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Why am I jealous? Don’t be crazy.

I hurried over to the catering bar and ordered a wine, sneaking glances over my shoulder at Melany and the mystery girl. Why are they getting along so well?

I reminded myself that this was probably the normal Melany. I’d known that from the start, that she was a flirty, smooth playgirl who probably treated me the way she treated every woman she wanted to bang. Why had I forgotten that now? Why was this getting to me?

Gulping down my wine in one go, I asked the bartender for another. Then, I saw another girl join the conversation. She came up to the mystery girl and wrapped her arm around her waist and gave her a quick kiss in greeting. I felt my body relax.

Jesus, Kendra. You’re being ridiculous right now.

Gathering my courage, I headed straight over. The mystery girl looked over at me as I came up to them, which made Melany turn around to see who was there. When she saw me, her eyes widened, and her lips pulled back into the brightest smile I’d possibly ever seen.

“Kendra! You came.”

I smiled sheepishly. “Hey,” I said.

She pulled me into the group, putting her hand on the small of my back. I shivered, remembering how she’d touched me there the first night, when we’d first met.

“Kendra, this is Kaitlyn. She was the one who invited me to this thing. And this is… I'm sorry, we hadn’t been introduced yet.”

“Emily, pleased to meet you.”

I greeted them both, shaking their hands.

“Your girlfriend?” she asked Melany, and I felt my face go molten hot.

“Oh, no,” Melany laughed. “Just a friend. Actually, Kendra is the drummer that I mentioned to you.”

“No way!” said Kaitlyn.

“Kaitlyn is playing tonight with her street performance group,” Melany said. “Guitar, violin, and a drummer.”

“Melany told me that you do street drumming,” Kaitlyn said to me. “At the Riverwalk?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Only just recently.”

“Cool. That’s where we play too, I’m surprised we have

n’t seen you yet.”

“Oh, I’ve only been at it for a week,” I said.

“Do you play a normal drum set, or like, a bucket kit?”

I nodded. “Buckets, pots, those kinds of things, yeah. Though I played a normal kit before that. I used to be a music student at Beasley.”

“My music partner is a Beasley student,” Kaitlyn said. “Violin major. They’ve got a good program, I’ve heard. So, you must be classically trained, and all that? Can play lots of styles?”

“Basically anything,” I laughed. “Though I haven’t played on a normal kit in a while.”

“Oh, really?”

I started to shift my weight nervously from foot to foot. “Yeah. Bit of a creative block…”

Kaitlyn nodded. “Well, sometimes it’s good to step away and do something different.”

“Hey,” Melany said, touching my arm. It felt like a shock of electricity to my system. “Kendra, you haven’t had a chance to take a look at the art yet, have you?”

“Not yet,” I said.