Page 9 of I Saw You First

I shake my head.

“Are you okay? Do you need a doctor?”

“Ha ha.”

“She’s cute,” Sam says. “Go talk to her.”

“You’re supposed to tell me to not talk to her.”

I’m saved from doing something stupid when the guys—and one woman, the drummer—of HollowPoint come onstage to an uproar from the crowd. The woman in the Soul Asylum shirt turns to face them, her hands in the air, her back to me. Still, I can’t take my eyes off her or that lipstick stain on the cup, now raised above her head.

“Hey, Minneapolis!” the lead singer yells into the microphone after the last notes of their first song crash to a loud, screeching halt. “Here’s an old favorite for all our fans in our hometown.”

The guy on electric guitar lays into the familiar opening riff of their first big hit, “Shattered Love,” and the crowd goes wild.

Nobody’s got time for this shit anymore, shattered love scattered ’cross the floor. Don’t play the part, you don’t need another broken heart.

Exactly. Exactly what I needed to hear. It’s like he’s singing it directly to me.

Still, I can’t take my eyes off the woman with the dark lipstick as she drinks and dances and sings along. Everything else falls away—the crowd, the music, the eval, my father’s unending disappointment—and there’s only her. And when she moves through the crowd toward the stairs, her drink above her head again, I move, too.

THREE

“KEY WEST INTERMEZZO (I SAW YOU FIRST)” BY JOHN MELLENCAMP, 1996

ABBEY

A night at The Golden is exactly what I need.

I love seeing concerts here. I love HollowPoint. I love music. If I could see a live show every night of the week, I would. Tonight, I’m going to splurge on a couple of drinks and enjoy myself and pretend that everything’s okay. I’m going to stand tall and smile and enjoy myself. Tomorrow, I’ll face the reality of what happened.

When HollowPoint plays “Back to Baltimore,” my least favorite of their hits, I weave through the crowd and up the stairs to the restroom. I take care of business, swipe at a smudge of mascara, and reapply my favorite lipstick, Comfortably Plum. My hair—loose chestnut curls with a hint of auburn—looks damn good, and my face is still sun-kissed and rosy from summer weekends at the lake and pool. You’d never guess what I’d lived through this morning. I get in line at the bar and order another cocktail. One more can’t hurt, right, and these are definitely more cranberry than vodka, anyway.

As I walk down the stairs, I stop short when my gaze lands on a guy who stands facing the stairs and not the stage, looking at me. He’s taller than anyone else around him, and from what I can tell, the hair under his Minnesota Twins ball cap is dark, with curls at his neck. He’s wearing a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon T-shirt. His pale, clean-shaven skin is half bathed in blue light. One corner of his mouth tilts up when he notices me noticing him, and he tips his beer bottle toward me before bringing it to his mouth. I smile. He lowers the bottle and smirks.

The way he’s looking at me, the feeling deep in my belly, the sense that I’ve got to meet him, talk to him—it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. There’s something about him that draws me in, urges me forward.

“Wait there,” I say, and even though there’s no way he could hear me over the music and the crowd, he gives a small nod, and that strange, wonderful sensation washes over me again. I start back down the stairs.

Everything’s always working out for me.

I really, really need something to go my way today, and it might as well be the guy in the Pink Floyd T-shirt.

When I reach the bottom step, however, a stocky man with a goatee and a red, blotchy face in a Gophers football T-shirt plows into me and knocks my drink into my chest. The icy liquid soaks through my shirt and trickles down my stomach.

“Watch it!” he yells.

Excuse me? He bumped into me! He spilled my drink all over me! I open my mouth to say as much, but he scowls and moves away before I get the chance.

I’m about to meet a man who is quite possibly the love of my life covered in cranberry juice and vodka. I swipe at the drops on my neck, wipe my hands on my jeans, and look up to meet the most beautiful, enticing icy blue eyes, framed by thick, dark lashes. My stomach swoops.

“Hey,” he says.

Even over the din of the club, even with only one syllable, his voice is exactly as I imagined—low and gravelly—and I go weak in the knees. Up close, he’s even better looking. He smirks again, that one corner of his luscious mouth tilting up.

“Hey,” I manage.

“That guy’s a meathead,” he says.