by C. M. Owens
“Oh, you’re dressed like a Sterling girl…that’s for damn sure. Forgot why the girls of that circle were so out of our league until right this second,” Sticks goes on as he tugs at his collar. “But the place we’re going is less Fifth Avenue and more Second Street beside the tracks.”
Her lips purse.
“He means jeans would make you blend easier, but you’re more than welcome to wear that dress,” I tell her, watching as her body starts to relax.
“I’ll change,” she says, her smile returning as she turns and ducks back inside her bedroom.
I slap Sticks on the back of the head. “Don’t speak in euphemisms.”
“Sheesh, sorry. Didn’t realize that was an issue,” Sticks says, though there’s a mocking grin on his lips.
I’m tempted to slap the shit out of him for it.
I hear the roar of Taylor’s hideous Scooby van—yes, he has a fucking Mystery Van, fully replicated. It takes a lot of confidence to roll up at gigs in that damn van.
Just sayin’.
Laughter and doors shutting sounds just as Britt walks back out, a pair of jeans that will also be testing my restraint, but not nearly as bad as the dress. I wish there was more shirt to her shirt—that would be a lot of help.
“Motherfucking saint,” Sticks mutters again.
“Killin’ me,” I tell her, drawing a confused expression from her.
“Still not right?” she asks seriously.
“Can we keep her?” Sticks says. “Like even if your shit dries up tomorrow?”
Her shoulders slightly ease down, and she lowers back to her heels, her body visibly relaxing.
“Seriously, you look perfect, Red,” Sticks says to her. “Let’s roll before they bust up in here again and wreck your house. I think Base has invaded your home enough for all of us.”
I shove at him as I go to drop my arm around Britt’s shoulders and begin steering her toward the door. She’s strung so tight that I’m worried she’s going to snap if I turn her too abruptly.
“Relax,” I tell her, smirking when she presses up closer to me, while Sticks opens the door to two rowdy pricks.
“So he’s actually getting out. How bad has he lost touch?” Taylor asks while doing zombie arms and staring blankly in front of him.
“Surprisingly, not as bad as we thought. We’ll talk about it later. Let’s get gone before he thinks of a tune he has to get out before we go,” Sticks prompts, shoving at them to go back to the Scooby van.
“You’re riding in style tonight, Sterling girl,” Taylor says, opening the back doors to the Mystery Van.
Britt stares at it for a second, but doesn’t bat an eye before climbing in.
Taylor just grins over at me, since she does it without complaining and takes a less-than-safe seat on his homemade, self-upholstered bench seat.
I slide in beside her, putting my arm back around her shoulders, hoping she relaxes a little so she can at least enjoy a night out.
Everyone loads up, with Randy taking shotgun and Sticks sitting on the opposite side of us. Britt stays quiet as everyone talks around her.
When the guys and I try to include her in the conversation by deliberately asking her questions, she pauses to think for a fraction of a second, barely noticeable, and commits to the smallest answer she can manage, as though there’s a maximum word count she’s sticking to. Five being that maximum.
Sticks casts a look at me, since he saw like I did that she was looser in her own house when it was just the two of us. I’ve essentially been in her personal space for days and she’s still not completely comfortable with me.
But she’s trooper enough to mask her discomfort with soft smiles and polite nods. As though she’s been training the hell out of herself to blend in without drawing attention.
When the guys cut the music up and start singing obnoxiously loud to Metallica, I lean over, ignoring her sweet little shiver when my lips graze her ear.
“Do the Sterlings make you limit your word count or something?”
She frowns as she turns to face me. “Why do you want to vilify them? You keep asking antagonistic questions like that.”
My lips twitch at the fact she’s definitely saying more than five words when it’s just with me.
“You’re trying really hard to overthink things. Just making sure they haven’t tried to filter you.”
“I’ve asked for their advice on conversation material that won’t get me gawked at when I speak to people. I say what I want to when I’m around them or when they bring people around me, because I can relax. They find my nature to be charming, but they’re in a minority.”
Twirling some of her unnaturally soft hair around the tip of my finger, I smile down at her.
“Sorry. I won’t assume that again,” I tell her, watching as the subtle bit of ire flees from her eyes immediately.
So fucking expressive, even when none of her other facial features give anything away.
“But don’t filter yourself around them.” I gesture to the guys. She opens her mouth to say something, when I add, “I’m serious.”
She heaves out a breath, still looking uncomfortable, but doubling her efforts to appear comfortable. It’s cute as much as it is frustrating, and it’s a revelation as to what life is like from her eyes.
I stopped giving a shit about what people thought about me a long damn time ago. She honestly doesn’t give a shit what people think either, but she cares if it causes her protective family issues.
I think. To be perfectly honest, I’m still working out how she thinks. It’s not easy. At all.
As soon as we get to the club, which seems to take longer than an hour when you’re stuck in the car with Randy, who is belting out off-key lyrics to every fucking song on the radio, I pull Britt’s hand into mine.
Her fingers thread with mine, as I pull her toward the door. Taylor lifts his eyebrows and not-so-subtly looks between us several times before he goes still and simply stares expectantly.
