Christmas with a Rockstar (Rock Revenge Trilogy 3.50)

I’m feeling for whomever this is.

“Jess, come on! Seriously…it’s time to go!”

The call from a woman’s voice confirms my suspicions, and I hear enough of Jesse’s frustrated breath to seal it.

“Jess, what are you doing out here?” A screen door slides open.

“I’m just waiting.” His answer is typical teen, but it’s also more than that. Where would he be going? He isn’t in band. I’ve prayed and looked every day, and every day he’s not transferred into my first period.

“Well, while you’re waiting…we’re late.” Her words are clipped, and a bit sarcastic. I get the sense his mom works nights. She wasn’t anywhere to be found when his band was practicing, and the van usually rolls in when I leave for school.

The screen slams to a close over the wall, and the sharp sound sends Bessy out of my arms with a yipe that cuts through the slight wind picking up.

Fuck.

My wide eyes watch my little dog bolt in the opposite direction, back around the way I came, but my feet can’t seem to move. There’s no way he didn’t notice that. I breathe out my energy and let the red take over its favorite spots on my skin just before I take off into a sprint after my dog. I don’t catch up with Bessy until I reach my house again, which probably means I could have just let her go on her own. Figures.

My dad is already waiting in the car, the motor rocking all one-hundred-forty-thousand miles of it as condensations spills from the pipe in the back. My mom lets Bessy in and I pick up my school bag that I left just outside the garage. I round the car to the passenger door, and just before I get in, I meet Jesse’s stare as his mom drives by our home slowly in her van. She’s searching for something through her purse in her lap while she coasts down our street, which gives Jesse plenty of time to lower his lashes and stare at me with those foggy eyes. I feel instant guilt again for what I overheard, not that it was much to hear at all.

I look away before he does, not wanting to know how long his scornful expression lasts or if he turns in his seat to keep it on me. I wouldn’t be surprised either way.

“You’re gonna need gloves soon. Getting nippy in the mornings.” My dad is a morning man. He opens and Mom closes, which makes their marriage and business partnership work perfectly.

“It’s seventy-eight today.” My voice is flat. I’ll wish I had somewhere to toss my jacket by lunch time.

“Well sure, but right now it’s,” he leans forward and runs his glove-covered palm over the dash glass that always fogs—winter, summer…spring and fall. “Look at that, it’s fifty-nine.”

“Brrrrr,” I deadpan.

My dad’s body lifts with a laugh and his smile grows. I can’t get to him, even with my grouchiest self, so I give in and smile too. It’s a better way to start my day rather than mortified and choking on empathy. It’s a better way for everyone in our family to be—blissful and seeing the bright side of everything. It somehow comes easier to my parents, though. I often wonder if they’re really this okay with their life—our life.

I step from my dad’s car just in time to catch the last few bandmembers rushing from the parking lot to the room to grab their gear. If you’re late to practice, you run a lap—with your instrument. It’s not so bad to be a tardy flute player, but tubas have it rough, and snare players like me hit our quads on the bolts.

I make up time with a smooth drop of my bag and fit into my harness, and I’m on the field with two minutes to spare. Every bit of fire that was on my skin clears out the moment I take my sticks and roll my wrists, eyes steady on the black and silver circle that marks my sweet spot. There are six of us on snare—I’m lead. I’ve been lead since freshman year, which means I get to set the cadence we play when we march. I love our squad, and our taste is epic. I go with something special this morning to get everyone’s steps in for marching practice—the beat I think long-haired Chris should have played to that beautiful song Jesse was playing. I feel it in an instant, and everyone else picks it up after the first and second pass. The tones of the bass drums work up and down, like a wave that carries our collective breath. I wish we weren’t marching right now so I could see the way our sticks line up, flying up and down in precision. This one’s a keeper.

We have a few weeks left before the state competition. Block lines help our director correct our feet, but it doesn’t mean we have to march to a metronome. People are meant to move to rhythm. We spend most of the morning fixing a few things we messed up during our last competition, and we only get to run through our actual set once. I don’t care, though—I would be content doing nothing but drum features and solos.

“You have a fan,” says Josh, a junior who will take over for me on lead next year.

He taps his sticks on my drum a few times and glances to my left as we walk up the path back to the band room. I follow his gaze to Jesse, who’s leaning against a metal column on the side of the bleachers. My heart starts a drumroll that I know won’t stop for several minutes, so I focus on my breath and try to not act like a fool as I step closer to him.

“Enjoy the show?” I’m bubbly, like the morning version of my dad. I give myself an internal eyeroll and remind myself that I’m confident, snarky Arizona with this boy. I’m new me. Not shy and blushing me, even though I’m certain there is a blotchy patch of red on my chest right now. Body chemistry is really weird.

“What was that thing you were doing before…when it was just you—just drums?”

My heart stops roaring. It just stops, period. I bite my tongue behind my lips and pull my mouth in at the corner on the outside to make it look like I’m thinking.

“This?” I let it flow from beginning to end, sixteen bars that I repeated a hundred or more times on the field. I had that beat memorized the moment I replaced Chris’s with it in my head while Jesse sang.

Of course it’s this.

“Yeah. I like that.” His eyes narrow and focus on my sticks, which suddenly feel like an extension of my hands. I grip them and swallow.

“Cool,” I say, shrugging a little. I’m not sure what else to say, and any words I add will be in morning-dad voice. They won’t be authentic.

Jesse pulses with a short laugh, his eyes still on my drum, a little lost in that place he goes while he sings. He’s imagining the sound—remembering it. His mouth starts to curl, and I indulge in watching the pattern form on his cheeks until he flits his eyes to mine and I’m caught. I glance to the side quickly when I am, nothing I’m able to do about the pink cheeks I have now. I hate that I get so rosy. It’s always been my curse.

“You didn’t say you played.”