Heat, Heart, and Summer Sin

ALEC

I put my hand up to shade my eyes as Jax and stare across the huge, expanse of desert. The brutal sun shining down on us makes the sand and the air just above it shimmer. Sweat runs down the back of my neck.

We stare at the temporary black and white billboard that proclaims BAR in giant letters—it’s almost as big as some of the buildings back home.

“Dude,” Jax says. “That’s a hike.”

We start walking. The sand is hard packed yet I still feel it shifting under my feet. It’s nothing like the red clay back home. The dry heat is about a thousand degrees different from the lush humidity, verdant greens, and heavy secrets of the Bayou.

The desert wind blows, a soft whistle sound. It’s the direct opposite my sister’s wet hacking cough as she was dying. Jax was right to force me to come here.

Two women wearing tight white T-shirts, short cut-off jean overalls, and tool belts walk our way. Jax perks up. As the women approach I see our image reflected back to us in the oversized aviators of one of the girls. Jax looks like a big, blonde surfer god, with his hair tied back and his easy grin. I look like a zombie. I’ve recently buzzed my hair military short and combined with the blank stare I barely recognize myself.

“Ladies,” Jax says, tipping an imaginary hat as they get closer. They giggle and wave flirtatiously. Jax turns to watch them and walks backwards so he can ogle them after they pass.

I’m too numb to care.

“Man,” Jax says when he turns to face front again. “They looked like a porn star dream and you didn’t even notice.”

I don’t answer. I noticed.

 “Dude,” Jax says again when we finally get closer to the gig he talked me into doing with him. “Hey.” Jax elbows me and I stop walking to look at him. “Your facial expression is set to death warmed over.”

We finally make it to the bar, a monstrosity made from four large food trucks merged together and raised to just above chest height.

Jax steps in front of me. “You can’t check in for this job with an expression like you’re going to scare all the customers away.” He grabs the sides of my arms and his voice gentles. “I get it. I miss Bella too. But it’s been six months.”

I nod. All I’ve been doing lately is nod.

“You ready?”

No. I nod again.

“Try to smile.”

“No.”

“Okay. Badass bartender it is.”

We check in with a middle-aged guy. He seems like he’d be more at home at a Woodstock reunion then an EDM electronica three-week super party.

We go through training; it’s simple. Beers on tap, a few mixed drinks, etc. Tips go in the clear plastic containers bolted to the bar. No liquor served between 4 AM and 8 AM.

From what I’ve seen of other EDM festivals on TV, I expect our accommodations are going to be a tiny pop tent that Jax and I will have to share. But our temporary home isn’t a tent. It’s called a pod, a strange hybrid between a tent and an RV. It’s spacious, a long thin room. The ceiling is a tinted sunroof. We don’t have time examine it, but I imagine it opens and will give us a slice of unfettered desert sky.

Our shifts are going to be four hours each, which I don’t think will be too hard. Jax and I walk around, getting the lay of the land. We can’t even cover it all, but we walk our large section. Like us, a lot of the crew arrived early.

There’s some clanging and hammering but the noise seems to be deadened by the heat. An occasional chuckle or humming sometimes carries as we walk in silence. It’s miles of people setting up food stands, huge stages, Porta-Potties, and art installments. It is such a wide-open space it still seems mostly uninhabited.

Jax I find tiny spot of shade on the side of a faux castle. We sit down. I know we’re both thinking of Bella and trying not to. I can’t wait for the festival to officially start.

Jax and I lean on the bar. We’re stationed in the middle with bartenders on each side of us. With the exception of two dreadlocked hippy twenty-somethings, and a few sweaty construction workers, all ordering waters, the place is dead.

 “I’m going to die boredom,” Jax says.

“Wait for it,” the bartender on my right says.

We do. We wait an hour, and then two. The sun sets, beautiful lines of orange and magenta slowly bathing the horizon. Then, BAM, it’s like a silent siren sounds and unleashes a pulsing, come-hither alarm to an entire continent. With a wall of sound like the ocean crashing against the shore, the first 40,000 eager, ready to party, electronica fans and their friends pile through the main entrance to the festival like a stampede of wild animals.

“Brace,” the bartender to my right says.

“Let the games begin,” the other bartender says.

We run back and forth the short stretch of our bar filling orders to short and tall, fat, and thin. There are girls in bikini tops, guys wearing wings, old men, kids on their parents’ shoulders, bikers. Black, white, yellow, red, rainbow-painted. Topless. Blue hair. Huge sunglasses almost a foot wide. All yelling and waving drink tickets and dropping money in the tip buckets like there’s no tomorrow.

The party hasn’t even started yet.

Even though it’s dark out, it’s still ninety degrees.

“I’m sweating buckets,” Jax says to me. He sticks out his tongue and pants. "Crazy already!" Then he smiles.

We’ve been hustling our asses off for all of 40 minutes.

There’s a screech that hurts my ears and then a DJ yells, his voice booming, “Desert EDM night one, are you ready to party?”

The crowd ‘Yeah’s him back.

