Rock All Night

14




Thirty minutes and two encores later, Derek concluded the show with, “Good night, Los Angeles! Now grab somebody next to you and go get laid!” before he walked offstage to rapturous female screaming.

I guess that’s another reason guys liked Bigger concerts: they had a better chance of scoring afterwards.

As the band walked offstage, they were dripping with sweat. Derek and Riley in particular looked like they’d been dunked in a swimming pool.

On most people it would have looked gross. It certainly did on Riley.

On Derek Kane, it looked like a personal invitation to have your brains f*cked out.

And the smell of him – not just the musk of his deodorant, but the testosterone or pheromones he exuded – it was enough to drive me wild. I’d heard about some woman who started a speed dating thing were you had to sleep in a t-shirt for three days, then bring it to the meet-up. The idea was that attraction really is chemical, and you’ll know someone you’re attracted to by the scent they give off. If you can get past the idea of a bunch of strangers smelling each others’ clothes, it’s actually kind of ingenious. She said that she got the idea because even when her boyfriend smelled ‘objectively bad’ – as in, other people would have wrinkled their noses – she still thought he smelled good.

Derek Kane smelled like that.

Like sex.

Like delirious, animalistic sex.

I had to contain myself as he walked up to me, all smiles beneath his sunglasses. “So – did you like the show?”

“It was pretty good,” I said, the Queen of Understatement.

“Pretty good,” he scoffed. “We rocked.”

Then he turned to Mara and Casey. “What did my two girlfriends think?”

“IT WAS AWESOME!” they screeched simultaneously, at a pitch only fully audible by bats and dolphins.

Ryan walked up behind him, a dour look on his face. “I thought you were going to tone it down.”

Derek grinned. “That was me toning it down.” Then he turned to Mara. “You didn’t mind, did you?”

She shook her head ‘no’ and squealed.

“Yeah, well, I’ll let you explain that to my mom,” Ryan said with a dark smile as he walked on past.

“Great,” Derek muttered humorously. “Casey, Mara – you go with Ryan. Kaitlyn… you come with me.”

“What?” Mara asked, crestfallen. “Why can’t we come with you, too?”

“I’ll be along in awhile. But we have to go do an interview.”

“Oh,” Mara said. She shot me an angry look, then followed her brother and her sister backstage.

An interview! The first one with him, one-on-one, just him and me alone.

I didn’t realize it was going to be in a shower, though.