#Kissing (Rock and Romance #1) by Ellie Brixton

flashes. I blink away stars and my hand disappears behind me. "What the fuck?" My teeth grind together. I grab for her phone, but she holds it away.
    "I told you, you don't have to hide," she says with a laugh.
    "Why'd you do that?" I snap.
    "Collateral."
    "Do you even know what that means? That would imply I have something you want."
    "Oh, you do." Her glare would cut me if it were a weapon.
    "He chose me," I spit.
    "No, Josie. It's not that, not exactly anyway. Let's just say, if I don't get what I want this innocent little picture will find its way off my private camera roll."
    I turn into flint. I could tell her that I have diabetes, but that reveals a weakness, a part of my life I want to keep hidden beneath the cool indifference I nurture. "What do you want?"
    She doesn't hesitate. "I want your power."
    Laughter gallops out of me. "My power?" I shake my head, not deluded enough to think that's true at all. She just wants the same thing I do: to be cared for, adored, to be that special someone. Taking a bottle of beer from the fridge, I go outside, stepping into a stream of people heading toward the stages and leaving her without the reaction she was hoping for.
    A guy hollers to me, "Show me your tits."
    "Sorry, man. Only when Niko asks."
    He smiles as if he knows what I'm talking about.
    I spot the Halos banner; the letter O , an angelic ring with a pair of devil horns. I didn't get a backstage pass even though tonight, I'd like to be in the wings, on side of the stage, closer to Niko. In fact, I want the security of his arms, his voice whispering lyrics into my ear that I wish he'd write about me for his next album.
    I sip the beer, letting the carbonation buoy me, forming a raft of escape before setting out into the sea of sound. The drums beat doubt out of me. The guitars turn my thoughts fuzzy. The bass is like a beating heart and Niko's voice a dream. I lose myself again and again, song after song, until the only thing left is my awed, stuttering, resistant breath, screaming along to every word that's not about me.
     

 
    Chapter 21
    After the concert, it takes me half of an half hour to find my way to a clearing. Add to that three times getting my toes stepping on, four times being knocked into, five guys asking me to show them my tits—I use the same line each time—, six times me telling people to fuck off, and seven offers for drugs I'm not interested in .
    I take a photo of a glowing sculpture of oozing slime. A girl stands underneath it and glows too. Is it performance art, a bucket list item, or toxic waste disposal?
    I text Niko the photo and add Where am I?
    He replies Not where I am.
    That's where I want to be.
    He doesn't answer and a delicate part of me, hidden behind the not giving a shit wilts a little.
    I trace a loop around the festival grounds, finally reaching the tour busses guzzling nonrenewable resources, except a bright green one for a hippie crossover band advertising that it's environmentally friendly. I twist the bracelet from the palm reader around my wrist.
    Fate and destiny and the thin string between the two. Just then, a drop of rain kisses my cheek. Then another and another. The cool water dissolves the heat on my skin, and the tension I've carried since when ? Since my run in with Kat? Niko and I being interrupted? Me not being able to have  an orgasm? Since Iowa? Since last month? The last few years? Since Bubbie? No, that particular tension is still there, as tight and vice-like as ever. I'm trying to outrun it. I will; it won't get the better of me.
    Rain drops in buckets as I wind between busses, unable to locate the black one amongst the other black ones against the black backdrop of night.
    A couple rolls in the mud. A girl throws off her top and drinks the sky. Mud slings overhead. People slip and slide. I wander to the center and spin and spin until I'm dizzy and caked with earth.
    Two girls sling their arms in mine and we circle around and around until flopping back.