It’s over a week before Garen really speaks to me again. The days between the Tuesday of the fight and the following Thursday are full of dead silence, with the occasional exception of necessary phrases. I find myself waiting for the moments when he has to ask me to pass him something at the dinner table, or the times he asks if I need him to drive me home after school, or if I’m getting a ride to work with Miles. It’s actually because of this complete lack of communication that we end up speaking to each other. Had we been conversing more in the past week, he probably would’ve known where I work, and therefore wouldn’t have been there on Friday.
The Daily Grind is a coffee shop in between a karate studio and a flower shop. We only get locals and nearby college students, seeing as how increasing numbers of big-name coffee houses pretty much wipe out the fancier clientele. We’re a little less Starbucks, a little more Central Perk. Only six people actually work here, and that’s including our manager. It’s because of this that I spend most of my time out of school, therapy, or track in here, and it’s also because of this that I met Miles, who’s also a slave to the Grind’s long hours and shitty pay.
Every Friday night we host an open mike night. It starts at six and normally goes on until eight. Two horrible hours of drunk high school kids getting dared to do karaoke and smitten couples crooning ballads at each other. Suffice to say, that’s two hours each week that I could spend doing something constructive, yet will never get back. To make it up to the customers, we immediately follow it with an actual band. No one big, no one really all that good, but a high school/college garage band that’s more or less adequate. Jerry auditions them first to make sure they don’t completely suck, and they get a half hour slot.
This Friday, the karaoke is so obscenely bad that I leave halfway through. I busy myself in the backroom, organizing the stock shelves and counting paper cups. I hate inventory with a passion, but I’d rather do it than stand at the counter and listen to Tommy Robertson screech a Spice Girls song for twenty dollars. I manage to stay in there for the majority of the night. It’s a little after eight when Jerry comes in.
“You been doing inventory or just hiding?” he asks. I turn the clipboard in my hand around so he can see the writing all over it. He takes it and reads a few lines, bobbing his head.
“Alright. You can take your break if you want. Be back in ten, though,” he says. I hear a crash of someone dropping a cymbal from a drum onto the ground, then someone laughing. The better band must be setting up by now. Great. I finally get a break, right when the real music is going to be starting. I head out back anyway. It’s cold tonight, but I didn’t expect much. In Lakewood, November is always cold as a bitch. It must be what, mid-month? I reach into my pocket and pull out my folded up work schedule, which I only have because I kept forgetting to take it down from the bulletin board in the back room. I check the date and blink. November eleventh. That’s not possible, is it? I run my finger across the week, then down the Friday column. Nope. It’s definitely the eleventh.
My fucking birthday and I didn’t even know it. I’m not sure whether that’s funny or scary. I grin to myself and sink onto the ground. I’m barely fucking human anymore, I realize. I probably didn’t notice it because it had nothing to do with school, work, or a track meet. To be fair, though, it’s not like anyone else noticed either. My friends, my mom, Bree. No one.
I know. So Sixteen Candles, just one year off.
I can hear the music thudding from inside the building behind me. It’s loud, fast. Definitely alt. rock. Probably good, but it’s not like I’m a good judge of that. I wait a few minutes, then sigh and stand up, brushing the gravel off my jeans and pushing the door open. I take three steps into the building and freeze right where I am. Garen is on the stage, his cherry red guitar strapped on and his head inclined slightly towards the microphone. I’ve heard him sing before, his voice seeping out under his bedroom door, vaguely muffled. But I’ve never heard him sing like this, loud and into it. He’s amazing. I shake my head and grin. How’s this for fucking irony. He shakes his hair out of his face and scans the room. His eyes lock onto mine and he freezes. His breath hitches slightly and the words die in his mouth. Two seconds later though, he’s singing again. It’s another few seconds before I realize why that just happened.
“So with your swollen lips and my swollen heart
They work together to make me fall apart
This love may be different, yet all in the same
Why do you play with me? Screw this game
I want you here, I want you now
Get in my bed, I’ll show you how
I’d love to spill it all right here
Problem is, you’ll never hear it
Come on, baby, don’t be afraid
Take my hand, let me show you the way
Kiss me hard or kiss me soft
Either way, you’re gonna get off—”
The chord is still echoing through the speakers as I spin around and slam my palms against the door to out back. The sound from Garen’s guitar cuts out abruptly and I hear him yanking the cord out of the amp and handing off his guitar to one of the other guys.
“Um, yeah, I’ll be right back. Listen to Chris play, alright?” he says quickly into the microphone, and then I hear his boots hit the floor as he jumps off the slightly raised platform we use on open mike nights. I slam the door shut behind myself and head off down the alley. I have no idea where I’m going, but I just know it has to be away from here, after that. Swollen lips and swollen heart? Christ. The door bangs open behind me.
