A Year of You by A. D. Roland Page B

Text messages zapped back and forth between the women on the short drive from Daytona to Orlando.
    A hand clamped on her upper arm. Mattie gasped and jerked away. Being grabbed suddenly brought back terrible claustrophobic memories of K.
    The heat of dancing bodies rolled over her. The music was too loud and ate away at her sanity. The couples bumping and grinding all around her clutched at her with sharp fingers and glared at her with red-hot eyes.
    If she didn’t get out soon, she would lose her mind!
    She fought her way through the stream of people pouring in. She waved away the burly guy stamping hands and burst into the cool night air.
    “Hey, Mattie.” West squeezed out the exit. He looked worried. Honestly worried. It made her feel warm inside. “You all right?”
    “Yeah.” She gestured back to the club. Music pulsed through the pores in the brick walls. “That’s just really not my thing at all.”
    “Mine neither.” He looked delicious, in his leather jacket, jeans, and vintage-wash T-shirt. She gave him a cockeyed glance.
    “Then why did you come?”

    “Emeline can get a little crazy. I have to keep an eye on her.”

    “Really. That’s gotta suck.”
    He shrugged. “So, what is your thing?”
    “Not that. Back home, a lot of my friends were in bands, so I just sort of followed them around to different venues.”
    “Rock?”
“Yeah. Alternative, metal, anything but pop and that mess.” She pointed at the club.
He snapped his fingers, his eyes brightening. “I got an idea. Come on.” He grabbed her hand and hurried toward the parking garage.

    “What about Emeline and her friends?”

    “They’ll text me when they’re done. They’ll be there all night.”

    “You don’t worry about what your girl’s doing in there?”
He stopped and glanced back at her. “I trust Em.”

    Surprised, Mattie said, “Then why do you follow her to the clubs?” Surprised, she clapped a hand over her mouth. His annoyed glare cut through her. “Yes, really. She wouldn’t hurt me.”
    She kept her mouth shut about the guy on the phone earlier that day, and Em’s hushed, giggling conversation.
“That’s good. I’d hate to see you hurt.”
His gaze softened. Mattie broke away from his warm-summer-sky-colored stare. “So where are we going?”

    “Music store. They always have a band or open mic night or something on Friday nights. Friend of mine owns the place.”
    “Sounds great.”
    “It is.”
    Back in the Navigator, Mattie grabbed her ragged denim/sweatshirt half-jacket hoodie that Emeline had forbidden her to wear. The amount of cleavage she bared had her nervous. One wrong move and her wardrobe would malfunction tragically. She buttoned the bottom two buttons.
    West fiddled with the radio. He found a hard rock station and, after getting an approving nod from Mattie, turned the volume up.
    Mattie sighed and settled into the cushy seat. The tension eked out of her muscles slowly. She felt good around West. Even though he didn’t believe she was who she said she was for an instant, he still treated her like a friend. He was good at ignoring the elephant in the room. If she didn’t chatter like a magpie, it was cool with him. Being able to just sit and chill and listen to music made her night perfect. She indulged in a little fantasy where she wasn’t trying to scam money from a sick woman, and he wasn’t ‘almost engaged’ to her half-sister.
    He turned the radio down and passed her his cell phone. “Hey, text Em and tell her we’re going to Joe’s.”
    She took his sleek smart phone and tapped the screen until she stumbled over the text message function. She tapped out a quick message to Emeline.
    The reply came back almost automatically. “Wtvr”

    “W-T-V-R?” Mattie asked.

    “Whatever,” West clarified. “She doesn’t care. She’s too busy dancing and drinking.”
He parked in a tiny cramped parking lot next to an unobtrusive brick building in an