Red Velvet Crush by Christina Meredith Read Free Book Online Page A

“It’ll be worth it,” I’ll say as I dance along on the high notes above him, showing him what I’ve got.
    He’s only a few feet away, but like always, there’s too much music and too many people in my way.
    The fluorescent tube hanging above Ty’s head flickers, momentarily lighting up his dark hair. I imagine feeling it, sharp and prickly one way, soft and slippery the other, as it buzzes along under my fingers while he leans in and finds my neck, his lips warm and soft.
    Blood rushes toward every exit point—my toes, my ears, the tip of my tongue—and I take a step closer to him.
    My guitar cord has been getting shorter and shorter as I slowly move myself toward him. I am tightening up our already tiny garage, day after day, practice after practice, inch by inch, waiting for the moment, again, when it will just be the two of us.
    I join into the song Ty and Jay are playing and take a stepcloser still. Now only a pile of tires stacked up in the corner, a half-built but completely forgotten engine, some potentially explosive cans, and a few primed car panels are between us. I tiptoe even closer.
    At this rate I will be standing on the edge of his snare drum by the end of the night.
    We play through the songs we all know by heart and some trickier B sides that none of us have heard before. Winston copied the sheet music for us down at the station and then returned the books to the music store for a full refund.
    Ginger and I don’t read along. He closes his eyes and plays as if every song already existed inside his head, just press play. I have to listen until I can find my place; then I can drop in and feel it.
    I am studying my fingers, figuring out an unfamiliar hook when everyone else stops playing. I look up and blush, the singular sound of my guitar filling the air.
    â€œWe have an exam tomorrow,” Jay says, nodding toward Ginger Baker. “Gotta get ready.”
    Jay and Ginger start sliding their guitars into their cases and snapping the latches shut, but Ty stays put, planted behind his drum set.
    Maybe he doesn’t have the same test, I think as I pull my guitar strap over my head and prop my guitar against the stool next to me. I’m not sure how their fancy school works. They probably don’t just squish everyone together based on sizeand then crush their spirits, like they do at mine.
    The former Trigger Brothers all go to Walden. It sounds completely crunchy, but it is actually a school for those on the fringes. For kids who are too smart or too scary or too special for regular, boring, public education.
    I picture a combo of geniuses and socially frustrated misfits studying together and bouncing into each other in the hallways that are painted with happy murals and construction paper silhouettes of Einstein and Brahms.
    Where fighters and biters and firestarters are mixed in with the truly exceptional. Sort of like, this guy can play Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 by ear, and this guy can sit in the corner and knock on a wooden block while drooling. Welcome to the sixth grade!
    Jay told me that he and Ty and Ginger have been there since they turned eleven.
    I can tell that Jay makes it through on charm and superior mechanical abilities. He wired one of the older amps back into service and put a dimmer switch on the light just inside our garage door before the end of our second day together. He says it enhances the mood.
    But Ty and Ginger are total goners. Gifted is what teachers usually call it, though. It sounds better that way.
    The garage door is open, and I can hear the sounds of dishes being done and TVs turning on down the street. It is starting to get dark, and lamps are lighting up as kids runhome, that last game of horse played out.
    Jay checks his phone and pulls the cord on his bass. It snaps out of the amp and slides across the floor.
    Winston and Billie left for cigarettes long ago. They won’t be coming back anytime soon. One time