Page 41 of Dedicated
“You’re different. And besides, I take breaks from you, too.” He finished off his beer and set his empty cup aside. Almost immediately someone brought him a refill. He turned to watch them depart. “People are watching us.”
I laughed. “Of course they are. You’re petting me.”
“I’m not—” His hand stopped moving over me for a second, then resumed. “Yeah, I am. Should I stop?”
“Not unless you want me to start nuzzling into your palm like a cat, which might draw more attention.”
“Touch slut,” he accused, and gave a short, sharp tug to the ends of my hair.
“Unapologetically, and if you pull my hair like that again, you’d better be prepared for what comes next, because that will definitely draw more attention.”
He wiggled around a little, trying to subtly adjust himself, then cleared his throat dramatically. “What would you be doing?”
“Hmmm. I guess I’d be a corporate drone. I would’ve finished college. I’d be a face in a suit. Something in sales, probably.”
He chuckled.
“What’s the funny part? Me in sales, me in a suit, or me with an actual viable future outside of music?”
“The suit. Like some Men’s Wearhouse off-the-rack.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Men’s Wearhouse.”
“Please. You bitched about a Prada off-the-rack once.” Evan honest-to-God grinned one of those rare, delighted grins that was like a shot of epinephrine to the heart.
“Only because I can. And it didn’t fit me right.”
“You do a lot of things because you can. You smile and someone will give you their last dollar,” he said, though it was more musing than disparaging.
I propped myself up on my elbow and brushed a kiss across his lips quicksilver fast before he could jerk backward. “Because I can,” I explained when his brows rose. He hadn’t jerked away, though, just gave my shoulder a light shove, making the beer I’d picked up again slosh in the cup.
“My music career wouldn’t have gone anywhere, though,” I said. “Not without you. Everyone knows that. Even you. Maybe I’d make some money off lyrics. But most likely I would’ve tooled around bars for another couple of years while I finished my degree, then I’d have been absorbed by the American machine. Gone on to live in a suburb, maybe put a drum kit and guitar in the garage that I’d go down and bang around on every once and awhile. I’d be just another paycheck.” I swallowed the last of my beer and tossed the empty cup beside me on the grass.
Something passed over his face, unreadable to me, which wasn’t unusual lately. His mouth went a little slack, like he was about to say something, and just then Maize called out to us with a big, swooping gesture of her arms.
Evan closed his mouth and hopped up, extending his hand out to pull me up, too.
The sun droppedbehind the tree line, leaving the sky glazed in a syrupy orange that darkened and turned the color of a bruise as night fell. Someone started a fire in the pit behind Maize’s cabin, and we ate hot dogs coated in char from the open flame. Evan was laughing at something somebody whose name I’d forgotten was saying. He had a relaxed smile on his face that I couldn’t stop staring at—one I’d seen more of over the past couple of weeks than I’d seen on our entire last tour. He sprawled his legs out in the grass, stretching his arms behind him to look up at the sky as the guy he’d been talking to drifted off, and I dropped down beside him with another hot dog. He shook his head when I offered him a bite.
“My mom used to take me on these camping trips every year. It was our big trip. A KOA somewhere. Usually in state, but God I loved it,” he said. I’d once asked him about his dad, who ditched out before Evan was born, but he never cared to talk about it, said the guy left and that was it for him. I knew he gave money to his mom. I wasn’t sure how much, but enough that she was able to quit one of her jobs. Evan had said she kept the other cleaning houses out of stubborn pride. When he’d told me that, I felt so shitty about hoarding my earnings, I started setting aside a quarter of it each year and paying it out anonymously to local charities. That was another reason I liked Evan. I was far from perfect, but he was the only one who ever made me want to try to be a better human just by being himself.
“Every year?”
“Almost. The only time we didn’t go was when I was fifteen and she used up all the savings to buy the Martin.” Evan still brought that particular guitar everywhere. I knew the story. How he’d ask his mom to take him to the music store downtown every other week to play it because the sound was so much better than the shitty second-hand he’d saved up for by cutting yards and washing cars after school and on the weekends.
“We should do this more.”
“Go to drum circles and eat hot dogs and drink beer?”
“Yeah. Simple stuff. I mean, doesn’t it feel good?” The way he looked up at me then, with that loose, drowsy smile and the fire making his eyes glossy and large, hit me deep inside, spread warm through me like melted butter. It felt so damn good I could almost forget all the crap that had come before. And might be yet to come.
* * *
I went insideto get a water bottle and use the john and got sidetracked on the way back by a cute little twink who asked me about fifty different questions about our music and touring. When the conversation turned to my relationship with Evan, I begged off and went back outside to find him. I was ready to leave, but Evan wasn’t by the fire pit where I’d left him. Everyone had scattered wide over the lawn in little clusters. A girl with pink hair saw me looking around in confusion and told me he’d gone down to the pond with some other folks. Her blue-haired friend disagreed, telling me he was with Maize, who was showing him her chicken coop. I laughed at that and dug out my phone.
Les:You better not be looking at other cocks with Maize.
Evan:Wtf?