“Oh, Nova Dova,” Lea singsongs as she comes skipping into my room with a grin on her face. “Are you ready to rock and roll?”
She’s dressed up in a torn shirt, cutoffs, fishnet tights, and boots. Her hair’s been teased and her eyes lined with liquid liner. My outfit’s a little mellower: black plaid skirt, a tank top with a vest over it, and minimal eye shadow, but I did stain my lips red.
“As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” I say with zero enthusiasm as I get up from my bed. Not only am I unenthused to play tonight, I’m also not thrilled to be meeting Lea’s boyfriend, either. I’ve been a downer lately and I can tell Lea is picking up on this, although she thinks it has something to do with the band.
She puts her hands on her hips and narrows her eyes at me. “Hey, cheer up. Everything’s going to be fine. You’re going to rock tonight.”
“Rocking is the least of my problems,” I tell her, grabbing my leather jacket from my bedpost. “I’m worried the wrong person’s going to see me and then I’m going to get kicked out of my band.”
“How would anyone see you?” she asks, lowering her hands to her sides. “Aren’t Sterling and Jaxon in New York right now?”
“Yeah, but Nikko’s not.” I put my jacket on and flip my hair out of the collar. “Plus, we have to go pick up my drums from Jaxon’s house, which is going to come off a little bit suspicious.”
“No it won’t,” she says, backing toward the doorway of my room and spinning around on her heels. “Just tell them you’re bringing your drums home to practice over the weekend. You’ve done that before.”
I follow her into the living room. There’s a candle burning, a soothing lavender scent, but it does nothing to settle the restlessness inside me. “Yeah, before the Millersons from the apartment below complained about the noise.”
“So what?” she says, leaning over and blowing out the candle. “Jaxon, Spalding, and Nikko don’t need to know that.”
“We’ll see.” I button up my coat and head for the front door, ready to get the night over with. It’s probably the first time I haven’t been excited to play and I’m not sure if it’s because I feel like I’m cheating on my band or because my head’s in another place. “I just hope this all doesn’t blow up in my face.”
She picks up the car keys and tosses them to me. “It won’t. I promise.”
Sighing, I open the front door to head outside. But Tristan walks out of his bedroom and I pause as he picks up his jacket like he’s about to go somewhere.
He’s dressed in a plaid shirt and nice jeans, and his hair’s a little damp like he’s just gotten out of the shower. “So what time do you guys go on?” he asks, he walks past the kitchen and heads toward us.
“In a couple of hours.” My brows knit as he puts his jacket on. “Are you coming with us?”
“Yeah,” Lea answers for him as she slips a pair of fingerless gloves on. “He said he wanted to come and I said he could because I thought we could use a man’s help getting the drums out of the garage and into the trunk of your car.” She gives me an apologetic look and mouths, I’m sorry.
“We’re not helpless women,” I say, trying to make it sound like I’m joking, but I’m not. I don’t like that Tristan’s going. Not after what happened in the grocery store yesterday. In fact, I was hoping to get a little space tonight and clear my head, and I want to be mad at Lea for asking him to help us, but I can’t, because I understand where she’s coming from. Lea’s a lot like me when it comes to being rude to people and I’m sure the last thing she wanted to do was tell Tristan no when he said he wanted to tag along.
“I know you’re not helpless,” Tristan says, stopping in front of me as he slips his jacket on. “But I figured I could come watch you rock out for the night instead of hanging out here by myself.”
I liked it better when Tristan and Lea didn’t like each other. In the beginning Tristan would never have gone anywhere Lea was, because they clashed so badly. But now they’ve warmed up to each other.
“Unless for some reason you don’t want me to.” There’s a challenge in his blue eyes like he’s daring me to say it—that I’m afraid of being near him because we almost kissed.
I shake my head, pretending to be indifferent. “No, you can go.” I fake a smile, feeling like a jerk because of my feeling toward him. Or lack of feeling, anyway. Part of me wishes I could reciprocate but I can’t make myself feel that way, especially when my head’s stuck on someone else with honey-brown eyes and a sensitive heart, who had me so turned on yesterday when he was in the shower.
Tristan grins at me, zipping up his jacket. “Good, because I really want to see you play.”
I keep smiling as I exit the apartment and the two of them follow me. They start chatting about what songs we’re going to play and Lea starts listing them. They’re all covers, something she told me the other day when I tried to use the excuse that I wouldn’t know the songs they were playing, to get out of going. Turns out I knew all of them, so that didn’t work.
It’s okay, though. Things could be a hell of a lot worse, something I tell myself in order to keep moving as I walk out of the apartment.
It’s dark and breezy outside and I immediately wrap my arms around myself, shivering as the breeze hits me. “Jesus, wearing a skirt wasn’t a good idea,” I remark as I rush for my car.
I feel someone move up to my side, but I don’t turn my head because I know it’s Tristan as soon as I hear the lighter flick. “I think you look good,” he says with a wink.
“Thanks,” I say, rubbing my hands up and down my arms. “But I’m not sure it’s worth freezing to death.”
“I’ll keep you warm,” he jokes, smoke encircling his face.
I don’t know how to respond, so I just offer him a smile and head for the driver’s side of my car. After we get inside, Lea in front, thankfully, I back out of the parking spot and head for Jaxon’s garage. His parents said they’d be home when I called earlier and told them I needed to pick the drums up, but part of me is hoping that they won’t be. But the lights are on inside the house when we pull up and I can’t help but sigh, heavyheartedly.
“Don’t look so down,” Tristan leans forward and says in my ear as Lea gets out of the car. “Everything’s going to be fine.”