21
I was about two hundred feet down the sidewalk when he caught up with me.
“Wait! Wait – I’m sorry!” he said.
He turned around and walked backwards so he could face me as he talked.
“Was it something I said?” he grinned.
I shot him a death glare.
He put up his hands to ward it off. “Okay, yes, obviously it was what I said – ”
“Women are not just sexual playthings for your amusement.”
“I know that,” he said, a little taken aback.
“Not from the way you act.”
“Look, I’m just a sexual person – ”
“Who’s only interested in f*cking me?”
“Whoa! Whoa, hold on there, potty mouth!” he laughed.
“Oh – I’m a potty mouth, Mr. ‘Every other word out of my mouth is f*ckin’ this and f*ckin’ that’? Why am I a potty mouth, because I’m a girl?”
“Hey – hey,” he said, his voice suddenly soothing. He moved beside me and touched my arm, but I shook him off roughly.
“Please, will you just listen to me?” he asked, his voice low.
“Go ahead and talk, it’s a free country,” I snarled.
“Look… I think you’re absolutely gorgeous, and yes, I want to sleep with you.”
Oof.
My insides turned to caramel and melted sex.
I glanced at him in shock, then looked away hurriedly, afraid he might see how he’d made me feel.
He continued. “But you seem to think I only want to fu– uh, to sleep with girls and that’s it. But I like you. A lot.”
I walked on in silence.
“Are you going to say anything?” he asked.
It took me a few seconds to admit it.
“…I asked around about you,” I muttered.
“Of course you did,” he said in mild amusement.
Which infuriated me.
“What’s that supposed to mean, ‘of course you did’?”
Such an arrogant ass, just assuming I was checking him out before I slept with him –
“You’re a reporter. You’re curious about shi– uh, stuff.”
Oh.
That was an interesting take on it.
Good alibi, anyway.
“So… what’d you find out?” he smiled.
Best sex she’d ever had.
I wasn’t about to repeat any of that, though.
“You sleep with a lot of women.”
“That’s true,” he admitted.
“And you don’t date them long.”
“That’s true, too.”
“Like, the average time seems to be about, oh, two or three hours.”
“I see a lot of the girls I sleep with over and over again.”
I glared at him. “So they’re f*ck buddies?”
He put his hands up like whoooaaa. “Hey, you said it, not me.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Did you actually talk to any women I’ve slept with?”
“…one,” I grumbled.
“Did she say if we’ve slept together more than once?”
Your roommate missed out BIG time.
“No,” I lied. “But she and another girl said you never called them again.”
“Well, for one thing, I don’t have a cell phone. Actually, I don’t have a phone, period.”
I stared at him. “You don’t?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Too expensive.”
How poor was this guy? I’d seen homeless people with cell phones…
On the other hand, it explained some things. Like why he kept showing up at my dorm room, yet never asked for my phone number.
“They have these awesome new telephones that take quarters,” I jeered. “Maybe you’ve seen them?”
“Ha ha,” he said, not actually laughing. “Look, those girls you talked to? They want it to look like I’m a heartless jerk. I seduced them and I ditched them, and it’s all my fault because I’m bad, bad, bad.”
“No,” I said sarcastically, “you’re just a perfect little angel.”
“No, I’m very, very bad,” he grinned, and then his voice dropped suggestively. “But I’m also very, very good. Did you ask about that, too?”
I could feel my face getting hotter. “Why do you always do that?”
“What?”
“Bring it back around to sex.”
“YOU were talking about sex.”
“I walked OUT on you because YOU were talking about sex.”
“Well, what do you want? You want to date guys who don’t want to sleep with you? You should date a gay guy, then. Or a dead guy, ‘cause I think you might have a shot at turning a gay guy straight.”
“I want a gentleman.”
“Mm, well, I’m not a gentleman.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
“So why are you still talking to me?”
“That’s a good question. Oh, wait – I’m not.”
I looked for traffic, then jaywalked across the street.
He was pretty surprised by that, though it took him just a second to follow me. “Okay, okay, that was a good one.”
I ignored him as I got to the median and checked the other direction. The closest car was a good two hundred feet away, so I took off again.
He puttered along beside me. “Checkmate. Very nice. You can start talking to me again.”
