“It’s cool if you want to go,” I offer, knowing she might be two seconds from choosing Travis anyway.
She shakes her head. “Just let me tell him. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be in the bathroom,” I yell to Liv’s back as she sprints toward her man as fast as her four-inch heels will allow.
10:58pm
Ro:If you end up in the mosh pit, I’m gonna need a video.
Me:unlikely
Ro:You good?
Before I can respond, Liv barrels through the bathroom door with fresh drinks, oblivious to the dirty looks coming from the line of girls she shoulders out of the way.
“Okay,” Liv says, breathless. “They’re officially onstage and safe from the Irvine Place sharks.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” I tell her, opening the camera on my phone to snap a selfie or ten.
My hair’s wild from the humidity, and my already smoky eyes have gone even more sultry on my dewy skin. For no reason at all I send a picture to Ro.
“So, Evan?” Liv asks. “So cute, right?”
She holds up her tall glass to cheers her approval.
With a very different reaction to his name, I leave her drink hanging, to take a swig of mine. “He seems like kind of an asshole.”
“No!” she shouts. And this time, it’s the alcohol, not the music, responsible for her volume.
Liv’s still insisting what agreat guyEvan is, when I hand her my mostly empty drink and duck into an open stall.
I check my phone mid-pee, curious if Ro got my picture:
Ro:Fuck!
Ro:Sorry. But damn.
I stifle a private smile. And the urge to ask him to send one back.Relax, tequila.Though I can’t blame the alcohol for the familiar tilt in my belly that I’ve come to expect around Ro.
—
The back half of the venue is nearly empty as the band begins their set. The audience, a giant mass of colliding bodies, inches their way toward the stage.
Evan might be one giant red flag offstage, but under the spotlights, he’s transformed into something else. His hands, once wandering and brazen, are deliberate, intentional, and fucking killing it. He’s doing his thing up there. All the guys are.
Beside me, Liv’s ponytail whips around with each enthusiastic nod of her head. She’s doingherthing too.
A waitress drops off two more drinks, pointing at Travis to let Liv know who sent them.It’s not a boom box hoisted overhead, but it’ll do.Even from this distance, Travis hasn’t taken his eyes off her. Maybe I’d been too quick to judge.
Back here, away from the madness, and with another cocktail coursing through me with renewed strength, I follow Liv’s lead—letting go and allowing the strobing lights to turn me into someone new for the night too. We’re completely lost to each other and the music. Our own two-man mosh pit.
The alcohol and exertion leave my skin glistening. Rogue curls, slick with sweat, drape themselves across my face until I whip my head back to tousle them into the voluminous mess my hair has become. I don’t know if itlooksnearly as good as it feels—the movements aren’t pretty or perfect. They’re not meant to be. And that, the freedom to move this way, to just exist exactly as we are, is liberating as hell. And sexy as fuck.
Evan’s eyes find me in the dark. The sight of him, shirtless and dripping, stirs something in me. Something I’d signed awaymonths ago, contractually. But buoyed by the night’s energy, none of the old rules matter.
The thought of breaking those rules—of breaking myown—both stops me cold and sets me on fire. Mine is the permission I didn’t realize I’d been waiting for, and once it’s granted, I can practically feel his skilled fingers digging into my flesh. Rough and hurried with need. His sweat and mine, painting us both in a sheen of desire.
I want that. I want him. And tonight, my brain is just foggy enough to let my body act on it. Tonight, that wanting is reason enough for me to have sex with—
