44 Chapters About 4 Men - BB Easton Page 0,62

the majesty of a night out. The exquisite freedom from responsibility is intoxicating, especially after polishing off a feedbag full of Jameson.

Then, two songs in, the music stopped. A cloud of murmurs and reverb wafted through the air as the lead singer was led to the side of the stage by a roadie who whispered in his ear entirely too long for it to be good news. The hush was deafening. When the roadie finally returned our beloved front man to the mic, he was beaming with pride.

“You guys are so fucking crazy you broke the floor!” he exclaimed, just before being ushered off-stage.

Broke the what?!?!

The house lights came up, but no one so much as flinched, seeing as how we had just been told that the floor might or might not be crumbling beneath us.

The same roadie (who was obviously developing a semi from standing on stage in front of a sold-out crowd) told everyone, in his best authoritative voice, “Remain calm. Don’t make any sudden movements. When security tells you, move slowly to the exits.”

Move to the exits?? Show’s over?? NO! No no no no no no no!!! They just got started! We have a babysitter until one a.m.! You can’t make us go home! PLEASE don’t make us go home!

As it turned out, when the headlining band came out and everyone rushed toward the stage, all the little bitches in the emo club down in the basement freaked out because they heard a “loud cracking sound” and “felt the floor shudder.” Pussies.

Not that I was surprised though. The venue is in an ancient building, and anyone who’s ever seen a show there has feared for his or her life at least once during the experience—except for me because I am a cock-eyed optimist. Even though the floor always seemed to bounce and sway in a way that made me question the most basic laws of physics, I felt secure in the assumption that surely the fire marshal/building owner/safety-code-person-man wouldn’t let thousands of people pile into the place night after night unless it was absolutely, positively one hundred percent safe. Right?

I know, Journal. I know. It’s a miracle I’ve survived this long.

While we waited for our section to be dismissed, everyone remained standing, craning their necks to try and see what was going on down below, but Ken and I were too enveloped in our own little foreplay bubble to notice. He had pulled me into his arms and was seductively rubbing his hands up and down my back. Between the jealousy-fueled pheromone beacon I was emitting, my belly full of Irish whiskey, and the frenzy we’d been worked into from the music, it was taking every ounce of my already limited self-control to keep from climbing Ken like a fucking tree.

When I couldn’t take it anymore, I stood on my tiptoes and growled into his ear, “I’m not going to be able to wait until we get home.”

Ken just smiled and said, “What do you have in mind?”

As soon as we got the go-ahead from security, I grabbed Ken’s hand and took off down the fire escape, bobbing and weaving through the unfortunately dressed, sexually ambiguous heartbroken teenagers slowly shuffling out of the crumbling building. We sprinted three blocks, pushing past panhandlers and hurdling over hobos, until we finally made it to the car.

Once we were safely inside, Ken raised an eyebrow at me and asked knowingly, “Where am I going?”

I gave him directions to Sara’s old neighborhood, the sketchy one she’d lived in back when she was just a lowly school psychologist, like me. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the closest poorly lit secluded place I could think of. It was so poorly lit, in fact, that when I’d left my car there for a couple of nights while Sara and I were at a school psychology conference, we’d returned to find that all four of my tires had been slashed without any of the neighbors so much as batting an eye. It would be perfect.

As soon as we found a good spot, Ken killed the engine and looked at me with concern in his eyes. “So…how are we going to do this?”

I was already in the process of tearing off my boots, jeggings, and underwear. Foregoing the foreplay, my only instruction was to, “Switch places with me,” as I climbed out of the passenger seat and onto the center console, perching up on my tiptoes like an owl, to allow him enough room to