Wild Thing

Fuck rap music.
I silently apologized even though no one had heard me because I hadn’t said it aloud. Standing in this heat another hour though, I thought I very well might accidentally let a real f-bomb out. Natalie, standing next to me in her ridiculous black mesh top, daisy duke shorts, and red converses, paid no mind to my unabashed sneering. I smoothed my crisp white t-shirt disdainfully.

“I can’t believe we’re here. I can’t believe it!”

I couldn’t believe it either. That is, to say, I couldn’t believe I’d agreed to this stupid arrangement. Natalie Nikitin and I had been friends since we were five, since the day we’d stepped foot on the aged hardwood of the same Cleveland dance studio. Her mom, Irina Nikitin, was one of the most renowned Russian ballerinas in the world, even now in retirement. A week ago it’d seemed a fair tradeoff, driving Natalie downtown to some “Meet & Greet” so that she could talk to some white rapper named Shotgun Kelly—or was it Machine Gun Kelly? I didn’t know or care—for a few seconds. In exchange, she’d agreed to get her notoriously reclusive mom to work with me on one of my weakest areas, my leaps. It’d seemed a fair tradeoff at first, but I’d agreed to it before I’d seen the weather forecast; it was only noon and already a blistering 98 degrees.

A sudden roar, starting faint and gradually rising to a ground-shaking volume, sounded suddenly from behind us. Natalie’s eyes became glassy with tears I couldn’t take seriously as she gasped. She craned her neck and immediately joined the din and frenzied jumping up and down.
Apparently, the Kelly guy had arrived.

I watched as he made his way up the line of people, unimpressed. A tall, slight man, he loomed over almost everyone, ambling in long strides that took the rest of his entourage several more to keep up with. He wore a denim vest jacket, covered in roughly sewn patches sporadically placed in a way I guess was supposed to be cool. His jeans were eighty percent holes and tears held together with frayed thread. All in all, he reminded me of a promising young truck driver. He high fived a few more people, and smacked one excited girl’s ass—I grimaced—before making his way up to a red tent at the front and taking a seat.

At least the line would start moving.

I noticed a couple just ahead of us, fingers laced in each other’s as he sweetly kissed her forehead; my stomach pinched. Three months later after breaking up with my high school boyfriend, Tyler Graves, I didn’t think about him all the time like I’d used to, but seeing happy couples still did the trick. We’d agreed it was for the best though; he’d already left for the naval academy right after graduation and in the Fall, I’d head to the University of Ohio. We were eighteen now, it was time to start making the decisions that sucked.

“Next!” A beefy security guard took one unconcerned look at Natalie and I before ushering us forward. I could literally feel Natalie shaking next to me in anticipation.

Shotgun Kelly or whatever was preoccupied, talking to some annoyed looking blonde girl who looked like his manager as we approached him. I rolled my eyes as Natalie took advantage of the extra primping moment to yank her already low top lower. Eventually, he turned his gaze to us, smiling.

“Thanks for comin’ out, ladies,” he said in a relaxed voice that immediately annoyed me. “Where you from?”

“Cleveland!” Natalie squeaked instantly.

He nodded slowly, unrushed. “…Fucking right.”

“Jesus,” I muttered under my breath.

His lazy gaze flew me to me instantly.

“You from Cleveland too?”

I kept my voice taut, crossing my arms. “Born and raised.”

He nodded again. “What’s your name?”

I was shaking my head, but at the same time Natalie squeaked: “Her name’s Anna-Claire!”

I threw her a nasty look as a small smirk slowly crept into the rapper’s face.

“I love Black Flag, MGK!” Natalie gushed abruptly, breaking the weird focus he had on me. “I thought it was ingenious work. D&G was by far my favorite track—”

“Thank you, appreciate it,” he said good-naturedly. He hadn’t looked away from me yet. “And what about you, Anna-Claire, you like any of my shit?”

I raised an eyebrow. “I don’t listen to rap music.”

He was unperturbed. “What do you listen to?”

“Bach.”

He gave me an inscrutable look, one that might’ve been annoyance or admiration, I couldn’t tell and I didn’t care. Suddenly, he was standing from his seat. I heard Natalie’s breath hitch in my ear.

“You and your friend got plans tonight?”

I scoffed. “None of your business.”

He pulled a card out of his skinny, ragged jeans’ pocket. “Some of my boys and I are going to be at Earth’s tonight, you know it?”

I shrugged.

“You should come chill. We can talk some his arrangements, I like what he did with Vivaldi’s shit personally.”

My eyes widened momentarily but I didn’t have any time to linger on it as Natalie snatched the card from his hand and the security guard ushered us from the tent and away from the rapper-rockstar.