Paige says we need to get to her friend Phil’s house. “He collects a bunch of weird stuff, like old gas masks and weird Japanese weaponry. We’d totally be able to find useful stuff there.”
Karen shakes her head. “You know some weird-ass people, Paige.”
Paige grins happily. “He has a lot of weed, too.” I burst out laughing and she shakes her head at me. “It would probably be valuable, you know, to sell.”
“Yeah, I’m so sure that’s what you had in mind.”
Once Karen has had the chance to wax nostalgic about the best meals in her life, we reach the end of the list. “Ooh, there’s one more I forgot to mention,” she says, her voice overly casual. “And it’s a specific one for just one person.”
“What?” Paige asks. “That’s not in the rules of the talk list.”
“Too bad. This question is for Daisy. What’s the deal between you and Daltrey?”
I make a face at her in the rearview mirror. “Paige says it’s not in the rules to ask person-specific questions, so I’m not answering. The rules of the talk list must be obeyed.”
“Uh, no, actually,” Paige says quickly. “You totally can ask person-specific questions. I just, uh, forgot. So, what is the deal between you and Daltrey?”
I sigh. “What are you talking about?”
“Just like, every time you mention him, you get this dreamy look on your face—”
“I do not!”
“And your ears get all red whenever we talk about him, particularly when the topic is his fine ass. So what’s the deal?”
“He was my best friend since I was five years old.”
“Karen’s been my best friend since I was ten, and you don’t see me blushing when I talk about her.”
“This is totally unfair,” I mutter.
“Come on. We just want to know if you have a crush on him,” Paige pleads.
“And whether you ever got a piece of his ass, and if so, how was it?” Karen adds.
I snort. “Fine. He was my first kiss.”
Paige falls back into her seat, her hand over her heart. “Holy shit! You get to say that. For the rest of your life. That your first kiss was Daltrey Ransome. Holy shit!”
I laugh. “It wasn’t that special. We were eight, and we both wanted to know what it felt like. Afterward, we played freeze tag.”
“Still. His lips were on your lips.”
I don’t tell them about the other kiss we shared. It’s stupid, really, that a pity kiss at the age of thirteen, during Seven Minutes in Heaven no less, should feel sacred to me, but it does. I don’t want them giggling or sighing over that one.
“You guys never dated? In all those years?”
I shake my head. “We decided in our junior year that high school dating was stupid. Some girl had just broken Lennon’s heart, and he moped around the house like an invalid for about a month. We thought it was the dumbest thing—like they would have ended up together anyhow, you know? So we made a pact that we were done with stupid high school drama.” I don’t mention our prom plans. It still makes me too sad.
“Bummer,” Karen says. “You could have said he was your first lay, too. Wouldn’t that be a story to tell?”
That leads the girls into a discussion about their own less-than-toe-curling first times, and I’m relieved that the person-specific portion of the conversation is over.
What does it matter how I feel about Daltrey? He never gave any indication that he felt the same way. Besides, I’ve probably screwed things over so much that he’s lost most of his platonic feelings as well. You’ll be lucky if he even wants to talk to you. No sense in worrying about anything more than that.
Chapter Ten
Daltrey
“Dude, you’re completely flat,” Reed says.
Cash promptly flips him off. “Whatever, punk. I’ve never been flat a day in my life.”
I join Reed in laughing over that one. “Sure, bro. That’s why it took us, what, twenty-five takes to get the backing vocal on the chorus of ‘Timeframe’?”
“Fuck off,” Cash says, pulling off his guitar and leaning it against his amp. “What does it take to get a fucking beer around here?”
“You could ask Levi to go get one for you,” Lennon suggests, “instead of bitching about it.”
“Let’s take a break,” Reed says, looking down at his watch. “I could use a beer myself.”
My three older brothers leave me in the hotel conference room where we’ve been practicing and head out in search of beer, and in Cash’s case, a pretty girl to serve it. I decline the invitation to join them. I got a text message during our rehearsal, and I’ve been dying to check my phone to see if it’s from Daisy. We have a very strict band rule about phones during rehearsals, one I generally support, considering Cash would be sexting all the time without it. But Daisy and I have been messaging each other quite a bit lately, and it’s a kind of torture to think I might have missed one of her messages. So as soon as they exit the room, I check my phone.