I kind of liked hearing him babble on idiotically, so I kept up the cold shoulder.
“You were talking to me because you like me, too,” he said as we reached the sidewalk. “You’re just afraid to get hurt. You’re afraid I’ll hurt you, and that’s why you’re pushing me away.”
“I just don’t want to waste my time with a guy who only sees me as a notch on a bedpost,” I retorted.
“I don’t. Hey – stop – I need you to listen to this, okay?”
He took hold of my arm lightly, with just the lightest of pressures.
It didn’t help that the touch of his bare skin on mine sent tingles up and down my skin.
“Please?”
I exhaled loudly and wheeled around to look at him, like, Well?
“I don’t,” he said with utter sincerity. “I don’t see you that way. If I only cared about sex, I wouldn’t be here. I don’t work this hard to get girls into bed.”
UGH.
“Oh, aren’t you Mr. – ”
“Stop it,” he said firmly. “Stop being sarcastic and pushing me away, because I’m serious. Yeah, girls jump into bed with me right away. If they don’t, I usually walk away and find another one who will. But you’re different. The second I saw you, I thought, I WANT her. And not just sex – the whole package. And yeah, while I really, REALLY want to sleep with you, I want you in my life even more. To the point where f*ck sleeping with you if I’m going to lose you over it. I’d rather be with you than just sleep with you and then lose you. I want you – ALL of you. I do, I swear to God that’s the truth.”
That took my breath away.
My heart was thudding in my chest.
Nobody had ever said anything like that to me before.
Nobody had made me feel that wanted, that desired – and yet let me know that they respected me above all else.
“I don’t believe you,” I said, though most of the anger was gone from my voice.
“Then give me a chance to prove it.”
“…how?”
“Let me be around you. No more talk about sex, no more trying to get into your pants. Let me hang out with you. Let me prove to you that I’m really, really interested in you. Let me get to know you.”
He sounded totally sincere.
It sounded amazing, and lovely, and romantic.
Though I secretly still wanted him to try to get in my pants.
But it wasn’t going to work.
I couldn’t let it work.
“I have a boyfriend.”
“Who broke up with you,” he said evenly. “And you don’t seem so upset about that, so stop using it as an excuse.”
Dammit…
But other than Kevin, there was the slightly more pressing issue of time.
I shook my head. “We’ve only got two weeks. And I’ve got finals to study for.”
“When’s your last final?”
“Thursday morning.”
“And what happens after that?”
“I go home for the summer.”
“Then I’m going to need as much of that two weeks as you can give me.”
I hugged my arms around my body like I was cold – but I wasn’t.
It was because I could feel temptation creeping in on me, using such logical words… and I so wanted to give in.
“…I need to think about it,” I whispered.
“Okay, you think about it tonight – but the flip side of the coin is I need you to get to know me, too. And you can’t know me without knowing about my music. So I want you to come meet my best friend and listen to us play.”
Oh God.
“What, at a club?” I asked dubiously.
“No. I want you to come to a practice, just me and him. We write songs together. You want to get to know the real me, then I need you to come hang out with us.”
I hesitated and chewed on my lip. “…when?”
“Tomorrow afternoon, about 3PM.”
I sighed and gave in – sort of. “Okay. Give me your number and I’ll let you know tomorrow what I decide.”
“Don’t have a cell phone,” he reminded me.
“Oh, yeah… where’s the practice?”
“Don’t worry about that. You got a car?”
“Yeah.” A clunker, but I did happen to have a car.
“Good, you can drive us.” And with that, he walked away – but backwards, so that he was still facing me as he left. “See you tomorrow around 2:30.”
“I thought you were going to take me out,” I taunted him.
“I am. You’re just driving, that’s all. I think it suits you, you being a control freak and all.”
I stuck my tongue out at him, but he just grinned and kept walking.
“I didn’t say I was going to go out with you yet,” I yelled.
“You will.”
Then he turned and walked around the corner, out of sight.
The last thing I saw was that playful, utterly confident smile.
22
I thought about it all night and all the next morning.
Spending any more time with Derek was a bad idea. I knew this. That was not in question.
