Inside the dressing room, I unzipped my backpack. Despite spending an atrocious amount of time planning my outfits, now that I was here, I hated most of what I’d packed. If I had any hope of fitting in with the bands on this tour and everyone in their orbit, I needed to look the part. Thing is, I had no idea what that meant. So far, I’d only seen one woman since I’d arrived backstage, and she’d looked like a venue employee. I wished I’d paid more attention to what the girls lining up around the parking lot were wearing.
Out of my two friends, Zoey was a master with makeup, but Sophie was the one who knew more about fashion. She’d packed me a few dresses that were way bolder than anything I’d ever worn, but I knew what she’d say if I messaged her for advice.When in doubt, overdress.
I pulled on a slinky black dress that Sophie had gifted me. It reached to my mid-thigh, was held up by two thin straps, and cinched at the waist. The fabric shimmered in the light of the plain dressing room due to the wispy gold threads woven inside. The dress was beautiful, and I thought it made me look older.
I walked up to the mirror and inspected my face. Brown freckles stood out on my makeup-less nose, and the skin under my eyes was puffy. I didn’t wear makeup often, but I had gone through a few intense masterclasses with Zoey in the past few weeks. Following the instructions she’d given me, I applied some blush, eyeshadow, and mascara and took a selfie for my friends.
“Nailed it?”
Sophie’s response came within a few seconds.
“HELL YEAH. Nailed IT, now go nail HIM. But send pics first so I can give you the thumbs up.”
Giggling to myself in the empty dressing room, I took one final look in the mirror.
Looking back at me was a long-haired man.
I gasped and turned to face him, stumbling over my feet. He crossed the distance between us with two wobbly steps and gripped my elbow in an attempt to steady me. He didn’t seem too steady himself.
Within moments, I recognized him. It was Jamie Berg, the lead singer of Ritual Disruption. What was he doing in the women’s dressing room? He reeked of booze, and as we stood inches away from each other, his hand still on my arm, he swayed on his feet.
“Wha-what are you doing here?” I asked, pulling out of his grip and taking a step back.
“Looking for something different.”
Despite the situation, something in me stirred at the sound of his voice. It was almost a purr, all velvet and seduction. My heart hammered in my chest. In all the photos I’d seen of him, he’d been so beautiful he’d seemed unreal. But whatever beauty he’d had possessed when the photos were taken was now overshadowed by the fact that he was clearly unwell.
He was too thin. His skin was stretched taut across the sharp contours of his face and his cheekbones stood out more prominently than they should. I could see his collarbones peeking up from above his ripped T-shirt. The blue veins in his arms trailed up his forearms, visible even under the tattoos, and there was a greenish tint to the skin of his face. The only thing about him that still truly resembled the photos I’d seen were his eyes. They were the lightest gray I’d ever seen, and they reminded me of a foggy River Valley morning.
He stumbled closer, his gaze sweeping up and down me, perusing my shoulders, my chest, my lips…His hand landed on the locker to his right with a thud, and he leaned into it, using it to support his unsteady body.
“Looks like I found it,” he whispered. “What’s your name?”
“Ivy,” I said, taking another step back when he pushed off the locker to continue his advance.
“Ivy,” he drew out, and a chill ran down my back. No one had ever said my name like that. With reverence. “A beautiful name. It fits you.”
My back collided with the cold wall of lockers behind me at the same time his palms landed beside my head. The stench of alcohol washed over me again, this time more potent than before. I craned my neck to look at his face, steeling myself to tell him to back off.
Our eyes met, and what I saw inside his made me pause. He looked…lost. Before I could utter a word, he leaned forward and pressed his mouth against mine.
His lips were hard and merciless. My jaw dropped from shock, and he took that as an invitation to plunge his tongue inside my mouth and explore its furthest corners.
I’ve never been kissed like this before. What had happened at the end of my one date had felt so different that I was sure I was now engaging in a completely separate act. He drank the air out of my lungs and the protests that were beginning to bubble in my throat. It was as if I wasn’t a girl, but a source of some delicious nectar.
My limbs were frozen in disbelief, fear, and something that might have been a completely unexpected pang of arousal. I was vaguely aware of Jamie’s hands still anchored beside my head, not touching me, but I could feel the heat coming off his body across every inch of my exposed skin.
What felt like minutes but must have been seconds passed, and my brain began to function once again. I moved to push him off, but before my palms could land on his chest, he was torn away from me. One blink later, and he was sprawled on the ground at my feet.
I screamed, a girly sound that I hated as soon as it escaped my lungs. My brother stood above Jamie, his face a terrifying grimace of anger and shock.
2
The scream was a mistake.
It set something off in Cole that I’d never seen in him before—something violent. My brother wasn’t one for resolving conflict with fists, given that we’d been raised by two peace-loving hippies that liked to give out free hugs at political rallies, but my scream must have triggered something more primal. He whirled away from me, kneeled above Jamie, and savagely punched him in the face.
Shouts erupted, and I pressed farther into the hard lockers at my back. Bodies lunged at Cole, pulling him off the fallen singer, but I couldn’t make out anyone’s faces. All of their features had become blurred. My heart still hammered against my ribs, and heat was spreading through my chest.
