Page 56 of Even After Sunset

I kick at the wooden post because seriously: comeon. This week has sucked enough already; can I not just catch a break for one lousy night?

But I’m already twenty minutes late now and I need to split. I sling the backpack over my shoulder and head toward the festival grounds. My soaked jeans cling to my calves and every step feels water-logged. Also, everything around me is out of focus: the horizon line a little off kilter and the lights from the amusement park harsh and blurry and kind of nauseating. I have to slow my pace because it’s a struggle not to just fall back into the sand and fall asleep.

After what feels like an eternity, I reach the festival grounds. The crowds are gone and now there are just small patches of people in clumps of twos and threes, packing up and pulling down wires, and a few scattered vendors counting money and closing up shop. I make my way over to the stage area, which is the busiest spot, and nod at Steve (the head roadie who hired me), when he beckons me over with a wave. He’s coiling a cable around his hairy forearm, but he stops and watches me as I make my way over.

“You’re late,” he says as soon as I reach him. He scrutinizes me with eyes that look like they miss nothing. He’s one of those guys who looks like he could be forty or he could be seventy-five. And I can’t tell if he’s a hippie or a biker-dude—he could be either. Maybe he’s both.

“Yeah.” I meet his harsh gaze head-on. “I’m really sorry, man. It won’t happen again.”

“No. It won’t,” he growls. “Caus if it does, you’re out of a job.”

I can tell he means it, too. I apologize again because I need this gig more than I need my right arm.

He nods. “Go collect the rest of those wires by the monitor and pile’em in the trunk backstage.”

“Sure thing.” I slide my backpack off my shoulder and drop it by the stairs before crossing over to the large monitor. I swear the stage is spinning. Like,bad.

I’m almost done coiling the chord when Steve calls over to me again.

“Hey kid! Get back here!”

I turn, still gripping the loop of cable in my left hand.

“You’re drunk,” Steve says, his tone flat and his eyes boring into me like a hammer-drill as I clear the distance between us.

I swallow hard. “I swear I haven’t been dr—”

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, boy.”

I am totally off my game tonight. And yeah, I may have drunk a little more than my usual concoction, but I also needed it a little more, too. I don’t like the memories that seeing Jackie has stirred up and I’m going for an offensive approach here. I’ve learned the hard way that getting sucked into defense mode is a surefire way to get buried alive.

“Look at you… You’re a mess.” He gestures to my legs with his chin. “What’s that all over your pants?”

“Just water.”

He quirks a bushy eyebrow at me like he thinks I’m still bullshitting him.

“I fell asleep in the ocean,” I explain. “I mean, under the pier… The tide came up.”

I’m tanking so bad right now. And I need tosavemy ass, not sink deeper. “Look, I’m really sorry. This won’t—”

“How old are you, anyway?” He cocks his head, one eye narrowed. “You even eighteen?”

“Yes, sir.”

I told him when he hired me, I was eighteen. I can’t renege now.

He tucks a toothpick between his teeth, so I’m guessing he’s more biker than hippie. Which, even in my inebriated state, I realize does not bode well for me.

“Don’t ‘yes sir’ me.” He flicks the toothpick stealthily to the other corner of his mouth. “‘Specially not if you’re gonna lie straight to my face.”

“I’m not lying.”

But man, I sound defensive. I soundangry.

“Bull. Shit.” He gives me a final once-over, then leans down and starts folding one of about five guitar stands. “You’re done, kid.”

He starts on another one, not even looking at me. “I got no time for this teenage-attitude crap.”

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