But Kevin was still pouting and hadn’t called me back – so technically, whatever I did wouldn’t be cheating.
For the record, I knew that was a total copout. I didn’t even think it held water as an excuse.
…but it was, technically, correct.
And it gave me a certain amount of psychological cover to play ‘What If.’
At the end of the day, I could always scream like Ross on Friends, “We were on a BREAK!”
But I still knew I was getting back together with Kevin. I was, there was no question in my mind of that.
And anything I did with Derek would be cheating, technicality or not.
But…
…if we never kissed…
…and we never touched…
…and we never had sex…
…was it really cheating?
Of course it was. It was ‘emotional’ cheating.
But since Kevin and I were broken up, ‘emotional’ cheating seemed like it wasn’t really cheating at all.
And if I kept things in control… which I was totally sure I could do… then what was wrong with going to his stupid band thing? Why, it was probably a great idea for me to go – his band probably sucked! His friend was probably a douchebag! They were probably talentless, deluded f*ck-ups who would never amount to anything! If I went and saw all that, the spell would be broken! Derek would just be an insanely hot guy with no future, no talent, and nothing going for him beyond looks!
And charm.
And charisma.
And smarts.
But ultimately that was the deciding factor in my decision: if I went, I was only going so that I could wreck my daydreamy vision of him. I was going to uncover the facts, like all good reporters should. I was going to find out the Truth.
So I decided to go.
It didn’t quite turned out like I’d planned.
23
Shanna was back in our dorm room at 2:20 the next afternoon, giving me more Go f*ck yourself and die looks. I watched my phone nervously until it was 2:26, then said, “Bye,” and left. I fake-opened the stairwell and let the door close, and then crept back and started my stake-out. My room was the last one on the hall, right by the stairwell. It was also thirty feet away from the intersection with another hall, which is where I set up camp. I wasn’t sure what direction Derek would show up from, so I wanted to cover all the bases.
Unfortunately, he came out of the stairwell and saw me just as I saw him – and before I could put a finger to my lips.
“Well, aren’t you rarin’ to go,” he said happily – and loudly – two feet away from my dorm room door.
SHIT.
“Shhh,” I whispered, and hustled over to him.
He frowned at me. “What’s wrong?” he whispered back.
“Nothing, let’s just – ”
My door swung open, and there stood Shanna in all her righteously outraged glory.
I swear, if her rain-of-death looks hadn’t made me wilt, her next words surely would have.
“Ohhhh,” she sneered, “the cock-blocker and the man-whore, together again. Just like old times.”
My stomach felt like it was going to turn inside-out. “Shanna, it’s not like that – ”
“Riiight, it’s not like that at all, otherwise why would you be out here sneaking around and whispering and running away?!”
Derek had been watching the whole scene with amused surprise. But at this point, he got a resolute look on his face and stepped towards my roommate.
“Shanna, I got something I gotta say to you.”
There was a second’s worth of uncertainty on Shanna’s part, and then the acid was back in her voice. She crossed her arms judgmentally. “What.”
“I’m in love with your roommate.”
Shanna’s eyes bugged out of her skull.
I know I felt like somebody had sucker-punched me, that was for sure. All the air rushed out of my lungs, and my knees buckled.
Derek had his back to me and couldn’t see my expression. I think that was by design.
“I didn’t plan it, and I don’t really know if she likes me,” he continued in utmost sincerity, “but I fell in love with her as soon as I saw her.”
Shanna looked at me, her expression caught somewhere between You BITCH and Oh my god this is freaking me out, what the f*ck is going on?!
He kept going. “I’m sorry if I was a dick to you. No – not ‘if ’ – I was a dick to you. And I’m sorry. But I don’t want there to be any hard feelings between you and her. You don’t have anything to be jealous of, anyway – we haven’t kissed, she totally doesn’t trust me, and basically all we’re doing is going on a bunch of Disney dates where nothing’s gonna happen. So – you wanna come along?”
I about yelled WHAT?! when he said the last part about inviting her. I managed to keep my mouth shut… though I think my expression gave me away.
Shanna was totally and completely flabbergasted. “I… I, uh…”
Derek pressed right on ahead.
