Burn With Me: New Adult Romance (Take Me Home Book 1) (Take Me Home Series) Read online

  But El didn’t agree. He stretched his arms toward the sky, then touched his shins (because he couldn’t touch his toes) and stood back up with his hands crossed over his chest.

  “Dude, this is way too close to City Center. Why do we have to pitch up closer and closer every year? All the nut jobs come through this area.”

  I shrugged. “Not my choice. It was Jasmine. I think she likes being here because of her shit sense of direction.”

  Uyu was huge. Around seventy thousand people came every year, and the Plain was big enough to stretch from Pioneer Square to the Space needle. From one side of Manhattan to the other. Three square miles. Even though it was mapped out well enough that for years after its first public viewing city planners even copied the design, it was also easy enough to get lost.

  With sandstorms, the dizzying scorching sun and the ever changing landscape of landmarks (along with the pretty constant inebriation for many in our clan) it could make it hard to get around sometimes. Jasmine got lost every year. Other Gypsies (people who came to Uyu were named this as much for the wandering nature of the festival goers as it was for the gypsum in the dust that covered us for a week) were always super cool about it and typically escorted her back, but she always looked embarrassed upon return.

  Anyway, apart from El, who found it hard to sleep through the noise, and Jasmine who couldn’t read a compass, none of us cared where we camped as long as it wasn’t the outer edge of the city, G ring. There were no registered camps out there, very little art, full of first timers and worst of all, the music was always super crappy. It was hard enough to find a rock scene at Uyu. I could do EDM for seven nights if I was wasted but the outer rim was known for Top 40. Hell no.

  Running my eyes along a camper van trailer and another motorhome parked at the site, I looked for signs that they belonged to our tribe. Our people. This was the fourth year that El and I met up with the same group. It was us, the Hawaiians (Koa, Pika, Jasmine and Joey), and The Cougars (Flick and Helena, two hot as fuck forty something women from Los Angeles who weren’t around much but attached to us nevertheless). A totally eclectic mix. That suited us. El and I were the epitome of unlikely friends. Why not make some more?

  The roof hatch from the motorhome opposite ours flung open and a frazzled mop of black hair, bleached by the sun popped out. I knew who it was before I saw his face.

  “Aloha Braddah Drake! Doc! We got a good spot this year. Yeah?”

  My boy. Koa.

  He hoisted the rest of himself out of the hole with ease and sat on the edge of the porthole. His arms over forty years old but solid from years of surfing made it an effortless task. The man was a unit. A surf instructor in Waikiki, his arms were like legs and a back so broad with strong lats, his t-shirts always hung loose around his middle.

  Koa’s face was creased with sage looking lines from years in the sun. The epitome of a proud Hawaiian, a true Hawaiian. He loved that land. El and I had flown out to Kauai for his birthday a little over a year ago, and he had showed us the meaning of mana. Working at one with nature, he had taken us spear fishing (and he actually caught something, diving without a snorkel or goggles, making El and I feel pretty unmanly). We trekked the Sleeping Giant mountain ridge and jumped off cliffs. Adventure man.

  In our camp, he wore the Daddy title. It was impossible not to feel like a child next to his quiet wisdom. He may have been a guru of sorts, connected with the universe as only an unspoiled person could be, but he still knew how to party. Late at night on the Plain, he’d dance with the sculptures until the sun rose. Sunrise, his favorite time of day. Every surfer I knew enjoyed many of those.

  I rushed to the ladder of the motorhome, El trailing behind me, and pulled myself up. We hugged. Because that’s what brothers do. I hadn’t seen the guy for a year. To hell with fist bumps.

  Before Uyu, I never thought I could be that guy who hugged. Rock stars were supposed to be tough, hardened, and only touched other people if their dick was inside of them. At least that’s what my immature teenage mind obeyed as a stereotype many years ago. And I may have been a teenager until I was about twenty-four. Just saying. I would probably be dead or have a couple STDs by now if I hadn’t met El and these guys. But especially El.

