You Should See Me in a Crown(38)
“If that were the surprise, would you still have come with me?” She raises her eyebrows, and I can tell she’s aiming for a joke, but something about her tone tells me she’s genuinely curious. That she really thinks I might run if she makes a wrong move tonight. Like I—too lanky for my own good, more awkward than not Liz Lighty—am the one who would ever consider walking away from this.
The thought is so wild, so backward, that I almost laugh.
“If there’s one thing I can promise you”—I look out the window because suddenly the thought of making eye contact with her as I say this makes me so nervous I feel like puking—“it’s that I’ll probably follow you wherever you lead me tonight, Amanda McCarthy.”
The show is general admission, so even though there’s two hours left until the doors open, the line is already beginning to wrap around Old National Centre. But Mack parks at a meter across the street and gestures for me to follow her, past the line and up to a side door. A tall white guy in a black T-shirt and black jeans stands stoic with a cigarette in his hand until Mack walks up. When he smiles and waves us inside, it’s so unexpected, I almost take a step back from the sheer force of surprise.
I have so many questions as he leads us into the building and down a set of hallways, I barely even know where to begin.
“Wait. Am I currently on a date with a rock star double agent without my knowledge?”
Mack blushes and reaches down to lace her fingers through mine like it’s just totally natural. And for some reason, I’m not even thrown off by it. Like maybe, in this weird alternate universe in which the girl I like might also be an undercover rock star, and I’m totally the type of person who hangs out backstage at concerts, this is the sort of thing we do.
“Not a rock star.” She grins. The guy from outside is talking to someone through his walkie-talkie as we wind through the halls. “More like a junior roadie. The band was cool enough to let me tag along on a couple of the Midwest dates last summer.”
“You still haven’t explained how—” I don’t get to finish, because as soon as the security guy pushes open a door to some dank-smelling room, people rush us quicker than I can keep up with.
“Baby coz!” Someone shouts and lifts himself out of his chair. And—
It’s Davey Mack, the skinny and scraggly but somehow unbelievably star-worthy bassist of Kittredge, doing a convoluted handshake with my date. When they’re done, he turns to me with the same goofy smile he had on their cover of Billboard two months ago. “And baby coz’s girlfriend. She told us you were a crazy-good musician, but she failed to mention how cute you are.”
More people come over to hug us and say their hellos, and I realize just how many people are in the room. The entirety of the band, and maybe even a couple of crew members, are sitting around talking and eating and plucking at their guitars.
“Davey, do you have to flirt with literally every human being on the planet?” Mack groans. I notice she doesn’t correct the part about me being her girlfriend, and I try not to think about the butterflies in my stomach at the thought. “Liz, I’m sorry my cousin doesn’t know how to turn off his rock star anymore.”
I freeze midway to another handshake. She has got to be kidding me.
“Cousin?” When I look at his curly red hair, it clicks.
She and Davey throw fake punches at each other for a second, and I feel, not for the first time tonight, that I am out of my depth with this girl.
And as they go at it, the rest of the room resets, going back to whatever it was they were doing before we arrived.
“Is this okay?” When she’s done fake fighting, Mack leans in and whispers in my ear. I can hear her smile without seeing it. “These guys are a bit … much. Todd—the guy you met at the door—taught me all the best ways to shut them up though, if need be. And only two of them involve brute force.”
I laugh, something light and airy and altogether un-me sounding. We stay in the green room for about an hour, talking to the band about their tour, all our favorite artists and influences, and our upcoming concert band performance.
“Mands says you’re wicked with arrangements, Liz.” Davey grabs a pair of drumsticks from a nearby table and drums a distracted beat into a tabletop. “That’s dope! You majoring in music performance in the fall?”
“Davey is too curious for his own good, sweetheart.”
And that’s it. That’s the moment when I’m sure my heart stops.
Because there, in faux-leather pants (she’s a devout vegan), hot-pink platform boots, and newly dyed jet-black hair slicked straight back, is Teela Conrad. She breezes through the door and turns to Davey. “Not everyone goes to college for music, David.” She softens and squeezes my shoulder as she passes before falling into the couch. “I actually majored in Lit at Northwestern.”
“Really?” I squeak out.
“Yeah.” She smiles at me and she looks so much like the poster I had hanging up with her face on it from sixth through tenth grades that I want to throw up a little. “The best education is one you get in the world. But you can always jam with us when we’re in town—if you think you can tolerate being around these guys.”
“Or they could jam with you guys on tour this summer.” Todd chimes in from his position leaning against the doorframe.