Stay Until We Break (26 page)

From the corner of my eye, I see my father dancing with my mother. She turns to look in our direction, her eyes softening as she sees me dancing with Cole. She says something to Dad, and for just a minute, I think maybe she looks happy with me. And I might be aggravated that it would take me finding a boyfriend like Cole to please her, because come on, that is really aggravating. But the truth is, look at him here, with his smiling eyes and his easy, sure steps on the dance floor. Who wouldn’t be happy looking at that?

Cole hums to the music as he glides us along, and I have to say he looks pretty happy, too.

“Hey, this is ‘Till There Was You,’” he says, his face lighting up. “I almost didn’t recognize it slowed down like this.”

“You know this song?”

“Yeah, the Beatles did it.”

“Damn, that reminds me—do you want to make a run for it to go see Ween in our fancy duds? If we leave now, we can probably still make it.”

Cole’s eyes sweep the room and linger on the glass doors for a beat before returning to mine.

“I think I’d rather stay,” he says. “Is that all right?”

I nod. Surprisingly, it’s a lot better than all right.

We move slowly in time with the soft, slow high hat, the strolling upright bass, and I try not to swoon to the damn floor when Cole pulls me close, his lips against my ear as he starts to softly sing
, “There was love all around, but I never heard it singing . . .”
I smile so hard I have to hide my face against his chest. I’m not sure I’ve ever been this happy in public before. I don’t want to scare my parents.

As we dance, I rest my head against his shoulder so he can’t see my eyes all misty. We stay here all night, dancing like this. Maybe I’ll let him dance me right into tomorrow, too, and into next summer and the year after that when I really don’t know what’s coming. As much as I have big dreams and big plans, maybe I’ll let this dance last until the end of time. I admit that scares the hell out of me. It’s like one minute, I think I know exactly how I want my future to look, and the next, maybe I’m not so sure. Dreams come and they go, and I guess they can change, too. I know not all dreams last forever. But you never really know. Maybe some do.

“Break” by Stars on the Floor

This is how it happens

We stay out until we break

From Hoboken to Athens

Every road we take

Leads to where we’re going

And I don’t care where it is

All I care about is knowing

That you’ll be there to hear this

Every basement

Every backyard

Every sofa on the way

Is another bed to fuck you in

Another stage to play

And we play until we make it

We stay until we break

We won’t be home for Christmas

Skip the wedding and the wake

Won’t be there through the years

Even if the fates allow

I don’t need to see the future

Because you’re my here and now

To my agent, Brooks Sherman, thank you again for your hard work in getting the Hub City Romance series out into the world and for helping to make sure this book did the Hub City proud. I’d be lost without you. You are worth your weight in black jelly beans and licorice pipes.

To the team at InterMix, thanks to my editor, Kristine Swartz, for jumping in and taking on this series and helping STAY UNTIL WE BREAK be the best it could be. Thanks to Ryanne Probst for all of the hard work promoting Hub City Romance.

An extra special thanks to Nina Bocci, for tirelessly working to build buzz for the Hub City Romance series. You’re an Italian ninja, Nina, with a heart of gold. I’ll always be in your debt. Thanks also to Heather Carrier for all the amazing digital artwork that makes the whole project so very rock and roll.

To Debbie, Tonya, and Lo, thanks for reading and re-reading and re-reading again as this book progressed through its various stages. Don’t know what I’d do without your eyes and insight and advice and infinite well of patience. And to Caren, thank you for telling it like it is, even when it’s hard. That means more to me than all the praise you could ever give (as much as I love that) because that’s how I can fix problems I can’t see by myself. Extra hugs to Cynnie, for giving this book a fresh look and loving all over it when I really needed it.

Thank you to all the readers and bloggers and Twitter/Facebook/Instagram folks who read LOUD IS HOW I LOVE YOU! Nothing makes me happier than knowing you felt like you were in the band. You ARE in the band now. You’re one of us. Thanks for getting in the van and being a part of the scene. I hope you enjoy this trip with Cole and Sonia!

Jen, thank you for having an awesome dead bird tattoo and cool glasses and an amazing supply of cute dresses in addition to razor-sharp wit and a big ole heart. You inspire me in many ways, every day. To Meg, Katherine, and Stacy, thank you for your love and support and enthusiasm and friendship. Our ridiculous text chains help me stay
sane
(okay that’s a lie) less insane. Maybe. They definitely make me feel less alone in my insanity. Safety in numbers.

To Dahlia Adler, who gave me some last minute perspective on LOUD IS HOW I LOVE YOU, but was so last minute, didn’t make it to the acknowledgements there. Thank you so much for your ear and common sense and hand holding, too. Hope you enjoy this one.

