“Mm…kay.”
“Goodnight, Daisy Carmichael.”
Goodnight, James Brighton, I said, or maybe I thought it, or maybe I dreamt it.
My sleepy thoughts melted and melded together, losing their meaning as I sank even further. And just before I truly fell asleep, with Jamie’s soft voice still echoing in my mind, I had one last nonsensical thought:
If feelings were pencils, I wanted to draw with whatever color Jamie made me feel.
CHAPTER 15
My semi-sheer shirt did absolutely nothing to chase off the chill of the rain.
Nellie and I huddled together under the Downtown awning. I was shivering, but Nellie wasn’t, probably because Beck’s black jacket swamped over her shoulders. She’d offered it out to me, but she only had on a glittering black tank top. While my shirt was semi-sheer with a camisole underneath, it also was long-sleeved, so I told her to keep it.
Plus, too, it was really cute that Beck had draped it over her shoulders without a second thought.
“Remind me again,” he said from where he stood behind Nellie, half underneath the awning, half out of it, his blond hair plastered to his head. He had both hands on Nellie’s shoulders, holding her underneath the cover of the canopy. “Why are we doing this?”
“Because it’sfun.” That was Lydia, who stood further ahead in the line beside Raelynn, fully underneath thecover of the awning. She wore a blue sequin dress, and her blonde hair spilled over her shoulders. The curl that’d been there earlier was gone, frizzy from the rain. “And this band performing is all anyone’s been talking about.Everyone’scoming to watch tonight.
In the summer, the 18+ club in Bayview was only open three days a week—Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. On Wednesdays, smaller bands or lesser-known DJs took the stage in the back to perform, whereas Fridays and Saturdays were reserved for groups with a little more street cred. Nellie’s sister’s boyfriend and his band, Untapped Potential, had played on this stage a lot back when they still performed locally, and though this wasn’t where they’d gotten their official start, ithadbeen where they’d caught their big break.
If a band was performing tonight, it meant they were no-names, so I highly doubted Lydia’s prediction of a massive turnout. “I still say we should’ve waited for Jamie,” I muttered to Nellie, sneaking an arm underneath her jacket. “Book club ended five minutes ago. We could’ve waited.”
“Then he’ll be here soon to join us,” Dalton said. He stood beside Lydia and Raelynn, hands in the pockets of his dark wash jeans. His eyes trailed over me, and I wondered if he wished he’d worn a jacket just to offer it to me. “And imagine how long the line would’ve been if we’d waited to leave until five minutes ago.”
I looked at Dalton closely. No butterflies had tumbled to life at the sight of him in the parking lot earlier, and none fluttered now. Instead, I could onlyremember his expression from Monday when we’d been searching for Theo.Daisy, calm down.
It still irked me.
Thankfully, we shuffled forward quickly, finally getting Beck out of the rain. He was a good sport about it, swiping his hair back over his forehead. “We should’ve brought Jamie,” he agreed, rubbing his eye with a knuckle. “Or an umbrella.”
Nellie reached for the collar. “I can give this back?—”
“I will be very peeved if you take the jacket off, Nell-Bell.” And then he dropped a kiss on the crown of her head.
It wasn’t too much longer before we made our way inside. A DJ warmed up the floor until the band went on, and they were tucked in the corner near the dancefloor, where pulsing strobe lights beckoned people to come and dance. Despite Lydia’s prediction, there weren’t that many people in the building yet, and the dancefloor was more lights than people.
“Jamieiscoming, then?” Raelynn asked Nellie, ignoring me. “He’s actually going to dance?”
“We’ll see!” Nellie replied dryly, and we locked eyes. It’d probably be a miracle to get him out on the dance floor, honestly. We’d barely even managed to get Jamie to dance at prom. “If anyone can get him to dance, it’s Daisy.”
“I’m prepared to make it my life’s mission,” I murmured dramatically, giving a sage nod.
Raelynn, though, crinkled her nose. “You shouldn’t force him to do something he doesn’t want to.”
I couldn’t hear her that clearly over the music, but the stink eye she gave was clear. “Well, I?—”
“You know this is already outside of his comfort zone. Or maybe you don’t care?”
This girl. She was getting on my nerves.
Lydia seemed to sense that, because she suddenly grabbed Raelynn’s hand. “We’re going to run to the bathroom!” she called to us over the music, and then they were gone.
Nellie said something to Beck, eyeing the dance floor like she was interested in going out to it, but nervous. Thiswasout of Nellie’s comfort zone, too. She’d recently hung up her title of Ms. Perfect, and dancing at a club was quite the jump.
Beck swiped up her hand, one corner of his lips tugging upward. With the dim lighting and the pulsing strobe lights, he looked like something out of a movie—something dangerous and fun. “What, you thought I forgot our promise of dancing together?”