“Look, my best friend is the bassist. It’s just going to be me, him, and Kaitlyn. He’s a really good guy, he’s pretty good-looking – not as good as me, but, hey, who is?” he added, cocky as hell. I could hear him grinning as he said it. “He’s taller than me, and he’s kind of shy, and you two might hit it off. I don’t know – and you won’t, either, unless you try. So do you wanna come or not?”
Shanna looked over at me. All the anger was gone; she was just completely bewildered at this point.
Derek looked back at me for the first time since he’d started. Funnily enough, he was totally nonchalant – not like a regular dude who had just bared his heart and soul in front of a girl on their second date.
“You don’t care, right?” he asked me. “I mean, we’re not going to do anything, so – the more, the merrier, right?”
Despite all my previous promises to myself that nothing would happen, now that I had absolute assurance that nothing would happen… I was kind of pissed.
Plus, I saw the irony in it. I had cock-blocked Shanna… and now Shanna was going to be cock-blocking me. At Derek’s invitation, no less.
Karma’s a bitch.
“…I guess,” I muttered.
“Cool.” He grinned at me, then turned back to Shanna. “So, you comin’?”
All of Shanna’s usual confidence was gone, completely blasted to bits by Derek’s full-on niceness assault.
“…yeah… okay…”
Derek held up a finger. “But if you come, you’ve got to promise me one thing.”
She narrowed her eyes distrustfully. “What?”
“You’ve gotta forgive Kaitlyn, because she had nothing to do with it. She’s totally not in love with me, but I’m in love with her, and you can’t control that, right?”
Jesus, there he went again.
And there went my heart, slamming against the inside of my ribs.
“…I guess…” she agreed reluctantly.
“So are you going to forgive her?”
Memories of our feud came rushing back, and she gave me a mini-glare. “Yes.”
“No, I mean it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay.”
“Tell her.”
Shanna stared at him like Are you for real? Then she turned to me and said with overblown theatricality, “I forgive you.”
My face felt scorching hot. GOD this was humiliating.
“You don’t have to forgive me for anything – I’m the one who was a bitch. I’m sorry.”
Derek turned and pointed at me like, HEY, no speaking out of turn. “Don’t be sorry – it was all me. You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” Then he turned back to Shanna. “Okay, cool, go get your stuff.”
Shanna turned around, then hesitated. “Can I change first?”
“Just make it quick.” He tapped his watch-less wrist. “We’re running late.”
“Okay, okay, just give me a couple of minutes,” she huffed, and shut the door.
When he turned back to me, he was completely calm and blasé. I, meanwhile, had my arms wrapped around me tightly again. I couldn’t have verbalized it at the time, but it was probably to protect myself against the psychological onslaught of what he’d said.
About… being in love with me.
“Hope you don’t mind I invited her like that – I just don’t want to see you two fi– ”
“Why’d you say that?” I interrupted.
He frowned slightly. “What, about inviting her?”
“No. About… being…”
“In love with you?”
“…yes.”
“Because it’s true.” He said it like ‘the sky is blue’ or ‘what goes up must go down’ – like it was a purely factual statement. More than that, he said it in a totally, completely unashamed and unreserved way. He wasn’t embarrassed at all. “I’m totally in love with you. Don’t say anything back, because I know you don’t feel that way. But I do.”
My heart was going a million miles an hour, and I felt like I might swoon.
“If this is some kind of a trick – ” I started.
He smiled. “It’s not.”
I paused and just drank in those emerald green eyes.
“You don’t even know me,” I finally protested – albeit feebly.
“That’s what these dates are for, right? So I can get to know you, and you can get to know me.”
“You can’t love somebody if you don’t know them.”
“Wrong. Well, maybe you can’t LOVE somebody if you don’t know them, but you can definitely fall in love. You know how I know?”
“…how?” I asked in a tiny mouse voice.
He stared and me and said confidently but quietly, “Because I’ve already fallen in love with you.”
Ohhhhhh sweet baby Jesus.
Maybe he really was a gentleman, because he didn’t make a move to kiss me, or touch me, or anything. And I’m pretty sure at that moment he could have whisked me into my dorm room and had his way with me.
The sexual tension was thick, and my emotions were raging like a swollen river –
And then Shanna came out in tight jeans and a low-cut halter top that showed off her boobs.