  I met El four years back, in the summer before my first Uyu, I had been playing a show. A seedy bar. Not the kind of place I normally wanted to play, but money was tight that month, so my band took the gig. Long story short, a fight broke out in this joint, a bottle flew out of nowhere, hit something on stage, and a piece of shrapnel blasted me on the side of my eye. Thank fucking God it hadn’t been my actual eye.

  After that, I headed backstage and pressed fingers against the cut, trying to stop it bleeding. Pissed off and watching blood drip on to my favorite jeans when a bartender came around the corner.

  “Hey,” she said, “I brought a guy. He says he’s a doctor.”

  A drunk fucking doctor. Yay. But the truth was, I didn’t have health insurance, and the amount of blood rushing had made me think I might need a stitch or three. Maybe I could get some pirate treatment. A shot of whiskey and a needle was all we needed.

  That guy was Elias. Dr. El. He said he had some supplies at his apartment and lived close by, told me I needed to clean and close the wound. I had my doubts when I dragged my half blind self down the road to his apartment. Why did a doctor live so close to the city’s crack den in one of the shittiest neighborhoods?

  For a moment, I wondered if this was some sort of serial killer’s lure, but the guy looked harmless, better than harmless, nice even. Also, he wasn’t that big, maybe five foot ten, and even though I’d been wrecking my body for years to fit into the rock star image I thought people expected of me, I also used to play football in high school and was six three. I still lifted in the gym and went for runs when I wasn’t too hungover. Sometimes even when I was hungover to air myself out. I took my chances with this El.

  That night was the beginning of our weird but totally solid friendship. El had moved to Seattle with a new job and had been looking for friends. We talked at his apartment over a beer for almost three hours. I was happy to meet someone kinda normal. And more than that, someone with a bit of substance and standards. My bandmates over the years, bar Jason, had been jerks, the guys in high school, too. I probably hadn’t met more than two decent guys in my life before El.

  El had come to a couple more of my shows after he put some butterfly stitches on my face (every time I see the tiny scar, I still think of how great a man that guy is). After three shows, he came up to me after a set and told me he had an extra ticket to some festival called Uyu.

  “Maybe it’s a bit weird,” he said, “I know we don’t really know each other. But I got an extra ticket and room in my motorhome. I think you‘d like it.”

  “Thanks, man,” I said, “I don’t swing that way. But have fun.”

  “Wait… swing which way?”

  It was a double entendre. Dr. El was not naïve, but not good with innuendo.

  “I’m not into stuff like bubble gum festivals and also... You know, I’m not gay.”

  El’s eyes bugged out. “I’m not gay either. Not that there’s anything wrong with that… No… it’s not like that.”

  I laughed, “Alright. Still doesn’t resolve the other problem. I’m not the festival type. Hate… and I mean, I hate dance shit. And bright colors.”

  But my answer slid down El’s face and wiped away some of his spark. A pang of guilt hit my heart, like I banged my funny bone. Maybe this was my chance to pay him back for my face not being messed up for life. If he asked me, someone who was practically still a stranger, I was probably his last resort.

  “Why you asking me, anyway?”

  “I don’t know anybody else.”

  “Ha. That’s your best pitch?”

  “That sounds bad. But, honestly? My girlfriend, who was supposed to go with me, dumped me last month. I have a couple friends from med school, but they’re married with kids an
d can’t go last minute. I just moved here and haven’t really met anyone. And… you seem alright. I get you don’t like techno or whatever, but there’s plenty there for everyone. Come for free. Motorhome for free. Tickets are like six hundred bucks and I’m asking for nothin’. I’d rather not go alone. Anyway, it’s seriously a life-changing experience. For real. If you don’t like it, just never go again.”

  I said yes and never looked back. My life actually got a lot better after that first year at Uyu. I had gotten to know El, who was a real rock for me and gave me mature, solid advice, the first time I ever had any in my life. I stopped getting so wasted (I was probably still on the wrong side of the spectrum from clean to dirty, but still…) and not having hangovers every day made my song writing explode. The stories, art, and people from Uyu inspired some of my greatest lyrics.

