Marching season is out, but the competition is only heating up.
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Section leader applications for the next marching band season at Halston University are officially open, and percussionist Bay Rodriguez wants the role.
Bay's only competition is Ca...
noun. a song played by the marching band, comprising a whole show with multiple movements.
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AFTER TUESDAY'S DRILL PRACTICE, I eat leftover pasta for dinner and decide to have a drunken night out.
I wear all black tonight, with pops of silver from the various zips on my cargo pants, my rings and my pendant. Engraved on the back of the pendant is Christian's birthday, and he owns a matching necklace with my birthday engraved on the back.
I take some Engineering friends with me to the Foxhole. Quentin should be here with us boys, but lately on party nights he's been going with his badminton friends to Topaz, one of the nightclubs in Halston's town center. Which is insane, because he hates clubbing. According to him, clubs are shady, smelly, overpriced, with shitty booze and shittier music. (Who is worth the suffering? Krista, Quen's new lady friend.)
Personally, I can make a memorable night in any location, which comes to fruition through successive rounds of tequila shots, dirty dancing in front of the DJ stage, and wing-manning for my boys. Bay is working tonight, as usual. She saw me walk in, made unwitting eye contact, and has refused to look at me again. Her dark hair is swept up into a messy bun, and the black bartender apron obscuring all her curves does nothing to erase her naked body from my memory.
Does Bay look at me and feel the ghost of my body in her? Does she think about reaching out and dragging my mouth onto hers like I do? I can't tell. Outside the bedroom, it's business as usual to her—but I remember how she'd unraveled for me, how much she wanted me back. I'd seen straight into the burning chaos that lay underneath her frosty demeanor. I can't get enough.
When I step up to order more tequila, she sends me an expression stuck halfway between disdain and constipation, and conveniently goes for a break before I can talk to her. Coward.
"What can I get you?" a new bartender asks me, her fingers flying across the electronic till screen.
Tapping the corner of my credit card on the counter, I deliberate before saying, "Nothing, never mind."
I remember the time I encountered Bay leaving work while skateboarding around the campus, the personnel entrance in the alley behind the building. Chancing it, I ensure that my friends are occupied with good company, and that the company is feeling good, before I push my way through the throng of bodies towards the door. I slip out of the bar—the line to get in is steadily growing, and I accept that I might not re-enter the Foxhole—and into the silent evening, cobbles damp and air smelling like old leaves after a recent rainfall.
Behind the building, Bay is leaning against the brick wall, sheltered by the slightly overhanging gutter. She's scrolling mindlessly on her cellphone, and only looks up when my sneaker hits a puddle. She squints, then flicks off her phone and recognizes me.
