Page 24

Barrett was acting strange.

Not just now, but at the shop earlier that day as well. He’d been fidgety, his eyes glazed at points, his lips red like he’d been nibbling on them.

She wondered if her presence made him uncomfortable.

Had she overstayed her welcome? Had she assumed more of a connection with Barrett and his friends than there was?

Was she just desperately clinging to any sense of belonging?

Sure, Barrett had technically invited her there, but she had been the one inviting herself to whatever their plans were.

As friends and a band, they were tight knit for as long as she had known of them, so just popping in and claiming a spot .

. . probably wasn’t as easy or as welcome as she’d thought.

She crossed her legs and sat on her hands, to keep herself from picking at the ends of her nails, while the band played.

Too good to be true. That’s how all of this was feeling to her. How easily she had connected with them, how welcoming Barrett had been, how much hope it had given her.

Too good to be true.

Their song eased into a beautiful ending riff from Barrett, and Nell couldn’t help but be mesmerized by him.

To someone who knew nothing about bands and metal, they were incredible. Their sound, their presence—Barrett especially —was bigger than this little town. No wonder it had taken them getting gigs in bigger places to be noticed.

She wished she’d been able to go. It could have been her last chance before they got tired of her and she found herself alone in her bedroom again, like she had been with the last of Barrett’s weed over the weekend.

The meeting with her family had given her whiplash, and she had used every last nugget that Barrett had given her, rolling them herself into sad, inexperienced blunts that she smoked in the middle of the night under the tree.

The rest of her day she’d spent in bed, too afraid to get on the road at all, until the drugs helped the feeling pass enough to get up and go out to find Barrett.

Now, she wondered if that would be her plan again after this.

Barrett closed out the song, and she waited for him to look at her, but he didn’t. Her confidence waned and insecurities battled, the latter gaining the upper hand.

As the song ended, Nell wondered if she should clap or if that would be too much and annoy them. So instead, she settled for a soft hum of approval—one she wasn’t sure any of them heard. Would they notice if she stood up to leave?

“Finally. I thought we’d be stuck on that song forever.” Toni crashed his drumsticks into the cymbals, and the sound echoed through the garage. “See? I told you, Duncan. You’re our lucky charm.”

Nell’s eyes widened at the sudden attention, and her tongue failed her. That lucky charm thing again. Too much pressure, and she couldn’t tell if he was just saying it to be nice or not.

“If Barrett could play like that at every practice and show, we’d already have a record deal,” Dennis said, raising a brow at his friend.

Barrett, however, had his back to her, studying the pedal his foot was on. “Let’s work on Raise Your Hands . Toni, start us off.”

Nell waited for him to look at her as the beat started, but it never happened.

* * *

The practice came to an end an hour after she’d arrived.

She finally applauded at the end, so she didn’t seem rude for not reacting at all.

She had been psyching herself up to leave at any moment throughout the entire practice, only to end up staying through the whole anything anyway. Now, she had a reason to leave.

“I should get going.” She rose from her spot and inched toward the open garage door while they were all distracted with putting their instruments away.

“Whoa, hold on.” Toni stopped her. “You can’t leave yet.”

Nell froze. She had expected them to offer polite goodbyes as she rode off on her bike, not tell her to stay.

“We haven’t even celebrated yet.”

“Celebrate?”

“Every good practice deserves a celebration,” he explained while the others nodded.

She glanced subconsciously at Barrett and nearly jumped when she saw he was watching her—finally. She tried to figure out what he was thinking, but they weren’t close enough to be able to read each other’s expressions. At this point, she doubted they would be.

“You ever hit a blunt at the quarry?”

Nell turned back to Toni. “No.”

“Then we’re about to pop your cherry.” He laughed. “Come celebrate with us.”

“It’s way more fun under the stars. You can see ’em best around there,” Dennis added.

Nell’s brows furrowed. Had she read them wrong? Or was it just Barrett who was uncomfortable with her?

She also didn’t want to mention she had been hitting a blunt under the stars for four nights or so in a row. She’d lost count.

“You should come.”

Nell was surprised to see that Barrett was the one who’d spoken—the only thing he’d said since their brief greetings. And there was that little intruding sense of belonging that she only got around them, the one she wasn’t sure she could trust but so desperately wanted to.

“Okay.” She nodded, eyes on Barrett. “I’ll meet you guys there.”

“Ride with us,” Paulie said, pulling on a light jacket over his thick arms. “We should all go together.”

“It’s a nice night. I’ll walk with her,” Barrett said, his hands stuffed deep into his jean pockets.

“Guess it’s settled.” Toni clapped his hands together. “We’re all walking.”

Five minutes later, Nell found herself walking up the road with all four of them, her bike left in Toni’s garage.

Barrett, by her side, seemed back to normal for the most part. He didn’t avoid her stare anymore, and when she met his eyes, he smiled. But then he would turn away quickly to say something to his friends, and the moment would be lost and she would be left with her own thoughts again.

The quarry wasn’t close—about a half hour when walking—but Barrett had been right about it being a nice night. There weren’t any clouds in the sky, leaving dusk mixing with the stars as they finally reached the short dirt road leading to the drop-off into the deep pit.