  Now sitting on the roof of the Hawaiian’s motorhome, over the Plain, as far as I could see was crazy, enormous art, people riding around on bikes, wearing next to nothing, looking all Mad Max. Yeah. This was our family. And this was home.

  “So, where are the others?” El asked Koa.

  “Jasmine’s sleeping. The boys are trying to make friends with a couple art cars, I’m guessing. You know how Pika and Joey roll.”

  Pika and Joey were the ones who always seemed to find the party for the rest of us. Super sociable, loveable and could talk themselves in or out of anything. They were like brothers from a different mother. Pika, as Hawaiian as it gets, apparently a descendant of Kamehameha (or at least that’s the story he spun) and Joey, a red-haired guy with skin that burned in the moonlight. They couldn’t have looked more different, but they always had the same agenda. Always. Totally inseparable, they even went to the Kink Dome together every year. Shared it all. Even punani.

  “Are Flick and Helena around?” I asked, pointed to the shiny, metallic airstream camper next across the yard now formed by the three sides of our vehicles.

  “Yeah, think so.”

  As if on cue, Flick kicked open the door to the campervan (she didn’t have to, the thing was so current it probably had a remote to do everything include wipe your ass). But Flick loved the drama and dressing up. The costumes and flamboyance. If there was a parade, she was in it. If there was a flag to wave, she’d have that flagpole in hand. I thought she’d have more costume on. She wore a bikini bottom of sequins and no top at all. Typically, she wore tops, but this time she had a reason.

  The boys and I couldn’t help it. We looked at each other and wiggled our eyebrows. New fake tatas. There aren’t many places you could show those off to seventy thousand people at once. Talk about getting your money’s worth. Not that all women wanted to show off their fake boobs. But Flick did.

  Helena came out after carrying a backpack and trying to stuff water bottles into it. Helena didn’t talk too much, but she was a brilliant listener. And every family needs one of those. She was quieter and less in your face than Flick, melting happily into the landscape like a sunset.

  We called them the Cougars, just because they were foxy but not because they prowled much. It was clear they came to let their hair down from their lives back home. And they had said they were married, too. Happily? I didn’t know. I got the drift that Helena was very loyal to her family back home and Flick had a LOT of visits to places giving out massages. Did chicks get happy endings at those things? If they did, I didn’t think Flick would turn it down.

  Flick got to the other side of the campsite just as I reached the bottom of the ladder.

  “MmmmMmmm,” she said to me, “You are looking even finer than last year, my yummy rock star, hunk of a man…”

  She squeezed me into her with a hug, but we couldn’t get that close because of her new DDs. She could hardly get her tiny arms around me.

  She pulled back but kept her hands on my biceps and massaged them. She rubbed up and down my arms, playfully, harmlessly flirting in her very Flick way.

  “Mmm. Someone’s been working out.”

  “Sleeveless shirts keep a man motivated,” I replied, flexing just a little.

  She giggled, and I liked the attention. I didn’t like attention from all women. Not anymore. But from ones I liked? Ones that were golden? Course I did.

  By now El had climbed down as well and said hi to Helena. We sat down in a couple lawn chairs the Hawaiians has set out and made a plan for the night.

  It felt so unbelievably good to be around my tribe. My crew. People who would be honest. Loyal. It felt sweeter than ever before.

  Especially after reading Jay’s text yesterday.

  3

  “Don’t let your identity and ego be the death of you, Maeve.”

  I recalled this piece of advice from my Dad as I realized how hard it was going to be for me to ask for help this week. Asking for help was not my M.O. But I would never survive on my own out here with what I’d brought. I was going to have to let go of that ego my Dad always talked about.

