"Zoe." I extend my hand. "Your drumming is incredible."
"Thanks. Teague's been talking about you for weeks."
I look at Teague. Teague looks at the fence. A slight flush creeps up from her collar, pink against white skin, and she doesn't deny it.
"Weeks," I say.
"She's exaggerating," Teague says.
"I am not. She told me, and I quote, that she was 'seeing someone who made her apartment smaller.'" Britt grins. "I said that sounded like a complaint and she said it wasn't."
Teague is still looking at the fence. The flush is spreading. I am memorizing every second of this.
"We're on in five," Britt says. "Stay for the whole set. Cal's doing 'Rent Strike' and a new one about the bus route they cut." She points at Teague. "Bring her next time. She's got good energy. But...maybe we could pierce her or something?"
Britt leaves. I turn to Teague. She's still flushed, still looking at the fence, and I wait because I want her to look at me and she knows I'm waiting and she's going to make me earn it.
"Your apartment is the perfect size," I say.
"Shut up."
"Made your apartment smaller. That's the most romantic thing you've ever said about me."
She rolls her eyes but she's still smiling at me. "I said shut up."
"Britt thinks I have good energy."
"Everyone thinks you have good energy. You have objectively noticeable energy. It's a documented phenomenon."
I lean into her. She lets me. The nachos are gone and the baking sheets are stacked at our feet and somewhere behind us Britt is counting in and the second set starts with a song that rattles the chain-link fence against my back.
We stay for the whole set. Cal does "Rent Strike" and the lot loses it exactly the way the nacho woman said it would. Bodies moving, voices joining, two hundred people screaming a chorus about staying when the landlords want you gone, and Teague is beside me singing words she knows by heart and her voice is low and rough and off-key and I love it. I love her voice. I love her face in the work lights. I love the patches on her jacket and the eyeliner she put on for tonight and the flush on her neck that hasn't fully gone away.
The show ends at eleven. Cal says "thank you, stay loud, rent strike forever" and Britt throws her sticks into the crowd and someone catches them and screams and the PA goes quiet and the lot starts emptying. People drift toward the street inclusters, talking, laughing, the collective comedown of two hours of noise and heat and community.
We walk home. My sneakers are dirty. My ears are ringing. My t-shirt is damp with sweat that's half mine and half crowd. I smell like charcoal and beer and bodies and I feel like I've been somewhere important.
"Thank you," I say. "For showing me that."
Teague doesn't answer right away. We walk a block in silence, her boots on the sidewalk, my sneakers beside them. Then she reaches over and takes my hand, which she does more now, which she does in public, which she does without the preliminary negotiation of whether hand-holding is an acceptable activity for a person who built her life on purpose.
"I've been going to shows alone for three years," she says. "Britt's shows, other shows, basement gigs, lot shows. Always alone. On purpose."
"I know."
"Tonight was better."
"Because of the nachos?"
"Because of you." She squeezes my hand once, brief, and lets go. That's enough. For Teague, that's everything.
She walks me home, kisses me, then I go inside. Not every night is a sleepover. Some nights are a show and a walk and a hand squeeze and separate beds, and that's okay. That's real.
I get home. Mom is on the couch watching her show. Dad is in the kitchen doing something to the toaster that involves a screwdriver and a flashlight.
"How was your night?" Mom asks, not looking away from the screen.
"I went to a punk show."