“Travis, wait,” he says. I spin around to face him, and we almost collide. He reaches out as if to touch me, and I knock his hand away.
“When did you write that?” I demand. His eyes are wide, like he’s not sure what he’s supposed to say.
“I finished it last night,” he says.
“Is it about me?” I ask. He doesn’t say anything, just continues to stare at me. Finally, slowly, he nods. “Christ,” I mutter, turning my back to him.
“Oh fuck you, Travis. You weren’t supposed to hear it, and anyway, what the fuck do you care if I write a song about you?” he snaps.
“You keep saying you’re pissed at me for sending you mixed signals, but the first time I’ve heard your voice in a week has been when you were singing a fucking song about me. About kissing me, Garen. Did you ever stop to think that maybe someone could figure out it was about me?” I ask.
“They wouldn’t have if you didn’t storm off like a fucking five year old after the song was over,” he says. I shove him away from me, but he barely moves. My hands are shaking too much to really get a grip on his shoulders.
“You’re a hypocrite, you know that?” I say, letting my gaze drop to the pavement.
“Like you can talk about that. You’re all over me on Halloween, and the next morning it’s like I don’t fucking exist to you,” he says.
“I told you when it happened that it was a one night thing,” I reply.
“Bullshit,” he says so forcefully that my eyes snap back up to his face. “We both know it wasn’t. If it was just a one night thing, you wouldn’t have flipped your shit so badly back there. If it was just a one night thing, you wouldn’t have made such a big fucking deal about it. And if it was just a one night thing, you wouldn’t want to do it again.”
“I don’t want to do it again,” I say. In a second, his hands are sliding up my arms and across my shoulders to knot in my hair as he turns me so my back is pressed up against the brick wall.
“Then stop me,” he says. I don’t. He kisses me firmly on the lips, pressing his entire body forward so it’s flat against mine. I have no idea what to do, so I just grip the front of his t-shirt, anchoring him in place. He leans his head back slightly.
“The song? The parts about, about kissing you? Nothing but compliments, seriously, I—”
I cut him off by yanking his head back down to mine and he leans into me again. I slide my hands down his chest and up under the hem of his shirt onto his stomach. He shivers, and I finally remember that it’s forty degrees, at the most. I pull my sleeves down over my hands and rub the fabric over his stomach. He lowers his hands to my waist, then my hips. I press forward against him, and he grins against my mouth, and that’s when I realize that if he offered, I would have sex with him. Right here, in forty degree weather, up against the building where I work, fifteen feet away from a door that can open at any second. Oh God. I pull back sharply.
“Fuck. What’s the reason now?” he whispers. I shake my head.
“I, I can’t. I um… I—”
He shakes his head and releases me.
“No, you don’t have to explain. Really. I get it,” he says. He squeezes his eyes shut for a few seconds, then pushes off and turns back toward the door.
“Hey,” I say. My fingers drop down, wrapping around Garen’s wrist and tugging it gently. My mouth is on his almost before he’s done turning, and he leans into it on instinct, one hand coming to rest on my chest and the other cradling the back of my head. The kiss lasts a few seconds before he pulls back.
“What was that for?” he asks. His eyes are closed and I slip a hand around to settle in the small of his back.
“For me,” I say. He bites down on his lower lip, and I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. A second later, though, his eyes are open and he smiles slightly.
“Good,” he says. He keeps his eyes locked on mine as we kiss again, which straddles the line between creeping me out and turning me on. It’s intimidating, and sort of intense. His eyes are, for lack of a better word, beautiful. Dark, dark green, like the color of moss, and his lashes are so long I can almost feel them brush my face when he blinks. My hands are slowly sliding down from his back into dangerous territory, and I root them in place. If he’s not going to keep a clear head, I am. Which is really, really hard to do when he’s doing this. I slip a hand into his and squeeze. He squeezes back and slowly, almost reluctantly, he tilts his head back a little. Suddenly, a crash of cymbals sounds from inside the coffee shop, and Garen’s eyes widen.
“Fuck. The band,” he says. He moves to head back inside, and I pull him backwards so his back is against my chest and my head is on his shoulder.
“Exactly. Fuck the band,” I say, and I lick a strip up the side of his neck.
“Fuck,” he groans, twisting out of my arms. “I can’t. I’ve been out here long enough, and Chris only knows so many lyric-less songs, you know?”
“Yeah. Got it,” I say with a nod. He hooks a finger in my belt loop and drags me forward.