She’d never spent much time around that area. She’d always preferred to stay in more crowded areas with tons of noise and energy. Her tastes had flipped, though. Now, she preferred quiet and secluded places without people and their many opinions of her.

“Duncan, how do you feel about getting dirty?” Dennis asked as they reached the edge of the quarry, looking deep down into the calm water below.

As if to demonstrate its depth, Paulie shoved a large rock off the side, and a soft splash sounded at the bottom.

She used to hate getting even a speck of dirt under her nails, but she was lucky she’d managed to crawl into and sit in the shower today to wash off a few days of dirt and grime that would have made her mother squirm. “I don’t mind.”

“Great,” Dennis said and plopped onto the ground, lying back with his arms folded behind his head to prop them up. “’Cause you’re gonna wanna get comfy.”

Paulie and Toni followed suit, leaving only Barrett and Nell standing up as the others looked up at the cloudless sky.

Nell was about to sit down when Barrett stopped her with his hand on her upper arm.

“Hold on,” he said and let go to shrug off his denim vest. He spread it out onto the ground and motioned for her to continue.

Nell stared at him. There was that butterfly in her stomach again.

She lowered herself onto the cloth. It didn’t make the ground more comfortable, or much cleaner for that matter, but it was probably one of the nicest things anyone had done for her in a very long time.

“Thank you,” she said.

“My pleasure.”

Soon, Nell was lying between Toni and Barrett, all of them staring up at the stars as they bickered and chatted and laughed about things that Nell didn’t know how to add to but was content listening to.

“Bar, do us the pleasure of dispersing the goods,” Toni said, sitting up.

“You could ask nicely,” Barrett said, but he was already up and fiddling with something in his pocket.

Soon, they were all up, presented with a couple of blunts and lighters to start their celebration. Dennis lit the joint, and then it passed down the line to Paulie then Toni. Then Nell held the stick in her hands and pulled it to her mouth.

She sensed the familiar effects as soon as they hit: feet buzzing, vision slowing, and worries melting away. She copied the others with her arms folded behind her head and her eyes on the stars.

She still wasn’t sure if she was a burden or a delight, but it sure made it easier to pretend they wanted her around.

She laughed at something Dennis said, giggling uncontrollably with Toni and catching Barrett’s eyes that were already watching her.

She found it harder to be shy in this mindset.

She grinned at him, and he flipped onto his side so his head was resting on his hand as he gazed at her.

She couldn’t decide whether that look was dreaminess or mindlessness.

The moonlight and stars and dark inhibition could be distorting her view, but maybe that delicious, lazy smile was meant only for her.

She couldn’t bring herself to look away. That same magnetic presence he had on stage dragged her in.

His warm eyes made time slow. It grew into a thick molasses, seconds dripping by the hour.

Her tongue grew heavy in her mouth, trying to form the right words to say to him, but no shape felt right on her lips. He left her speechless, but all she wanted to do was talk so that his attention wouldn’t leave her.

“What about the hot chick Barrett was hanging out with in Bellevue?” Paulie asked.

Nell stilled.

The slow dripping of time sped up.

She was back, a knife severing her pull toward him and her mouth clamped shut.

She broke his gaze to look at Paulie, hoping she’d just imagined what he’d said.

She had no idea what they had been discussing before, only that it ended in some hot girl for Barrett.

“What girl?” She didn’t mean to say it. The words just slipped out through her unfiltered mind.

“Yeah, she looked like a sexy vampire,” Dennis said. “She was all over him.”

Nell’s heart dropped into the stony ground under her back, her worry-free mindset drifting away with the joint’s smoke. Nell tried to cover it up by laughing, but it strained in her throat.

She avoided Barrett, but Toni watched her. “That’s a bit of an exaggeration,” he said carefully, like he was trying not to break something fragile. “They talked for, like, three minutes.”

“She wasn’t my type.” Barrett’s voice rumbled behind her back, and she could feel it through the air.

“Oh yeah, sorry. I forgot you have a very specific type,” Dennis said, a teasing lilt in his tone.

Nell heard it, but she was already lost again.

Her heart beat too fast, her unfocused brain struggling to decipher the meaning.

She’d like to be a type. She’d like to be Barrett’s type, she realized. Lamely. Stupidly.

But what type would she even be? She was a shell, blank and gray, and lost like an aged pencil drawing that had been smudged into nonrecognition through the years—or months, in her case.

Silly to think she could compare with the type of women they met while performing. She could imagine they were beautiful, with similar tastes in music, and full of life that Nell had lost long ago.

Her high was still there, but somewhere along the way it’d lost the fuzzy, lighthearted buzz she loved so much. An inky fear seeped into her and stole its place.

Her breaths shallowed. She stared at the stars, hoping they would comfort and hide her, calm her.

Barrett’s gaze scraped on her face, and she wished she could disappear. Become erased—finally.

“Nell.” Barrett’s voice was soft, a whisper. Nell’s breath caught because he’d never called her that before. “You okay?”

The trees around them leaned in, curling over the corners of her vision, mocking. The stars twinkled, laughing. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, afraid.

“I’m—” She tried, but the word came out too disjointed to connect another one to it, like she was choking on it. It burned coming up, and the other words stung where they stuck.

Barrett sat up. “Nell.”

But there wasn’t time for that. Not when a pair of bright headlights hit the group, followed by the red and blue flashing of police lights.