“I’m ready!” she announced happily.
As soon as she appeared, she could tell something was up. It was probably like walking into an invisible wall.
“Uh… is everything okay?” she asked.
“Definitely,” Derek smiled. “Let’s go.”
He gestured to me, and I walked past him towards the stairwell. As I went, he put his hand on the small of my back – just the lightest of touches, and then it was gone.
My knees buckled and I about lost my mind… but somehow I made it down the stairs to the parking lot.
24
I was expecting our destination to be a nasty, old rundown shack sandwiched in between crack houses. And I was expecting Derek’s bandmate to be a drugged-out, long-haired scuz that we would wake up when we got there.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
As I drove my beat-up Toyota, Derek directed me out to the suburbs. That is, when he wasn’t chatting with a newly friendly Shanna.
We finally turned into a very pretty, upper-middle-class neighborhood with manicured lawns and kids playing out in the street.
We pulled up in front of a brick McMansion with a long driveway that ended on the side of the house.
“Whoa, your bassist lives here?” Shanna asked.
“Yeah. Nice, huh?” Derek agreed.
There was a new Honda sitting in front of a basketball hoop. I started to park beside it when Derek stopped me.
“Park behind it – his parents aren’t home from work yet, and we don’t want to get blocked in.”
His parents aren’t home from work yet?
“He lives with his parents?” Shanna asked, once again voicing the questions I wasn’t sure were polite.
“Yeah, he’s still a senior in high school,” Derek said.
High school?!
I realized that I’d never found out Derek’s age.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Eighteen.”
Holy SHIT. He was a year younger than me.
“Oh my GOD, you’re a baby!” Shanna cackled.
Which was ridiculous – she and I were both 19.
And he was definitely no baby. Not at six feet tall with that astounding body.
But I had thought he was 24 or 25, so the truth was a shock.
Once I got out of the car, I started towards the front of the house – and again, Derek intervened.
“We’re actually going in the back,” he said.
Shanna and I followed him into a backyard full of azalea bushes and dogwood trees. There was even a goldfish pond complete with a tiny stone waterfall. It was a suburban paradise.
Derek led us around to a patio in the rear and knocked on a sliding glass door with vertical blinds.
It opened a few seconds later. A lanky, baby-faced giant poked his head out and looked down at Derek crossly. “You’re late.”
“I brought that girl I was telling you about. Ryan, Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn, this is my bandmate Ryan.”
I stared at him.
Not what I’d been expecting at all.
He was a clean-cut kid who looked like he belonged in cross-country instead of in a band. He had short brown hair – not quite a military buzzcut, but only a few weeks of growth removed from one. Clean shaven, no piercings, no tattoos. He had the angelic features of a complete innocent. He wore stiff blue jeans – new and not yet broken in – and bright white sneakers. The only hint about his musical leanings was his t-shirt, which was from a Foo Fighters concert tour a couple of years ago.
His eyes flitted over to me and froze. His mouth dropped open the slightest bit.
“Hi,” I said, raising my hand.
“H-hi,” he stuttered, his eyes never leaving mine. I noticed they were a pretty brown.
“I brought a looker for you, too,” Derek said. “This is Shanna.”
Ryan broke away from staring at me and glanced over at Shanna – and his eyes almost immediately dropped down to her cleavage. He blushed slightly and immediately raised his eyes.
Shanna ate it up.
“Hi!” she bubbled, flinging out her hand to shake his. I could tell she liked him.
An innocent for her to corrupt.
“Hi,” he said, taking her hand, then looked back guiltily at me, as though he’d done something wrong.
“Alright, let’s get started,” Derek said, brushing past him and stepping inside. “You can mack on the ladies later.”
25
The basement was another surprise. I was expecting a teenage boy’s cave, grungy and messy and stinking of musty shoes. Instead, it was immaculate. The walls were all painted white, there were flower arrangements on wooden tables, and it smelled like lavender sachets.
It was the perfect Real Simple daydream.
Except for the instruments.
They were everywhere – neatly stacked on stands or hung on walls, but there were tons. Two different electric guitars and several bass guitars, along with numerous amps. There were also two acoustic guitars, a drum set, an electronic keyboard, and a computer and monitor with a whole bunch of wires running out of it, hooked up to various mixing boards and whatnot. There were also a couple of microphones on stands – fairly expensive-looking ones, too.
