Fighting for Rain - BB Easton Page 0,60
says, “I got it.”
Chicka duh nuh-nuh nuh-nuh, duh nuh-nuh …
My eyes light up, and my heart overflows as he plays a simple song about an American girl raised on promises, trying to find someplace in this great, big world where she can hide from her pain.
“I love it.” I smile, swallowing back the lump in my throat.
“Tom Petty.” He shakes his head. “Goddamn genius.”
Lifting his eyes, Wes tips his chin at something over my shoulder.
“Sup?”
My heart stops, but when I turn around, it’s not Q and her crew; it’s Quint and Lamar, tiptoeing toward us from the food court.
“Guess it’s safe to go back into the tux shop now,” Lamar jokes.
“You can hang out, if you want.” Wes gestures toward the blanket on the floor that I refuse to look at. “We’re just trying to figure out Rain’s favorite song.”
Lamar and Quint share some kind of silent brotherly communication.
Then, Lamar speaks up, “Ahh … fuck it. Ain’t nothin’ to do in the shop ’cept stare at this ugly motherfucker all night. We’ll chill with y’all.”
Quint shrugs, and Lamar helps him over to the blanket. Holding him from behind, Lamar helps Quint ease down into the sitting position without having to move his head. It makes my heart swell so much to see Lamar stepping up to help his brother that I don’t even realize I’m looking at the blanket until both of them are sitting on it.
My eyes go wide as I jerk my gaze back to Wes’s smug expression.
Oh, you think you’re soooo smart.
Wes gives my thigh a little squeeze. Then, he turns his attention back on the Jones brothers.
“Do you guys know what Rain likes to listen to?”
“‘Free Birrrrrrd’!” somebody shouts from up above us. Actually, two somebodies.
My head snaps up to find Brangelina standing at the top of the broken escalator with their fists in the air. They stomp down the metal stairs and take a seat halfway down.
“No, no, no!” Not Brad shouts. “I wanna hear …” He switches to his hip-hop voice. “I did it all for the nookie!”
“What?” Brad chimes in.
“The Nookie!”
“What?”
They sing the chorus back and forth as Wes leans over and whispers in my ear, “I am not fucking playing Limp Bizkit.”
I giggle as Tiny Tim comes shuffling out of a dark second-story shop, holding his banjo over his head. “Did somebody say nookie?”
“Wes is trying to figure out my favorite song,” I call over to them.
“She looks like a Taylor Swift girl to me,” Tiny teases, taking a seat a few rows above Brangelina.
Wes looks back at me and raises an eyebrow. “You a Swiftie?”
I shrug, but before I can give him an answer, I notice a curvy silhouette stalking into the atrium from the hallway to the left—the one I never go down—shrouded in a cloud of smoke.
“Go ahead, Surfer Boy,” Q calls out, her voice slurry and slow as she snaps her fingers in our direction. “Play me some T. Swift.”
Wes glances down at me with hard eyes. The sharp line of his jaw flexes in the glow of the candles.
“You want me to play nice?” he whispers. The implication is clear.
You want to keep living here, or can I be a dick?
“No,” I say, his question giving me an evil idea. “I want you to play ‘Mean.’”
Wes smirks. “The song?”
I nod.
“You sure?”
I nod.
“All right, but you gotta sing it.”
“What? No. Wes—”
“Yes.” He lifts his thumb and slides it beneath the gash on my cheek, letting me know that he knows exactly who put it there. “You sing it.”
“But … what if I don’t know the words?”
“Everybody knows the words.”
Before I can argue anymore, Wes’s fingers land on the strings like he’s played the song a hundred times, and the “Mean” train leaves the station. I feel my chest constrict as I glance over at Q, who is now sitting on the bottom stair of the escalator, glaring at me.
When it comes time for me to sing the first line, I choke, but Wes just plays the melody again, this time murmuring the lyrics under his breath. I almost go for it, but it’s not until the third try that the words actually come out of my mouth.
They’re quiet at first as I tell Q that she’s a bully who enjoys picking on people weaker than her.
A little louder when I tell her that she has a voice like nails on a chalkboard.
And by the time we get to the chorus, I’m declaring—not to her, but to myself—that one