Jack managed to stand his ground, creating a little pocket of unmashedness. He noticed my predicament, and rather deftly, he scooped me up and dropped me on his shoulders, so my legs were straddling his neck.
I became very conscious of the fact that I weighed something over a hundred pounds (the exact amount is irrelevant) and that had to be heavy. Hell, fifty pounds sounded heavy when it’s sitting on your shoulders.
“Let me know if I get too heavy,” I shouted over the music.
“You won’t!” Jack yelled back, and I knew that was true.
Throughout the entire show (which was spectacular), he never faltered or even hinted at putting me down. When the crowd started to disperse, I was still on his shoulders, and I thought he might carry me out. Instead, he lifted me up off his shoulders and set me on the ground.
“Holy cow!” I said after he’d put me down. “You must eat like a double dose of Wheaties every day!”
“What are you talking about?” Jack asked, looking at me like I was insane.
“You’re super strong!” Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed his bicep, trying to feel some massive amounts of hidden muscle, but honestly, it felt pretty ordinary.
“You’re just really light.” Jack started walking away, attempting to end that line of conversation, but I hurried after him.
“What’s your angle?” I asked, trying to sound more playful than demanding.
“Isosceles,” Jack quipped.
“What?” If Milo had been there, he probably would’ve understood the reference, but geometry wasn’t my thing.
“You asked me what my angle was, so I said isosceles,” Jack explained, looking down at me to make sure that he wasn’t losing me in the crowd. “It’s a type of a triangle with two equal sides. I suppose that’s not really an angle, and I would’ve said something like acute or obtuse, but I thought that would either sound like I was hitting on you or calling you stupid. I should’ve said oblique. That would’ve been good. Damn! I’m gonna remember that for next time.”
“You’re the most cryptic person I’ve ever met,” I sighed.
We stepped outside into the night air, and I pulled my sweatshirt tighter to me, flipping the hood up over my head. Normally, the night air felt refreshing after being all sweaty and crammed with other people on the floor, but since I’d been on Jack’s shoulders, I hadn’t gotten hot at all.
He didn’t look sweaty from fighting off the mosh pit, and the cold didn’t seem to affect him either. I was tempted to reach out and take his hand to see what the temperature felt like, but it felt too awkward.
“So, did you have fun?” Jack asked me as we strolled to his car.
“I did,” I smiled at him. “Did you?”
“Of course.”
There was always this wonderful rush after a good concert, like adrenaline but less panicky. So when they let out, I usually talked a mile a minute about the show, the people, just anything, and everything.
Tonight, though, I fell silent. There were millions of things running through my mind that I wanted to talk about, but very little had to do with the performance I had seen, so I kept my mouth shut.
“I don’t mean to be cryptic,” Jack said at length.
We were almost to his car, but he stopped walking and kept his gaze focused on some point straight ahead. His hands were shoved deep in the pocket of his Dickies shorts, and he sighed.
“I don’t have an angle. Just…” He looked over at me, as if to make sure that I was still listening. I peered up at him from underneath my hood, and he smirked a little. “You’re cold. We should get in the car.”
“No! Tell me what you were going to say first!” I demanded, sounding more forceful than I meant to, but Jack only laughed. Then he went back to staring straight ahead, and his expression went somber.
“I don’t want you to think that I’m completely egotistical, cause I’m not. I’m just realistic.”
“You’re talking about the way all the girls look at you?”
“Yeah,” Jack said sheepishly. “Everyone kind of… reacts to me a certain way. And you don’t. It’s refreshing. So that’s what I’m doing here. With you.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” I waved my hands at him, feeling a wave of disappointment. “What about the way other people react to you? Why do they do that?”
“I don’t know.” Jack shifted slightly, and I knew he was lying. He knew exactly what was going on, but he wasn’t going to tell me.
“That’s not fair!”
“See?” Jack smiled. “This is refreshing. Do you know how many other people argue with me, about anything?”
“If you think this is refreshing, just wait.” I tried to glower at him, but his smile was just too damn infectious.
“Come on,” Jack started walking towards the car again. “You’re gonna freeze to death.”
“Jack!” I protested but hurried after him. “What is it? Is it something in the way you smell that I’m just not getting?” He got a look of total surprise and made a clicking sound with his tongue. “What?”
“Well, yeah, that’s actually pretty much it,” Jack admitted. He unlocked his car and then walked around to the other side, still looking a little stunned. I hopped into the car and he continued, “It’s a pheromone or something like that.”