Page 73 of Never Forever

“Oh my,” Verity breathed. “Is Matt mad at you for some reason?”

“Just for existing in his presence,” I said.

I turned and bent low, dipping my roller in paint, making sure he got a good look at my ass in my cut offs.

Verity sucked in a breath, then chuckled. “Girl, you’re going to cause a scene.”

I pretended I didn’t know what she was talking about, but kept bending and painting until there was a crack of lightening and the bandshell was filled with the smell of rain.

I turned to find a total downpour, the blue skies suddenly grey. Thunder booming in the distance.

“Shit!” Verity said. “I’ve got to go. I left all my windows open.”

“Go!” I said. “I’ll clean up.”

Like a couple of the other volunteers, Verity took off through the sudden rain. I grabbed all the paint brushes and took them to the sink in the storage closet off the edge of the stage and started rinsing them out. Only to remember, I didn’t have a car to get home in. I’d walked here from the hotel.

I dropped the brushes in the bottom of the sink and ran out onto the stage hoping I could catch Mr. D. Only stupid Matt was standing there on the lip of the stage. His hip cocked as he checked something on his phone. As if he sensed me standing there, he looked up.

“You’re still here,” he said, like it was an accusation.

“Where’s Mr. D?”

“His windows were open. Verity?”

“Her windows were open.”

“No one looks at the weather app these days?”

I pulled my phone out of the back pocket of my shorts, ready to call one of the drivers we had on set, then remembered everyone was gone. Maybe I’d just wait the rain out.

“It’s going to rain until midnight,” Matt said.

“How do you know that?”

He flashed me the screen of his phone. “I look at the weather app,” he said.

I shook my head at him and made my way backstage to finish cleaning up. I was almost done with the paint brushes when he stepped into the doorway of the storage closet.

“No way!” I said, putting out my hand. “You can wait out there until I come out.”

He was silent, just standing there with those boards over his shoulder. I hung the paint brushes and rollers on the hooks so they could drip into the old sink, then stepped sideways around him so he could set the wood inside.

There were two trips worth of wood but I didn’t help him.

When he was done I picked up the flats, the paint still wet, and walked sideways so I could see where I was going.

“Watch it,” he growled.

“You watch it.”

He pulled them out of my hands and placed them in the deepest corner of the closet where they could dry.

He shut the door behind him and pulled his keys out of his pocket.

Keep walking. Keep walking. Keep walking.

“You got a car here?” he asked, at the lip of the stage. Behind him the rain was coming down in a solid sheet. His shirt and his eyes looked supernaturally green against all that gray.