I’m living in the dorms now, just like my uncle promised, but I still spend most of my time at Mike’s place with him and Phoenix. We make the nights count, and during the days—when I’m not volunteering at the shelter, volunteering at the college learning center, or frantically scribbling down notes in class—I’m usually hanging out with my new roommate, Macy, who is super nice, if not a little awkward. She’s the total opposite of Danica—quiet and reserved but a great study partner—and I’m extremely thankful I was roomed with someone who complements me so well. Rowan and Dee freaked out when they discovered she’s my roommate, since she was apparently Dee’s roommate freshman year, and I couldn’t help laughing at the thought of poor Macy trying to hold her own with Deandra Dawson. We had even more in common than I thought, and when I found out that she had even met Mike before, she told me how lucky I was to have such a nice boyfriend, and I couldn’t help agreeing.
After walking over and wrapping my arms around my very nice, very tired boyfriend’s neck, I press my chest against his back and tease in his ear, “Tired? Do you need me to take over?”
Mike chuckles before spinning around and catching me by the waist. He tugs me into his lap and spins us back around, slipping his drumsticks into my hands. “Yeah, considering it’s your fault I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
I barely have time to think of a witty reply before Dee and Rowan start cheering from where they’re sitting at the other side of the club, at the bar. Rowan has a mountain of homework spread on the bartop, and Dee is helping herself to a shot of something she probably shouldn’t be drinking considering it’s only two in the afternoon, but she texted me this morning to let me know that the red dress she made me for the music video is going to be the star feature in her school’s fashion show in New York, so the girl has a damn good reason to celebrate.
“Woo!” Rowan shouts, lifting her hands in the air. “Go Hailey!”
“Let’s see what you’ve got!” Dee encourages, toasting me with the shot glass in her hand.
I cast a nervous glance at Mike, but his smile is electric. “Don’t hold back now, Animal.”
My next glance is at Kit, and she smiles at me. “Pick a song.”
“Uh . . .” Over the past few months, Mike has given me a few drumming lessons, and I try to think of an easy one. “How about ‘Rooftops’?” I ask, thinking of the slow song Shawn wrote for Kit. It’s ridiculously complicated on the guitars, but easy on the drums, so Mike has used it as a good practice song, and Kit’s face lights up when I request it.
She smiles at Shawn at the other side of the stage, and he smiles back before nodding at me.
“Are you ready?” Adam shouts at Rowan and Dee, and Rowan finally puts her pencil down, spinning around to give her boyfriend and his band her full attention. Dee screams her enthusiasm, and Joel laughs as he adjusts his guitar strap on his neck. Adam smiles over his shoulder at me, his gray-green eyes up for anything. “Ready when you are, Hailey.”
I swallow hard, and Mike’s pep talk comes in the form of a shoulder rub that helps calm my nerves. I take a deep breath, he drops his hands, and I play the drums with The Last Ones to Know. Kit plays rhythm guitar, Joel plays bass, Shawn plays lead guitar, and Adam steps up to the mic to start singing one of the band’s most haunting, beautiful songs.
I slip the sticks into Mike’s hands for the more complicated parts of the song, and even when my beat is slightly off during the easier parts, the band pretends not to notice. Mike’s chest against my back, his lap beneath my legs—it makes me feel like I can do this, like I can do anything, and when I finish, Rowan and Dee give me a standing ovation.
“WE LOVE YOU, HAILEY!” they shout in unison, and I laugh as Dee puts her fingers in her mouth, her loud whistle filling the whole room.
Mike hugs me tight and plants a kiss against my cheek, and the smile that splits my face makes me think of how far we’ve come since I first watched him play in this exact spot six months ago.
For Christmas, he surprised me with plane tickets home to Indiana, and it was the best Christmas I’ve ever had. We flew out the day before Luke’s school went on winter break—along with Rowan, Dee, and the rest of Mike’s band—and they played a killer show in Luke’s junior high gym that the kids are still talking about. The day after the show, I brought them all home and introduced them to Teacup, who promptly tried to devour Dee’s sparkly purple pumps.
The band flew home a couple days later, but Mike stayed with me over the holiday. He played gin rummy with my dad, braided pie crust with my mom, and built a snowman with Luke. We opened presents together Christmas morning, and that night, Mike and I sat up in the hayloft together, cocooned inside a mountain of blankets, watching the sun set over the snowy fields.
“I can’t believe you bought Luke a drum kit,” I said for the hundredth time, and Mike hugged me tighter. I was sitting between his legs with my head resting against his chest, admiring the orange ribbons weaving patterns above the snow.
“The kid wants to be a drummer,” Mike stated proudly, and I smiled out the open hatch.
“He wants to be like you,” I corrected while he played with the tips of my fingers beneath the heavy flannel blankets.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Well, for one,” I said as he flirted with the butterflies in my stomach, “you’re annoyingly handsome.”
Mike’s chest shook against my back as he laughed. “Is that right?”
“Yes. And you’re maddeningly talented.”
“Oh no.”
“And irritatingly romantic. I mean, really, Mike. Making me watch the sunset in your arms? You’re the worst.”
He laughed and nuzzled his chin into the crook of my shoulder. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“I’m not sure I can,” I teased, and Mike’s fingers slipped under the hem of my shirt, caressing my stomach as they snuck higher.
“Are you sure?”
I turned my head into him just as his fingers found the delicate lace cups of my bra, and when he captured my mouth with his, I forgot what I needed to forgive him for. He made love to me under those blankets, up in that hayloft, and it was so much different than when I’d lost my virginity in that same barn. It was beautiful and romantic and full of fireworks, and when I fell asleep in his arms that night, I was sure that there was nowhere I’d rather be than on that farm, in that hayloft, with the man who was showing me one day at a time that happily-ever-afters really do exist, even for hand-me-down farm girls like me.
We flew home after the holiday, and Mike took me to meet his mom. My stomach was in knots for nothing, because she immediately gave me a bone-crushing hug and told me how much she already adored me. She had Mike’s warm brown eyes, and I took to her instantly, knowing she had raised the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. She told me all sorts of stories about Mike as a kid, and the more his cheeks flushed as she told them, the more I fell in love with him, which I couldn’t have imagined was even possible. His mom made me promise to come back to try her secret fudge cookie recipe soon—with or without her son—and I promised I’d return the very next weekend, and I did.
I’m still sitting on Mike’s lap at his drums, with Dee and Rowan clapping wildly at the bar, when a voice across the room loudly asks, “What are we cheering for?”