Moving Forward (Moving Neutral, Book Three) (5 page)

Chapter
Nine

That night of the show, the cold was so brutal that it felt like it hit your bones.  Every cab in the city was taken, and the unheated subway tunnels didn’t provide much protection.  I was bundled up in a huge jacket, with my cute jeans and tee shirt underneath for once I got to the venue. 

It was a night to curl up with a book and a fire.  The exact opposite of what I planned to do.

Before I’d left, I’d told Darby where I was going.  I didn’t have much of a choice — as soon as she saw me putting on makeup, she knew something had to be up.  I didn’t want to jinx the plan, so I just told her I was going to see Liv’s band again.

“Is Blake going to be there?” She
’d asked, looking a little nervous for the answer.  I hadn’t said much about Blake since getting back from California, but it was pretty much impossible to hide the fact that he wasn’t speaking to me.  Even from a roommate who hadn’t been speaking to me either.

“I think so,” I’d told her, feeling
my stomach contract with nerves.  I felt the way I had months ago, when the idea of talking to Blake Parker was more than I could have dreamed about.

“Well,” she’d smiled at me, looking appraisingly over my outfit.  “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do?”

I tried not to laugh — the icy silence between us seemed to have thawed, at least for the moment.  For a second, I even considered inviting her along.

There were a few people clustered outside the door as I walked up, tilting my head down so that no one would recognize me.  I didn’t see any photographers, but there was always the chance that someone would get wind of Blake playing with Liv’s band and show up to cover it.  I hoped we could keep everything under wraps — the surest
way to scare Blake away was to turn this into a paparazzi event.

Opening up the door
, I peeled off my coat almost instantly — there were enough people inside that the room was already warm, and I stood on my tiptoes to look around. 

My first instinct was to look for Liv, but I
knew she’d probably be getting Blake prepped until the moment they went onstage. 

I didn’t want to surprise him with my presence until the
absolute last minute possible — mostly to ensure that he didn’t turn around and leave.

So
until then, I had to make myself as inconspicuous as possible.  I looked towards the bar, so that my face was away from the rest of the club and mostly hidden by my jacket.  When the guy behind the bar finally noticed me, I ordered a diet coke. 

The bartender looked at me skeptically.  “You want rum in that?”

No, I definitely did not.  I wanted to keep my mind as sharp as possible.  “Just plain,” I said, resisting the urge to tell him I was pregnant or an alcoholic, just for fun. 
Those
were the stories that made it to the tabloids, I was learning, no matter how utterly false they were.

Blake is here
, I thought to myself, smiling with excitement.  Tonight, for better or worse, we were moving forward.  All I could do was cross my fingers and try to keep calm.

The crowd was bigger than the one at Liv’s
first show — even unadvertised, a show like this got a pretty good draw through word of mouth.  It was the kind of show that I would have died to go to in high school, but I wouldn’t even have been cool enough to know where it was. 

Taking a quick glance at the stage,
a guy I didn’t recognize was testing Blake’s electric guitar, twisting the controls on an amp and playing chords to test the sound.  I immediately turned away — even if Blake wasn’t out there yet, I had to get out of eyeshot of the stage, fast.

“
Actually, nevermind,” I said to the bartender, catching his eye before he could pour my drink.  “I’ll get one later, thanks.”

I left a dollar on the bar as a tip, and he looked at me
sympathetically — for a second, I wondered if he recognized me, but I figured I was just being paranoid. 

On the other hand, wi
thout the full story, he probably just thought I was stalking my ex-boyfriend. 

Sigh.

I walked down a hall, away from the stage.  Finding the women’s bathroom, I ducked inside and stood there, looking at the mirror.  At least Blake wasn’t going to see me here. 

I texted Liv to tell her where I was, and then put my phone away.  The bathroom was grimy and graffiti-stained, like most of the New York music venues I’d been to. 

I looked at myself in the mirror, the only thing in the room that appeared to be relatively clean.  It was funny, sometimes, how the last few months had changed me.  In high school, I’d thought everything through — my role was always the voice of reason against Madison’s crazy plans.  But here?  It was like I couldn’t quite slow down, hurling myself from one thing to another with none of the careful analysis and planning that used to be my trademark. 

Honestly
, I didn’t even look the same.  Blowouts and gorgeous clothes and professional makeup had made a big difference in my appearance. 

Sometimes, t
here were moments in an unfamiliar mirror when I barely even recognized myself. 

Staring into the mirror, a
different girl looked back at me than the quiet, not-even-popular high school senior I’d been a few months before. 

Tonight
, I could actually pass for the girlfriend of a rock star. 

I took a deep breath, and tried to
reassure myself. 

Hopefully Blake would see it that way too.

Chapter Ten

I abandoned hiding in the bathroom a few minutes before the show started.  When I came out, it was even more crowded — seventy five or a hundred people clustered tightly around the stage, more than double the group from Liv’s other show the week before.

I squeezed my way into about the middle of the crowd, hoping she’d see me.  I’d wanted to wait backstage, but we were too worried Blake would
glance back during the show and see me. 

So I stayed where I was, shoved a little too tightly against a guy on one side and a girl on another. 
Whatever
, I figured.  It was a concert — it was weird that I’d gotten used to watching them from backstage, with drinks and snacks and space.

Blake wasn’t on stage for the first song, but Liv’s band was clearly in the zone and the crowed seemed to be having fun. 
By the middle of the song, she finally found me in the crowd and broke into a smile.  I smiled too — it was all going to go smoothly.  It had to.