I don’t answer the unspoken question, since I’ve answered it a hundred times since I moved myself right the fuck into her spare room and started composing some of my best work to date.
We’re not even halfway in when we’re bombarded by a very small, familiar group of girls. Taylor throws his arms around two, dragging them toward the dance floor. Randy is vying for one’s attention, who is trying to get mine.
Britt tries to escape, but I pull her closer.
Groaning, I turn to look at Sticks. “Who posted where we were going?”
“Who do you think?” he asks, eyes flicking to Randy.
“I fucking hate him some nights,” I say too low for anyone to hear over the steady thump of the loud music.
“It’d be different if it was a squad of different girls all over the place throwing themselves at us. But when it’s the same five every time, it makes it look like we can’t get anyone else to stalk us.”
“That’s not at all what I meant,” I point out dryly.
He just grins, but Britt distracts us by literally yelling. “I need to urinate!”
I release her hand, stifling a laugh, then nod as she warily looks through the throngs of people.
“I’ll grab us some drinks,” I call after her.
She waves a hand behind her, letting me know she heard, as she starts needling her way through the crowd.
Taylor is almost immediately back, sans the girls he helped to drag away, and yells, “I bought us just enough time for you to tell me what’s going on between you and the Sterling girl, so I can know what sort of moves I’m allowed to make.”
I turn an incredulous look on him.
“You better be joking, and we’re just friends. Well, that last part is in progress.”
She seems more at ease with letting me use her house as my crash pad while the muse is active, even though we just met. She’s perfectly cool with me splashing her face on the walls, even though I admit that makes me sound like a creep. But she struggles wit
h the concept of being friends?
Every time I think I have some idea of how she ticks, I’m left reeling again.
“Right. Friends. Always works out well when you want to fuck friends,” he says in mock agreement.
“She’s a virgin,” Sticks says a little too fucking loud.
Taylor groans, then shakes his head. “Damn. I really thought that was all bullshit. You’re an ass if you do anything then. Got it.” As I move to the nearest bar to order some drinks, Taylor adds, “Do us all a favor and don’t piss off the Sterlings while we’re living in Sterling Shore.”
I say nothing as I sip my beer, staring over the rim of it as I search the crowd, wondering when she’s coming back.
Sticks and Taylor start talking about the music I’ve been writing, Sticks mostly relaying what little I’ve shared with him.
When I catch a flash of red hair, my beer pauses at my lips, and I slowly lower it as I stare at Britt. Drinking is probably a terrible idea. Even sober, I’m actively having to remind myself in mantra that she’s a motherfucking virgin.
She’s girl who is naïve enough to believe she can lose her virginity and have no emotions.
A girl who literally asked me to help with her ‘hymen issue.’
“Motherfucking saint,” I mutter to myself as she dances with the same confidence she walks with.
“You only have a small shot with her because the amount of rejection she’s faced has substantially lowered her self-esteem,” Sticks tells me like it’s his duty to inform me of such.
“You’re a better man than me,” Taylor says when his eyes follow mine.
“He’s really not. He’s just telling himself that,” Sticks says, the fucker sounding much too amused. “Guess urinating freed her bladder up for all that dropping low. Imagine if she had kept on the dress.”
I really don’t like either of them imagining that. At all.
The bottle almost slips from my hand, and I barely catch it, as an image I really don’t need right now creeps into my own mind.
“This evening should be entertaining,” Sticks adds while literally rubbing his hands together like the evil villain after his mwahahahaha laugh.
“I think life was easier when he thought she was gay. Hell, he kissed her like he was on a desperate mission to actually try to change her world,” Taylor snorts, earning a glare from me.
When my eyes go back, the bottle does slip from my hand, shattering to the ground and causing Taylor and Sticks to leap back.
A familiar fucker is dancing with Britt, and she’s smiling and laughing as she dances with him like they’re friends. At least I hope it’s a friendly dance.
She has had zero friends come over. She has also mentioned zero friends.
Then I realize why the dick is familiar.
“Oh, that tights-wearing, level-one, squire douche, nerd-girl-chasing son of a bitch,” I say as I start stalking forward.
“What the hell kind of insult was that?” I hear Sticks asking as I start working my way through the crowd.
I crack my neck to the side when Britt decides to turn into a damn vixen and shakes her ass in a way a virgin shouldn’t be allowed to move. It’s simply not fucking fair to those of us trying not to be a total douchebag.
I decide Level-One Tights-Wearing Squire Boy is officially my least favorite person when he grabs her hips and drags her ass toward his crotch.
Probably not a good sign that I’m getting disconcertingly murderous just because some other guy is touching my friend.
Chapter 14
BRITT
Carefully, I try to extract myself from Tommy when he touches my waist and tries to dance behind me. Tries to dance being the operative phrase, since failing is sadly more accurate.
I’m always jarred and ready to run away when guys do that bizarre dance move that is nothing more than them violently bucking behind you. They do it so hard that it almost sends you tumbling to the floor, or at least stumbling around. It’s not fun.
If they’re that bad at dancing, they shouldn’t dance. I don’t ride horses right next to someone because I’m not good at it and someone could get hurt.