“What’s that? You ready to party?”

They yes louder. The DJ starts a high-pitched euro trash song at a volume to make ears bleed. The drink orders continue, only now the customers have to yell at me and I’m reading lips.

“Are we having fun yet?” Jax shouts my ear.

After two hours of DJ Crappola spinning shit-for-almost tunes, there’s a blessed moment of silence. Even all the drink orders stop. I look to the stage across from the bar. The DJ packs his stuff. People ask for drinks again, this time talking a normal level.

Jax flirts with a group of young girls who are wearing body paint and not much else.

Another show must let out at the same time, because a huge group of guys crowd in front of our section. The wind changes and the smell of spilled beer and the sweat of so many bodies crammed close together wafts over us, stifling.

A slammin’ bass line rings out, and Jax and I look up. I’m frozen. Flabbergasted. My heart thunders.

“Whoaaaaa,” Jax says. He elbows me. I blink. My heart races away, a thousand wild horses, and my mouth goes dry, parched worse than this desert. My tongue plasters to the top of my mouth.

“She can have my babies. Ten of them,” Jax says. “That woman is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

I know what he means.

A hundred, tiny-beamed focused green lasers shoot up into the sky and band down over the audience.

“Let’s keep the party going,” the DJ’s sultry, deeply feminine voice says, and the audience cheers.

“Hey, man,” a douche-bag says, snapping his fingers and waving his ticket at me. “A little help here?”

But I’m still immobile, staring at the vision in the tight, red sparkly sleeveless top, working the double turntables like a boss, and playing the best song I’ve ever heard.

“Drink, dude! How about a drink?!”

From the corner of my eye, I see Jax scoot around me, and he serves the guy. In fact, Jax has to work double time, covering for me, because I’m literally rooted to the spot, watching this goddess shake her body as her fingers fly, pressing buttons on her console.

Then she starts to sing.

And I’m a goner.

I continue to serve drinks. I don’t know how, because I don’t take my eyes off the goddess. I don’t even like electronica music particularly, but this is something else. It’s clips of glorious orchestral rock and R&B and things I can’t identify with a throbbing dance beat. Each song is different, sexy, mesmerizing.

The crowd is into it. I feel the thump through my whole body.

Then that beautiful vision lifts her head, looks over the two hundred fans, and stares right at me. I don’t know if she can see me, but it seems like our gazes meet. I slam my hand over my heart; it’s hammering triple time.

My body snaps to hyper alert, the shock creating a bubble around me. Sound fuzzes out as a magical connection enfolds, then WHAM, sound roars back, full force.

“She’s amazing,” Jax shouts in my ear.

Don’t I know it.

A bunch of dancers, male and female, in futuristic metallic costumes come out and gyrate to the music, adding to the laser light show. I want my shift to be over. I want to be down there in the crowd. I want to be up there on stage, dancing with her, and I don’t even dance.

I want to give her a thousand dollars, a million dollars, my whole life savings.

I want to take her home with me.

I really want that one.

I want my shift to be over. Because I want to meet her. I have to.

About a half hour before our shift is going to end, the music crescendos. A big finale with a loud ending note booms, and the stage goes black.

“Oh, shit,” Jax says.

The lights come up slightly. The audience applauds. The DJ starts packing up quickly. Judging by the last DJ, this will take about ten to fifteen minutes.

“Crap, crap,” Jax says. “Serve faster.”

No shit. But we have to finish our shift. I know it’s useless.

We’re hot, sweaty, wiped, when our shift ends and a couple of hot bartenders come to relieve us. Jax and I step down into the largely deserted field and wander to the big stage and just stand there.

“Well, friggidy-fuck-fuck,” Jax says. “There goes the meet and greet with my future dream-girl.”

“There has to be a way,” I mumble.

Jax takes a program out of his back pocket.

“Does it say her name?” I say excitedly.

“You are not going to believe this.”

“What?”

“Her name is Summer Sin.”

Jax takes a map of the festival grounds out of his pocket.

“Ugh,” Jax says. “There’s so many sections. Where are we?”

“I think we’re here.”

“There are thousands of people here. We’ll never find her.”

I close my eyes for a second, a physical pain washing over me.

“Can you do your psychic thing?” Jax asks me.

I don’t know. I feel like a shaken snow globe inside.

I look at the map. I put my hand on it, slowly dragging my forefinger over every part. As if it’s own accord, my whole body snaps to attention over a section called “Freedom Square.”

“Here,” I say.

“Let’s hit it.”

It’s not far, on the other side of the field where our pod is. As we approach we see a giant stain glass butterfly, maybe about thirty feet tall.

“That’s where she’ll be,” I say.

“Makes sense.”

Except we walk right up to it and she’s not there. We look left and right. No Summer Sin. A few pretty girls pass by, giving us a flirtatious wave.

“Are you sure she’s here?” Jax asks.

“Uhhhh,” I say. “Pretty sure.”

We walk slowly around the big butterfly installment, and on the backside, almost hidden from view, is a ladder, leading right up to the center of the butterfly. I climb up. I open a secret door.

