a week, the inability for him to choose where to take Evie on their date hollowing his confidence. He hasn't had much practice in planning dates, being more of a love 'em and leave 'em kinda guy. For him, a date was always: see a girl, make out with her, bring her home, send her away. Rarely did he see a girl more than once.

With Evie, everything's different. They're not just lovers passing each other in the night, they're friends too. As much time as they spend in bed, they spend an equal amount of time talking and laughing and enjoying each other's company.

He expressed his concerns earlier in the week to Evie, who simply shrugged and told him she wouldn't care if their date was just sitting on the hood of his car eating fast food. Evangeline assured him it isn't about what they do, but it's the thought that counts. She added that she's also fine if they just hang out at Eric's or go for a drive, that she doesn't need a fancy date because she already likes him enough.

Which gives him nothing.

So he goes to Mrs. Forman, one of the only people whose opinion matters to him, though he'd never admit that to anyone.

"Why don't you take her to that musical festival in Milwaukee this weekend? Some rock band with a metal in their name are gonna be there; I heard it's your kind of music." Kitty beams at the curly-haired boy as she darns a hole in a colorful sweater. She very much approves of the two getting together; she believes it's just what those two wayward souls need.

Hyde raises his eyebrows in surprise. The fact that Mrs. Forman is up-to-date on the happenings in the popular scene is something unexpected. "You mean Summerfest?"

Kitty nods enthusiastically, her hands moving faster as she becomes excited. "Yeah, that was it! You should take Evangeline. I hear festivals can be romantic." She waggles her eyebrows and shakes her torso like she's trying to dance in her seat.

Hyde chuckles and shakes his head slightly. "Maybe. I'll see what Evie thinks."

"No! Be spontaneous! It'll be more romantic."

"Sure, Mrs. Forman," Hyde says warily, looking around the room before giving the lady a quick kiss on the forehead. "Have fun sewing."

Hyde mulls over Mrs. Forman's suggestion as he goes to bed that night. On the one hand, music festivals are cool and he knows that Evie is a fan of most of the same music as Hyde, at least the ones that matter most, so she'd probably enjoy the festival. On the other hand, he wasn't quite sure how it would be romantic like Mrs. Forman said it would. The only thing it might give them is an opportunity to enjoy themselves without the threat of one of their friends ruining their alone time.

The next morning, he forgoes being spontaneous and calls Evie at her grandma's house. The phone rings twice before Maggie picks up. "Hello, this is Maggie."

"Mrs. Ross, it's Steven. Evie there?" He rolls his lips over his teeth as the sound of Maggie breathing filling the receiver.

Maggie hums, and mumbles something about getting the blonde girl. A soft thud tells him she's set down the handset. It takes longer than he expected for her voice to come over the speaker, but as soon as it does he smiles despite himself. "Hi, Steven. I was just about to come over there. What's up?"

"Wanna go to Summerfest this weekend?"

"Is that the one in Milwaukee that Led frickin' Zeppelin's playing at?" Her giddiness is contagious and Steven can't help but laugh as she quietly squeals into the phone. "Uh, yeah."

"Awesome," he says quietly, glancing at the sliding door as Mrs. Forman walks in. "It's a date."

"Ooh, our first one. Excited?"

"Yeah," he says simply, leaning his shoulder against the wall as she starts to go on about how excited she is to see Led Zeppelin in person. He hums in agreement and tosses in a yeah where needed, never tiring of listening to her voice as she rambles on. Kitty keeps her eyes on the boy as he twirls the phone cord absentmindedly around his finger, thinking how cute it is to see him like this because of a girl.

"Are we gonna stay the whole weekend?" she asks, a hopeful tone to her words. Evie has been hoping to see as many of the bands playing as she can, both local and international.

"If you want."

Evangeline squeaks out another sound of excitement. "I do! We can sleep under the stars in the bed of your truck, or I think my grandma has a tent we can pitch." She laughs when Hyde mumbles or both, and tells him only if it rains. "Okay, I'll see you in a bit. Bye!"

"Bye, Eve." The line clicks as Evie hangs up. When Hyde turns around, he finds Mrs. Forman pulling groceries out of paper bags and staring too intently at her hands. The grin poking at her lips turns his tiny smile to a frown as he glares pointedly at her. "Don't say anything."

"I won't," she says, her words delivered in a song-song manner. Hyde grabs a can of soda from the fridge and heads towards the basement. Despite promising otherwise, Kitty can't help but tease Steven. "Have fun with your girlfriend!"

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hyped-up crowd fade into the background as Hyde slides his arms around Evie's waist, a large blanket wrapped around their shoulders as the disappearance of the sun causes a drastic drop in temperature. The moon shines just bright enough to make out each other's beaming faces; the rest of the light comes form a bonfire a few feet away from their feet.

"That was the greatest four hours of my life." Evangeline sinks into Steven's embrace and sighs, reliving the high of being this close to legends.

Gina, a girl they'd met in the crowd during the second half of the concert, giggles and curls into her boyfriend Sam's chest, a smoldering joint hanging between her pointer and middle fingers. "Yeah, man, that was better than sex."

Sam calls her bluff and pulls her into a heated embrace, while the girl's friend Lorraine agrees with a groan, plucking the joint from Gina's hand and sticking it between her thin lips. The smoke she blows out of her mouth mingles with the earthy smoke of the bonfire, the smell bringing back memories of beach nights back home. "We came from Chicago for this," Lorraine says holding the stick out to Hyde, who looks to Evie before taking it.

