Unfamiliar (7 page)

“I’m so sorry babe. They need me— it’s for some charity and I can't really back out of it now.”

“But it's okay for you to back out of plans with me?” Irritation was taking over the shock and disappointment. Was he actually going to blow me off for his friends? I think this was the first time that had ever happened.

“I'm not really backing out of plans with you.”

“No, you just forgot that you had them in the first place,” I snapped.

“Look, I told you I'm sorry. I didn't do it on purpose. Don't be mad at me, babe.” He tried to pull me into his arms, but I turned away and climbed into the passenger side of his truck.

The ride back to campus was as silent as the ride home to Southlake, but unlike the ‘compatible silence’ from before, the truck was filled with a thick, pressing tension.

When he finally pulled into the drive in front of my dorm, he put the truck into park and turned toward me.

“Hailey,” he started. I did the most mature and reasonable thing I could think of— I crossed my arms and looked out the window. “Hailey, don't be like that. You know I would never intentionally blow you off, I really did forget. Besides, it’s not like I’m blowing you off for anything questionable— it’s for a good cause. And you don't really want me to intrude on your bonding time with your roommate, do you?”

“She's taking me to a bar,” I said pointedly. “A bar. There will likely be more drunk guys than sober. I really needed you there with me.”

He seemed to think about that for a moment.

“You don't have to go you know,” he finally said. “Just tell her you don't feel good.”

“And spend a Saturday night alone in my dorm room while my boyfriend hangs out with his friends?”

“Well, yeah, I guess.”

“You’re right, that just sounds like so much fun,” I said sarcastically. “I'll talk to you later.”

I slammed the truck door shut. I half expected him to come after me but he didn't, and I'm not going to lie, I was a little disappointed about that.

It was only late afternoon but Tessa was already getting ready for her sort-of-date. I hardly counted watching someone's band play and hanging out afterward as a date, but who was I to judge? My boyfriend was blowing me off tonight to play basketball with a bunch of sweaty guys.

“I thought the concert didn't start until nine?” I asked her as she pulled a short, black strapless dress up over her head and flung it to the floor which was already littered with piles of discarded dresses, skinny jeans, and tops.

“I have nothing to wear,” she complained.

“What do you call all of this?” I asked, gesturing first to the growing mound of clothes on the floor and then to her closet which was still overflowing with wardrobe choices.

“Yeah, but nothing is right.” She dug frantically through her closet again. It was no wonder she couldn't find what she was looking for—everything in her closet was hung haphazardly and with no semblance of order whatsoever. She didn't even separate her winter clothes from her summer clothes. Maybe I should offer to organize it for her by color and season. It would probably make her life much easier.

“What are you going to wear tonight?”

“Um, well, I think I'm actually going to just stay in,” I mumbled. I wasn’t really in the mood to go out anymore.

She stopped pawing through her chaotic closet and spun around on her heels. “What? No you aren't! You promised— Girl Code, remember?”

“You know that's not a real thing, right?”

“Why-ee?” She pouted, drawing the word out into two syllables.

“Braxton— ” I stopped myself before telling her that he was blowing me off. For some reason, I didn't want her to think badly of him. It wasn't like he did this to me all the time. “Braxton isn't feeling too well so he's not coming.”

“So?”

“So—” I said. “I don't think I should go to a bar without my boyfriend.”

“Ohmygod Hailey! Don't be a loser! Just come hang out with me. I promise, I won't let any drunk guys get the wrong idea. I'll be your personal body guard.”

I eyed my scrawny roommate up and down with a raised eyebrow. If anyone needed a bodyguard—it was her.

She rolled her eyes at me like she knew what I was thinking then turned back around to her closet and yanked something out.

“Here,” she said, tossing it to me. “Wear this.”

“First of all, I said I wasn't going.” I held up the red dress she just threw at me. “And second, there is no way anything of yours is gonna fit me. I, unlike some people in this room, was not built to walk a runway. I have boobs. And an ass.”

“First of all,” she echoed my words, “yes, you are going, because surely a responsible person like you wouldn't dream of sending her beloved roommate to a bar alone. Safety in numbers, right, Hay?” She walked over to me and grabbed the dress from my hands then held it up in front of me. “And second, trust me. This dress will look amazing on you.”

I stared her down.

“I'm not giving in!” she sang.

“Fine. Whatever.” I turned my back to her so I could change with some semi-privacy. If she wasn't going to take my word for it, I had no choice but to put the damn dress on and let her see for herself. The fabric felt expensive and I silently prayed I didn’t tear it trying to squeeze my booty into it.

I pulled the red sheath dress on— it was stretchy which made me feel better because I could at least breathe, but it was definitely tighter than anything I had ever worn before. I turned around slowly with my eyes closed. I had agreed to try the dress on to prove my point about it looking ridiculous on me, but that didn't mean I wanted to see the inevitable look of disgust on her face when she realized I was right.

“I kinda hate you right now,” she said.

“What? Why?” I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter. “Did I rip it?” I blindly started feeling around the seams of the dress—it felt intact.

“What? God, no! You look amazing!”

I opened one of my eyes to peek at her, trying to gauge if she was being serious. She looked sincere so I opened my other eye and dared a look in the mirror. It was tight— really tight and it made my boobs and butt look huge.

“I'm NOT wearing this.”

“Why not?”

“Seriously, I look like a whore.”

“Watch it— that’s my dress you’re wearing,” she said defensively, but then winked to let me know she was just teasing.

“I look ridiculous.”

“Um, are you blind?”

“I'm serious. If you really want me to go out with you tonight, I'm not wearing this. I'm going to at least wear normal clothes.”

“Fine, dress like a freakin' librarian. As long as you're coming with me I don't care what you wear!”

