We line up right against the stage, and Cauler’s hand lingers in mine even as the crowd presses in around us, making me feel smaller than ever. I miss it as soon as he lets go, but he isn’t exactly far away. There’s no barricade between us and the bands. My face is right at waist-level with them.
Dorian said the openers were pretty small names, but the crowd still reacts … violently is the only word I can think to describe it. I am completely out of my element. The frontman’s screaming right in my face, I can feel the bass in my chest like my heart is syncing up with it, I’m being literally crushed against the stage from behind, and I even get kicked in the head by a crowd surfer.
By the time the first band is done, I feel like I’ve been to war.
“What’d you think, Terzo?” Dorian calls from down the line. His voice sounds muffled.
“It’s something,” I call back.
“It’s fun,” he insists.
And he’s right. It’s different. Takes some getting used to. But I guess it beats sitting in my room wishing I were dead.
I even bob my head along with the beat when the next band comes on. It’s nowhere near as aggressive as Cauler beside me with an arm up, punching the air in time with the words he screams along to. I feel kind of bad taking up space at the front from people who could really get into it, but at least I’m short enough for them to see over me. Not the case for anyone stuck behind Barbie.
“Look at Maverick!” Jade shouts. I twist, pushing up on my tiptoes to catch a glimpse of Kovy in the middle of a big gap in the crowd with a bunch of people all shoving one another and swinging their arms around. Kovy’s polo is drenched, his hair slick across his forehead as he throws his body around like he’s on the rink. Zero’s along the edge of the gap, cheering him on.
I smile. Even laugh. And when I face forward again, I find Cauler watching me just like I’d been watching Kovy. He looks away as soon as I notice.
After the second band, with the roadies for the main act doing their sound check, Cauler puts his forearms on the stage and his head down. The crowd’s thinned a little with people going for refills at the bar, so I take the chance to stretch my legs behind me. Delilah and Jade are going back and forth with Dorian and Barbie, but my ears feel stuffed and I can’t hear what they’re saying.
I should swap with Cauler. Let him get closer to them so he can talk, too, instead of acting like a door between them.
I mean, I guess I could talk to him?
There’s a thought.
I lean down next to him, matching him with my arms on the stage. I feel him tense against my shoulder.
“Hey,” I say. Like we haven’t been standing next to each other for the past hour and something minutes. Good start.
He’s quiet for a second, dragging a fingernail through a seam in the floorboards of the stage. “Hey.”
Okay. Time to put my nonexistent conversational skills to the test.
“So this is the kind of shit you listen to for fun.” I cringe at the same time Cauler scoffs. Wow. I am great at this. Might as well keep plowing on. “I mean, not that it’s shit, just—you know what I mean.”
“Actually, that band was kind of shit,” he says.
I blink at him. “You were literally singing along.”
“Well, yeah.”
“That makes no sense.”
He shrugs. “Maybe not to you. But some of us like to have fun.”
I say nothing. He didn’t mean to, but he hit a nerve. Of course I like to have fun. It’s just that sometimes my brain doesn’t want to let me. I expect the conversation to die there, but then he says, “We trended on Twitter for seven minutes on the way here. Got thousands of people arguing over us.”
Now I’m the one who scoffs. “Again?”
“I’ve got a feeling it’s gonna be like this till draft day, Terzo. Might as well get used to it.”
“Bet you’re loving it,” I mumble.
“Not really.” A loud, steady beat picks up as the drummer starts his check. I lean in closer to hear Cauler better. “People used to talk about me for my skill. Now they just wanna compare me to you. Someone actually sat there and said that if you were a few inches taller, these conversations wouldn’t even be happening.”
I roll my eyes. For once, my height’s got nothing to do with it. Just, you know, who I am as a person. “Lucky for you, I took after my mom.”
He ignores that, fidgeting with his lip ring in a way that reminds me we’re in his element here. The stretched ears might be out of place on an ice rink, but they’re pretty much standard here.