"Do you care if I—" Evangeline shakes her head and he eagerly reaches for it, pulling slowly and releasing a ring of smoke in the opposite direction. "Man, that hits the spot. If I never had sex again, that would be fine with me."

"That can be arranged." Evie giggles, poking his side and pressing a kiss to the underside of his chin.

Hyde sucks his teeth and pulls the joint away from his face. "Never mind. I take it back."

Gina steals it back out of Hyde's grasp and takes a few puffs, then hangs her hand over the arm of her folding chair. "When they did Stairway I swear I was floating in the clouds." The brunette girl sighs wistfully, gesturing widely towards the sky. "Do you think I could fly if I jumped off the top of Sam's bus?"

Sam snorts as Gina holds up the joint to his mouth. "I'd like to see you try."

Lorraine takes a long drag as Sam teases Gina about being flat as a pancake. "It was a long fucking drive, man. I was on the highway for, like, forever. Those were the worst four hours of my life." She shakes her head and hands the baton of to Hyde as she sticks a poker into the fire and knocks over a log, sending a poof of dust up into the air.

"Life, man, you know?" Hyde sucks down a lungful, savoring the taste before blowing it up into the sky.

The group nods enthusiastically, Sam adding something about it's just a matter of time. Evangeline can't help but smile; she knows if she was smoking at the moment, she would be joining in on their nonsensical conversations too.

With their new friends, Evie and Hyde pass the next hour or two—though neither is sure exactly how long—talking and getting to know each other and learning they have more in common than they would have thought. All three are from Chicago—or the metropolitan area, more specifically, Gina says. They're seniors, rock lovers, specifically Zeppelin, tokers, and slackers—all equally so as any in Hyde's friend group. They have two more friends who couldn't make it because they were stuck in summer school for failing a class because they spent more time messing around than paying any attention.

By the time they're lighting up their third shared blunt, they've begun to sing at the top of their lungs everything from Zeppelin to the Beatles, at Evie's request of course. A few neighbors join in and soon they have a chorus of about fifteen singing a cappella. Hyde refuses to sing and instead mumbles the lyrics under his breath as Evie hands onto his neck and croons incredibly off-key.

One of the newcomers passes the torch on to Hyde as they finish the last line of a song. He holds up his hand and glances around as the group grows quiet. "Did you know—" Hyde sucks in the fumes, pulling Evie closer to him as he blows them out over the fire— "the government has a car that runs on water? On water, man! But they don't want us to have it!"

A universal expression of surprise hushes the group as they all begin chattering about the car and muttering things like screw the government. Lorraine and Sam ask Hyde a million questions; Evie's head lulls to the side as her eye lids sag and her limbs turn to lead.

"You're already on that?" she mumbles into his chest. "Eric warned me about you." Evangeline peeks an eye open and shoves Steven's hand away as he reaches for the joint with his mouth again, passing it on to Sam and Gina. Hyde pouts as it's taken away from him and Evie whispers something quietly into his ear that their three new friends can't hear. Hyde smiles softly and presses his lips against hers.

Gina observes the two cuddled up against one of the wheels of her boyfriend's car. "Aren't you just the cutest," she says, blowing the smoke from her mouth in a misshapen ring near her boyfriend's ear.

Hyde's face scrunches up at being called cute and Evangeline tentatively thanks the girl, a half-smile, half-grimace on her lips. She slides of Hyde's lap and stands, motioning for him to follow her. "I can't stay awake much longer—"

"And I don't really want to carry her—"

Evangeline smacks his chest lightly, lacking the energy to do any real damage. "So, we're gonna be off. It was nice meeting y'all."

"Look us up if you're ever in the city! We'd love to show you around." Gina rushes over to the blonde and takes her into her arms, squeezing her so tight Evangeline feels like she's going to pop. Gina plants a kiss on the girl, which sets her cheeks aflame, and does the same to Hyde. "Have a good one, maybe we'll see you tomorrow!"

After shaking off the shock of the girl's strange and unexpected goodbye, both laugh and walk off in the direction of the truck. Hyde wraps an arm around Evie's shoulder and guides her across the field through tents and sleeping bags and another bonfire or two.

Hyde helps Evie up into the back of the car where they've laid down blankets to pad the floor and grabs a pillow they brought from his room at the Formans' to form a sort of makeshift bed. Hyde makes another joke about their bed in a bed and Evangeline rolls her eyes as he urges her that his joke is funny. She just ruffles his hair and pulls the blanket over their shoulders as he envelops her in his arms.

"Are you comfortable, baby?" he asks quietly, shifting their position into one he knows he can fall asleep in. Evangeline shivers at his use of the pet name and nods as he brushes his lips against the hollow behind her ear. "Good."

Evangeline squeezes his hand and closes her eyes, the familiarity of dozing off in Steven's arms bringing sleep right to her door. She starts to drift off, the soft breeze and quiet din of faraway voices a suitable soundtrack for her sleep.

"Evie?" His voice is muffled by his mouth buried in her hair and Evangeline hums in acknowledgement. He tightens his arms around her. "Today was the second best day of my life."

Surprised, she opens her eyes into narrow slits and twists her head around to look at him. "Seeing your favorite band of all time doesn't make today your first?" He shakes his head, the scruff of his beard brushing roughly against her neck. "Then what's the first?"

He sighs into her skin and mumbles the words she'll never forget: "The day you came back to me."

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ehhhh not 100% abt this ch but what u gon do

also summerfest is a real music festival

but Led Zeppelin never played there

as far as I know

—and as much as I love

historical accuracy—

since this is fiction on top of fiction

I can screw with the details of history like that

isn't writing fun??