Because I could never think about Brody without also thinking about the many, many chances I’d had to make him mine… and fucked itallup.
* * *
Icould hearthe thumping rhythm of The Doors’ “Back Door Man” spilling out of the giant barn at the edge of the field. Even at nineteen, Zane could belt out that song, and the newly-formed Dirty—Zane, Jesse, Dylan and Elle—were beyond amazing. I was thrilled that Brody had discovered Dylan and Elle playing with their other band at some party and poached them for us. Everyone knew the four of them were magic together. We finally had our band, and we were goingplaces.
As long as those places had me home, in bed, by eleveno’clock.
It was so fucking unfair I couldn’t stand it. How was I ever going to be the next great songwriter if I wasn’t even allowed to come totheshow?
Yes, I was fifteen, but so what? I was old enough to party. I wasn’t naive. I knew what went on at parties like this… more or less. I wasn’t going to go allGirls Gone Wildor anything. I just wanted to hear the band and have a beer and be partofit.
Which was why I’d let Roni bring me here, to some biker party outside of town where Dirty and a couple of other bands were playing. Me, just aching for a night of freedom and hoping to soak up some of the musical vibe, and her, hoping to run into Jude’s brother,Piper.
Roni was new to my high school that year. She was a grade above me, pretty, popular, and always up for anything. My brother didn’t particularly like her, since he probably figured she was a bad influence on me. It wasn’t her fault, though, that her entry into my life happened to coincide with me growing a pair and deciding Iwantedalife.
Or maybe he just didn’t like that half his friends wanted to screw her. Fat chance, since Roni had her sights set a little…older.
As soon as Roni found out that my brother’s best friend’s older brother was a member of the West Coast Kings—a real, badass motorcycle club, which meant the seriously criminal kind—she was all in. Apparently, my friend Roni not only liked older men, but if they liked to live dangerously all the better. My other friends thought Piper was scary, and not sexy-scary like Jude, just scary-scary. I’d known Piper since I was a little girl, so I didn’t think he was all that scary, but I could see why other people found him intimidating, since he had all the muscles and the tattoos and he didn’t exactly walk around handing outlollipops.
Not Roni. For Roni, the scarier thebetter.
“You have to introduce me to him,” she told me as we wound our way through thecrowd.
“You know the minute he sees my face, I’m getting kicked outofhere?”
“Whatever. Just wait ’til he sees your ass in thosejeans.”
Oh, Roni. She did not get it. It didn’t matter how my ass looked in my jeans. Correction: the better my ass looked in my jeans, the faster I was getting kicked out. Especially with the way the guys—men—in this place were looking at us as we made our way through thecrowd.
Well, looking at Roni, for sure. You couldn’t really miss her in her black velvet bustier and skin-tight jeans, a line of rhinestones up the back of her butt that looked like a bejeweled g-string and made it really, really easy to picture her wearing nothing but one—which was probably thepoint.
I was a little more low-key in my brother’s QOSASongs for the DeafT-shirt. It was red and had a black pitchfork across it. I’d cut both the neck and sleeves off so he’d never demand it back, and wore it hanging off one shoulder with my tight black jeans. I wasn’t exactly Roni-hot, but I was feeling pretty cute, pretty good all around,until…
“What.The.Fuck.”
Great.
I turned tofacehim.
“Hey, Brody,”Isaid.
“The fuck are youdoinghere?”
Shit. He waspissed.
“You’ve got five minutes,” Jude said, appearing next to him. No pre-amble, no “nice to see you,bratface.”
“Five minutes until what?” I askedinnocently.
“’Til I bounce your ass out of here,” Jude said. “Say your hellos and goodbyes and let’s getgoing.”
Roni flipped her dark hair, looking bored. “I’m gone,” she told me. “Call you later, ’kay?” Then she flashed Jude a smile. “Later,jailor.”
“Keep an eye on that one,” Brody told Jude as she sashayed off into thecrowd.
“Why?”
“’Cause she’s sixteen. She gets to drinking, bounce herasshome.”
