Page 44 of Crimson Desires
As I expected, Jack was a fucking amazing performer.
His stage presence was utterly hypnotic. His energy was electric. I was thankful that nobody approached the merch booth mid-show because they would have seen me drooling with my jaw on the floor. The close-up camera feeds caught the sweat that glistened on Jack’s skin, the subtle flexing of his biceps as he clutched the microphone, and the red flush on his face as he belted out the lyrics to Wicked Crimson’s songs.
The other guys performed immaculately as well—but admittedly, I didn’t pay too much attention to them.
The greatest thing about seeing Wicked Crimson perform live was that they sounded just as good in person as they sounded in their studio recordings. Even for talented musicians, that was a hard feat to pull off.
Jack may have been a pop star in his former life, but he wasn’t the kind who relied on autotune. That was for sure.
After the show, I hurried to serve the crowd lined up outside the merch booth. The large open space offered by the venue kept things in a decent order—but as I’d learned from over a week of working the merch table, chaos was always a given.
Thankfully, I managed to kill the line at the table in less than an hour.
After Jack had confessed his insecurities to me, I’d come up with a plan. However, for my plan to work, time would be of the essence.
The place that I wanted to take Jack to closed at two in the morning. It was already half past eleven.
After the last of the concertgoers had been ushered out of the amphitheater, I packed up the merch table into its boxes. I slipped one of the production crew guys a twenty to cart my boxes back to the truck and headed off to find Jack backstage.
Thankfully, it didn’t take too much looking. One of the stagehands pointed me to the green room, where Jack and the other guys were hanging out and basking in their post-show glory.
“Aster!” Jack grinned.
“Ready to go?” I asked.
“Fuck yes, I am,” Jack said. He jumped to his feet. The guys made kissy noises behind Jack’s back. He gave them the barest shred of acknowledgment: a middle finger. Then, he grabbed my hand and walked out of the green room. “So, where are we going?”
I winked at him. “First, to the store.”
***
We chartered Dave’s Honda Civic and drove to the nearest Walmart. Dave seemed apprehensive about letting Jack leave the car—so I told both of them to wait for me while I went in and grabbed a few things.
“What are you even getting?” Jack asked, tilting his head.
“You’ll see,” I replied, my voice sing-song.
Jack shook his head. “Don’t make me regret blindly trusting you, flower girl.”
“Oh, I won’t.”
After about fifteen minutes, I returned to Dave’s car with a plastic bag full of stuff. I directed Dave to a small bar on the outskirts of town called the Fringe Factory.
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Miss Jennings?” Dave asked me. “I should come in with you two, no?”
“We’ll be fine, Dave. And if we run into trouble, we can come right back to the car,” I promised.
Dave frowned. “I don’t know...”
To offer him comfort, I leaned forward and whispered my plan into his ear. Dave deliberated for a moment before finally submitting with a sigh. “Alright. Just be safe. I’ll be right here if you need me.”
“What did she say, Dave?” Jack asked. I laughed. It was cute how much his curiosity seemed to be killing him.
Dave just shrugged. “You’ll see real soon, Mr. Maverick.”
Jack and I stepped out of the car and made our way to the Fringe Factory. The bar was in a mild state of disrepair—with chipped paint and spiderwebbing cracks decorating the frosted windows—but the blemishes somehow added to the overall charm of the establishment. A bunch of moody-looking young adults loitered outside the bar, smoking cigarettes, and laughing amongst themselves. Above the door, a neon sign flickered and buzzed.
I tapped on Jack’s arm. “Now, when we get in there, you’re going to head to the bathroom and change into this.” I handed Jack the Walmart bag.