Hotbox (44 page)

“Don’t worry about it,”
Jayden
said,
pulling my arm to prevent me from going back
. She continued to
lead me
away and added,
“Matt will take care of it.”

I glanced back and sure enough Matt was in the guy’s face, and Dirk was fighting to separate them.

I shook my head. “You need a pe
rsonal bodyguard.
That would keep the guys away.
”

“No, I just need to be married,” she replied. As soon as she said it she clamped her hand
over
her mouth. “I didn’t say that,” she mumbled through her fingers. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” I asked, surprised
that she seemed so worried.

She remove
d her hand. “I promised I wouldn’t
mention it again, remember? I’m sorry,” she said again,
sliding
her arms around me.

“You don’t need to be sorry,” I almost laughed. “I’m actually surprised you’ve held off this long,” I teased.

She playfully slapped my arm and we sat down under the tree we were under earlier. I looked ahead to where Matt and Stacie were parting from Dirk and his remaining band mates.

“So do you always let Matt fight your battles?” I asked with a smile. “I thought that bothered you.”

“
If he didn’t like it so much, I would mind quite a bit.
”

Matt seemed to know right where we were, and he and Stacie joined us under the tree. The incident wasn’t even mentioned again and the four of us spent the next hour and a half hanging out and listening to the music
from a distance
. Shawn and Josh had been in the park throughout the day and they ended up meeting up with us by the time the next band hit the stage. Cali and Silvia joined the group, and eventually Chris after getting off work. The group made quite a noticeable lump in the grass and many people knew someone or other in our pile of friends. Our gathering had multiplied immensely by the time Jayden wanted to head home to get ready for the show.

But apparently she wanted Cali to take her home, not me.

“You don’t mind, do you? It’s
girly
stuff
,” she smiled.

“Oh, I don’t want to interfere with that,” I assured her.

So
after kissing me goodbye, she left the park
wit
h Cali and Stacie
. Matt and I began talking, and before long, it was just the two of us. Josh and Silvia deci
ded to wander around together, Shawn was flirting with a group of girls
, and Chris was on the phone some distance away. I was very comfortable around Matt. He’d always been pretty nice to me and we had
a lot
in common.
He
started talking about the Camaro he was working on with his brother, complaining that
Corey
was always too busy to help him.

“I don’t think he’s interested
anymore,” Matt finally said. He shrugged. “Oh, well.”

“What’s left to do on it?” I asked.

With a laugh he said, “Too much. But…as much as I like working on it, I really don’t know as much as I’d like to.” With a glance my way he hinted, “I need an expert to help me out.”

He was holding back a smile when I replied, “Is that your way of asking for my help?”

“I would love your help
, but I know you’re pretty busy
so…”
“Well I’d love to take a look at it. Maybe then I can let you know what I’m able to do.”

“Really? That’d be awesome.”

After discussing it for another minute we decided that the girls were probably going to be at least another hour. Matt’s brother lived a half-mile away, so we ended up walking to his house to see the car.

“If this is your car, why isn’t it at your house
?” I asked him.

He gave me a funny look. “Stacie won’t let me put it in the garage. Besides,” he grunted, lifting up the door to the detached garage, “
Corey’s
shop is already set up for it.”

We went right into talking shop. In between looking at the car and discussing what needed to be done,
I learned a lot more about Matt, and it was obvious
we had more in common than just our
interest in
cars. I actually ended up sharing
that my father was an alcoholic
because Matt admitted that his
stepdad
was.
However, Matt’s
step
dad was
more
prone to destroy property and things around him when he was drunk. He didn’t imply that
his dad
was abusive to his family in any way, so I kept my own experiences to my
self.

Matt currently worked at
a lumberyard
, but he admitted that he hated his job. He had wanted to get into mechanics somehow, but there were no openings when he tried
a few
years ago, so he just stuck with what he had. He claimed he didn’t know much, but after hearing him talk about his Camaro, I felt he sounded plenty
capable of completing some more-than-average maintenance on a car. And h
e sounded more intelligent than Mike.

“Hey, uh, if you’re interested, we’ve got a guy leaving in a couple of weeks. Lou’s pretty stressed out about finding a replacement—he hates hiring new people and he’s been having a
hard
time
with it—but if you want, y
ou could come in and work a few hours, see how you like it.”

“Are you serious?” he asked with a smile. “I’d love it. I mean…I don’t know if I’d be able to do much, but I think I learn fast—”

“You’d do just fine,” I assured him.

M
y phone rang with a call from Jayden. I hadn’t even noticed the time until now. “Oh, crap,” I said to Matt, motioning to the clock.
“I’m on my way back,” I said right away. “
I
just lost track of time
.”
             
“Oh, it’s fine,” she replied. “I was just worried that some hot girls carried you away
and were now worshipping the daylights out of you
.”

I laughed. “Yeah, right. I don’t know any hot girls except for you.”

Matt was shutting the garage door and we quickly began walking back to the park.

“Hey, is Matt with you by any chance?”

I replied affirmatively and she relayed the answer to Stacie. I told her
what we were up to
and said we were just a few minutes away.

