Awkward

Her hair was never the same color after she stepped upon that brightly-lit stage. It was red, for all intents and purposes; bright red, even. Fire truck red. Stop sign red. And a multitude of other words used to describe that vibrant color that Tré had already exhausted within two weeks of knowing her. He teased her, sneaking up behind her and pulling on the long dreads, exclaiming, “That’s rock star red!” while she screamed and punched and did everything within her power to put forth the opinion that yes, she really was quite capable of acting like a five-year-old when the situation called for it.

“Whatever,” she’d reply sullenly, when an onlooker would point this out. “He started it, the fucker.”

“Sourpuss,” he would say, grabbing another dreadlock and giving it a tug before he bolted, dodging away from her half-hearted punches and making a break for the nearest doorway he could disappear through, all the while laughing with a rather maniacal tone. “You know you like it!”

“Pedophile!” she would yell after him, earning the pair of them more than a few worried glances from anyone who heard the word, and didn’t know any better.

It was all very romantic.

He stole kisses whenever he could. It infuriated her, which was probably why he did it. When she stepped off the stage, he was lurking like her overgrown shadow in the darker corners of the backstage area. Before her eyes could even adjust again to the sudden lack of colored light that the stage held, he swooped in and planted the wettest, sloppiest kiss he could muster on her thin lips—and would, as was becoming tradition when they were together for more than three minutes, then run away as fast as his legs could take him so she wouldn’t, as she always threatened, “beat the ever-loving snot” out of him.

Once he realized how easy it was, he didn’t even confine it to the venues. Even her own bandmates had to applaud his James Bond moves when he jumped into their tour van as it started driving off and through a parking lot, grabbed her and kissed her once, and hopped out; all within about five seconds. She was so angry she almost jumped out after him, and it took the three men in her band to hold her back just so she wouldn’t.

He blamed it all on her hair. It was too enticing, he said! He claimed it drew him to her like a mosquito to a bug-zapper. (Not the most romantic analogy ever, he easily admitted, but that was about the truth of it.) “Your hair…well, it’s kind of a whore,” he broke it to her one morning, over a breakfast of pancakes at some diner in Indiana. “I think it sees other men on the side.”

“You are so weird,” she sighed back.

She didn’t see what he did, though. He wasn’t lying. There was something special about her hair…but only when she was onstage. When she was there, awash in her band’s music and thrashing about with her guitar, it caught in the light and it changed. It changed her. The purple floodlights made the thick dreadlocks glow, and the orange only seemed to catch on them as an outline, leaving the centers of each dreadlock red but giving them a fiery orange edge. When she spun around—a reoccurring move, on her part—they flew around with her, spreading apart and catching that light, a splintering halo of delightful color and texture.

Standing in a backstage wing, her side of the stage easily visible, he watched her band play almost every night just so he could watch her, and her hair. She was absolutely mesmerizing in her movements, and she probably didn’t even realize it. In fact, he was quite sure that she didn’t. When she was away from the stage she was awkward, her movements unsure. When the magic of playing to a crowd was taken away, she was just…less. It was a cruel thing to realize and then hold to as the truth, but there was no denying it.

She was still attractive in her own right, at least to him. He always did have odd tastes, he mused to himself. She was skinny, not thin, somewhat rail-like, not curvy. It didn’t matter onstage; she was never still long enough for anyone to see her as anything other than a colorful bunch of limbs zigzagging around her bandmates. When the lights didn’t lend her skin some color, she was a little on the pale side. Brown eyes had darkened circles underneath, the skin seemingly housing permanent and slight bruising. She didn’t really sleep much, he knew.

No one in her band seemed to, though while the rest of them were usually up late partying, she was normally to be found just wandering around the area they were in, provided they weren’t on the road at the time. Tré had bumped into her numerous times this way, walking through outdoor motel hallways in the middle of the night as he looked for a snack, or stumbling upon her sitting out in a venue parking lot as she smoked a cigarette. They talked sometimes. She was interesting, and she didn’t seem to mind him as long as he wasn’t trying to sneak a sloppy kiss.

He ruined it within five minutes, whenever he happened upon her like that. He lived to tease her; he practically woke up in the mornings brimming with excitement that he would get to mess with her again and again before the day would be through. There wasn’t much of a reason behind it. True, she was off-limits, being so much younger than him, but only because of his own standards. She was no child, but he would be forty in just a few years. He had better things to do than chase after twenty-something-year-old girls with serious romantic, or sexual, intentions. It didn’t stop him from kissing her again and again, breaking through their calm discussions with his lips just to infuriate her, but that was just for play. She never seemed as sure.

