“What do you wanna play?” The guy handed me a Fender.
“‘Use Somebody’ by Kings of Leon.”
“Great song. C major, right?”
I nodded.
“This is Jack on drums, Nick on bass, and Stevie on the keyboards.” He pointed to each member as he introduced them. “I’m Caleb.”
“Ben. Thanks for this, mate.” I shook hands all ’round before hooking the guitar strap over my head. Strumming a chord, I checked that the guitar was in an open C. Perfect. I turned to the drummer. “Count us in?”
He smacked his sticks together, counting one, two, three, four before the music roared through the speakers. His drumsticks flew and I nodded to the beat as I played the intro. Spinning around for the first verse, I leaned into the mic and opened my mouth. My eyes found Andy as I sang about wanting someone like her. She was lit up like a neon sign that said, ‘Here she is, ya dope. What took you so long?’
It was getting easier to forget how we’d met each other. This Andy, the grown-up flirty version, she pulled at me to dig under the surface and get to know her on every level. The huge smile she aimed at me was a dare to walk a forbidden path.
She was only sixteen ...
She was my mate’s sister ...
She is mine.
_____
Andrea
Rockhampton, Australia
7th of November 2008, 10:32 p.m.
After his performance, Ben and I dragged a couple of camping chairs into a quiet corner. I nursed a pretty decent buzz from having two beers and watching my crush rock out on stage. My heart was still thumping, but that could also have been because there we were, hiding in a dark corner, basically alone. I’d known he’d be good. And that song, sung in his deep, gritty voice, had me heating up at my core.
My instincts had told me to get him onstage. I always listened to my instincts. They’d also told me to get him alone in this corner. He didn’t seem to mind. He seemed to love it, actually. Slumping down, we tipped our heads back to watch the galaxy roll on by.
“I have another talent,” I muttered to the sky.
“What is it?”
“I’m a space nut. Ask me something.”
His teeth flashed in the dim light. “Which one is our closest star?”
“Alpha Centauri. Hang on, where’s the Southern Cross?” I scanned the sky, pointing when I’d found it. “There. So Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri are the bright stars to the left of it. They’re both triple star systems, actually.”
“Really? Which one is the brightest star?”
“Sirius. J.K. Rowling should have named Sirius Black, Sirius Bright, but that would’ve ruined the surprise. And anyway, our neighbouring planets usually look brighter than the stars.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah. When I was a kid, I used to make a wish on the first star I saw at dusk. I didn’t realise until later that I was probably wishing on Venus.”
“The goddess of love. That’s not so bad.”
“Oh, that’s perfect. I didn’t think of that.”
“What did you wish for?” He twisted his head to take me in.
I met his stare. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?”
I refocused on the cosmos. “Because I’m still waiting for it to come true.”
“Hm.” Heaving himself up, he slid his bottom back in the seat and rested his elbows on his knees. “Can I ask you about something? Tell me to mind my own business if it’s too personal.”
Uh-oh. “Shoot.”
“Why did you ghost for two years? Where were you?”
Huh. He noticed. “I was processing.”
“Processing?”
It was hard for me to bring up those memories. I’d gone from bright and bubbly to emo in the space of a few days. At the time, I’d let my anger over Jess’s death consume me. I’d stopped dancing. I’d stopped going to watch Stewart play. And, yeah, watching Kelly paw at Ben had tipped me over. I wasn’t going to tell him that I had been ridding myself of my addiction to him as well.
Jealousy was a sign of insecurity. There was never a reason to be jealous of anyone. I understood that now. I was born the way I was for a reason. I would never be someone else and no one could ever be me. The right partner would see sunbeams shooting from my arse, so I didn’t need to worry. If something was meant for me, it would come when the timing was spot on and not a second sooner.
What I’d had to do was let go of my expectations. Expectations were sneaky fuckers that could ruin a perfectly good twist of fate.
I slapped at the back of my neck as pain sank its stinger into my flesh. This was no insect bite. I only experienced this when my senses pinged, warning me of bad juju. It was the same feeling I’d had just before Jess disappeared. My eyes scanned the crowd. There were still as least sixty people milling around. Many of them familiar to me from school and rugby.
Was her killer at the party?
Did I know him? Or her?
Him.
The pain receded almost as fast as it came. I had no way of searching for the possible killer without my sense as a guide. Fuck.
“Andy?” Ben’s question yanked my attention away.
I would have to let it go for now. It could have been a warning about something else.
What were we talking about? Oh, right. “Yes. Processing losing my friend. But I had some growing up to do, too.”
“I think you succeeded.” He snared me in his gaze for the longest moment.
Any dark thoughts instantly cleared under his scrutiny. My breath caught in
