Free Dear Rockstar by Emme Rollins Page A

the scholarship and I go off to college in Maine? Then where will we be? Long-distance relationships never work. And what if I meet Tyler Vincent?”
    “So what if you do? What do you expect to happen?” It was her turn to roll her eyes at me. “Dale is here and he likes you. Tyler Vincent doesn’t even know you exist.”
    “Let’s go to Harmony House.” I changed the subject as fast as I could, not wanting to get into it with her. Aimee believed in destiny and ghosts and true-love, but she didn’t let her fantasies out of her head and into the world like I did. She was far more of a realist.
    Besides, there was no arguing with love. Love didn’t care. Love did whatever the hell it wanted, no matter who or what got in the way.
    We went up to the register to pay for Aimee’s outfit. I watched, envious, as she casually handed over a credit card. Aimee’s parents were divorced and she had guilted her father into paying the bill every month, an arrangement that annoyed Aimee’s mother but secretly thrilled Aimee and her father.
    Harmony House was packed. It was always packed on weekends. Aimee stayed at the front of the store to look at the new releases, but I went straight to the alphabetized section—
    “V”—looking for Tyler Vincent. I didn’t expect to find anything new—I owned everything he’d ever recorded on vinyl and cassette anyway—I just liked to flip through and look at him.
    I saw two girls I recognized from our high school in the next aisle. They had graduated with everyone else in our class. I vaguely remembered their names—Lisa and Kathy, the latter short for Katherine or Kathleen, I wasn’t sure which.
    “Let’s go back,” Lisa said, tugging on her friend’s sleeve. “Please! He was so amazing! I have to go back!”
    “My sister’s picking us up in half an hour!” Kathy protested. “And I’ve already got homework in my stupid English class.”
    I knew both of them were going to Brookdale Community College, like a lot of our former classmates. As much as I wanted out of this state, I was still jealous of them moving on, not stuck like I was, in limbo, waiting to finish something that should have been done already.
    “Come on!” Lisa insisted. “Just until your sister comes. I have to go back! He is so damned fine!”
    Aimee joined me, overhearing their conversation. She waved at Lisa, who had been in marching band, I remembered, so Aimee was far more friendly with her than I had been.
    “Who’s fine?”
    Lisa’s eyes lit up from the inside, her round, moon-like face flushed pink as she gushed. “There’s a concert in the round, at the center of the mall. Some new band, I don’t know the name. But oh my God, the lead singer is to die for!”
    “He looks a lot like Tyler Vincent!” Cathy called over her shoulder as her friend dragged her toward the front of the store.
    Aimee met my eyes, hers wide with disbelief and recognition. Somehow I had known, the way Lisa fawned, that it had been Dale all along.
    “It can’t be.” Aimee shook her head. “Isn’t he meeting us here later to give us the tickets?”
    I nodded. I’d offered to give him a ride to the mall, but he said he would already be there with a few of his friends. Now I understood what he meant, but I couldn’t fathom why he wouldn’t tell me his band was performing at the mall. Wasn’t it a pretty big deal? Why wouldn’t he want me to come? Why wouldn’t he at least tell me and give me the opportunity?
    “Come on,” Aimee insisted, snatching the Tyler Vincent album out of my hands and shoving it back into the slot before yanking me toward the front of the store. “I can hear him.”
    I could hear him too. The music was faint, coming from the center of the mall just as they said, like a heartbeat. Aimee followed it and I followed her. The center of the mall was a popular meeting place. There were usually small climb-on toys set up for little kids to explore while parents sat and watched. A large