Deliverance: Chapter 1

Dallas didn’t even realize he was singing until he caught his friend, Eric, staring at him. One of Eric’s eyebrows was raised in question. Dallas felt his face flush and he muttered, “Sorry. Didn’t realize I was doing that.”
            Eric laughed and patted his friend on the back. “I thought it was kind of funny, man. And you know, in the fourteen years I’ve known you, I have never once heard you sing.”
            Dallas managed a grin, then sighed and tossed his dark brown hair out of his face. He seriously wanted to be home in his closet of an apartment playing Minecraft. He wanted to finish digging that moat around his newly built castle. He had never outgrown video games, nor did he plan to. They were just too much fun.
Eric had somehow torn Dallas away from his laptop, saying, “You are literally the most boring person ever. You’re done with college! You’re free to do whatever you want! Come on man, it’ll be fun. Fun is a good thing. Maybe we’ll find some girls.” Dallas had relented, and now here he was, at a local Battle of the Bands. He and Eric sat on the lawn in front of a stage in a small park in Saint Petersburg. The hot, humid weather was tempered slightly by the occasional breeze off the bay. To Eric’s disappointment, he found no girls he would have called attractive so far. Dallas hadn’t either, but he wasn’t exactly in the mood to look.
The band onstage at the moment was called Contents Under Pressure. There were five members in the band: all of them guys, none of them musically inclined in the least. It took all of Dallas’ perseverance not to cover his ears through their three-song set.
After they finished their ear-splitting cover of “Eye of the Tiger”, the emcee hopped back onstage and snatched the microphone from the lead singer. The emcee was a pale, lanky young man who had obviously made an attempt at looking like a rocker, wearing an All-American Rejects t-shirt and a studded belt looped through skintight black jeans. “So how’s everyone doing so far?” The crowd responded with a cheer.
Eric cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “I’m doing fine, thanks for asking!” Dallas had to laugh at his friend: he could be annoying, but he never failed to make Dallas laugh.
“Well, now we have our last band of the night. From the heart of Tampa Bay, give it up for Deliverance!” he announced, gesturing offstage with a dramatic arm flourish.
As soon as the band ran onstage, Dallas knew he’d be watching them. The lead singer was the only girl in the band, with long dark hair and fiery brown eyes. Silver lightning bolts streaked across her otherwise plain black v-neck, and a classic black and white Fender Stratocaster was slung over her shoulder. She radiated confidence in her jaunty, easy strides; in the sparks of energy in her eyes; in the way she seized the microphone from the startled emcee.
“Good evening, Tampa Bay!” she shouted. Her voice carried over the speakers, vibrating with a melodic energy. “So before we start playing, I just want to take a minute to introduce ourselves. Back there on drums is Taylor, ladies and gentlemen!” Taylor stood for a second to let himself be seen and nodded in greeting. He was relatively small, with dark red hair falling over his ears and mischievous greenish-blue eyes. “And we have Alex on bass guitar, to my left.” Alex tossed his dirty blonde hair out of his face and played a quick bass riff, his chocolate brown eyes shining as his fingers flew across the frets at an unearthly speed. A faint dusting of freckles dotted the bridge of his nose. “Gavin’s to my right, on lead guitar, and the next Slash, in our opinion. Yeah, he’s that good.”
 Gavin flushed at the compliment and proceeded to quickly play the opening riff to Guns ‘n Roses’ “Sweet Child ‘O Mine” to a flurry of cheers before speaking into his own mic. He almost looked like he could be the lead singer’s brother, with the same dark hair, but his eyes were a shockingly deep blue. “And she’s too shy to introduce herself, so I guess it’s up to me. On lead vocals, ladies and gentlemen, Arran!”
It was Arran’s turn to blush as she set her microphone into its stand. “Well, now that you know who we are, I guess we should get to the music!”
The crowd cheered again as the band began to play. The bass line thumped through the amps set up on the stage, the vibrations shaking the ground, traveling from Dallas’ feet up to his eardrums. He didn’t recognize the song, but it was definitely catchy. The second Arran opened her mouth to sing, he knew she was seriously talented; her small stature belied her powerful voice. “Hey, do you know this song?” Dallas shouted to Eric over the drumbeats.
“Yeah. Paramore’s ‘That’s What You Get.’ Hell, they’re good!” Eric exclaimed in awe.
