it wasn't my fault my eyes were drawn to her breasts. blame the necklace.

something womanly about amy had always been intriguing. she wasn't one of the athletic girls with boyish bodies and abs so tight you could roll a joint on them and have plenty of room left. she was more like a woman from the movies, one who was older and wiser, with a pinup girl's kind of savvy. she always dressed a little on the frumpy side, the kind of girl you didn't think much of from the outside but when you peeled back the layers-and i'm speaking metaphorically right now, but i wanted to be speaking literally-you found an enormous treasure underneath.

amy snubbed darla and turned away. and darla-now it was her turn to be pissed. whatever was going on over there made amy angry, and focused, and passionate. jesus, i wanted to tap into that. what was darla saying to trigger such a hot response?

something in me melted, softened, as if a hard core of steel had been driving me forward, tinged with anger and coated with regret. my heart began to beat faster and hope slammed itself repeatedly against my chest wall. what if? what if? what if? was the beat that ran through my head and, as darla walked away shaking her head slowly, mystified, i felt the same way-except, from a completely different angle.

"hey, sam!" shouted tyler, the new bassist for the group. he was filling in while joe was at orientation for law school at penn. "can you help me with this amp?"

"yeah, sure," i said and stood. my eyes broke away from amy for a few seconds and when i turned back to look she was chatting with goddamn fucking liam. he had a way of holding his body like he was the only man in the room. in a way, he was-he was the dude. liam needed to be the only guy in the room-and when i say need, i mean need. it was his weakness. there was something about the fight in him and the constant arrogance that made him equally fascinating and annoying. it got tiring to pull him out of fights, or to pick him off of a girl's wrath. most of all, it got tiring because if you have to repeatedly prove your manhood...

maybe it's not as strong as you think.

amy

from the ladies' room door, i watched darla march off, finally taking the hint. she seemed like someone who would be pretty interesting once you got to know her, and i didn't like being nasty to her. but anybody who was passing herself around the band like a tray of appetizers...are you kidding me? that's not the kind of person i wanted to be friends with.

i watched her walk up to the stage and grab trevor like she owned him. the way his hand snaked around her waist, enjoying a handful of flesh, how her arms slid under his ribs and then up, fingers intertwining with his hair and their mouths connecting. a tug of envy pulled inside me. not that i wanted trevor-but i wanted that. i wanted a man to touch me, and own me with his hands as if nothing else mattered in the world.

trevor pulled back, whispered something in her ear, and she tipped her head back and laughed. it was an intimate moment, and one i felt privileged to watch, despite feeling disgusted by the easy way she traveled from man to man on that stage. dammit! i wanted to be that close to a group of people. i wanted to be part of something so edgy, and fun, and intense.

instead, here i sat in the back of the bar, with a fucking tablet in my lap, nose buried in a book, which was not something new. it might be my tablet nowadays but i was still the mousy, bookish amy. the part of me that hated what darla represented now admired it a bit. she was free-really free, up there talking, and laughing, and joking.

and then, she stepped away from trevor and damn it if her hands didn't touch sam. he reached for her in a friendly hug and i knew, from the body language, that there wasn't anything going on. all the air in me whooshed out in one big, relieved sigh at the same time that i imagined myself her, that his palms were wrapped around my shoulders, that his cheek touched mine, that the friendly, quick embrace was nothing like what darla and trevor had just shared. sam pulled back and said something. whatever it was, it seemed kind because darla smiled and i saw a single tear travel down her cheek, then disappear past her jawline and under her shirt.

the shine of kleig lights made it possible to see everything and sam's face softened, the compassionate look making me wonder what on earth was going on. something had morphed up there-the atmosphere was less exuberant and then, the new bass player. it all clicked. joe. joe ross was...gone?

as if on cue, an all too familiar voice said from behind me, "if you stare any harder they'll turn into stone."

i whirled around and there stood liam, wearing a ratty t-shirt, jeans that fit every part of him perfectly, and with hands tensed and ready to perform. he grabbed the chair next to me, twisted it around and straddled it, crossing his forearms over the back. "you've still got it bad, don't you amy?" he said, pointing at sam.

it was just a flick of a finger, nothing obvious, but it made me burn inside.

something about liam made it impossible to lie. "i know. i admit it." it was the first time i had acknowledged it to anyone. it made me feel complete somehow, as if it were out there-an emotion that now had form.

"you see the new bass player?" he said.

"yeah?" i asked. "what's going on? where's joe?"

"joe left," he said with a tone of intrigue injected. liam could do that-there was an affect he had, a way of being on stage all the time. it got old pretty quickly but when he was on, he was on. the golden boy.

"left? you mean left for good?"

