Chapter 6: Her and Her Friends

It was 6:50—ten minutes before The Saints were set to hit the stage—when Michelle Borrows finally arrived.

Matt was the first to spot her, weaving through the swelling crowd with two reluctant satellites orbiting her. He jabbed an elbow into Jake's side and gave a nod in their direction.

"Hey," he said, tone casual. "There's your bitch."

Jake didn't even look. He just sighed.

Matt wasn't done. "And who are the sluts with her? Very fuckable."

Jake had long since stopped reacting to Matt's eloquence. At this point, it was background noise. "That would be Mindy and Rhonda," he said flatly. "Mindy's on the left. Rhonda's the one with the big tits."

Matt squinted. "They the bitches always telling Michelle she's too good for you?"

"In the flesh," Jake muttered, already dreading whatever snide looks and sideways comments they'd toss his way before the set even started.

He had no idea why Michelle had brought them. Maybe to make a point. Maybe to stir drama. Or maybe because she didn't see it the way he did—how her friends never missed an opportunity to undercut him with a fake smile.

He'd met Michelle a year earlier in a sociology class at Heritage Community College. He'd admired her from a distance the entire semester—polished, classy, way out of his league. She dressed like a woman with a LinkedIn page and a savings account. Jake had barely declared a major and still had to borrow gas money from his older brother every other week. She wasn't just out of his league—she was out of his whole sport.

The only reason he ever asked her out was because Matt goaded him into it.

"You don't got a single hair on your ass if you don't," Matt had said.

So, to prove his follicular masculinity, Jake asked. Fully expected rejection. But she surprised him.

She said yes.

Over dinner, he learned her background. The private Catholic school upbringing. Her dad, a teacher at Holy Assumption Parochial, where nuns still roamed the halls like medieval ghosts. The tightly controlled girlhood. The zero male friends. She was a picture of chastity, good manners, and carefully measured rebellion.

Jake had been the first boy to ever ask her out.

And now? She was dating him, a scruffy longhair who played rhythm guitar in a bar band and didn't even own a real pair of dress shoes. Her parents hated him. Loathed him. His mere existence seemed to be a cosmic punishment for their sins.

They thought rock music was evil.

They thought Jake's entire life was a personal attack on morality.

And when they found out his father had marched in civil rights protests and worked for the ACLU?

That's when shit really hit the fan.

Michelle didn't flinch. She told them everything. The weed. The long hours at band practice. Jake's complete lack of interest in church. She even told them that Jake had never once set foot in a chapel except for a wedding or a funeral.

Each new revelation drove another nail into her parents' self-righteous composure.

And she enjoyed it. Relished it.

Jake couldn't lie—it was kind of hot.

Still, there were moments when he wondered if that was all he was to her: a rebellion in denim. A protest fuck without the actual fuck.

But it wasn't just that.

They got along. Laughed together. Enjoyed each other's company. She came to gigs, asked questions about songs, even showed an interest in learning how distortion pedals worked. That wasn't just rebellion. That was interest.

And Jake? He'd exposed her to a world she never even knew she was allowed to want. She got drunk with him for the first time. Tried weed with him. She heard Zeppelin and Hendrix and Sabbath for the first time through Jake's headphones.

And she let him touch her.

She wasn't ready for the full leap—not yet—but he was the first guy to slip his hand under her skirt. First guy she'd touched, too. He'd shown her how to give a proper handjob. Talked her through it. Guided her. She was shy, but curious.

There were limits. Catholic guilt didn't vanish overnight. But there were cracks forming. Her body was ahead of her beliefs, and sometimes she let it win.

Jake was the first person to ever make her question the rules she'd grown up with.

And he had no idea if that was noble or terrible.

"So," Matt said, watching Michelle and her entourage make their way closer to the stage, her eyes scanning the shadows behind it, searching for Jake, "you tapped into that shit yet, or what?"