There she is. Lying down right in the middle of the small space. Stretched out in the belly of the butterfly looking like a buffet of sin on a stick. Mouthwatering. A beacon calling me.

A short red skirt that matches her top is stretched tight across her hips. Her long, long legs are bare down to funky red cowboy books. Her arms, are loosely resting above the glossy brown hair tousled all around her head.

The light changes slightly, bathing her in pinks and blues.

I gulp.

“Mind if we come in?”

She turns her head, lazily opens her eyes, and nails me with a soul-connecting stare. Her amazing moss-colored eyes are framed with long lashes. Intelligence sparkles out of them. The corner of her lips lift in a half smile.

“Sure.”

I crawl in. Jax follows me.

“Hi,” she says in that deep, rich voice.

I carefully climb over her, respectfully, making sure not to touch her. I lie down and Jax settles in on her other side. She smiles at us, polite. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself, Summer Sin,” Jax says. “Great show.”

She smiles bigger, blinding. “You caught it?” she says, and bats those long lashes, over innocent.

“You know we did,” Jax says. “I saw you lock eyes with us.”

She laughs, a sound that goes straight to my cock.

“Busted.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. It was the best part of my night.” Jax says. Then he pauses a beat. “So far.”

She laughs again, just making me harder.

“What’s your name?” Jax asks.

“Summer.”

Jax sits up so fast he bumps his head on the stain glass. “You name. Is Summer. Your DJ name is Summer Sin and your name is actually Summer and I’m finding this out during summer?”

Her laugh is more tinkling this time. “Yeah.”

I guess it’s not that odd. I knew a girl named Summer in grade school. “Pretty,” I say. The name and you.

“And my last name’s Sinclair, so it’s not like Summer Sin was is sinful as it sounds.”

“Yes it is,” both Jax and I say at once.

“Pleased to meet you, Summer Sinclair,” Jax says.

Very pleased.

“I’m Jax Evanovich, and this is Alec Blakely.”

Summer pushes up onto her elbows and looks at Jax. “Wait a second. Are you related to Jase and Lexi Evanovich from Hard Chord?” She swings her gaze toward me. “Are you related to Matt Blakely, from Zeet Fleet?”

We both smile big. Jax clears his throat in fake modesty. “We don’t name drop that we’re related to rock stars. But yeah.”

She stares at Jax, maybe trying to see the resemblance behind him and his famous relatives.

“How are you related?”

“We’re first cousins.”

Summer fans herself. She turns to me. “And you’re related to the bassist of Zeet Fleet? I’ve been watching his video interviews. He’s hysterical.”

“We’re actually pretty distantly related, and yeah, he’s funny.”

I used to be funny too. Before Bella died.

 “That’s so amazing. I’m a huge fan.”

“I can introduce you. They’d love to meet you. You’re stuff was dope. Seriously,” Jax says.

Jax runs a finger on the tantalizing strip of belly skin showing between the edge of her shirt and the top of her skirt and she doesn’t shy away, so I gently caress the parallel area of skin on my side. Summer sighs like it’s pure bliss and drops back to completely lying down.

Her skin is so soft. Tiny white Christmas lights blink on somewhere outside the butterfly, and it changes the glow where we’re lying down to a soft, warm pink.

“Not everyone recognizes their names,” Jax says, “because they’re not the lead singers.”

“I’m a musician. I pay attention to everyone’s name.”

“You really are a musician. A superb one. You’re not just a DJ, are you?”

“Actually I play a lot of instruments on most of the song samples I mix. The keyboard, drums, guitar, bass, horns. I compose it, computer layer it, make boom box and scratch and … never mind, you don’t want to hear this.”

“We do,” Jax says.

I let him do most of the talking. He’s more of a talker than I am anyway. Every word out of her mouth just strengthens my attraction to her. I go from rubbing that small strip on her belly, to ghosting my knuckles up her side, to gently stroking a lock of her hair. She gives me bedroom eyes.

At what feels to me to be about four o’clock in the morning the music and ambient noise from outside the butterfly stop and the twinkling Christmas lights turn off. The moon has moved in the sky so it’s not as bright, and where we are lying is bathed in a dark blue, the semi-darkness seeming even more intimate.

“I guess we should get out of here,” Summer says.

Part of me never wants to leave.

I do the gentlemanly thing and help her out, barely even ogling her stunning legs and perfect ass as she climbs down.

We take a few steps and Summer’s shoulders slump. “God, I’m beat. I’ll never make it. My pod is all the way across the compound. It’s literally about three miles from here.”

“Why don’t you stay with us?” Jax says.

Summer’s head snaps up.

“We’re right there.” Jax points. Then he puts his hands up in the surrender position. “No pressure. No expectations. I hear you’re beat. You put on a hell of a show and I have no clue how much energy that must take. But if you want to stay with us, the offer’s open.”

She looks at me. I want her to come. Badly. I’m not sure what to say. I take her hand. “Please.”

Whatever she sees in my face must make up her mind.

“Alright. Yeah.”

And off we go.