Accordance (28 page)

“I could’ve kissed you five times already but I haven’t. I’m trying to do the right thing but I want to be honest too. Will you stop trying to get away from me all the time and let’s go back to the way we used to be? Just Kyle and Maggie, friends, I’ll keep my thoughts to myself and you and Caleb can do…whatever you want, I‘m done with trying to come between you two.” He smiled and waited for me to do the same. “Don’t worry about me. I’m a big boy now,” he said and grinned, begging me to agree.

“Oh, I see,” I said and laughed. “Well, I’m not the same little girl you always knew either. I can kick your butt now.”

“Really doubtful,” he laughed and pulled the ends of my hair playfully. I grabbed his forearm in a tight grip, letting him feel my strength that wasn’t human any longer and smiled smugly. “Holy moly,” he muttered. “What the…Mags,” he grunted and tried to twist my arm the other way.

“Scared of a little girl, Kyle?”

“Jeez…Ok, ok, truce!” He rubbed his arm and grinned at me with new respect. “Is that from the ascension?”

“Yep, and I’m just awesome,” I shrugged and said in a bragging tone.

He laughed and put an arm around my shoulder as he pulled me away.

“True.”

I stopped him.

“Kyle.”

“Yeah,” he said cautiously, like I’d renege on our agreement.

“Thank you,” I said sincerely.

He nodded slowly before looking down to meet my gaze. We looked at each for a few seconds before I broke it and let him steer me as we walked to the bar to find Ralph and Beck, sucking down a couple bottles of water.

“Where have you been?” Beck asked me and eyed Kyle suspiciously. “And you, I thought you said you were bringing a girl?”

“I was, she bailed.”

“Her loss,” I chimed, ending that part of the conversation. “This band’s pretty good, huh? Caleb told me they’re still in high school.”

“They are good,” Ralph said and turned up the bottle to get the last drops. “But what does Caleb’s band sound like?”

“Um,” I thought. “You know…I can’t really describe it. It’s good though just different.”

“Well, you’re about to find out, Ralph,” Kyle said and we all turned to the stage as the previous band waved and headed off stage. Then, as luck would have it, the rest of our family came walking through the door. I gawked. Peter and Rachel both were in jeans and t-shirts. Hair was still coifed to perfection but casual in a way I’d never laid eyes on. “You made it right on time.”

“Good,” Rachel said eagerly and smiled. “Let’s go get up front before they come on so we can see.” She grabbed my hand and then Beck’s, “come on, girls.”

I laughed with Beck as Rachel pulled us along. This side of Rachel was apparently going to be fun. We stood right up by the front speaker and were soon being crowded from behind. Peter and the rest pushed their way to stand at our backs. Rachel was practically bouncing on her toes. It was freaking adorable.

I heard Kyle and Peter talking about the business behind us. Kyle was asking questions, since he was starting school in a few weeks, about the job and things. Peter was proud that Kyle was interested and I got an inkling of disappointment from him because Caleb hadn’t asked anything about it. He didn’t seem interested at all and after what Kyle had said about Caleb at the picnic that day, about wanting to go to Arizona instead of working the family Architect business, he was worried that Caleb didn’t want to continue the family business at all. Little did he know what Caleb was going to sacrifice for his family.

I felt bad for Caleb and understood his position to go to school, work for his family and do what they wanted him to. He would be the only one not following along with it if he rebelled. They offered financial security, family protection and safety and he would be offering the same to them. I could see it, the importance of it, but it still sucked that he couldn‘t do what he wanted to do.

Kyle caught me staring and winked at me, pulling me from my thoughts. I smiled and turned back to the stage when everyone started cheering. Caleb was first on the stage and he looked out at the crowd as he made his way to stage right. I put my fingers over my mouth to stifle a giggle. He was so adorable. Then the rest of the guys came out, Zeke last, and he waved his arm in the air dramatically.

Caleb shielded his eyes and squinted until he saw me right in front of him. He smiled bashfully and sent a little wave before pulling on his borrowed zebra striped bass. Zeke grabbed the mic, bending it forward, and spoke low.

“We are Metal Petals, prepare to be rocked.”

The crowd cheered as Beck and I laughed at him and the music started. It was a cover of ’Ride’ by The Vines. Then they did a few original songs before doing another cover, The Ramones ‘I Want to Be Your Boyfriend’, making the girls up front screech and bounce. Rachel practically glowed with pride and Peter wrapped his arms around her from behind, kissing her cheek. It was one of the sweetest things I’d ever seen as they watched Caleb, their son, my significant, totally in his element.

They then began another cover that I’d heard at practice that day, “The Way You Are’ by The Afters. Zeke belted out the lyrics and crooned in a growl that totally worked. When he reached the second verse he locked eyes with me. As he sang the words he pointed at me and beckoned me to him with a crooked finger. I looked around me to the others, sure he was pointing at someone else, but no. I could hear his mind loud and clear. He was about to pull me on stage with him. I looked around me once more for a way out but we were too jammed in. Beck was laughing and pushing me forward when my eyes drifted back to him he nodded and waggled his fingers for me to come. I shook my head ‘no’.

So he came down the stairs on the front of the stage and grabbed my hand as he sang. I begged him with my eyes to please, no, stop, anything! He didn’t listen as he continued to sing the words and sway as he walked backwards up the stairs singing to me as the crowd cheered louder and louder with each step up I took. I wanted to die, right there, from embarrassment. Caleb looked halfway between laughing and punching Zeke as he strummed. Once Zeke had me on stage he kept my hand in his and the mic in his other. He sang and shimmied towards me as he belted it out, my face flaming.
“
And after all this time I’ve come to find my soul’s fragility, but you rectified my frailty by your strength. It’s like the sun swallowed up by the earth, like eternity falls in reverse. As if the glass could contain the sand, that’s the way you are in me! That’s the way you are! Now you’re with me, and now I see what it means to me, to be apart of such a mystery.
”

He twirled me under his arm, danced with me, turned me to face Caleb. Caleb smiled and shook his head as Zeke whipped me back around. I hoped he wouldn’t pull me too close, because Caleb would have snapped, but he didn’t. He did however grin like the Cheshire cat and wink at me, acknowledging my discomfort so I finally gave in and danced with him, much to his delight.

