The pain, that sharp, dark pain buried deep in his words, the pain that he’s fighting to hide, hits me straight through the middle. I clear my throat, find my voice. “And who doesn’t love Queen?” I give him a little nudge, just the barest move of my elbow against his arm. “I mean, isn’t We Will Rock You like every jock’s anthem?”
My reward is his grin, and the way the corners of his eyes crinkle. A soft laugh leaves him. “Yeah,” he says quietly, and then with more lightness, “Yeah, suppose it is.”
I don’t know what else to say. I’m comforting Drew Baylor when I’m supposed to be fucking him. An uncomfortable knot begins to writhe in my stomach. I don’t deserve to hear about his parents. To even look upon their smiling faces. Suddenly I want him out of here. I can’t breathe.
I’m about to ask him to go when he talks again.
“So I guess you like those Emo type of guys.” He turns his head slightly, and our eyes meet. There it is, that low, hot hum within me that happens every time, as if his eyes have some freaking super power with a direct line to my sex. The bed groans beneath him as he rolls to his side. He props a hand under his head, and now he’s looming over me.
His voice slows, gets richer, lower, as if he too feels the hum. “Guys who dress in black and pluck out half-ass tunes on their guitars to show their inner torment.”
There’s a guitar in my room. A Gibson acoustic that my mom gave me on my eighteenth birthday. I’d seen his gaze land on it when he first entered my room.
“Maybe I’m the one who plucks half-assed tunes.”
Baylor’s grin is lazy, and those little lines that bracket his mouth deepen. There’s a knowing look in his eyes, as if he can read my mind. And maybe he can. Because his next words are, “I bet it pisses you off that you can’t play a whole song.”
I glare at him, but I can’t be properly pissed off. He’s right, after all. I wanted so badly to play, but I suck. My fingers are like drunken frat boys stumbling all over each other on the frets. A disgrace. “It does.”
As if my honesty needs a reward, his smile grows wider. That smile. It takes my breath, then gives it back. But now my breath is too fast and too light. His golden gaze slides down to where my breasts are rising and falling in sudden agitation, and his expression turns serious, almost stern, as if he’s contemplating doing dark things to them. I’m up for it. I’m pretty sure he could bite me there, and I’d like it.
But he slowly looks back up at me. Color darkens his high cheeks, and though his voice is a bit rougher, he’s still in control. The bastard. “I can play,” he says. It isn’t a brag. It’s a statement.
“You? The guitar?” Skepticism stretches out my words.
White teeth flash. “Me. The big, dumb jock.” He says it mockingly, but not in anger. As if he knows that most people assume jocks are dumb, but he doesn’t really give a fuck.
“I don’t think you’re dumb,” I blurt out. It’s as close to a real compliment as I’ve ever given him. And we both know it.
He stills. And then his massive body, all that flat-packed muscle leans into me, pausing inches away, close enough so I feel the heat of his breath against my cheek when he whispers, “I don’t think you’re dumb either.”
Then, in that quick, effortless way of his, he rolls away and goes for the guitar.
I sit up, curling my feet under me, as he settles on my bedroom chair and fiddles with the strings to tune the guitar. It looks good in his hand. No, he isn’t reed thin or wearing skinny jeans—the mere idea of which makes me want to laugh; Drew Baylor was made for low-slung Levis and t-shirts that strain against defined muscles. But he holds the Gibson with authority.
“Mom said that I couldn’t just be about sports. So, if I wanted to play them, I had to learn an instrument too.”
“What a slave driver,” I tease.
“That was the gist of my protest.”
When he gets the guitar the way he wants it, he begins to play. The melody is complex and familiar. It takes me a moment to place it. Norwegian Wood.