’t dating, that we’re just in a band together, but I don’t want to. Maybe I’m a little more like Jesse than I thought I was. Maybe I like the power.

  By the time lunch rolls around, I decide I’m not going to bring up to Sam what happened. I’m sure the rumor mill has worked something out already, and she’ll ask me about it eventually. I’ll just wave it off and say people are idiots and Jesse just watched us practice. I’m not sure why I don’t want to tell her the details. Probably because it confirms her initial impression of Jesse—that he’s an asshole. I don’t want to have to defend the asshole. I just want to make sense of this unrelenting draw I have to the part of him that isn’t one. Because that part…I think maybe it’s special.

  “So, there’s a party at Kelsey’s Friday night. Wanna go?”

  My best friend loves parties. She loves socializing, loud music, drinking until she throws up, and making false promises to me and herself that she’ll “never do that again.” I go because I like spending time with Sam, and because if I’m not with her, I worry she’ll cross a line.

  “I’ve got State Saturday. Bus rolls out at five in the morning, Sam.” I drop my tray at the same table we sit at every day, and she plops hers beside mine with a sigh.

  “We won’t stay long, just…come on…please?” She whines out her lies.

  “I have never, not once, gotten you to leave a party before two in the morning, Sam,” I say. We take her car places, because I don’t have one. I drive it more than her, too. Mostly because she’s a really bad driver, but at parties I don’t even let her see her keys.

  “I don’t know…” I hum out while I peel back the tab on my Diet Coke. She’s staring at me with puppy eyes. I can see her form in my periphery, and she knows I’ll give in. It will make me miserable Saturday morning, but I won’t rest letting her go to a party alone, so I might as well give in and go.

  “Please?” Her lips vibrate like a cartoon. It’s annoying, and I drown out her voice and the sounds of everyone else around us as I draw into myself for a breath.

  “Okay. Whatever,” I say.

  “Yes!” I barely hear her enthusiastic celebration. I’m locked in my own tunnel, my eyes scanning the busy cafeteria in search of an asshole.

  He’s wearing a Black Sabbath T-shirt today. A real one, not one of those knock-off copies people get at the department store that make it look like it came from real concerts. I wonder if it was his dad’s. And if it’s his dad’s, I wonder why he wears it. Perhaps Black Sabbath trumps dickhead fathers.

  Josh exits the food line first, and my mind has a tough time making sense of the vision of Jesse walking behind him. They’re both…smiling. And talking. Check that—they’re laughing. Josh takes Jesse’s tray in his hand while they stop near the first row of tables, freeing up his hands so he can fold and put away his wallet. They continue what looks like…I don’t know…pleasant banter, I guess? The conversation rolls all the way to the table at the end of my row where they sit down across from each other, trays touching and eyes engaged.

  “Hello? Did you hear any of that?” Sam interrupts my bubble; I shush her. She waves her hand in front of my eyes, annoyed, and I grab her wrist which just pisses her off more.

  “What the…” She follows my gaze and stops when she sees what I’m watching.

  Jesse moves his tray to the side and brings his hands together, resting his forearms on the table and leaning forward, his jaw set and his mouth a hard straight line. He doesn’t look mad or frustrated, he just looks…uncomfortable.

  Josh’s head falls slightly to the side, and after a few minutes of a one-sided conversation—all Jesse’s words—Josh lifts his fist and holds it above the table between them. Jesse eases back and relaxes his shoulders, then lifts his own hand to bump fists. Either they just made peace or Jesse is replacing me with Josh in the band.

  Before I can look away, Jesse’s gaze shifts down the long row of tables and lands right on me. His face is expressionless, and his eyes blink twice, slowly, before his mouth finally forms a brief flash of a smile. He pats the table a couple of times and brings his attention back to Josh, listening without another word through the entire remaining lunch break. Sam pretends she doesn’t notice how affected I am, and I think maybe this will all just pass until she hits me with one last thought before the fifth-hour bell sounds.

  “I guess I just don’t get what you see in him,” she says.

  I furrow my brow, a bad fake move. I know who she means, and she knows I know. The roll of her eyes is her response.

  “He’s just so fucking moody is all.” She glances down the hallway to the left of the cafeteria where Jesse pushes through a set of doors and drops his hands in the pockets of his ripped black jeans, his head down at his feet as they work methodically one step at a time. Forward—he’s trying to move forward.

  I know what I see in him. I see my sister. And I see every step I’ve had to make on my own since the day she disappeared. I see someone coping. I see my downfall.

  Chapter Seven

  The garage is shut. The house is quiet. I don’t think anyone’s home, even though Jesse texted us to rehearse tonight. I’m early, but it’s still strange that nobody’s home.

  While I wait, I slide down with my back against the garage door and pop my ear buds in to listen to my weekly playlist. I keep it low so I can hear Logan or Rag pull up, but I get six songs in when I realize that early has passed and I’m now sitting here waiting in late.

  I pause my music and open the group text Jesse sent earlier and I read over his words slowly—twice. I have the time right. I’m at the garage. It’s Thursday. I hover over the screen for almost a full minute before I decide on simply sending a ? to the group. I wait about five minutes and listen to one more song on my list before I send another one. As my patience thins, I send them more regularly, the last time with the words: WHAT THE FUCK?

  My phone buzzes in my had with Jesse’s number, and he starts talking the moment I answer his call.

  “Dammit, I’m so sorry. I was talking to the guys and we just called tonight off because Logan has this huge final exam and Rag has work tonight—so he was going to be late. I was supposed to tell you, and then…shit.”

  “You forgot,” I fill in for him, sliding back up to my feet and brushing off my ass to clear the dust from the garage door.

