Free The Queen B* Strikes Back by Crista McHugh

a ticket without even thinking about age restrictions. I just knew I had to see him. Thankfully, Morgan hooked me up with the same person who’d created her fake ID, although he teased me about not wanting to go older.
    I didn’t need to have a fake ID to drink. My mom’s liquor cabinet was always unlocked. But I needed one to get into a club.
    I made my way to the bar to get a bottle of water before the show started. The room was packed, and heat radiated from a few hundred bodies pressed into the room. I shed the button-up shirt I’d worn over a thin-strapped tank top. After what felt like forever, I got my water and turned around, only to run into someone behind me.
    The first thing I recognized was the familiar scent that always made my mind goofy when I inhaled it.
    The second was a slightly surprised voice saying my name.
    I looked up into Brett’s face.
    “What are you doing here?” I asked, a slew of warning bells blaring in the back of my mind. If Summer was stalking him, was he doing the same thing to me?
    “I could ask you the same thing,” he replied with genuine puzzlement.
    “I’m here to be stampeded by a dozen people in desperate need of beer.”
    He chuckled. “Just give me a minute.”
    I was tempted to walk away before the awkwardness seeped in, but he laced his fingers through mine and held me prisoner while he ordered a bottle of water. I didn’t know if he was eighteen yet, but if he wasn’t and had a fake ID, he could’ve easily gotten a beer. It’s what most of his friends would’ve done. Once he got the water, he continued to hold my hand and pulled me though the crowd to the main dance floor.
    Tonight, though, no one was dancing. They were all milling around, waiting for the moment when the singer we’d all come there to see would take the floor. But the loud din of conversation along with the sheer number of people forced me to stand close to Brett in order to hear what he was saying.
    “I never expected to see you here,” he said, making no effort to release my hand.
    Not that I put up much of a fight. “You, neither.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “You don’t seem like the folksy, surfer-with-a-guitar kind of guy.”
    A grin lit up his face. “I used to live in Hawaii. And before that, southern California.”
    Another interesting facet to the complex mystery that was Brett Pederson.
    “I’ve even met Jack in person,” he added, which sparked a flame of envy in me.
    “You have?”
    He nodded. “But that still doesn’t explain you.”
    “What about me?”
    “Why would a brainy, uncompromising, hard as nails girl like you be a fan of laid-back music like this?”
    “My dad.” That was all I needed to say as far as I was concerned, but Brett wasn’t satisfied.
    “Explain.”
    “I don’t have to tell you anything.” I tried to walk away, but he’d managed to weave a vise around my fingers with his, and he refused to let me go.
    One of these days, I’d learn not to open the door to these things around him, but for now, I indulged him with a heavy sigh. “My dad’s a philosophy professor who’s basically a hippie, and when I spent summers with him growing up, he’d take me to concerts like this.”
    He pressed his lips together as though I was the mysterious and complicated one. “Is your dad here?”
    “Nope, he’s in Vermont.”
    “How did a hippie end up married to a beauty queen?”
    “She’s also a doctor,” I reminded him. My parents were about as polar opposites as two people could be. “My dad wanted to make sure I had balance in my life. I’m like my mom in that I’m driven, so my dad had to teach me how to chill out, and this is the kind of music I listen to when I need to do that.”
    “I’d always pictured you as the heavy-metal, emo-screamo type.”
    “Screw you.” I tried to walk away again, but he still held on. “Is there a reason why you’re refusing to let go?”
    “Yeah.”
    When he didn’t elaborate, my frustration inched closer