“I do not dress like a librarian.”

She looked at me pointedly, then rolled her eyes.

After Tessa finally decided what she was going to wear, we walked down to grab dinner at the dorm cafeteria. I didn’t eat much. I mostly just pushed my salad around the plate with a fork. I was surprisingly nervous about tonight. I had never been in a bar before. This one was called
Duke’s
and was one of the very few around that was open to eighteen year olds.

Tessa scarfed down her dinner with impressive speed. I was still amazed that someone as thin as her could eat like she did. She couldn’t be real.

We went back to our room to change into our ‘going out clothes’ as Tessa called them. My ‘going out’ attire wasn’t any different than what I normally wore though. I always went for comfort over style so, I had to admit, I felt very plain standing next to Tessa. She wore her long auburn curls loose down her back tonight, and looked stunning in her trendy dark skinny jeans and a black and white top that criss-crossed in the back. She paired the outfit with some stilettos that made her already long legs look even longer.

Duke's
was already packed by the time we got there. I noticed the poster on the front of the door announcing that
Set the Flames
would be playing tonight.

We paid our cover charge and the bouncer slapped the ugly ‘under 21’ paper bracelets on our wrists before we entered the smoky bar. The place was packed wall to wall making it nearly impossible to squeeze through, but we somehow managed. I scanned the crowd of countless girls wearing too-tight dresses with their boobs popping out and the sleazy guys that couldn't help but stare.

“There's nowhere to sit,” I yelled over the noise. Nowhere clean, anyway. Maybe my cream-colored sweater wasn't the best outfit choice after all. I felt completely out of place in this dirty, smoky, red-hazed bar.

“Just follow me,” she shouted back. She led the way, weaving us around the crowd of bodies until we were only a few tables from the stage. We came to a high top table with a sign on it that said ‘Reserved’. She winked at me and took a seat. Relieved, I sat across the table from her with my back to the stage. I casually picked up the menu just for something to do.

The generic bar music stopped and the crowd suddenly erupted into a deafening roar as the band took the stage. Tessa's grin was huge and she nodded toward the stage expectantly, presumably to encourage me to check out her new hot boyfriend. I turned around in my seat to scan the stage for the drummer. He may have been perfectly good-looking but all I could focus on was his electric blue Mohawk. I was definitely not expecting that. I looked around at the other band members to see if they all had brightly colored Mohawks too—wondering if it was their 'thing', but they didn't. The rest of them had normal haircuts.

The lead singer had his back to the audience. He caught my attention—though I'd never admit that out loud. Girls like me didn't blatantly check out guy's asses, but even I had to admit he had a nice one. He was wearing a cutoff shirt that showed off his well-sculpted arms and all of his tattoos. His loose fitting jeans looked like they had seen better days. The sad thing was, he’d probably bought them like that. He turned around to face the crowd and suddenly all thoughts of Mohawks and muscles left my mind. I was pretty sure my mouth hit the floor—it was Chase.

The band started to play and a group of squealing, screaming girls swarmed in front of the stage. I actually saw one of them take off her bra and slingshot it at Chase's feet. It was a little ridiculous. I supposed I understood why they might find him attractive in an I'm-in-a-band sort of way, but tattoos and noise weren't really my kind of thing.

I was curious to find out what the big deal was with these guys. The band was good— for pop punkers or punk poppers, whatever it was— and the music wasn’t exactly what I had imagined it would be.

I found myself watching Chase as he performed, and hearing him sing the lyrics, I could tell that he was the one who’d written them. I didn’t know how I knew, I just did and I was impressed with that fact.  Even though it wasn't exactly my favorite kind of music, I could appreciate the passion he so obviously had for it.

Truth be told— and I hated to admit it— but watching Chase perform was nothing short of mesmerizing.

Chase

So, there I was up on stage doing my thing. You know, the usual stuff? Rocking out, getting swept up in the music, thrusting my hips—hey, don’t judge, it totally added to the entertainment factor.

As I looked around the bar, soaking up the energy and enthusiasm from the crowd, my eyes fell on a girl sitting at a table close to the stage.

She stood out because she was the only one who looked like she had a stick up her ass. Also, she was dressed in an outfit my mother had probably worn to work in her thirties.

My eyes zeroed in on her cream cardigan and I almost gagged. Okay, make that in her forties. My parents would’ve loved that whole ensemble.

Seriously, why was Librarian Girl here? This hole-in-the-wall bar wasn’t her scene. Was the world out to get me or something? I couldn’t seem to get away from her.

As our final song wrapped up, I stepped closer to the microphone and stared into the crowd. “We are
Set the Flames
and we wanna thank you guys for coming out to see us tonight. We’re gonna hang around, so if you’re over 21, you should come buy our underage asses a drink at the bar.”

The crowd cheered and laughed as I headed over to unplug my guitar from the amp. As the other guys started clearing our equipment off the stage, I glanced over my shoulder to seek out Hailey in the crowd.

Instead, my eyes locked with a guy who was walking around the raised platform that we’d been performing on. He grinned as he approached me and held out a hand.

“Hi, you’re Chase? I’m Parker; I work for the Vibe Group. I emailed you a couple of weeks ago about coming out to see you guys perform.”

Holy shit. The promoter dude had actually shown up! I could feel adrenaline surging through me—mostly from having just performed, but also from the fact that someone important had come out just to see us play.

Trying to stay as calm as possible, I shook his hand. “Hey, Parker, thanks for coming out to see us. What did you think?”

I might as well get to the point because, honestly, we weren’t going places if this guy thought we sucked. No one was going to invest their time and money in a band that sounded  like crap live and couldn’t draw a crowd.