To my dear pal Jeff Zentner, thank you for reading this for me when I desperately needed fresh eyes, and had no right to impose. You are a rare gem, my friend. And thanks again for the Sharon Van Etten story. I know I keep bringing that up, but it’s especially pertinent to this book. Speaking of the mighty SVE . . .

To Sharon Van Etten, thank you for letting us sleep on your floor in Murfreesboro when you were very young and we were strangers from Jersey out on tour. While I’m at it, thanks to Alice Cooper, whom we did run into in golf pants in Myrtle Beach, and to John Waters, whose appearance in this book had to be cut, with many tears on my part, but whom we also saw when he was at the bar during our set at the Sidebar in Baltimore. These memories and the many big and small adventures we had on that tour are what make this book live and breathe.

All my love to Tish and to Mike and Tommy, my fellow mechanics, who lived a version of this tour with me and Alex, that in some ways was more twisted than the fictional representation. Especially since, as far as I know, nobody was getting any the way the kids in Soft get it on this tour. And the chances for actual death when we toured, I think, were way higher. The memories I got to relive while writing this made me realize how special a time that was and how many of the greatest stories of my life originated in those weeks. Can’t think of any better road warriors to have taken that journey with.

Thank you and big hugs to Plug Spark Sanjay, Joe, John, Ernie, and Michael—I love you all like brothers. Thank you for taking us on the road with you that fall, and for all the hazing, the fireworks, the love and the laughs. Thanks to the Karloffs, Cave Sluts, Monkey Claus, The Can Utility, Our Flesh Party, Kristy and Judd, and those kids in Montevallo who managed to pull a ton of people out to a pizza place on a Monday night to watch two unheard of bands from Jersey. Then threw us a party. Thanks to that guy with the cabin up the road apiece for not murdering us in our sleep (you have no idea how seriously and not ironically I mean this). Thank you to Landspeed Record and the Scott Farkus Affair and the Sidebar. I miss you guys and have such fond memories of all the great shows we played together in Baltimore and everywhere else.

To Jim Testa of Jersey Beat, who read LOUD IS HOW I LOVE YOU even though it was awkward as hell, thank you forever for the many, many years of love, support of my work in its various forms, and for decades of friendship. And for the kickass review of LOUD IS HOW I LOVE YOU b/w STEADY BETH that appears here. You are simply the coolest. And thanks to Johnny Puke for booking us in Charleston and letting us stay on Kiawah Island! No, we didn’t do it in the bathroom. We were too exhausted. Sad, I know.

Thanks to my Hub City band family, always, for being the inspiration and for bringing your talent and enthusiasm to this project. Special props to Boss Jim Gettys, the original creators of Hub City’s best Metal Medley (please Google that and watch it on YouTube if you don’t know what it is). To Nudeswirl, who get a shout out in this book. Please, please have a reunion this year. Please. To Bionic Rhoda, Three to Six Inches, the Urchins, Buzzkill, Aviso Hara, the Stuntcocks, Bryan Bruden and Jared Migden and Overnight Sensations, extra special thanks to Anthony and Brett for flying to Jersey to play the Hub City Romance launch and to Karen and Dave for driving into town from upstate New York! Thanks to Maxwell’s in Hoboken, specifically to Andy Peters and Todd Abramson, who always treated us like we mattered. Some of our very favorite shows were on your stage.

To Mom and Butch, who let two very grumpy, exhausted, stinky bands sleep at their house. Thank you for feeding us and taking care of me when I was sick on the road and not thinking I was crazy. Okay, that last part probably isn’t true, but thanks for loving and supporting me anyway. And thanks for unearthing that tour itinerary 20 years later so I could reconstruct it for this book!

Thanks to Dad and Bonnie for all of the encouragement and free childcare that allows me to continue writing and playing music, long past the point of it making any sense.

Thanks to my beautiful boys, Doot and Bing, for being my inspiration every day. A mom couldn’t ask for two brighter, more loving kids.

And thanks, finally, to Alex, who always drives but lets me do the navigating. Here’s to road ahead, babe.

Mercy Brown 
is a writer and musician from New Jersey. She spent long hours in her youth devouring romance novels and indie comics before she started fronting bands in the New Brunswick music scene, playing clubs, backyards, and basements from Boston to Alabama. In 2002, Mercy married her guitarist and effectively retired from sleeping on other people’s floors. She turned to fanfiction as a creative outlet in 2009 after her sons were born and soon after began writing books that resembled fic of the indie music scene. 
Loud is How I Love You
 was her first novel.

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