W
hen they hit the first song’s final chords, I felt my heart jump into my throat. 

    “You guys,” Liv’s voice bellowed over the crowd as she took the mic.  It was
a little unusual for a bassist to speak that much on stage, and I heard a rustle go through the crowd.  “We’ve got a very special friend here tonight, and I wanted to introduce him to all of you.” 

Her smile was completely contagious
— half the audience was jumping up and down with excitement.

Liv’s
voice rose with excitement and pride as Blake walked onto the stage, wearing a black tee shirt and jeans, his hair in that just-out-of-bed, insanely hot style.  His eyes scanned the crowd, not seeing me, but their blue was visible to me from fifteen feet away. 

He looked good.  He looked
happy.

I felt my chest rise a little as I realized that I’d done something that made him happy
— even when he wouldn’t let me. 

The crowd around me was cheering like crazy, and Blake waved from the stage, at ease and relaxed.  Glancing down at the strings of his guitar, he gave a small smile and
started the first song.

I held my breath and tried not to blink.

They were playing Liv’s songs, not the songs that Blake had written for Moving Neutral, but he still nailed every cord and note — his timing was perfect, his skill breathtaking.  He couldn’t have been practicing any of their songs for more than a few days, but he already sounded like he was one of the band. 

I let myself watch his face, just for a second.  I couldn’t help myself
— he was in his element, so relaxed and sure of himself, the way he’d looked on tour over the summer.  I realized how much I’d missed seeing him this way. 

It made me realize h
ow much
he
must have missed it.

I
lowered my eyes every time he glanced into the crowd, but he didn’t seem to see me.  We’d figured that the stage lights would be too bright to notice me in the crowd, as long as I hung back a little, and so far, the plan seemed to be working.  For the next three songs, I just listened, watched the crowd, and tried to enjoy the music. 

Until.

At the end of their sixth song, Liv took the microphone back from the lead singer, and the crowd silenced again, the murmurs more animated this time.

“
So, some of you might know that Blake has a new song,” she said, her voice lilting and almost flirty, trying to goad the audience into wanting to know more.  “Some of you might even have heard it,” she raised her eyebrows with a smile, and the audience cheered.  I tried not to blush as Liv continued, playing into the excited crowd.  “So, I was wondering — do you guys want to hear it again?”

Blake’s expression was confused, but not angry
— he looked like he had no idea what she was doing, but he seemed to be going along with it.

“Sorry guys,” he cut in
, raising his voice to get picked up by the other microphones.  “No can do — it doesn’t have lyrics yet.” 

The crowd was quiet,
waiting for the big reveal that they sensed was coming — even though they had no idea what they were in for.  I took a deep breath, feeling my body go tense with nerves, and started to make my way through the crowd toward the stage.

“It has lyrics,”
Liv grinned at Blake, turning her attention to the audience.  “You guys have heard the lyrics, right?”

I was grateful that I couldn’t see Blake’s face — his reaction was the wild card, and I had no idea what would be going through his head at this moment.

As I made my way through the crowd and over to the side of the stage, people started to recognize me.  I squared my shoulders and moved as quickly as I could, and the people around me started to clear a path — either recognizing me or just figuring that I was somehow part of the show.

On the stage, Liv caught my eye and broke into a grin.  “In fact,” she said, and I could feel the crowd’s excitement start to grow as she spoke, “it doesn’t just have lyrics.  It has a singer
, too.”

I
felt every eye in the house on me, as I paused next to a small set of stairs that led onto the stage.  Liv gestured for the crowd to start clapping and then walked to the side of the stage and offered me her hand.  I grasped it, weak-kneed, and let her pull me onto the stage.

“You guys know Casey Snow, don’t you?” Liv yelled into the mic, and the crowd started
cheering, clapping and yelling.  I was trying to stay calm, but the reaction floored me—I felt myself breaking into a grin, feeling the crowd’s excitement giving me confidence.

When I was standing squarely in the middle of the stage, I finally risked it.

I glanced over at Blake’s face.

Usually Blake was the best poker player on earth
— you could look at him and couldn’t get a thing he didn’t want you to see.  He could be happy, angry, stressed, dropping out of his band, dropping out of school, and you couldn’t see a hint of it on his perfect features.

But today
he was an open book.  I felt my body go limp with relief when I realized it wasn’t anger — there was something else in his expression as he looked at me. 

I met his eyes, and suddenly there wasn’t a stage or a crowd.  Suddenly it was just me, getting lost in Blake Parker’s blue eyes, like I had a thousand times.

Blake shook his head at me, like he was trying to force himself to be angry, but his eyes were sparkling and I could see a smile creep along his jaw.  No anger, not really.  He was looking at me with exasperation, like a puppy that wouldn’t stop nipping at his fingers.  Exasperated, but he was having fun. 

I smiled at him sheepishly, and
I saw his shoulders shake with a concealed laugh as he rolled his eyes. 

I lowered
my microphone away from us, and tilted my head towards his.

“You didn
’t return my calls,” I said, shrugging my shoulders innocently.

He choked down a laugh.  “So
— this?  You did this?”

I
tilted my head and grinned at him.  “Dream big, you know?”  I wanted to say more, but the rest of the band was ready to go.  “You ready?”

He was
still smiling.  I’d missed that smile. 

“Yeah
,” he said, flexing his fingers and setting them down on the guitar strings. “Yeah, count it out.”