Glow looked pissed off when he let me in the side door. His short blue hair was spiked out everywhere, and he had a new piercing in his nose on the left side. The blue gem that glittered on his nostril was cute, and I wanted to tell him that, but he was being so pissy I just let him go.
“We only have five minutes to set up the stage,” he snapped. If he wasn’t shorter than me, he might be intimidating with the way he scowled.
“Sorry,” I said, giving him a wink. “Help me instead of bellyaching, and we’ll be done soon.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. Brisco joined us, and we were able to get set up and only cut two minutes into our playing time. Before I knew it, I was singing while staring at Micah off to the right of the stage. Somehow Milo had found him and had commandeered a spot at his side. They waved at me in between songs, and I had a good time winking at them and blowing kisses until I got catcalls from around the room.
Micah buried his face in his hands every time I puckered my lips in his direction, but he was smiling when he caught my eye again.
At the end of our set the guys and I were moving our equipment off the stage into the back, and we weren’t in a big hurry because no one else was going on, when I noticed a tall, familiar man standing next to the stage. My gut swooped unpleasantly as Alexander waved at me. I nodded at him to let him know I’d seen him, then held up a finger. He was an asshole, and until very recently I’d considered him my mortal enemy—hell, maybe I still did—but he was also a teammate, so I had to acknowledge him. I bit the tip of my tongue as I walked over to him and hopped off the stage next to him.
“What’s up?” I asked, crossing my arms.
He dropped his chin to his chest. The bar was noisy, and I wanted to get to Micah, but I couldn’t exactly rush over to him now.
“How did you find out I was playing here tonight?”
He held up one of our fliers.
I rolled my eyes. “If you’re trying to get me in trouble here, the owner likes me, so you can’t.”
He shook his head. “I wanted to do this right, which meant not doing it at practice.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard because canned music started up over the speakers. There was a cheer from the people who were on the dance floor.
“This is difficult for me. I didn’t learn how to talk to people very well. My father is really in his own head, and then he sent me to military school. All they do is shout at you there.” Alexander rubbed his hands together and grimaced, and the nervous gesture reminded me far too much of Micah. My heart twinged.
A weird feeling hit me with the way he was staring at me, all pitiful and full of remorse. “What does any of that have to do with me?”
“Would you ever consider dating me?”
I blinked at him and felt as if the world was falling away from me for a few seconds, and then I slammed into the ground and grabbed his arm. He stared down at where I held on to him, and I dropped him like he was on fire.
“No.”
He blew out a long breath and normally he would’ve exploded. Instead, he shocked me when he gave me a tiny smile, and that really reminded me of Micah. My heart climbed up into the back of my throat.
A red stain bloomed across his face and he flashed a wobbly grin. “I realize I’ve done literally everything wrong, but would you give me a chance to make up for the way I acted? I know it was me, from the beginning.”
I blinked at him. “Were you drinking tonight?”
He frowned and cocked his head. “No, why?”
“Just checking,” I said, maybe too quietly, because he leaned in closer. “I’m seeing a guy right now.”
“Oh.” He glanced toward the dance floor, and a skin crawling feeling washed over me. All I wanted to do was rush over to find Micah, but that would probably be a bad idea right now, and I was going slowly out of my mind the longer the awkwardness dragged on.
“Yeah, so maybe with all that stuff at practice and school.... Maybe we just stop?”
He nodded, and I was pissed at myself for feeling bad for him as he turned to start making his way toward the entrance. I ran a hand over my face. How could he ever think that harassing me until I fucking hated him was the way to make me fuck him? Or whatever he’d been imagining in his head? Maybe he hadn’t really known what he was doing. God knew, I could relate to that, even though I wanted more than anything to keep Micah in my life. I heaved a sigh and turned in the direction of the table Milo and Micah had been at. Now that I’d seen Alexander and I finally knew what was wrong with him—apparently, he’d never fucking learned any people skills—I just wanted to get the hell out of here.
I headed toward the table and stopped as I saw Alexander cutting toward it from a different direction. Alexander got to Micah and leaned in to say something to him, and my sweet hanii startled, then turned toward him. Micah said something, and I could tell by the way he furrowed his eyebrows it was a question because he always made the same cute face when he was confused. I got there just in time to hear “I came to see Yukio” from Alexander.
Milo looked like he was standing on the sidelines of the world’s biggest train wreck.
“Me too.” Micah glanced in my direction.
“But you don’t like his kind of music,” Alexander pointed out, and he sounded nasty doing it. What was his deal?
