Chapter 1
Harper
Have you ever had a night that was so perfect your mind can’t comprehend that it wasn’t a dream but in fact was reality? Honestly perfect isn’t even the right word to describe how tonight was. Magical? Surreal? Mind blowing? Absolutely un-fucking-believable? Gah! No words or phrases do justice to the night I just had...
“Harper! Are you ready yet?” Maria, my best friend and dorm mate shouts from the other side of the bathroom door. I roll my eyes as I look at myself in the bathroom mirror at Maria’s impatience. Just as she says, “come on! I don’t want to be late. You know I’ve been dying to see Devastation! for like, forever!” I open the door to the dark-haired feisty Latina who’s five-foot nothing of a girl to see her standing in front of me attempting to give me the evil eye through the tan painted wooden door.
Crossing my arms over my chest I try to give her the same look that she has on her face, but a smile breaks across my lips, and I end up laughing instead. “You’re lucky I love you girl, or we’d be throwing down.” Maria huffs an indignant sigh at my statement because she knows that even though I tower over her by a good six inches, she could stick kick my ass every which way.
Instead of responding about being able to kick my ass she looks me over from head to toe. “DAMN! Girl. You look HOT!” I’m wearing a shimmering black tank top, a black skirt that’s pleated and flared and falls mid-thigh paired with knee-high black boots with a chunky, one inch heel.
Smiling I deflect her compliment by giving her one. “Me? What about you? You look stunning in that little black dress!” Maria grins widely at me before flipping her long dark hair over one shoulder and telling me she knew that already.
The girl and I have been best friends since grade school, and I’ve always been envious of the confidence she has in herself. I don’t even know how we’re friends. She’s so outgoing, bubbly, and adventurous. Me, well I’m not. I’m the exact opposite in fact. If I could stay home and read books instead of ever going outdoors, I would. I would love nothing more than to be a hermit. Drinking coffee, writing stories, and becoming a famous author of paranormal romance books one day. For now, though that will be just a far-fetched dream.
“Earth to Harper,” Maria says as she waves a hand in front of my face because apparently, I had slipped into a daydream state once again. A blush tints my cheeks pink, but I laugh as I shake my head and grab her hand that’s still in front of my face. “Alright let’s go,” she adds with a dorky smile and a giddy jump.
Grabbing her sweater that compliments her outfit nicely, Maria opens our door as I lift my black leather jacket from off the hook inside the closet door. I walk through the doorway as I slip my arms into the satin lined sleeves and then we make our way to the elevator and then out onto the campus grounds.
Vail University near the mountains of Colorado has one of the most beautiful campuses I’ve ever seen especially during fall season when the leaves are changing colors. The golds, oranges, and reds against the setting sun feels almost magical as leaves dance in the breeze as they slowly drift towards the ground.
The wind picks up slightly as we make our way to Maria’s white four-door Mazda3 causing goosebumps to prickle up along the exposed flesh between my knees and lower thighs making me question as to if wearing a skirt really was a wise idea or if I should have worn jeans instead.
Climbing into the passenger seat of her car, I buckle myself in as Maria hits a button to start the engine. As she backs out of her parking spot, I turn my attention to her radio to start her playlist. I’m more of a pop music girl so I don’t really know the music she listens to but before I can put a list on that we can both enjoy, Maria taps a button and turns the volume up putting Devastation! on full blast.
Scrunching my nose, I turn to look at her and make a face but before I can complain she says, “we are going to watch them. That means we must listen to them on the way there. By the time we park you’re going to know every song from at least their first album if not their second one as well.” Sighing because I learned a long time ago not to argue with the chick when it comes to listening to her music, I settle into my seat for the half hour drive that will take us to the club.
As we inch closer to the entrance of the club the atmosphere begins to vibe with excitement. There’s probably twenty people ahead of us in the line and glancing over my shoulder I see that the line has wrapped around the building. I also notice two things as I look around. One, a lot of people are wearing masks in various styles of demon looking characters and two, the mass majority of people standing in line with us are women varying in age from sixteen to fifty!
Leaning in close to Maria’s ear I whisper, “what’s up with the masks? And also, there seems to be an awful lot of women... does that seem odd to you?” Maria turns to look at me, an expression of curiosity and shock written on her face.
“Uh, I have seriously never shown you any pictures of the guys in Devastation!?” Questions me as look up and down the line once more.
As I shake my head that she hasn’t two girls behind say at the same time, “girrrl, show her!” Making me laugh but Maria has her phone out and a search bar logged with the band’s name in it. I watch as she clicks images and then she shoves her phone into my hands, simply saying ‘look’ as she does so.
Oh. My. Holy. Hell! The first image I click on has four gods standing on stage. Each and every one of them have the most well-defined muscular bodies I have ever seen. The epitome of a professional swimmer’s body. Their bodies glisten with sweat and I have an overwhelming urge to run my hands over them. The two behind us talk excitedly as I look through the other photos available to view.
“Chaos. I’m dying to meet him. He’s sooo hot!”
“No way. Shadow and ‘X’ are way hotter than Chaos.”
To my surprise Maria chimes in, “Um, have you forgotten about the Mexican God, Hectic?” As she says this all three of them fan themselves with their hands and pretend to swoon or go weak in the knees.
But as I stare at the images, I furrow my brows because admittedly all four guys have insanely beautiful and chiseled forms but they’re all wearing masks. How do they know if the dudes are actually hot? And now I also realize why so many people have masks on. They’re the masks that the guys wear on stage. The line has moved a lot since we’ve started our conversation and we’re now three or four people away from entering the club when I ask, “um, I agree they’ve all got great bodies. But how do you know if they’re actually good-looking guys? With those masks on, you’d never know if they are super-hot or as ugly as a horse’s ass...”
Maria and the two girls start talking over each other as they defend why they think the band members are probably hot underneath their masks. After we were cleared by the security personal, we entered the club. Looking around the open space I was surprised to see how small the club actually was. “I can’t believe I was able to get tickets to this show,” Maria says randomly. “The show is sold out. Heck, tickets sold out ten minutes after going on sale. But we got them and I’m going to be right up front against the stage. Up close and personal! Eek!” Laughing I can’t help but shake my head at how excited she was.
“Well, you go up and get us a spot to stand. I’m going to the bar to get us a couple of bottles of water.” I’ve barely finished telling her what I’m doing before she’s nodding her head and dashing towards the front of the building where the stage is located.
