Beth Hyland - Fall Into Forever

“Before I fall asleep, I want you to know something.” His words are still slightly slurred from the alcohol.

I nestle into his shoulder. “What’s that, baby?”

“Ahhh,” he says, sighing contentedly. “I fucking love when you call me that. It’s hot.”

I smile into the darkness. “You do?”

“And I love what we just did. All of it.”

My body is still tingling. “Yeah, me too.” Way off in the distance, I can hear some people talking, but everyone around us is quiet. I can tell that’s not what he originally wanted to say, though. “Was there something else?”

His body twitches. He’s obviously on the verge of falling asleep. “What?” he mumbles.

“That’s okay, baby. Go to sleep.”

“No. I need to tell you…something.”

God, he’s both hot and adorable at the same time. How is that even possible? “You do?”

He mumbles a few words, but I can’t understand.

Great. Why is it, when I want him to speak up, he doesn’t, but when I want him to be quiet, the whole campground can hear us?

“What, Jon?”

“Mmmm. I fucking love you, Ivy.” Then he rolls over and leaves me lying here, stunned, in the darkness.

“I love you too, baby,” I whisper, but he’s already asleep.

* * *

The next day, neither of us says the L-word again, but it’s like we’re newlyweds or something. We can’t stop touching each other. When I hand him a yogurt from the cooler, I can’t help myself and stroke my finger along his arm. Grabbing my hand, he presses his lips to the inside of my wrist, then lets go and eats his yogurt. When I take the cup of instant coffee he made me and sit in one of the chairs around the fire pit, he comes up behind me and starts rubbing my shoulders.

He brushes my hair aside and kisses the back of my neck. “That was fun last night,” he whispers.

“You remember?”

“Hell yeah. I wasn’t that drunk, Ives.”

I hear the zip of a tent and look up to see James emerging…along with a gorgeous blond chick I’ve never seen before. He grins at us as she puts on her shoes. After he kisses her and she leaves, he walks past us to the picnic table where the coffee supplies are. A few minutes later, he joins us at the campfire, a cup of coffee sandwiched between his hands.

“Have a good time last night?” Jon asks.

“I sure as hell did.” James takes a sip. “And from what I could tell, you did too.”

We spend the rest of the day going back and forth from the venue to the campsite. I’m glad that we got into the closest campground. Some people have to walk more than a mile each way.

On Sunday, we get up early and trek over to the stage, but both of us are so tired that as soon as we wrap ourselves in our blankets on the grass, we fall asleep. After listening to a few bands, we head back to the campsite for a lunch that consists of peanut butter sandwiches, chips and beer. Tina is talking to some girls I don’t know and Sara is sitting on James’ lap. Kelly tells me about the internship she just got with an accounting firm in Seattle, but she doesn’t know how to break the news to Reece. He’ll be working in Portland for the summer and they were going to rent an apartment together.

She changes the subject when Reece approaches.

I look around for Jon, but don’t see him. “Where’s Jon?”

Reece shrugs. “Haven’t seen him in a while.”

I walk the ten steps over to our campsite and pop my head into the tent. Jon is lying on top of the sleeping bags with his eyes closed. He doesn’t open them even though the tent zipper is really loud.

He’s not sick, is he? I kneel next to him. “Are you ready to head back over? O-Twist will be onstage in about twenty minutes.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Aren’t you coming?”

“I’m not feeling that great. You guys go on without me.”

I lightly rub his arm. “Can I get you anything? Water? Something else to eat? Some Tylenol?” We did party pretty hard again last night. I’m surprised I didn’t wake up with more of a hangover.

“No, I’m fine. I’ll try to rally for the next one.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. You should go. I’ll be fine. I just need to take a power nap.”

“Okay,” I say, kissing him on the forehead. At least he doesn’t have a fever. “I’ll text you.”

“The cell coverage sucks, though.”

“I’ll try anyway.”

Dani and a few of her friends are waiting for me. I’m glad that both Tina and Sara are coming with us, too. I know it’s silly, because I’m not really a jealous person, but I don’t want them popping in on Jon just to quote unquote see how he’s doing.

