Working my way around the entire second level, I’ve been here nearly thirty minutes now, and there’s still no sign of him. I’m starting to get…anxious. I hope he made it here in the first place.
I stop along the balcony railing and look down into the audience below me, but the main area is dark enough you can’t really make out individuals clearly. If he is down there, especially near the mosh pit—and he’ll get his ass thoroughly spanked once I find him if he is—I’ll have to go down there and work my way through the crowd to find him.
Up I go, one more level.
It stinks of cheap weed up here but there are more benches. Meaning quite a few people making out. The only plus is it’s not as crowded and it’s a little less loud. It takes me about ten minutes to work my way around the balcony and there’s still no sign of him.
My nerves are borderline frayed.
I head down again, performing another thorough sweep of the lower balcony before making my way to the main level. Fortunately, the current band’s set ends, and the audience’s cheers are nearly quiet in comparison as the music fades. The quiet doesn’t last for long, however, because someone puts on music over the sound system and cranks it up well past conversational levels as roadies walk on stage to start the changeover to the main act’s equipment.
At least the house lights come up, just a little.
Don’t get me wrong—I love rock. It’s not the music that’s bothering me. It’s the crowd, for starters, and the logistics, and the motherfuckingvolume. It’s obnoxiously loud, and I don’t understand why they have to crank it stratospherically high for what is a reasonably small venue.
Some of the crowd heads outside, presumably to smoke, and that hopefully gives me an opening because the mosh pit’s dissolved, for now. I work my way over to the stage and across the floor to the far side of the space, and still don’t see Jordan anywhere.
This is starting to piss me off even though I know it’s irrational to feel that way.
The boy doesn’t owe me anything, doesn’t answer to me. Just because we’ve had dinner together last night, and started talking about a relationship, doesn’t mean I have the right to go off on him for not responding to my calls and texts.
Every passing minute that I don’t find him means I’m growing more frantic. Because despite knowing it’s not likely, theFlorida Man Found Dead in a Dumpsterheadline is rolling through my mind.
Then it hits me, and I make my way back to the lobby, to the bathrooms there. I push my way in past the line and call out.
“Jordan, you in here?”
Two guys glare at me from the urinals but no one answers from the two stalls. I hold up a hand in apology and duck out. Returning to the main space, I find a hallway there leading to another bathroom, and again strike out.
Fuck.
There’s been no response from him.
I even go outside and look around, just in case he decided to get some air, but find no sign of him.
Back into the lobby, then. I head to the far end where the bar is located and scan the crowd gathered around two very harried-looking bartenders.
The thought occurs to me to go into the main auditorium and yell his name, but that might embarrass him and piss him off.
Once more into the breach…
The playback music is shut off and the anemic house lights lower again. On the stage, the roadies have almost completed the changeover, and two guitarists and a bass player are doing a quick sound check to cheers and applause from the crowd.
I make another circuit of the main level while more people pour into the auditorium, and I end up nearly in the middle, behind the quickly reforming mosh pit area.
Right now, I don’t know if I’m more angry or worried.
I turn to scan the balconies when I catch a glimpse of a blond man in glasses going up the stairs from the second to the third levels.
Up I go again, my leg really starting to sing and adding to my foul mood as the featured band launches into their first number at ear-splitting levels.
Fuck my life.Why am I even here?
Because something about Jordan has hooked into you the way something hooked into you about Elliot, dumbass.
When I reach the third-floor balcony, I only take a few steps from the landing before I realize my error. The guy isn’t Jordan.
Back to the railing, where I stare down. It’s just too dark for me to make out any details from up here without binoculars.
