Mike holds the reaching arm of a pricker bush out of my way and answers, “He and Adam just came up to me one day at lunch in the cafeteria and were like, ‘We hear you play the drums.’” He smiles warmly at the memory, continuing the story when I look up at him expectantly. “I was just sitting there drinking a chocolate milk, and they sat down in front of me and told me they were starting a band and wanted to hear me play. They rode my bus home with me after school, and I guess they liked what they heard, because we ended up spending the whole night just hanging out in my garage dreaming up this awesome band we were going to be.”
I didn’t know them back then, but I can see it. I bet Mike was the kind of teenager that didn’t even bother brushing his hair before he went to school each morning. I can picture him with his hours-old bedhead and his fingers drumming on the side of his chocolate milk, and I can see the curiously skeptical look he’d give a lanky Shawn and Adam when they said they wanted to hear him play. It feels like a fond memory—one that makes me smile.
“It was crazy,” Mike continues. “Shawn had that look in his eye even back then. Like when he talked about how we were going to make it big, I believed him. And so did Adam. I just wanted to be a part of that ride, I guess . . . That night was the first time I ever drummed for anyone other than my mom, and here I had these two guys telling me I could be a rock star.”
When Mike looks down at me, he asks, “What?”
A proud smile curves my lips, and I say, “Look at you now.” A faint blush creeps under the scruff on Mike’s cheeks, and I press, “Big record deal with a huge label. A massive music video with thousands of people. An international tour.” I beam up at him, so proud of how far he’s come. “You’ve gotten everything you ever wanted.”
“Not everything,” Mike corrects, and the serious look in his eyes feels like a challenge—Do I need to know? Do I want to know?
“What else is there?” I finally ask, and Mike takes his time with my question, his gaze fixed on the leaves lining our path.
“Right now?” His eyes lift back to mine, drying my throat. “Right now, I really just want to hold your hand again.”
I chew on the inside of my bottom lip, weighing the consequences of what he wants against the heaviness in my heart. And then, before I can overthink it for even one more second, I stretch out my arm and wait for him to take my hand.
Chapter 31
The way Mike’s fingers lace with mine—his thumb outside of my thumb, his fingertips snug against the top of my hand—it feels like more than just holding hands, but that’s what I keep telling myself: It’s just holding hands, it’s just holding hands.
As we walk, I ask him more about growing up with Adam and Shawn. I laugh at the way he describes a numskull teenage Joel. I get him to tell me about his mom, his dad who lives in Texas, his half sister and the turtle she had as a pet for a while. And I’m not sure why I ask all of these things, except that I don’t have the willpower not to.
Mike is like a book that I can’t stop reading. And even if I finished—even if I got to the very last line of the very last page—I’m pretty sure I’d want to read him over and over and over again.
We walk toward the cabin but never get there, since we turn around when it starts getting dark. It’s just a walk—a walk in the woods under a dusk-stained sky, with Mike Madden making me laugh. I’m in a pretty dress, and he’s holding my hand, and nothing can go wrong—until it does.
“Oh my God,” I blurt as my feet freeze on the path. My hand jerks from Mike’s, and I stand there in a blind panic. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
“What?” Mike worries, looking around for a snake or a rabid raccoon or a chupacabra or something, while I just stand there paralyzed, staring wide-eyed down at my dress.
“My dress.”
In the low light, Mike follows my line of vision and spots the branch with its fangs lodged in a layer of my flawless red tulle. “Don’t move.”
“Oh my God.”
“Just stand still,” Mike orders, dropping to his knees.
“Oh my God.”
“It’s going to be fine,” he assures me. “I can get it out.”
“I ruined it.”
“When have I ever let you down?” Mike asks, getting to work. I brace my hands on his shoulders to keep my balance. I can’t believe I snagged Dee’s gorgeous, priceless, perfect dress. She didn’t even get a grade on it yet, and I destroyed it.
“I fixed your hoodie, didn’t I?” Mike reminds me as I stare up at the sky, praying for a miracle. “And I saved you from drowning in the pond. And I rescued you from that basset hound at the animal shelter.” I tilt my chin down to give him a confused look, and he smirks up at me. “That dog was an insatiable little monster. He probably would’ve eaten you alive.”
“Barb named him KissyPie . . .”
“Should’ve named him Cujo,” Mike counters, and I laugh.
“My hero,” I joke, and he flashes me another heart-stopping smile before returning his attention to my dress.
“So speaking of,” Mike starts as he gently maneuvers the red tulle. “I was talking to Luke last night, and I was thinking . . . when we get back from tour, I’d like to play a little show at his school. Me and the guys.”
“Why?” I ask in disbelief. I know he’s trying to distract me from the dress, and it’s working. I imagine a band as big as Mike’s playing at a school as small as Luke’s, and how much that would mean to my timid little brother.
“I was thinking it might help. I know he gets picked on a lot and isn’t having an easy time making friends, but I bet a lot of the kids he goes to school with have heard of us. I bet they’d think it’s cool that he’s our friend.”
Friend. Mike Madden, Sexy as Fuck rock star with thousands of people currently waiting to be in his music video, is willing to be friends with my twelve-year-old brother to help him make friends at school. When he looks up at me from where he’s kneeling at my feet, all I can do is stare at him.
“What do you think?” he asks, and I tell him the truth.
“I think you’re amazing.”
The corners of Mike’s mouth tip up, and my eyes follow them when he stands. All I can think about is how soft those lips must be, how badly I want to find out.
“I meant about the dress,” he says, and when I glance down, I realize he’s holding it out for me to see. He fishes his phone from his pocket and shines a light on the bloodred tulle, his fingers brushing mine as we both move the material this way and that.
There’s nothing. Not one snag, not one rip, not one trace of the thorn that had promised to ruin it.
Words aren’t enough when I look up at him this time. I stare up into his big brown eyes, and my gaze slides slowly back down to his lips. With my four-inch boots, they’re not so far away. Mike lets my dress fall from his fingers, and—
“Mike Madden.” Adam Everest’s voice booms from speakers not too far away. “Mike Madden, we’re going to need you to get your ass back here so we can start filming, over.” A short pause. “Unless you’re getting laid, over. In which case, hurry it up, over.”
“I’m going to kill him,” Mike decides as we both stare in the direction of Adam’s voice. Mike takes in the beet-red color of my face and shakes his head. “I’m seriously going to kill him.”
“After you play at my brother’s school,” I agree, and Mike rubs a hand down his face.