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“Thank you,” I said, as I rose to walk off the stage. My words were gracious, yet distant. Dame looked at me quickly and the same concern I was feeling was in his eyes. It seemed he might be wondering what I was thinking and worried that maybe he’d gone too far.
Benji helped me off the stage and Dame pushed into what he announced was his last song, switching the mood in the room from tender and open back to the raw and rugged excitement he’d injected before.
As I walked toward the bar where Billie was supposed to be waiting, the crowd went on like nothing had happened and the show would never end. But I was wondering what I’d say to Dame when it did.
“Excuse me,” I said, sliding around a couple who was locked in a shameless make-out session in the middle of the floor. When I almost passed, I felt a hand grab my shoulder and turned quickly to be sure it wasn’t the lip-locked boy who was literally swallowing the face of his date.
“Journey,” Clyde said, “I was trying to get to the stage to you.”
“Clyde?” I said as if I hadn’t seen the man in decades, which wasn’t true, but his face certainly wasn’t one I’d expected to see there.
He was smiling wide and when he reached to embrace me, I saw that Ms. Lindsey was standing behind him.
“Hey, Journey,” Ms. Lindsey said, waving.
“Karen?” I questioned this time with even less familiarity. “What are you two doing here?”
“This one just had to see Dame perform,” Clyde said, “and because he didn’t do anything in Tuscaloosa, I agreed to drive her to Atlanta.”
“Don’t act like it’s all me,” Ms. Lindsey said playfully. “You were the one talking about how this would be cheaper and we could get out here to have a little fun.”
“And I was right, too, because the show is hot! I’m mad it’s already over.”
Behind us I could hear the crowd cheering Dame off the stage.
Considering the near-impossible odds that I’d run into these two people at that club on that night after Dame just confessed his feelings to me on stage and Billie was floating around somewhere in the club with Mustafa, I thought surely the Lord was ...
“But forget us. Why are you here?” Ms. Lindsey asked. “We saw you on stage.” She pulled my arm knowingly as if we were friends.
“It’s not like that. That was just a joke up there.... He’s quite a jokester,” I said as comically as I could. I even added a chuckle that Clyde and Ms. Lindsey cordially joined in on. “Dame just wanted me to see him perform, so I drove up.”
“All this way by yourself?” Ms. Lindsey said, concerned.
“Is Evan—” Clyde tried to ask, but Benji came pushing between us suddenly. Ms. Lindsey rolled her eyes at his large frame like she’d come up against him in a fight in another life.
“Dame wants you to come backstage,” Benji ordered more ardently than usual. He didn’t even look sideways at Ms. Lindsey and Clyde. “Come with me.”
“Oookay,” I said at his abruptness. “I’ll see you two tomorrow?” I looked back at Clyde and Ms. Lindsey.
“Sure,” they agreed, smiling again, but I could tell they still had questions floating in their minds.
Benji took my arm, and we pushed through the crowd that had now turned into a full after-party. I looked around for Billie and Mustafa, but I still couldn’t see them. The club was so small and we were just a few feet from the bar. I was hoping they hadn’t snuck off somewhere. It was time to go and I didn’t want to risk having them run into Clyde and Ms. Lindsey. It was enough that they’d seen me. And I knew it would be a few hours before I had to worry about folks at the school chattering if Ms. Lindsey went and shared the news. And if I knew her like I thought I did, there was no “if” involved. But there was nothing I could do to stop things at that point. I just needed to get out of there.
“So, did you like the show?” Dame asked. He was sitting on a furry red couch that someone had obviously moved from inside the club. I sat down next to him, but left a clear space between us. I didn’t want Ms. Lindsey or Clyde or anyone else to walk up and get the wrong idea about us. But even with that space and the rawness of the confession in his lyrics still in my mind, I felt an energy pulling me toward Dame. There was a stimulating shine in his eyes and even though a towel now hung over half of his sweaty, naked chest, it was hard not to notice how solid and flat his pecs were—like cutting boards and the tattoos there had been etched with some sharp knife. The beads of sweat looked like drops of thick honey and like all the other women buzzing around Dame, it was hard not to look and wonder what it tasted like.
“It was okay,” I said, giving my best effort at looking away. This was about getting over my crush, not getting closer. The only progress I’d made so far was getting caught.
“You okay? You seem nervous,” Dame said.
“I’m—”
“No,” he cut me off. “You don’t need to explain. I know what it is. I put you on the spot. Right?” A few of the guys he’d been sitting with came over. “No doubt! Tell that nigga to call me, so we can get up in the studio,” Dame said after they had a brief exchange.
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“Well, it’s that—” I tried when they moved on, but Dame cut me off again.
“I know,” he said. “But I had to get it off my chest.”