  I grew up in The Colony. Malibu Beach Colony. It was an exclusive gated community in Los Angeles. My neighbors were movie stars, in pop bands. One celebrity chef. It was right on the water and a lot of Hollywood’s rich and famous with children lived there so they could offer their kids fun in the sun.

  But I wasn’t like most California babes. I hated the sun. I hated blonde hair and spray tans. I hated the beach, though I loved a fifties style bikini. If I wasn’t so rich and my father hadn’t been so influential in the entertainment industry, I was pretty sure I’d have been a total outcast and never invited to anything.

  Not that I cared. Well, at least that’s what I told my father right before he explained the trappings of ego.

  “Maeve,” he had said, “I know you think that standing up for who you are and being unique and, pardon my language, not giving a fuck, is cool and makes you strong. But it’s just a shield. Armor. I want you to be free. Free to dress how you want. Free to change your mind and wear something different tomorrow. Free to be alone. Free to hang out with the girl down the road who is super different from you on the outside but shares your heart’s intentions.”

  He did his arm flailing this as he spoke, dramatic sweeping gestures, moving them around like some ballet dancer. “If you think that your identity is a fact one that can never be changed, you’ll live your life feeling threatened. Anytime you or anyone else suggests you should change, you’ll feel flipped upside down and out of place. Your soul is not all of this.”

  He pointed his fingers around to the posters on my walls, the black, well, everything in my room.

  “You aren’t all these things.”

  My Dad had always seemed to talk in code. Like he had been part of some cult with an encrypted language. But people absolutely loved him because of it. He was sincere. In a place like L.A., where friendship was actually a game of chess, people genuinely loved my father.

  Not that they didn’t still want to use him. He could do a massive solid. He had favors falling out of his pockets. But he also had a special kindness, openness and humility that was rare to come by.

  My Dad, that day, when I had been only eighteen and all his words sounded like mumbo jumbo, tried to teach me the importance of dropping the armor and living with an open heart. But that was just the start, and I had hardly made it to the end.

  Still guarded, I could be sympathetic toward everyone but myself. Me? I wanted to stand tall. Appear strong. And because of the street cred my ego craved, I winced at the thought of asking for help. Typically, I was careful. I’d let someone else jump first and test the safety of a situation. But I wouldn’t be holding anyone’s hand when it was my turn.

  Now, sitting in this tiny tent that took me hours to set up in the dust on my own, that Maeve, with that ego, would not survive. I had never felt so alone. I was in the middle of nowhere with only myself to rely on. And even though I wasn’t afraid to roll up my sleeves with a bit of industry, hard work didn’t make invisible things appear. I just didn’t have anywhere near enough supplies.
r />   I looked at the deflated blow up bed with nothing to comfort me at night but a sleeping bag. I so wished I had a pillow. Call me a wimp. But I wanted a pillow. This accommodation was going to be brutal.

  My Dad and I had always come to Uyu in a motorhome. Our own rooms. Real beds. With a kitchen area and sofa seating. We could even switch the air con on for an hour to cool off from hellish vapor of the Plain. This tent was going to exacerbate the elements. I’d be hotter in the day, colder than ever at night.

  With the blow up mattress unrolled, I dug my hand into its sack to search for the adapter, or something I could use to inflate it. Empty. I opened the mouth of the sack and peered in as if leaning over a dry well.

  Dark as shit.

  Fucking Tyran.

  I had no way of inflating this mattress.

  Throwing my head in my hands, a lump formed in my throat, and my eyes stung. What the hell was I going to do? Sleep on the rock hard ground for a week? Because Uyu couldn’t just be a regular desert with nice soft sand, it was made of this shit, shit, SHIT hard…

  “Knock, knock,” a voice came from just outside the door flap.

  I looked up from my hands and saw a shadow cast across the nylon.

  “You in there?” A sing-song voice asked.

  I contemplated saying nothing. I wasn’t here to make friends. I was here to do a job. I didn’t want to enjoy myself. Not without my Dad.

  But I looked over at the mattress and thought about my meager belongings. I was going to need help.