“Holy shit, you guys have a whole studio down here,” Shanna marveled.
“Yeah… just no real good sound baffling, so the acoustics kind of suck. My mom won’t let us put any up,” Ryan said, then blushed, embarrassed at the admission.
“Ah, she’s cool, his parents let us practice every afternoon till six and sometimes after dinner, so you can’t expect ‘em to give us everything,” Derek said as he went over and grabbed an acoustic guitar. “I thought we could wow the ladies first with some covers.”
“Yeah, well, if you wanted to ‘wow’ them, you brought them to the wrong place,” Ryan joked.
Derek lightly punched his friend’s arm. “So modest.”
“Unlike you,” I said.
“Well, somebody has to balance me out. Sit over there,” Derek commanded us, and Shanna and I sat down on a very nice sofa along the wall.
Derek sat down on the ground as Ryan grabbed an electric bass.
“Eh, I was thinking just acoustic at first,” Derek warned him. “Plus, you know I can’t play for shit.”
“Okay,” Ryan said, and grabbed the second acoustic.
“Oh, maybe you are the slightest bit modest,” I said.
Derek smiled. “No, I just always tell the truth, that’s all.”
I think you’re absolutely gorgeous, and yes, I want to sleep with you.
I’m in love with your roommate… I didn’t plan it, and I don’t really know if she likes me, but I fell in love with her as soon as I saw her.
I crossed my legs uncomfortably as I pondered that.
Derek started strumming – nothing special, but not bad. Ryan tuned his guitar first, then started playing scales – quickly and accurately.
After a minute, Derek turned to us. “Any requests?”
“‘Under The Bridge,’” I said.
Derek grinned. “‘Under The Bridge’ it is.”
He looked over at Ryan, who looked at me and Shanna nervously… and then started playing.
He was good. Though it was on an acoustic guitar and thus was softer, all the notes were recognizably the same as the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ song.
Then Derek started singing.
Holy shit.
I had convinced myself that I would come here because I might discover that Derek and his friend were two no-account losers, with no talent and no futures, and thus Derek’s spell over me would be broken.
To the contrary.
They were good.
Damn, they were good.
Derek’s voice was very different from Anthony Kieidis’s, but in a good way – deeper, huskier, smokier.
Sexier.
The parts he’d described to me about the song – the plaintive wail, the pain – he brought his own darkness to it. It was different, but it was good.
And Ryan was quite good on the acoustic guitar. Maybe not professional level, but good nonetheless.
Together they were better than any street musician or coffee shop performer I’d ever seen. And better than most of the local bands I’d heard as I walked past clubs on Friday and Saturday nights.
As they neared the big climax, Derek turned to me and Shanna. “Okay, ladies, we’re going to need some backup for this. Ready?”
“What?” I said, immediately panicking.
“Sure!” Shanna agreed enthusiastically.
When the choral part came in, Shanna and Derek both sang while Derek howled Kiedis’s part. Ryan was good, Shanna was okay, but Derek was amazing. The emotion on his face was real, and matched the intensity in his voice. Chills ran up and down my spine as I listened to him – and heat ran through my body as I watched his muscular form and that beautiful face contorted in pain.
After it was over and the final chords from the guitar died away, Shanna burst into clapping.
“Oh my GOD, you guys are GREAT!” she squealed.
I joined in with her clapping, kind of stunned, as though I were coming out of a daydream – or a great kiss.
“Yeah, you are,” I agreed.
Ryan grinned shyly.
Derek looked at me disapprovingly. “You didn’t sing.”
“What?” I asked, alarmed.
“I told you you were supposed to sing, and you didn’t.”
“I… I’m really bad,” I said lamely.
“I don’t care. You have to sing if we need you.”
I shrugged. “You want me to ruin your song, fine by me.”
“Did you like it?” he asked, and a hint of unease crossed his face.
I stared directly into his green eyes. “It was beautiful.”
Relief washed over him, and he grinned. “Thanks.”
Then he looked at both me and Shanna. “Okay, what next?”