EPIC (Book 1 of the Soundcrush series)

Chapter 54: Rock Stars Hotbox

Kat

Trace is right. Vegas sucks.

I'm sure it would be awesome if we were here to chill, but since we are here on a scavenger hunt for Row, I am more aware that Vegas is hot and loud and sensory overload and crowded with people doing one of three things that get on my sober and serious nerves: standing in crowds totally oblivious to the people trying to move around them, stumbling drunk, or taking selfies every five seconds. Some people are doing all three at once. I'm sure somewhere there are people gambling, too, but that's not really where we are. Our assignment is part of the Arts District where are all the tiny wedding chapels are located. We take an Uber straight there, bypassing the busy strip.

Okay, I'll admit that Trace's comment about never fucking ever getting married again might also be part of the reason I feel so annoyed right now. Pretty much all I've seen for the last couple of hours are couples determined to do the exact opposite—they are getting married right the fuck now.

A full quarter of these couples look like they have put tequila firmly in charge of their futures.

The other three-fourths look swoonful and sweet, and are probably truly in love—maybe forever but at least for right now.

I have to scan them all, occasionally checking against a picture of Row and Ratch that Bridge texted me. But every couple is hard to look at—the drunk lovers make me think of Trace and Ashlynn. That makes my blood boil. The sweet swoonfuls make me think that will never be me and Trace, and they make my heart hurt.

Dammit, I want to get married some day, ok? I want the full family adventure. It's a been a couple of rough years since Ash got hurt but before that I had a pretty decent family life. I had solid-if-slightly-distracted parents and a good big sister growing up. Not to mention a wonderful childhood with my very own Peter Pan running high crimes. Life in the suburbs was good. I want to pay it forward. Sue me for being somewhat traditional. I want other things too, but I definitely want that—a marriage, a family.

In my marital imaginings, the guy at the end of the altar was sometimes a mysterious Prince. But if there was ever a real live boy down there in my daydreams—that real live boy was always Trace. In a gray suit, waiting before a bower beneath an ancient mossy tree, fairy lights strung above. Devilish and hopeful and happy-go-lucky and playful and joyful Trace—who would climb that tree with me just as soon as we finished the serious stuff. First married adventure—getting my wedding dress dirty with Trace.

I see now...even if Trace changed his mind about marriage one day in the distant future—I'm not going to get my exuberant boy-next-door-at-the-altar. Ashlynn slit that boy's throat. He survived, but he nearly bled out on her altar. He's...scarred now. I don't know if his scars are the kind that will get tough with time, or if they are wounds that don't heal...the kind he will protect always—even from me.

I think maybe...if Trace ever gets married again, it will be the strong, protective, stone-cold sober,intense Trace that takes a wife. The one I got a glimpse of in New Orleans, when he sat on the balcony and calmly mapped out how his tour plans and my college plans could mesh. The man that puts a luxury condo "in escrow" for me to live in, but is fully prepared to "walk it back" if I want to go in a different direction. The man that forces me to talk frankly about our sex life. The man that gives me his credit card because he doesn't want me to swim with the sharks he's so comfortable with.

I'm still getting to know that side of him, and I sure as hell can't imagine myself, like I am right now, married to that guy. That part of him outweighs every part of me. We're still as unbalanced as we were when he was a college student and I was fifteen. I wonder if I will grow to match him, to feel like his equal one day, like Marianne is to Matt—or if I'll crash and burn in LA like Ashlynn.