Finally managing to get turned around so I can face him, I try to keep my irrational annoyance out of my expressions. It’s not like this song won’t come on again, but I really just wanted to dance to it and enjoy it.
However, it’s unimportant and unprepared-for conflict I have no choice but to avoid.
Just as he starts to move in closer, he frowns and pauses. Two other arms come around me much more invasively than Tommy’s just were, fully wrapping around my middle.
More of those butterflies instead of uncomfortable tingles tells me it’s the guy who confuses my body like no one else. And my mind. He definitely confuses my mind.
My hands seem to have a confused mind of their own when they come up and rest against his, as he starts moving behind me, dancing easily against me, and not bucking like he’s trying to use one section of his body to see if he can knock me over. His body moves with mine instead of against it, and it becomes fun just that quickly.
Which shouldn’t be surprising. Base seems to make everything different. Easy. As though he knows what someone needs in order for him to be so personal and invasive, yet make it charming and wanted. Almost like his presence is necessary after you’ve felt it, which is clearly not at all rational.
He turns me in his arms, and my eyes move up to his for a brief second before they bounce down to his lips that are pulled up at one corner of his mouth.
“I was on my way back, but—”
“But you really like this song?” he guesses, his grin forming.
How did he know that?
My grin grows, and I nod as he pulls me even closer, his hand going into my hair, as his other hand slides down to my hip. We’re still dancing even when the song changes. Then…for a girl who can’t forget, I quickly realize I misplaced the fact Tommy was still standing out here, only now he’s tapping my shoulder.
His eyebrows are drawn down disapprovingly—that expression I’ve seen on a variety of strangers and have figured it out—as his gaze flicks to Base, whose grip is pulling me impossibly closer.
“Sorry! We’ll dance some other time,” I yell to him over the music, not even believing how relieved I am to be away from Tommy. Which is weird. I like Tommy usually. “This is Base. I came with him.”
Tommy’s eyes flick to Base incredulously, and Base seems to be smirking as he barely glances over at him. Wordlessly, Tommy leaves, presumably going back to his table of friends near the bathroom, as Base continues to dance with me.
“Who’s he?” Base asks, not sounding overly interested.
“He’s my squire a lot in the virtual world of Land of the Lost Lore. Recently, he was my physical squire in the park.”
But it’s almost like my words are getting lost in the music, because he just smiles and nods, almost as though he can’t hear me or he’s amused. Or maybe it’s a sinister smile?
Sean is excellent at teaching me what a sinister smile looks like.
After a lot of dancing, my heartbeat is racing faster than usual. And I also keep pressing closer and closer to Base, until our fronts are so solidly touching that it becomes a little…uncomfortable for new reasons.
That arousal is definitely at an all-time high, and I’ve spent five minutes debating straddling his leg, and reminding myself he has already rejected me.
I think we’re friends. Or I think that’s his goal…to make us friends.
And I specifically remember Bella saying friends don’t straddle other friends’ legs at some point, though I never heard the context that comment was used in, since I merely overheard that line.
It seemed a bit odd at the time, since I had no idea why someone would want to straddle a leg. It unfortunately makes sense now.
Deciding to dull some of the ache, I turn, giving him my back, and start dancing on him that way. Unlike Tommy, he’s not bucking away back there
. His front grazes my back, and I arch into him, feeling the movements flowing so effortlessly between us.
His hand on my hip tightens, and he groans against my ear as one of his arms comes around my waist.
“Motherfucking saint,” he says just barely loud enough for me to hear.
I turn my head to ask him what that means, and suck in a breath when my lips brush his on accident, because he’s still leaned over and his face is significantly closer to mine than I was anticipating.
Just that barely-there ghost of a touch has my entire body responding. Even the slightest feel of the warm steel on his lip ring has me wondering what it’d be like to kiss him with it in.
His eyes flick over mine, lips still barely just parted, and his hand comes up, gently cupping the side of my face. I’m certain he’s going to kiss me, until Randy suddenly bumps into us.
Base drops his hand on my cheek to steady me, and turns a glare on Randy, who is laughing really loud if I can hear him that easily over the steadily blaring music.
“We’re ready to get out of here. Girls all around!” he shouts, and I bristle.
I forgot all about the girls who were here to gather with them. Which is weird, because I can’t actually forget things. Maybe the memories just get suspended when Base’s body is frustrating mine, and pushing all other thoughts to the back of my mind.
“I thought this was just a night out to have some fun,” Base says, not sounding overly enthused.
“It is! Now that we’re finished with the night-out portion of the evening, we’re ready to have some fun!”
The girls crow with him, cheering and sloshing their drinks when they thrust them into the air in a toasting gesture. However, they seem pleasant enough.
Base mutters something as we start heading toward the front, but I remember it took exactly sixty-four minutes to come here, and that was without stopping for gas.
“I need to—” I pause, wondering if I should mention urinating again or if that would make me appear redundant. “—discharge urine,” I decide to say.
His lips lift in a grin on one corner, and he goes with me to the bathrooms this time, for some reason.