We get to the venue and find a good place in the middle of the crowd. When O-Twist takes the stage, everyone surges forward as if the crowd is one solid entity. People seem wilder than they were yesterday. Guys keep hoisting girls onto their shoulders (a few of them are even chicken-fighting), and security keeps telling them to get down. After the second or third song, a group of asshole guys pushes their way through to the front, almost knocking Dani and me over.

“Jerks!” She throws her empty water bottle at the last guy’s back.

After O-Twist plays one of their biggest hits, Sara declares that they’re awesome. “I had no idea this was them.”

They’re pretty retro to be playing Sasquatch—my dad has a few of their early albums from a long time ago—but no one seems to mind.

Someone else jostles us from behind, but this time it’s a group of girls.

Dani spins around, practically shooting daggers from her eyes. “Will you fucking chill out? Geez.”

I bite my lip to keep from laughing. Back at school, she’s pretty quiet. I didn’t know she could be so bold.

“Stupid bitch,” one of the girls says. “You’re in our way.”

“We were here first,” Dani counters. “Go somewhere else.”

The girl hauls back and seriously is about to punch Dani. I pull Dani away just in time and the chick misses, hitting Tina instead.

“What the fuck!” Tina says, rubbing her arm. She reaches out and yanks the girl’s hair. “Skank.”

Oh crap. This is totally not happening right now. It’s going to erupt into an all-out girl-fight in a second. Spotting a guy over near the speakers with a bunch of Hula Hoops on both arms, I drag Tina away. “Come on,” I tell everyone. “Let’s see what’s going on over here.”

Tina and the chick yell insults at each other as we make our way out of the crowd.

It just so happens that the guy is O-Twist’s tour manager and he’s doing some kind of contest. “The girls who can Hula Hoop the longest can go backstage to meet the band,” he says.

Sweet! We all grab one from him. Turns out, I’m the world’s worst Hula Hooper. I can’t even get it to go around my waist once before it slips down. Tina isn’t much better, but I think she’s too drunk anyway. Dani and Sara are the big winners, both managing to keep going for a full two minutes.

“Impressive,” the man says, collecting the hoops from us and looping them back onto his arms. Kind of pudgy, with a round face and bulbous nose, he’d look just like Santa if he had a white beard. A creepy Santa, I decide, as I catch him staring at Tina’s boobs.

“I’ll tell you what,” he says. “Since you ladies are all together, why don’t you all come?” He produces five O-Twist T-shirts and hands them to us. “Put these on.” After telling us when and where to go, he disappears into the crowd.

“Oh my God, can you believe it?” Sara says, pulling the shirt over her head. “We actually get to meet Angus Oliver. He’s sooo hot.”

Dani scowls. “Hot? The dude’s old enough to be your dad.”

Sara rolls her eyes. “Who cares? He’s in great shape. And really, really famous.”

After I put on my shirt, I fire off a quick text to Jon. Maybe if he’s feeling better, he can come join us. He’d love this.

A half hour later, after O-Twist is done and the next band is setting up, we’re standing in front of the crowd barrier at the north side of the stage.

“Any idea how long we’ll be back there?” Tina’s eyelids are half-closed and she’s slurring her words. She looks like crap. “I’ve got to leave pretty soon. I have to work in the morning. Oh…shit… I think I’m going to get sick.” And she does.

I turn around to see her taking off her O-Twist T-shirt and wiping her mouth.

Before any of us can answer her, we hear shouting coming from backstage. Probably another person trying to break through the security, I’m guessing.

“Oh my God,” Dani says.

I glance over to see what she’s looking at and that’s when I spot Jon. Backstage. With two beefy-looking security guys on either side of him.

What the hell is going on? Without thinking, I rush past the security barricade and sprint toward him.

“Hey,” yells the guard. “Get back here.”

“That’s my boyfriend,” I yell without slowing. I can hear my friends behind me.

When I reach Jon, I can’t decide what shocks me the most—seeing Angus Oliver up close and nursing a bloody lip, or Jon looking half-crazed and rubbing his fist.

Jon

I glare at Angus Oliver, the international superstar and total douche bag who happens to be my sperm donor. “You stay the fuck away from her.”

Angus holds up his hands. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Some of my friends, including my girlfriend, were invited backstage. We both know perfectly well what happens after that. I’m not going to let you fuck up their lives, too.”