“What is your problem?” she asked of him, once. It was cold outside, the late-winter night lending a chill to their skin even under their layers of clothing. Steam rose from her mouth and unnoticed spit flew from between her teeth, and her eyes were suddenly narrowed; devoid of that glimmer that he’d come to be so fond of. The smoke from the lit cigarette wedged between her fingers rose up at him and made his eyes water even more than the cold air did. “What’re you, after me or something?”

“You’re cute when you’re mad, you know that?”

She was clearly a little buzzed that night, since the only response she could come up with for that was, “You wear too much eyeliner.”

“Maybe you don’t wear enough.”

“Fucker,” was her equally brilliant reply as she walked away, making quick steps back to the venue.

“Pottymouth!”

Her words irked him, nevertheless. His playful kisses were becoming less of a game to her, and more of a nuisance—and maybe one that was a little too confusing for her, all things considered. He thought about stopping, but…well, he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t still enjoying himself. Another couple of days on the tour, he told himself, and he’d cut it out completely.

--

This was a very low-budget tour, for a few very low-budget bands. Green Day was on a small break, but Tré became antsy and restless upon returning home from their summer touring. He jumped at the chance when a friend asked him to fill in as the tour drummer for his band, though besides said friend he didn’t really know anyone else that was involved. It was fun to play the small venues again; something he hadn’t even realized he was missing until the Foxboro Hot Tubs began touring the previous year. It was nice to feel that personal connection with the fans again; to see them enjoying the show from such a lack of distance, while security guards didn’t watch him like a hawk. He traveled in a tour van with six other men, instead of an impressively large tour bus. They stayed in motels, not hotels. It was…freeing, almost, even if he usually had to share a room with another man.

She was nobody, almost. She was forgettable, from her plain, though not unsightly, features to her equally unremarkable name. One of two females of a five-person band that was invited along last-minute. They weren’t famous, but they weren’t completely unknown. They were just one of those fringe bands; either on the brink of breaking into something good, or just as ready to fade away into obscurity instead, depending on how they played their cards. They had a fanbase, small but loyal, and scraped along at the bottom of their label’s barrel, barely making enough money to pay their own bills, much less the luxury of a motel room now and then while touring. Tré liked them. He liked them a lot, actually. They were edgy, and so completely weird, and their singer had definite talent. They could go places, if they wanted to. If they tried to.

Her band shared two motel rooms that night, bring-along roadies and their tour manager included.

Tré had his own motel room, though he paid for it himself.

She found use in it, at least. After their failed attempt at a mature conversation in the freezing cold venue parking lot, and the rushed scramble to get everyone to a nearby motel for the night, she showed up at his door. She still looked a little irritated. He couldn’t blame her. He still teased her, opening his door and making a high-pitched squealing sound that she could only assume was meant to portray delight. He surprised her, only kissing her cheek and inquiring to her sudden presence at his door so late at night.

She kissed him back, but not on his cheek.

Most of what happened after that point was to be reflected upon later as only scattered glimpses of clothing being shed and a door slamming shut behind her, muffled laughs and giggles falling against fabric being pulled over heads and mouths, and his back hitting a wall.

“Wait.” He broke them apart, putting his hands on her shoulders before she could begin to kiss him again. He couldn’t see her; the room was dark. He caught the shine of her eyes, reflecting a street-lamp’s light that came through the window, but other than that not even a faint outline. He could hear her breathing, could feel her breathing, chest rising up and down and hands trembling as they came up and gripped at his calloused fingers. “I have to ask. You don’t have, like…daddy issues, do you?”

“W-what?” She was breathless, and surprised. “No,” she managed to gasp quietly. “My dad’s pretty...pretty awesome. But can we not talk about him w-when we’re doing this?”

“Fair enough.” That was all he needed to hear. Apparently, it was the same for her, though her lips didn’t return to his. He felt her sliding down, her hands loosening their grips on his. Her knees hit the carpeted floor with a slight thump.

He wanted her to stop, but he didn’t want her to stop, ever, but this was wrong, it was so wrong—oh, god, it wasn’t too late to stop it, was it? His pants were unzipped, and he was being a fool and helping her pull them down and oh god, oh god, no—this was bad! This was very bad! She was a twenty-year-old girl, this wasn’t good, oh god, this wasn’t good. It wasn’t too late, he told himself, it wasn’t too late—she could stop now, he could make her stop, tell her this was a bad idea, convince her to leave…oh.

Oh.

This was good. This was very go—bad! No!

‘Bad Tré! Bad!’ He silently cursed his body for betraying him, though at the moment his mind really wasn’t far behind the blood rushing through his anatomy; if anything, his body was the one telling his brain to shut up already and just enjoy what was happening, for once. It didn’t change anything. This was so incredibly wrong. Good, yes, but so bad. He opened his mouth to tell her to stop, but…oh god. ‘This isn’t right—oh, Jesus Christ on acracker, she has a tongue piercing…’