Jukebox Lovers

It's one in the morning, and the show that was supposed to end at ten hasn't even got their headlining band out yet. Aware my mother was going to kill me for being home far past curfew, I breathed deep, hoping perhaps she would give me a little mercy since I had not known it would be this long.

Some girls behind us started leaving, chattering excitedly about how great their boyfriends' band had been. I looked over to Annemarie, wanting to follow the five girls, quite happy with the nine bands we had seen. She shook her head belligerently and looked at the stage where the tenth and final band was setting up.

One of the band members walked onstage, setting up a mic stand. His dark brown bangs fell into his face, but when he stood, I swear I saw the most beautiful boy on the face of the Earth.

"Annie," I whispered, "who is that?"

She smirked, "The reason we stayed for the headlining act, my dear."

"Shut up, seriously, who is it?" I asked and quickly added, "Because I think I've seen him before."

"That's Jacqui Larson."

I couldn't tear my eyes away from the brunette beauty. For some reason, he was entrancing. The way he walked sent shivers down my spine. It lacked confidence, but contained something else I couldn't pinpoint. Whatever it was, I liked it.

"Quit staring, you'll burn a hole in his head."

"What're you talking about?"

"You're staring at him."

"I'm not staring at anything. I was looking at the amps. I need a new one and I was trying to see what brand to get. I want to see what kind of sound comes out of them."

She rolled her eyes and looked over at the merch table where someone from each of the other nine bands was sitting, waiting for somebody to come buy a tee-shirt, demo, or anything else of the sort. A few girls were flirting with the more attractive boys but for some reason those boys weren't nearly as attractive as this "Jacqui" boy was.

Finally, when all of the bandmates were onstage with their instruments, my eyes tore away from him only for a moment because the bassist hit his bass so loud I swear I felt my eardrums shatter.

My eyes averted back to Jacqui as he stood next to the microphone stand, pulling it close to him as though it were his dance partner. He pulled it close to his mouth and said, "Hey we're Lost Horizon and we're hoping you guys aren't too tired to give us as much energy as you did for the other son of a bitches that took the stage tonight."

Everyone, including me, gave a cheer, a wolf-whistle, and one kid even started some show-foreplay and pushed a person into the small local stage. We realized who was going to start an end-of-show mosh pit and I followed Annemarie away from the area. She usually took part in these type things, but she informed me before-hand she couldn't ruin her brand-new nails. However, I didn't mind, because when we moved, I got closer to the stage, meaning I got closer to Jacqui.

Their opening song was a cover of Liar (Takes One to Know One) by Taking Back Sunday, which got the crowd going, but I couldn't jump or mosh or cheer. All I was interested in was the brunette boy with the microphone.

His stage presence was incredible ; his body moved in ways I thought impossible. His hips, his hands, his feet -- all of them were moving at a more-than-steady pace, and they weren't slowing down. The bassist jumping to center-stage got in my way to view Jacqui, which upset me for a moment, but he made his way over by the guitarist, who was hopping about like a mad jack rabbit. Jacqui smiled and began singing again after the guitar solo was over, and he had me mesmerized.

"Adrian!"

I snapped out of my stupor and looked over to Annemarie. She held up her phone and handed it to me. I looked at the text message from my mother.

'Adrian, where the hell are you?'

I texted her back that the show would be another half hour or so and handed the phone back to Annemarie.

My mother was too ridiculously cheap to buy me my own cell phone, so she just texted Annemarie's phones nonstop (since I was always with her), checking up on me. Annemarie's mother has talked to my mother more than once, complaining about her using up Annemarie's minutes, thus she had to buy her more. For some reason, my mom didn't care though, and checked up on me just as much.

At the end of the show, I tried to find Jacqui to perhaps talk to him if not only for a moment. However, he seemed to disappear, and my mother was sending more texts to Annemarie than I could count.

Sadly, I followed Annemarie to the parking lot and we got into her van. She handed me her ringing cell phone and somehow I drowned out my mother's screams about how we needed to communicate better if I would be that much past curfew.

There was one thing on my mind, and it was not my angry mother.