To his surprise, Dallas found he couldn’t keep his eyes off of Arran. She seemed to love what she did, and he found her cockiness strangely attractive.
Eric nudged Dallas and grinned. “Found someone?” he teased, pale blue eyes shining impishly.
“Wha—no,” Dallas sputtered.
“Come on. You know, I haven’t seen that look on your face since the day you met Shae.”
Dallas winced at the mention of his ex-girlfriend. Seeing this, Eric quickly backtracked. “What I mean is, I think you’ve found someone new.”
“No, Eric. There’s no time. After tonight, the chances of seeing her again are like nil.”
“Then you ask her out after this thing is over. If her band wins, even better. It’ll be congratulatory. Simple.”
“If her band wins, she’d probably be with them. And I don’t know she’s not already taken.”
“Don’t worry about that. Just don’t overthink stuff the way you always do. Look, Dallas, my point is, you have nothing to lose. The word ‘fling’ is coming to mind, you know. Maybe it’ll get your mind off Shae.”
“Eric!” Dallas burst out. “Do I look like someone who has meaningless one-night-stands to you?”
“But she’s kind of hot. And don’t give me that crap about you ‘just’ breaking up with Shae. That was, what, two months ago? For the past two months, you have been doing nothing but mope around, taking an occasional break to play video games. It’s a miracle I got you to come here.”
“It was a logical argument to defend my self-imposed isolation. Got that?”
“Okay now, Captain Logical, if you and Shae have broken up and gotten back together several times already, what’s to say you won’t get back together again?”
“She moved to Indiana,” Dallas reminded him. “And plus, there was that mess we had back in college.”
“What mess? I don’t remember you telling me about a mess.”
Dallas mentally scolded himself for letting that slip out. He had never told anyone about the incident, and now was definitely not a good time to relate the story. “Never mind. We’re just friends.”
“So, now you just have to decide if you want Shae back or if you want her,” Eric said, pointing a thumb to Arran.
Dallas sighed. “Well, I guess it doesn’t have to be serious,” he conceded. She did look stunning, and something inside him wanted to learn more about her. He was almost envious of her apparent closeness with the guys in the band.
“So you will ask her!” Eric exclaimed triumphantly.
“Nothing to lose. Just my self-preservation,” Dallas said wryly.
Eric slapped Dallas on the back. “I knew you’d come around. Now let’s stop worrying about everything. Hey look, they dragged a piano out.”
Dallas turned his attention back to the stage. A small electric keyboard had indeed been added to the stage. To his surprise, Arran took her guitar off, dragged a mic stand over to the keyboard, and sat down. She adjusted the mic so it was level with her mouth. Taylor counted off, and Arran began to play. Dallas recognized the opening chords as the intro to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.”
In his eyes, Deliverance certainly did the classic song justice. They fed off the energy of the song and really got into it, becoming more animated as they played through. Gavin played his first guitar solo flawlessly, prompting a flurry of applause from the crowd. His fingers danced from one fret to the next with a spectacular accuracy. Dallas had to smile. It was clear how much they loved to play.
After they finished the song, Dallas stood up, clapping enthusiastically and unintentionally setting off a standing ovation. Arran and the other band members grinned widely, breathless from the exertion but thrilled with their performance. They joined hands and took a bow. Arran handed the mic off to the awed emcee, picked up her guitar, and followed Taylor offstage. Dallas watched her do a sort of secret handshake with Alex before she disappeared. Stagehands scurried around, clearing the stage.
“Now, man! Go ask her!” Eric said, in an attempt to sound encouraging.
“Not now. When it’s all over.”
“Well, how about that!” the emcee shouted. “The judges should have their decision shortly, so hang tight for just a little longer! Can I have a round of applause for all these wonderful bands?”
As the crowd cheered once more, Eric turned to Dallas and raised an eyebrow. “Think they won?”
Dallas scoffed. “You honestly think someone else was better? Did you see that guitar solo? That guy’s a freaking god! And it’s nothing at all to do with her,” he quickly clarified.
“Mhm. Yeah, right.”
Just then, someone ran up onstage and handed the emcee a slip of paper. “I think we have our winner!” He held up the paper and cleared his throat dramatically. “The band who will be heading off on a statewide tour sponsored by Converse with other amateur bands from all over the state of Florida is…Deliverance!”