“We go on in abo
ut twenty minutes,” she said.
“
Hurry up so you can kiss away my nerves.”

“Okay, I’ll be right there,” I chuckled. Matt gave me an inquiring look
when I hung up. “She’s nervous,
”
I told him.

He made a noise of disbelief. “I don’t get it. She’s incredible. She’s done enough shows you’d think she’d be used to it by now.” He gave me a side-glance. “What do you think it is? I mean I’ve known her for years, I don’t think I’ve ever heard her screw up on stage, everyone loves their performances… Why does she get so nervous?”

If Matt didn’t know, then I really
didn’t
know. But in an attempt to figure it out I suggested, “Insecurity?”
             
He scoffed. “What’s she got to be insecure about? She’s got talent, personality, and looks… It’s a lethal combination. Doesn’t she realize that?”

“
Mmm,
I don’t think she sees herself like everyone else does.
She’s confident in many other aspects of her life, but when it comes to performing on stage, m
aybe she’s insecure about something…less obvious.”

“Like what?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea! I’m just throwing out suggestions,” I smiled. “Why don’t you ask her?”

“You ask her,” he challenged back.

“I think she just doesn’t like attention,” I
replied
, which is what I believed it truly came down to
.
Once I really had asked her why she got so nervous before she performed.
Besides
claiming that she really wasn’t sure why—other than she got embarrassed because people were watching her—she basically said her body just reacted a certain way and she couldn’t do anything about it. She felt okay about performing music because she loved it, but she wished she could control her racing heart and settle her nerves. Her mind assured her she was fine, but her body didn’t want to listen.

By the time we made it to the park it was packed. I thought it was crowded earlier, but this time it was
truly
crowded. We squeezed our way through
people
until we were closer to the stage where I heard Cali’s voice yelling at us, and saw Chris motioning us over. They had a good spot
just left of center
stage (where Jayden usually stood) and right up front.

“Go around the side,” Cali told me. “Jay wants to see you.”

I made it to the side of the stage but didn’t see her right away. Finally I saw Josh and called his name. He instantly hollered behind him and then she appeared, practically
skipping over to me to wrap
her arms around my neck.

“Mmm, I missed you,” she said as she kissed me. “Can you just come on stage with me so you can be my kissing post?”

“What’s a kissing post?”

“Come on stage with me and you’ll find out.”

“Is that like a scratching post?”

She laughed.

“You look amazing,” I told her. She was dressed very casual for the
outdoor
v
enue
, but her hair was done special, and she was wearing a little more makeup
. Tonight she had on faded
jeans (her favorite pair),
a t-shirt, and a pair of
navy
Converse.

“Thanks,” she laughed. “I like to be comfortable when I perform outside.”

“And you like to be
uncomfortable
when you perform inside?” I smiled.

“No, but this type of show doesn’t really call for dressing up.”

“That’s kind of what you wore on our first date
.”

“It
is
what I wore on our first date. You earn some major points for that one, sport.”

“
Sweet. I’ve been saving them fo
r a rainy day.
It’s a good thing you had Cali because I wouldn’t be able to do that to your hair
,” I told her. “That’s
pretty
cool.”

There were different sections of hair twisted to meet the rest of it that was all gathered up at the back of her head in a curly heap. A few
wavy
strands hung down along the side of her face, but I could see they were very subtly tacked aside at the top, so they didn’t get in her way. She couldn’t stand having her hair in her face while she was doing something active.

“Thanks,” she replied, patting the pile of hair in the back. “It’s one of my ‘messy up-dos,
’
”
she smiled.

“A ‘messy up-do,’ huh? I’ll have to remember that.”

I walked back with her
to
where Shawn and his bass player, Mac, were sitting on some chairs. Jayden had me sit with her a few feet
from them
and she asked about my time with Matt. I filled her in on our plan for his car and she was thrilled I was going to help him with it. But I assured her I didn’t want it to interfere with our time together. She seemed glad for that, but suggested she could spend some more time with Stacie, too.

A guy came by
to
gi
ve the band a five-minute warning
,
and Jayden looked like she was going to be sick.

“There’s a bush over there,” Shawn told her with a facetious smile. “Go throw up, an
d then put on your game face.” Then h
e left to talk to his brother.

I wrapped an arm
around her. “Just take a deep breath,” I suggested. She did and I told her to take another. “You get through this and I’ll give you a massage.”
             
She laughed. “I like when you say it the other way around.”

“I’ll let
you
give
me
a massage?”
             
She nodded.

“You don’t like my massages?” I pouted.

“I love them. But it’s more motivating to think about pleasuring
you
.”

“Pleasuring?” I
said with wide eyes
. “I like the sound of that.” She laughed and gave me a kiss. I noticed that the guys were getting ready to go on stage so I put my hands
against
her
neck
and looked her right in the eyes. “You’re going to do great. I guarantee it. Just keep breathing for now, and once you play that first note, everything’s gonna fall into place. Okay?” She nodded so I kissed her again. “If that doesn’t help, then just remember I’ll be thinking about
last night in the dugout.
”