Sweat, beer and the faintest hint of weed wafted through the air. The space was almost completely dark, with every overhead light in the exposed ceiling turned off. Only the stage lights and dim bar lights over a large selection of alcohol illuminated the room. Tables were spread out in between the t-shirt stands in the back and the space in front of the stage where standing fans congregated. Board games were stacked unceremoniously on a cluttered bookcase near the front door and the stairs leading to the balcony were roped off. Welcome to the Slowdown.
The opening band was blasting on stage, their drums beating so loudly my heart was forced to keep quick rhythm and I felt the reverberation of the bass guitar to my very bones. I didn’t know their name, and really I didn’t need to. I just wanted to sport my under twenty-one wrist band that declared under no circumstances should I be served alcohol, even though the bouncer tried to convince me I looked twenty-one and would totally get away with a real wrist band…. come on…. what will it hurt?
His words not mine.
I said, “It will hurt me, damn it! I will obviously drink cheap tequila until I’m obliterated, then leave with some random, way-too-old-for-me-stranger, get knocked up, get into a drunk-driving accident and then I will die! And then you will be responsible for the death of a sixteen year old minor! Damn it!”
My exact words.
Then he shrunk back on his stool and gulped, “Sixteen?”
And then I walked into the music hall completely satisfied with how that went down.
Despite my aversion to certain libations tonight, I was still thirsty after two and a half hours on and/or waiting for various public transportations. So I pushed my way through the pressing crowd and to the bar. In the trek over I had to weave through lots and lots of bodies and then in order to get a place at the bar I had to stand near the back of the room where the t-shirts were being sold, and elbow my wait to the chest-high counter.
I didn’t mind it back here. The air was fresher and cooler and it was decidedly less populated since most of the crowd was currently trying to press into one solidified organism, like the human centipede, against the stage. It wasn’t going to work, but there was no use telling that to them.
“Water!” I yelled when I caught the bartender’s attention. He gave me a questioning look so I waved my wristband his way and he nodded in a disappointed but resigned way.
Once upon a time, before I could hold my liquor, Nix had taught me to order a Blue Dolphin when at a bar, which was essentially water on the rocks. He said ordering it that way would make me sound more sophisticated. When I ordered water now, I did it with a smile and hoped to God it made me sound as immature and pathetic as possible.
I gulped the deliciously cold tap water down in two huge swallows as soon as the bartender handed it to me. Before he could get the chance to walk away I made a circle motion with my pointer finger and yelled, “keep ‘em coming!”
That earned me an amused but slightly predatory grin from the college-aged bartender with floppy black hair and neck tattoos. I had a thing for tattoos, it was like a weakness of mine, but I was so off the clock tonight.
So I turned my head away from Mr. I Dig Minors bartender and out to the riotous crowd. This was it; this was why I loved Wednesdays. There was too much adrenaline pumping in the shared air for people to really notice me. I mean, if I was talking one on one to someone they got the vibes, but usually people were so absorbed in the music I was hardly noticed at all. And the smells of cheap liquor and vomit helped put them off the scent.
Not to mention I had a deep and abiding love affair with music.
All music.
It didn’t really matter what kind or how good. If it, whatever it was, was put to music I could easily lose myself completely. Seriously from bad pop to heavy rock to my favorite classical composers, I loved it all.
Well maybe except the Jazz Flute. Regular flute was fine. But jazz…. that was an entirely different circle of hell as far as I was concerned.
An ugly, confusing, shrill sounding circle of Hell.
Just don’t tell Ron Burgundy I felt that way.
It was during this perusal of my environment that my eyes fell into, not to, but into the gray depths of Ryder Sutton. I felt my mouth fall open; literally my bottom lip detached from the firm hold my top lip had on it and my jaw followed.
He glared at me from across the room. Glared at me. He had his back to the far wall and one foot propped up with his knee bent. His arms were folded across his chest and even from here I could see ripped biceps tensed and flexed. He was in the same outfit he wore earlier today, the only difference was his hair was slightly bigger. It wasn’t like his hair had multiplied or anything, but it just stood out from his head a bit less controlled…. crazier…. no…. sexier. Like he had his hands in it, or someone else had their hands in it.
Like Kenna Lee, who had just walked passed me without even noticing I was here and straight to her cliché-rebel-boyfriend. Ryder then proceeded to take his eyes off me, put them on his girlfriend and then rock her world by pulling her into the most disgusting display of public affection I had ever seen.
Gross.
I so did not get people kissing in front of other people.
Hell, I didn’t even get how people liked other people enough to like kissing them.
Romance was weird.
In my life, romance didn’t even exist.
The bartender handed me my second glass of water and when I was finished with that one, I slammed it down on the bar like I had just finished the proudest kind of awful-tasting-shot. This earned a throw your head back kind of laugh from Neck Tattoos, to which I had to agree, I was hilarious.
It was amazing how escaping my life for even just three hours took the weight off my shoulders and allowed me to have some fun. If I could let this loose after three hours, imagine ultimate freedom in two years.
I winced in anticipation. I could make it. I could get through two years.
“Ivy?” someone yelled from behind me.
I gave the bartender a desperate look for more water to which he shook his head, amused at me, and then turned around praying it wasn’t Ryder and Kenna.
Some prayers are answered with a “yes.”
Some prayers are answered with a “no.”
This was a “no” kind of situation.
“Hey!” I shouted over the music. “What are you doing here?” I forced myself to keep my eyes on Kenna and not look around for Ryder who seemed to have disappeared. He hated me that much he couldn’t even stand to have awkward small talk with me?
I seriously had to get to the bottom of this.
“My boyfriend is playing tonight,” Kenna shouted back. She was dressed for the girlfriend-of-the-band part in a fifties style red and black polka-dot wrap around dress. Her long, black hair floated around her shoulders in silky straightness that remained perfectly unfrizzed and untouched by the humid atmosphere of the bar. She was wearing a proud smile and bouncing in her vintage ivory pumps showing off her extreme excitement.