Garrett handed me my beer, and I broke eye contact quickly, looking down at the drink in my fidgeting fingers, wondering how to seamlessly bring up Other People. Masochistically, I wanted to know everything about Quinn Parker. Garrett rarely brought her up, but when he did, he called her affectionately by her last name, which made me hate her blameless existence even more. The less I knew, the less I could hold on to and tear apart in my head. The more I knew, the more it hurt my heart.
“So, I thought…I thought you might bring Quinn tonight. I really want to meet her,” I said in a high-pitched voice that made my statement wildly unconvincing to absolutely anyone with ears.
Garrett shot me a one-sided grin, which called “bullshit” louder than he could have said it.
“Quinn and I broke up.”
Oh.
He pursed his lips together in a blank expression. He wasn’t even referring to her as Parker anymore. She was just Quinn. Dead-to-him Quinn. My heart beat faster as I stared wide-eyed up at Garrett, the way you’d look at someone who had gone from a fantasy to a possibility.
“I’m sorry.”
I was not sorry.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine. Honestly. It was a long time coming. It’s kind of…” He trailed off, and I watched his strong jaw twitch.
The guy who had the perfect response for everything was suddenly having a hard time finding the right words. Garrett seemed to effortlessly turn a phrase, with a bright smile to go along with it. Here, he was missing both: the words and the smile. He looked down at his beer bottle, unpeeling the sticker with his fingers, until his eyes settled back on me.
“It’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said.
“You wanted to talk to me about your breakup?”
“No. I wanted to talk to you about why I broke up with—”
“Garrett Scholl, to the stage,” an MC said over the loudspeaker.
Garrett drew a deep breath of air and set down his beer.
“Hold that thought,” he said.
He turned and hustled toward the stage as Summer sidled up to me. I glanced at her flushed face.
“What’s her name?” I asked.
“Azi.”
Summer tilted her head, watching Garrett climb onto the stage.
“This guy really does it for you?”
“Summer.”
“He’s just…” Summer shrugged her shoulders dismissively.
“He’s objectively very attractive.”
“Not my type.”
“Well, yeah, he has a penis.”
“Speaking of, he wants to use it to fuck you.”
“Ew. Can you say that nicer?”
She crouched down to my eye level, speaking slowly the way you would to a toddler. “Maggie, do you see that guy onstage? He wants to make sweet, sweet love to you.”
I smiled like an idiot at the thought, doe eyes watching Garrett unfold the songbook, staring longingly at him as he ran a hand through his thick blond hair.
I wonder what those fingers would feel like running up my thigh?
I swallowed the thought, realizing that I shouldn’t be openly drooling over a man.
“No. He doesn’t. And I don’t…I like Craig,” I said, reminding myself.
I took a sip of my blueberry beer, hoping the sweetness would wash away the taste of Craig’s name—wet cardboard on my tongue.
Garrett shut the songbook and locked eyes with me. His hardened expression melted into a slow smile, one that softened his jaw for longer than it should. I could see Summer shaking her head at me out of the corner of my eye.
“Apologies to Craig,” Summer said.
Garrett lowered the mic stand with a devilish grin on me.
“Yeah…” I nodded, with my lips parted in the hazy air.
“Let’s make some noise for Miss Maggie May over there. Today’s her birthday,” Garrett said into the mic.
The room cheered. I rolled my eyes at him and playfully waved to the crowd around me.
Garrett covered the mic with his hand.
“Come sing with me,” he yelled down to me.
I wasn’t the kind of person who enjoyed harmonizing with others. Most voices stomped all over mine, or tried to compete. And his voice was huge. I shook my head. He let his lips settle into a playful pout, one that tore apart every defiant bone in my body.
“Goddamnit,” I said.
I handed my beer to Summer and made my way through the packed crowd toward the ramp leading up to the stage, with the violet stage light shining behind Garrett. His smile reeled me in until his lips were inches from mine—only the mic between us. My favorite place. My favorite person.
I covered the mic with my hand and leaned toward him.
“You know I don’t sing with other people.”
Garrett sidled up closer to my body, his hard torso dangerously pressed against my pounding chest. He looked me straight in the eyes.
“Well, now you do.”
Garrett playfully danced one eyebrow upward. I could feel my heart thumping in my throat, as the swell of an electric guitar filled up the room. I gripped the mic in my fist, and adrenaline shot through my body.
“Everlong” was over four minutes in length. Our eyes didn’t find the crowd—not once—in those four minutes. We had both watched each other sing in every corner of Trader Joe’s for a year, and somehow our voices had never actually met, but they knew each other.
Garrett and I were trapped inside our own universe, irises locked, desperate voices gliding against each other with urgent wanting. It didn’t help that my senses were cross wired. Singing with Garrett was a cotton candy fever dream, and “Everlong” exploded behind my eyes like a purple and orange sunset. It left the taste of buttermilk frosting on my tongue. I didn’t want the sensation to end.
“And I wonder…If anything could ever be this good again.”
Good fucking question, Dave Grohl.
I was a solo act. I felt most confident and at ease when it was just myself and a guitar. But singing inches away from Garrett felt like I had injected an illegal substance into my veins. My voice had found its other half, without even trying.
I didn’t know how I was supposed to go back.
I didn’t think I wanted to.
After the song ended, Garrett jumped offstage and lifted his arms up to help me do the same—steadying my waist until my feet found the floor. I moved to back my body off his, but he held me tight. The feeling of his strong grip against my bones—one hand above my hip, the other hand in mine—was a scenario I had only closed my eyes on. My eyes were open, and his touch on my skin was very real. Garrett scanned my face with hungry eyes, and I felt the warmth of his mouth growing hotter and hotter against my lips. I felt his body thumping against mine—cotton shirt pressing on my strapless dress. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my maybe-boyfriend, Fucking Craig, parting through the crowd.
Fucking Craig.
“I…I can’t,” I said, the heat of the words echoing against Garrett’s lips.
I wanted nothing more than to kiss him. But not when it would hurt someone else. I didn’t want us to begin that way.
Garrett nodded and painted on an uncomfortable smile.
“Okay. I—I guess I misread…sorry.”
I shook my head, wanting to tell him he had nothing to be sorry for, that he didn’t misread a thing. But I was frozen in the moment, unable to speak.