The crowd loved it but I was still fighting the heat in my cheeks.

The rest of the band laughed and I heard whistles too. Once the song ended he kissed the back of my hand and bowed to me before helping me off stage. I covered my face with my hands as my friends and family heckled and joked.

“Don’t do that!” Beck said pulling my hands away. “It was awesome, frigging awesome!”

“It was embarrassing,” I countered.

“It was hot!”

I rolled my eyes and looked back to the stage to see Caleb watching me.

Sorry, he’s a jerk.

It’s ok. I’m alive,
I joked.

You looked seriously hot if that helps
.

I just laughed and shook my head at him.

“Look at you two,” Beck crooned. “You’re so cute. It’s like you’re having a conversation with your eyes or something.”

“They practically are,” Kyle butted in with before I could say anything. He bumped my shoulder with his. “It’s just disgusting.”

He was smiling when I looked up at him. He was trying, really trying, and it made me want to sigh with relief. I bumped his shoulder back with mine and he laughed. Beck had Ralph bouncing up and down to the beat of the next song and I smiled as I focused on Caleb once again. He was doing that thing again, where he played so perfectly but his eyes were perfectly locked on mine at the same time.

I smiled before glancing over at Dad to see him and Jen talking over the music and laughing. I saw in his mind he was telling her a joke about a guy walking into a bar. I shook my head at him. Then I picked up the thoughts of a girl next to me; she was looking at Caleb and imagining snagging him up after the set. Going dancing or sitting at the bar and then whatever else he wanted to do. I glanced at her she smiled at me.

“Oh my, they are so hot aren’t they!”

“They are, yeah. Especially mine,” I inched forward.

“I know! The leather is hilarious!” she said laughing. “I love the bands here. They are always so eccentric and crazy!”

In her mind she assumed since Zeke pulled me on stage he was the one I was talking about.

“Um, no, the lead singer isn’t mine. That one,” I said pointing at Caleb and she balked.

“He’s your boyfriend?”

“Yep.”

“Well-” and the next word that came out of her mouth I had never used before and didn’t have any plans to.

Then she turned without another word and stomped straight out the door of the club. What had just happened? I looked back to the stage to see Caleb trying to stifle a laugh. I glared at him making him laugh harder.

Beck all of a sudden grabbed my arm, almost jerking it out of the socket.

“You have to come to the bathroom with me!”

“I do?” I asked sarcastically.

“Yes!”

“Whoa, wait,” Kyle interjected. “I’m coming too.”

“To the little girl’s room?” Beck asked with her hands on her hip. “Even you can’t finagle your way into the ladies bathroom, Kyle.”

“I need to stay with Maggie.”

“What, why?”

“I just do,” he answered firmly.

“Kyle,” I said and gave him a look. “I think it’s ok if we go to the bathroom without you.”

“Caleb asked me to watch out for you.”

“He didn’t say follow me to the bathroom!”

“I’ll wait for you guys in the hall.”

“Whatever, let’s go,” Beck yelled and whined as she pulled me behind her, Kyle right behind me. “Jeez. Why are you so precious all of a sudden?” She looked back at me and smirked but you could tell in her tone she was irritated and her mind was confirming that. “I wish I had every male in a half mile radius gawking after me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did you not see? Every guy in this place has his eyes glued to you like you’re only wearing a corset or something.”

“Beck.”

“I’m serious.”

She walked into the bathroom door, pushing it until it banged loudly against the wall behind it, skipping two girls who were already in line.

“I’m sorry, she’s… I‘m sorry,” I told them and bolted in the door after her. “Look, everyone is just a little on edge because of everything that happened with the kidnapping, that’s all.”

“That has nothing to do with all these guys out there that don’t know you or anything about you, Mags.” She went in her stall but kept talking to me, to my embarrassment. “And the lead singer of Caleb’s band,” she yelled from her stall, “pulling you on stage like that, ugh. I’m telling you, Mags,” toilet flushed, stall door opened, “you’ve seriously changed since high school, ok? You have no idea what you look like do you? You’re like a movie star or something.”

“Beck, high school was only a couple weeks ago.”

“I know! That’s what I’m talking about!” she yelled and I stopped washing my hands to look at her. “You are so different: confident, pretty and important.” She sighed. “You don’t even talk to me anymore hardly. I was the last person you called when you got home from being kidnapped.”

I could feel my moods start to plummet, the thoughts of the other girls jammed in the bathroom coming to me against my will.

“Beck,” I said softly and went to hug her but I bumped into a girl who was coming to the sink. “Excuse-” I started but before I could finish, I was hit with a vision, right there in the middle of the crowded ladies room.

The girl who touched me was a small, waif of a girl. She was young, just graduated from high school too, and was going through a rough time. Her dad was a drug addict and they were being evicted. All she wanted was to get away.

In the vision, I saw her being woken up in the middle of the night and yanked by her hair from her bed by someone who had come to collect money her father owed him. He thought if he threatened his daughter’s life that her father would pay, but he didn’t know that her father could care less. He was in too deep, too far into the addiction. The girl I was looking at was going to be kidnapped tonight and killed as revenge for her fathers’ transgression four days from now.