"no, he got into penn. he's at some kind of orientation but we had to get a new bass player because he's not going to be back that often."

"is that why darla's crying?" i asked. "one of her fuck toys is gone?" i used the words on purpose just to seem liam's reaction.

he flinched. "your horns are showing, amy."

"nice of you to acknowledge that i have them, liam."

his eyes narrowed and he studied me. i could feel that look crawl over my forehead, my hair, my eyes, nose, and mouth, traveling down, down, down, down until i was breathing so hard i imagined that when he got to my chest it heaved like some heroine in one of those cheesy bodice rippers darla was just talking about. "if you think darla's being passed around like a piece of meat...you're dead wrong. she's trevor and joe's, and that's it."

i couldn't help myself-i was so weak. "you mean she's not...sam's?"

steely eyes the color of a bright blue sky reflecting over a pure caribbean sea stared back at me. "you're safe there," he said in an assuring voice, one that changed from calculating and judging to inclusive and compassionate. "but amy, whatever you feel for sam, you need to let him know."

"i did let him know," i insisted. "four and a half years ago."

"i know you did." he reached out and touched my hand. it felt brotherly and yet, with an edge. "but it's been four and a half years and you're here, sitting in the dark with a thousand books on that little machine, in a bar where one of the hottest bands in the boston area-hell," he chuckled, "in the world if i do say so myself." he squared his shoulders and shot me a cocky grin. "where we're playing and you're hiding back here like a church mouse. go for it. tell him what you think. tell him what you feel."

"speaking of going for it," i said. "how is charlotte?"

his grin snapped shut like it was spring loaded. "you're like a sniper with perfect aim," he said, his jaw clenched and off centered, tight and restrained.

"no. just a champion debater," i whispered.

"what?"

"nothing." he frowned and i took that as my moment to get the hell out of here.

fate had other ideas, as a sam strode over to us with a determined step, his body all sweat and muscle, his eyes intense and focused. my heart slammed into my throat and liam followed my look.

"hi, sam," liam said, his face morphing to an impish grin as i steeled myself for the first chance i'd been given to finally - finally - say what i'd wanted to say all these years to sam.

i miss you. those were the first words that popped into my mind? struggling to maintain a neutral face as sam's eyes found mine, the roiling chaos inside me churned so fast. no! not i miss you. i couldn't tell him that, even if it were true.

especially because it was true.

sam

darla came over and gave trevor a hug, then surprised me with one. she was warm and soft, and hey-i'm a guy. it felt nice. but her jaw trembled against my neck and i pulled back, catching her eyes and finding tears in them.

"upset about joe?"

she swallowed hard and nodded. "nothing will be the same."

"penn's a great school." oh, that was comforting, dumbass.

"i'm a great lay," she whispered.

that made me laugh, and she joined me, a sad smile twisting her lips.

"it'll be fine." the words were just an impulse. were they true? hell if i know.

tyler asked me yet another question about the audio equipment as my eyes rocked with disbelief when i took another look into the crowd. there was liam chatting up amy again. it was bad enough to watch the two of them back on the common, but here? was she coming because of him? or was she coming because of me?

this was going from stupid to stupider. her reaction to him was pissing me off. i was supposed to be the guy standing over there talking to her. i was supposed to be the one getting her eyes on me the way they were eating him up. i was supposed to be the one who reached out and touched her hand, who had all of her attention, who had all of her focus. and i was supposed to be the guy who saw no one but her. except, instead of being that guy, i was the guy who completely dicked her over four years ago. so, which guy was i going to be right now?

there was definitely something between the two of them. her hands played with something on the table when he wasn't reaching out and touching her, her eyes flashed at him, the way her lips moved when she talked to him-all the non-verbal cues told me that there was a history. there was something more than just being neighbors.

she said something to him, her mouth moving in rapid fire in a way that made me want to kiss it and make it stop. and then, liam shut down. oh, my! amy's debater tongue had just conquered mr. arrogant. it made me smile, it made me want her, it made me need her more. i sat there, impotently enraged, watching liam get time-face time-with the woman i was too much of a douchebag to go talk to.

the four and a half years of silence yawned between us. was that really all that was holding me back? the fact that i had been such an idiot so long ago? as if the seconds ticked into minutes, into hours, into days, then months and years, and the accumulated weight of all of that meant that i had to just keep my mouth shut, and keep keeping my mouth shut because i'd made a decision, once, four and a half years ago? was my stupidity really that powerful that i had to keep carrying it around?

no. no fucking way. i stood up. i put one foot in front of the other, and i decided that i was going to walk toward my future because it was the only way i could escape my mistakes from the past. the distance between the stage and amy's table was, roughly, the distance between earth and mars. at least, that's how it felt.