  “I forgot,” he repeats.

  I’m let down; the deep and sudden disappointment that levels my chest surprises me a little. It’s not that he forgot, though…ouch, it’s a little about that. It’s that I was looking forward to tonight, and we haven’t really talked since he dropped my drum in the grass and bailed. Plus, there’s the whole weirdness with the kiss. And he’s made friends with Josh.

  “It’s fine. I should probably call it a night early anyway. Sam wants me to go to this party tomorrow and I have State Saturday, so I’m never going to really get to sleep…”

  “Whose party?”

  My heart kicks once because he didn’t just say “Bye.”

  “You know that girl Kelsey? She’s the cheer captain, wears all those big hoop earrings, has a bird tattoo on her shoulder…”

  She’s drop-dead gorgeous.

  I leave that last bit out.

  “I know, like, six people at school, and you and that Josh guy are two of them, which he’s kinda cool actually…if we ever get sick of you, maybe he’ll want to be our drummer.” He chuckles while I frown.

  “Gee, thanks,” I say. “And that’s not true. You have at least a dozen people around you at lunch every day, listening to you play.”

  He has a dozen girls around him. Hell, Kelsey hasn’t missed a single freaking performance.

  “Yeah, but I don’t really know those people. They just show up and honestly…” He sighs out heavily, and I can hear the sound of him shifting in a chair, bed, or on the floor or whatever he’s resting on. “I hate it when they talk while I’m trying to work shit out, ya know?”

  My lips pucker into a smile because I’m glad to hear him say that. It’s not so much that he’s antisocial but that he doesn’t like those people—the fawning girls. His groupies.

  I’m ridiculous.

  I kick a small piece of concrete with the hard toe of my Docs, and it skips across his driveway. I follow it to the place it stops near the gutter. Turning around, I crane my neck to look up at the dark windows again.

  “Are you somewhere else?”

  “Nah. I’m here. Why…you wanna come up?”

  His response freezes me, and I stammer.

  “No, no…I was just…I’m out here, and your windows are all dark, so I was just…”

  “Are you peeking through my windows, Ari?” His raspy laugh vibrates in my ear as I blush.

  “Yes. You got me. I’m the Orson Town Peeping Tom,” I joke, kicking the rock back up toward his house. It pings against the garage, but not loud enough for him to hear.

  “Come on up,” he says, this time no teasing in his voice.

  “Okay,” I croak out.

  I shuffle my feet around his driveway to the curved walkway leading to the front door. Stopping abruptly about two feet away from the threshold, waiting, I glance to the small window to my left. The blinds are tightly drawn. Half of the light strands that trace the eve of Jesse’s house are out, and another small handful are blinking, leaving me in a dim corner nook that briefly flashes with blues and reds like an episode of COPS.

  Hesitantly, I lean forward and press my index finger into the bell button, sounding it with the weight of my lean. The dongs echo from the other side of the door just as a porch light flicks on above my head.

  “Damn, drummer girl…impatient much?” Jesse says as the door opens. He’s hidden in a dark house behind the screened security door. I can’t tell if he’s joking or pissed until he unlatches the metal frame and pushes it open for me to step inside.

  “You’re hard to read,” I admit. I step into his house and meet his stare, allowing my eyes to adjust. “I couldn’t tell if you were messing with me or just forgot I was outside.”

  I’m only partly joking.

  “I had to put pants on,” he says, and the red takes over, starting at my neck and working all the way down to my tummy.

  “Oh.” It’s dark, and my back is to him; I let my face do what it wants—eyes painfully wide, mouth shaped like an O.

  The back of his hand brushes into my side as he walks by.

  “Relax. I was just in my boxers, you perv.” I cringe because I hate the word perv and all versions of it. It’s on a short list that also includes the mortifying term horny, moist, and, for whatever reason, slacks. I wish my mom would just call them pants.

  Jesse nudges his head down a dark hallway. I follow him to the set of stairs that matches the one in my house. I bet we sleep in the same room. Well, not the exact same room, but in layout terms the same one.

  We pass his version of my parents’ room on the right and move to the last door at the end of the house, just above the garage. My hunch was right. A faint purple light glows, and it takes me a while to find the source as I step inside. It’s a small, neon lamp shaped like a Grateful Dead skull. The floor is littered with discarded clothing, paper plates, and cups. Half of an uneaten slice of pizza sits on top of a box labeled BOOKS. The sweet scent of weed that follows him around is faint, masked by some sort of citrus air-freshener.

  “Are you guys really still unpacking?” I move the plate of congealed cheese and crust to Jesse’s desk and crack open the top of the heavy box, pulling out a college edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare. I hold it heavily in my hand before putting it to the side so I can pull out a second. My new choice is David Copperfield.

  “Don’t get all dopey-eyed. They’re my mom’s.” Jesse takes the heavy book from my hand and tosses it back into the box on his way to his bed. He sinks in with ease, flopping from his side to his back before folding his hands behind his head and bringing one knee up so he has a clear view of me.

  My eyes adjust more, and I’m able to see the features on his face. His lips rest in this calm and even line, something they don’t do often. In the short time we’ve known each other, I’ve learned many of his faces. There’s manic Jesse, who screams and spits when he swears because he demands perfection in an imperfect world. Then there’s the boy who withdraws, a tiny dent forming on his forehead and weight pulling his arms down to the earth and slowing his steps. But it’s feisty Jesse I see most often. He flirts, and his smile is higher on the right side of his mouth. Tiny parentheses-like dimples hug his mouth and his eyes focus with an intensity that makes me feel special.