Page 11 of The Beat Match

He may not have been her official guardian, but he’d insinuated himself into that role. At twenty-one, he’d seemed so much older than her sixteen years, and she’d been too afraid of losing him, controlling or not, to push him away.

He’d told her she was too young to go to the concert, that it wasn’t safe, droning on while looking down at her from his ivory tower, clueless to how valuable those concert tickets had been. Normally she’d have told him to screw off and gone anyway, but he’d taken it upon himself to call her friend’s mother. The ticket had been given to someone who didn’t have a tyrannical pseudo-brother/father controlling her life.

Thus began the Weston Aldrich secret scrapbook.

Some of his photos had been defaced with horns and mustaches, the backgrounds tastefully decorated with colored paper, butterflies, and flowers. One special page had cutouts of dog poop shoved into his mouth, with the tagline: Weston is full of shit.

Defacing Wes pictures had become a soothing hobby. She hummed as she cut his face from the new photo and pasted it on a fresh page. She then gave him long pink hair, a sexy dress, and thigh-high boots like the ones she’d worn tonight. She even added a sparkly purse.

The caption read: The dress makes the man.

Scrapbook closed and hidden, she got ready for bed. It was insanely late, or crazy early. She still wasn’t tired. She was excited about the piano arriving—the idea of playing again and working toward a new job. She also kept reliving the thrill of the club, the beat moving through her as she’d danced. She wasn’t sure why she’d tried to catch the DJ’s attention afterward. To thank him maybe, ask him what it felt like to pilot the crowd, fill hearts with happiness and the club with intoxicating energy. Maybe to know how Leo would have felt if it had been him.

Too jazzed to stay horizontal, she picked up one of her Sudoku puzzle books. She had twenty-odd books scattered around her apartment, their various states of progress another point of contention with Wes. Every time he visited her, he’d pick one up and shake it in the air, hollering, “Why don’t you finish these? You don’t get points for giving up.”

“Simple,” she’d say, loving his irritation. “Hobbies are supposed to be enjoyable. When I get stumped, I get frustrated and probably look like you with your resting brood face. So I move on. I keep the hobby fun.” Knowing the half-finished pages annoyed Wes was an added bonus.

He wasn’t here to annoy her tonight, and the math puzzles weren’t making her sleepy. She retrieved her laptop from the living room, sat on her bed, covers pulled up to her waist, as she powered up her Punchies page. She signed into her online scrapbooking group as Harley Quinn—badass comic book aliases for the win—and scanned the screen for her favorite online friend. Pegasus’s icon was lit.

Harley Quinn: Surprised you’re up at this hour.

Pegasus: Working different shifts. Nights are days and days are nights.

Harley Quinn: No rest for the wicked.

Pegasus: Wicked as in we’re super cool or perversely evil?

Harley Quinn: Let’s go with cool.

Pegasus: BORING

Harley Quinn: Perversely evil?

Pegasus: Now you’re just unoriginal.

Harley Quinn: I’m trying to remember why we’re friends, but I’m coming up blank.

Pegasus: It’s my winning personality. And my embossing skills.

They chatted about Pegasus’s new matting technique for framing her photos, but Annie’s mind kept snagging on tonight’s wild club, the music, how it felt like another piece of herself had clicked into place.

Harley Quinn: What makes a person fulfilled?

Pegasus: Since when do we do deep thoughts?

Harley Quinn: Since I’m overtired and overthinking.

Pegasus: I hear you on overtired. As for the question, I think fulfillment is different for everyone. I’m good at my job. It fulfills me in many ways, but it’s not all about financial success.

Annie had no clue what Pegasus did for work or if Pegasus was a man or woman. She assumed woman, but like with all her online friends, they didn’t ask personal questions. They talked shop and joked. Kept their interactions light and easy. Tonight, as she relived the energy in the club, the music and all the memories it had unearthed, she couldn’t resist delving deeper.

Harley Quinn: I don’t mean jobwise. I’m not even sure I’m talking about fulfillment, exactly. Have you ever avoided something for a long time, but when you actually did it, you realize it’s not as scary as you thought it would be?

Pegasus: Are we talking about laundry?

Annie laughed while eyeing the mountain by her closet.

Harley Quinn: Not laundry. Something bigger you thought would make you sad, but it actually made you happy. It made you realize you need more from life.