There’s a processing delay, but when my brain finally catches up with my tingling body, it shouts,Say something! It’s him!“Fuck, you’re pretty.” That thought was only supposed to exist in my head, but it slipped past the gatekeeper because alcohol has apparently given my filter the night off.I wonder what he would look like out of those clothes flat on his back with my mouth wrapped around his?—
“Ever! Hurry up, man! I need help with the van!” someone shouts from down the rabbit hole behind me.
I’m not the most intuitive person. I’m hit or miss when reading people, but for a split second, the nearness of him feelslike mutual attraction. And then I blink. It’s the alcohol. The floodgates open and embarrassment surges, heating my cheeks. I avert my gaze.
“Ever!” The demand comes again.
“Gimme a minute, Jess!” the body in front of me, the one that smells like fabric softener and sweat, responds.
His name is Ever. I store that away with the voice, and the hands, and the smile in the fantasy file I’ll enthusiastically thumb, or more accurately finger, through later.
“What’s your name?” he asks in a soft, deep rumble that short-circuits something in my brain.
On cue, the up-for-anything Australian woman walks up behind him. “There you are,” she chides playfully.
His eyes still on me, “Do you—" but I cut him off because I suddenly feel like the third wheel.
“I better get going.” Stating the obvious is unnecessary. I need to move on and get back to my life. He needs to get back to his. And her, clearly, but because I don’t know how tonotmake things awkward, I add, “It’s past my bedtime.”
He laughs again, and it hits me how sincere it sounds. “Me too.”
Sure, it is, I think.Ms. The Night’s Still Youngis primed and ready; you’re not sleeping any time soon.
He lets me make the first move, and as I walk around the cutest couple to ever couple, they both say, “Night.”
“Night,” I echo. What does it say about me that I’ve already removed myself from my fantasy and am picturing the two of them going at it instead? Jesus Christ, even my imagination is substituting a pinch hitter now.
On my way out, I take a few quick photos of the band’s banner on stage. There’s a venue employee flitting around like a worker ant, dismantling the stage setup.
Out front, Lola is leaning against the brick exterior near the front doors, cigarette between her lips, pecking away at her cell phone with a single pointer finger like it’s her first day with a smartphone.
“Hey,” I say as I approach.
She takes a drag from her cigarette and angles her head slightly to blow the smoke away from me. “Hey. I was just texting you. What took you so long? I was worried I’d have to sweet-talk my way back in to rescue you.” She wasn’t worried. It takes a lot to worry Lola.
I contemplate not telling her about my encounter because I know she’ll grill me and then tell me I did it all wrong. Then I tell her anyway because that’s what sisters do. “I ran into the guitarist on my way out of the restroom.”
The pause is long. When her smile morphs into something more serious, she asks, “You’re fucking kidding me?”
I shake my head, and when my smile breaks through, she grabs my arm.
“Holy shit, what happened?”
“I literally ran into him. Like a wrecking ball.” I rub my forehead, realizing only now that it’s a little sore and a small bump is forming. “We were both on our phones and weren’t paying attention. I tore the sleeve of his hoodie to break my fall. It was not a meet-cute. A meet-brute, maybe?”
She shakes my arm a little too hard, the way only siblings can get away with. “And then you talked?”
“Well, there were several apologies on both sides, a heavy dose of internal lusting on my side, and then I told him he was pretty and it was past my bedtime,” I explain, trying to keep it vague.
She shakes her head in open disappointment. “Youdid nottell him it was past your bedtime.”
“Well, it is. Plus, there was a cute woman with a cool accent waiting on him.”
She shakes my arm again. “Please, please,pleasefor the love of the Goddess, tell me you at least took a selfie with him?” She always refers to the Goddess. It’s a nod to her feminist roots and a middle finger to an upbringing she vehemently resents.
I laugh because she knows I have an aversion to selfies. “You know I don’t take selfies.” I’ve never liked seeing myself in photos.
She drops my arm and huffs. “For him, you make an exception to your lame-ass rule, Soph. You snuggle up to that gorgeous specimen, smile like you fucking mean it, and click off five or six shots so you can dump the ones where your eyes are closed.”