“Later, okay?” he says. I nod, and he gives me one last chaste kiss before ducking back into the building. I decide to wait outside for a few more minutes, so as not to arouse any more suspicion than we already have. Also, to give myself time to wrap my head around the fact that I think I just made a make-out date with Garen.
The Daily Grind is a coffee shop in between a karate studio and a flower shop. We only get locals and nearby college students, seeing as how increasing numbers of big-name coffee houses pretty much wipe out the fancier clientele. We’re a little less Starbucks, a little more Central Perk. Only six people actually work here, and that’s including our manager. It’s because of this that I spend most of my time out of school, therapy, or track in here, and it’s also because of this that I met Miles, who’s also a slave to the Grind’s long hours and shitty pay.
Every Friday night we host an open mike night. It starts at six and normally goes on until eight. Two horrible hours of drunk high school kids getting dared to do karaoke and smitten couples crooning ballads at each other. Suffice to say, that’s two hours each week that I could spend doing something constructive, yet will never get back. To make it up to the customers, we immediately follow it with an actual band. No one big, no one really all that good, but a high school/college garage band that’s more or less adequate. Jerry auditions them first to make sure they don’t completely suck, and they get a half hour slot.
This Friday, the karaoke is so obscenely bad that I leave halfway through. I busy myself in the backroom, organizing the stock shelves and counting paper cups. I hate inventory with a passion, but I’d rather do it than stand at the counter and listen to Tommy Robertson screech a Spice Girls song for twenty dollars. I manage to stay in there for the majority of the night. It’s a little after eight when Jerry comes in.
“You been doing inventory or just hiding?” he asks. I turn the clipboard in my hand around so he can see the writing all over it. He takes it and reads a few lines, bobbing his head.
“Alright. You can take your break if you want. Be back in ten, though,” he says. I hear a crash of someone dropping a cymbal from a drum onto the ground, then someone laughing. The better band must be setting up by now. Great. I finally get a break, right when the real music is going to be starting. I head out back anyway. It’s cold tonight, but I didn’t expect much. In Lakewood, November is always cold as a bitch. It must be what, mid-month? I reach into my pocket and pull out my folded up work schedule, which I only have because I kept forgetting to take it down from the bulletin board in the back room. I check the date and blink. November eleventh. That’s not possible, is it? I run my finger across the week, then down the Friday column. Nope. It’s definitely the eleventh.
My fucking birthday and I didn’t even know it. I’m not sure whether that’s funny or scary. I grin to myself and sink onto the ground. I’m barely fucking human anymore, I realize. I probably didn’t notice it because it had nothing to do with school, work, or a track meet. To be fair, though, it’s not like anyone else noticed either. My friends, my mom, Bree. No one.
I know. So Sixteen Candles, just one year off.
I can hear the music thudding from inside the building behind me. It’s loud, fast. Definitely alt. rock. Probably good, but it’s not like I’m a good judge of that. I wait a few minutes, then sigh and stand up, brushing the gravel off my jeans and pushing the door open. I take three steps into the building and freeze right where I am. Garen is on the stage, his cherry red guitar strapped on and his head inclined slightly towards the microphone. I’ve heard him sing before, his voice seeping out under his bedroom door, vaguely muffled. But I’ve never heard him sing like this, loud and into it. He’s amazing. I shake my head and grin. How’s this for fucking irony. He shakes his hair out of his face and scans the room. His eyes lock onto mine and he freezes. His breath hitches slightly and the words die in his mouth. Two seconds later though, he’s singing again. It’s another few seconds before I realize why that just happened.
“So with your swollen lips and my swollen heart
They work together to make me fall apart
This love may be different, yet all in the same
Why do you play with me? Screw this game
I want you here, I want you now
Get in my bed, I’ll show you how
I’d love to spill it all right here
Problem is, you’ll never hear it
Come on, baby, don’t be afraid
Take my hand, let me show you the way
Kiss me hard or kiss me soft
Either way, you’re gonna get off—”
The chord is still echoing through the speakers as I spin around and slam my palms against the door to out back. The sound from Garen’s guitar cuts out abruptly and I hear him yanking the cord out of the amp and handing off his guitar to one of the other guys.
“Um, yeah, I’ll be right back. Listen to Chris play, alright?” he says quickly into the microphone, and then I hear his boots hit the floor as he jumps off the slightly raised platform we use on open mike nights. I slam the door shut behind myself and head off down the alley. I have no idea where I’m going, but I just know it has to be away from here, after that. Swollen lips and swollen heart? Christ. The door bangs open behind me.
“Travis, wait,” he says. I spin around to face him, and we almost collide. He reaches out as if to touch me, and I knock his hand away.
