Free Beatless by Amber L. Johnson Page A

up on my toes to kiss him breathlessly. He responded by slamming backwards into the brick wall and I held on tightly as he bent at the knees and secured my hips to his.
    Stepping away, I placed my palms to his face. "I feel like we should go on a run. Or . . . I don't know. Let's find a trampoline. I need to get some energy out."
    He lifted his eyebrows. "I could think of a way . . ."
    "Guys!" Sara crashed through the door. "There are no words for what just happened up there. They want us back for one more show . . .” She stopped and appraised the two of us locked in an embrace and let out a high pitched laugh. "About time."
    We were called back inside and we went begrudgingly to regroup and meet up for the after-show meeting. But back at Berkley’s house on that Friday night, everything was about to change. Within hours a portion of our performance was loaded onto the internet. Then another. And one more that included the kiss from Berkley. Her phone was blowing up with texts.
    "We're on Youtube ," Marcus said. His face was drawn with worry and his dark lips had gone pale.
    "Is he going to pass out?" I asked from where I was sitting in Tucker's lap.
    "Maybe." Berkley held her head in her hands and then slid them up over her eyes. "I hope this doesn't affect anything for college."
    "Like what? Proof of your talent?" Tucker spoke from behind me, his knees bouncing under my butt. "If anything, it's a video resume. We wrote those mash-ups. Recorded the mixes. And performed the hell out of them."
    "You're right. It's fine." She finally smiled, patting Sara's knee. "I guess the last show is going to have to be even better."
    Sara groaned and flopped over to bury her face in one of Berkley's fancy sofa pillows.
    Tucker squeezed my side and whispered, "Look who just became the overdramatic one."
     

 
    Mal,
    I don’t know if you noticed, but the girl I came home to is pretty much gone. She’s been replaced by a smiling, happy individual who seems to have accepted a bit of her worth. No more crying on the floor. No more spending days wasting away.
    I’m curious to know if you’ve seen the transformation that I have. Or if it’s been so subtle that you’ve missed it.
    It made me wonder what kind of stellar advice I can give to this new version of you. There has been a lot of thinking on my end. And I think the most important pieces of advice I can give you are these:
    Think before you speak. Don’t be an asshole. Show kindness when it’s warranted and walk away when it costs you more than you’re willing to give. Don’t be an ATM that people can take from but never deposit into. Be a depositor. And always, always give your best only to those that deserve it.
    There are too many years that I let people take. I guess maybe that’s why I want to give now. Because life is too short.
    Sam

~*~9~*~
    We were slated to perform one more time as a band – if you could qualify us as that. The response was ridiculous and at The Kick we were treated like stars. It felt a little surreal. I felt out of my element under that much attention. But it was a lot easier to take being part of a group.
    Britt Sanders, one of the upper echelons of his high school hierarchy stopped Tucker in the parking lot to give him an almost violent high five.
    “You’re the shit!”
    Tucker rubbed his hand and winced. “Better than just being called shit, right?”
    Holding his upper his arm, I just stared at this exchange. I’d found myself in the shelter of his embrace a lot during these past few weeks - tucked into his side while we ate lunch or hung out at our friends’ houses.
    Or in the Resources section of the library, because really, no one was ever back there. Still, there was the rush of possibly being caught that made the whole thing worth it.
    “You’re driving me crazy,” he breathed into my ear, dipping his face low to press open mouth kisses to my neck and across my collarbone.
    Our physical relationship was growing as time went on.