“When did you write that?” I demand. His eyes are wide, like he’s not sure what he’s supposed to say.
“I finished it last night,” he says.
“Is it about me?” I ask. He doesn’t say anything, just continues to stare at me. Finally, slowly, he nods. “Christ,” I mutter, turning my back to him.
“Oh fuck you, Travis. You weren’t supposed to hear it, and anyway, what the fuck do you care if I write a song about you?” he snaps.
“You keep saying you’re pissed at me for sending you mixed signals, but the first time I’ve heard your voice in a week has been when you were singing a fucking song about me. About kissing me, Garen. Did you ever stop to think that maybe someone could figure out it was about me?” I ask.
“They wouldn’t have if you didn’t storm off like a fucking five year old after the song was over,” he says. I shove him away from me, but he barely moves. My hands are shaking too much to really get a grip on his shoulders.
“You’re a hypocrite, you know that?” I say, letting my gaze drop to the pavement.
“Like you can talk about that. You’re all over me on Halloween, and the next morning it’s like I don’t fucking exist to you,” he says.
“I told you when it happened that it was a one night thing,” I reply.
“Bullshit,” he says so forcefully that my eyes snap back up to his face. “We both know it wasn’t. If it was just a one night thing, you wouldn’t have flipped your shit so badly back there. If it was just a one night thing, you wouldn’t have made such a big fucking deal about it. And if it was just a one night thing, you wouldn’t want to do it again.”
“I don’t want to do it again,” I say. In a second, his hands are sliding up my arms and across my shoulders to knot in my hair as he turns me so my back is pressed up against the brick wall.
“Then stop me,” he says. I don’t. He kisses me firmly on the lips, pressing his entire body forward so it’s flat against mine. I have no idea what to do, so I just grip the front of his t-shirt, anchoring him in place. He leans his head back slightly.
“The song? The parts about, about kissing you? Nothing but compliments, seriously, I—”
I cut him off by yanking his head back down to mine and he leans into me again. I slide my hands down his chest and up under the hem of his shirt onto his stomach. He shivers, and I finally remember that it’s forty degrees, at the most. I pull my sleeves down over my hands and rub the fabric over his stomach. He lowers his hands to my waist, then my hips. I press forward against him, and he grins against my mouth, and that’s when I realize that if he offered, I would have sex with him. Right here, in forty degree weather, up against the building where I work, fifteen feet away from a door that can open at any second. Oh God. I pull back sharply.
“Fuck. What’s the reason now?” he whispers. I shake my head.
“I, I can’t. I um… I—”
He shakes his head and releases me.
“No, you don’t have to explain. Really. I get it,” he says. He squeezes his eyes shut for a few seconds, then pushes off and turns back toward the door.
“Hey,” I say. My fingers drop down, wrapping around Garen’s wrist and tugging it gently. My mouth is on his almost before he’s done turning, and he leans into it on instinct, one hand coming to rest on my chest and the other cradling the back of my head. The kiss lasts a few seconds before he pulls back.
“What was that for?” he asks. His eyes are closed and I slip a hand around to settle in the small of his back.
“For me,” I say. He bites down on his lower lip, and I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. A second later, though, his eyes are open and he smiles slightly.
“Good,” he says. He keeps his eyes locked on mine as we kiss again, which straddles the line between creeping me out and turning me on. It’s intimidating, and sort of intense. His eyes are, for lack of a better word, beautiful. Dark, dark green, like the color of moss, and his lashes are so long I can almost feel them brush my face when he blinks. My hands are slowly sliding down from his back into dangerous territory, and I root them in place. If he’s not going to keep a clear head, I am. Which is really, really hard to do when he’s doing this. I slip a hand into his and squeeze. He squeezes back and slowly, almost reluctantly, he tilts his head back a little. Suddenly, a crash of cymbals sounds from inside the coffee shop, and Garen’s eyes widen.
“Fuck. The band,” he says. He moves to head back inside, and I pull him backwards so his back is against my chest and my head is on his shoulder.
“Exactly. Fuck the band,” I say, and I lick a strip up the side of his neck.
“Fuck,” he groans, twisting out of my arms. “I can’t. I’ve been out here long enough, and Chris only knows so many lyric-less songs, you know?”
“Yeah. Got it,” I say with a nod. He hooks a finger in my belt loop and drags me forward.
“Later, okay?” he says. I nod, and he gives me one last chaste kiss before ducking back into the building. I decide to wait outside for a few more minutes, so as not to arouse any more suspicion than we already have. Also, to give myself time to wrap my head around the fact that I think I just made a make-out date with Garen.