by Jamie Shaw
I pick up the powder and sniff that instead, coughing when some gets huffed up my nose. “Smells like dead brain cells.”
Shawn barks out a laugh and takes the container from me, closing both up before pushing the sheets in the washer and closing the lid. He roots some change from his pocket and feeds the machine, and then we take two seats in front of the big bay window of the Laundro-freakin’-rama.
The bells on the door jingle as we both watch a very pregnant woman wearing too-tight boxer shorts and a two-sizes-too-small top enter the Laundromat. She has two little kids screaming and chasing each other around her flip-flop-clad feet, and I can already tell the next hour or so is going to be a blast. Shawn twitches like he wants to offer to help her with the laundry basket she’s balancing on her hip, but with the way her suddenly heated gaze homes in on him like he could be her next baby daddy, he settles back in his plastic chair. The kids start running through the aisles making enough noise to drown out the dryers, and Shawn stretches his arm behind my seat.
“Kill me now,” I say, and his head turns in my direction, a smile on his lips.
“So what did you do when you left the kitchen last night?”
I’m distracted by the glances the woman keeps stealing at Shawn while she fills one of the washers, so I barely hold back a snicker when one of her kids face-plants on a dryer and starts screaming his head off so loudly that she can’t continue ignoring him.
“You’re evil,” Shawn says with a grin when I’m too busy laughing to answer his question.
“You do realize she wants you to mount her on a washing machine, right?”
He chuckles and says, “So are you going to answer me or not?”
“About what?”
“What’d you do after you abandoned me in groupie hell last night?”
I lift an eyebrow when he acts like he didn’t enjoy himself. “You mean before or after you slept with the glitter-chick?”
“I told you I didn’t sleep—”
“Fucked her, I mean.”
After I correct myself a little too loudly, I glance at the baby mama, who should definitely be offended on behalf of her small children, but she’s too busy ogling Shawn to give a damn about what I just said. I’m thankful when she ushers her little monsters toward the door. She casts Shawn one last sultry look before she goes, but his gaze is locked on me and nothing else.
“I didn’t sleep with her or fuck her,” he says when my eyes reconnect with his.
I narrow my gaze on him. “You didn’t?”
He shakes his head. “I told her I did so she wouldn’t be pissed when I practically threw her off the bus this morning, but no, I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“I don’t fuck everything that walks, Kit.”
Of all the lines that could make a girl feel special, I wouldn’t have expected that to be one of them. But my heart flutters anyway. “She was pretty,” I protest, for God only knows what reason.
“So?”
“So.” I struggle to find some way, any way, to claw my way out of this hole of a conversation I’ve dug myself into. “I hung out with Mike at the front of the bus,” I say, finally answering his question about where I went after I fled from the kitchen.
“Was Adam the one making all that noise on the roof of the bus?”
I chuckle at the memory. “Yeah, I think Joel joined him up there.”
Shawn’s grin puts the world’s smallest, most adorable dimple in his cheek. “I would’ve guessed you’d be up there too.”
“I was too tired to be scaling buses.”
“Just wait until we’re a few weeks in. You won’t even be able to tell the difference between dreaming and being awake.”
I rest the back of my head against the top of my plastic chair, tired just thinking about it. “Sorry about stealing your earplugs.”
Shawn slouches low in his seat to stay level with me, turning his head with that heart-melting smile still on his face. “They were yours anyway.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m used to Joel’s snoring. I brought them because I figured you might need them.”
I shrink to two inches tall, my voice teeny-tiny when I say, “And then I stole them . . . ” When he chuckles softly, I close my eyes and curse. “Shit.”
“Apology accepted.”
With my eyes still closed, I can’t help laughing. “I’m also sorry for dumping your body wash down the drain and replacing it with mine.” I peek an eye open, and he lifts an eyebrow.
“But you didn’t . . . ” Realization dawns on his face, and his eyes go flat. “You did.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
Because you smell too fucking good. Because I can smell you from here. Because it makes me want to crawl on your lap and see if you taste as good as I bet you do. I shrug. “The good news is you’ll smell like vanilla and jasmine.”
“Every guy’s dream.”
“See?” I say with a big smile. I sit up straight and crisscross my legs on the chair before spinning to face him. “I’m being a great friend already.”
Shawn grabs the bottoms of my calves and flips them up until I’m tumbling backward and squealing while trying to catch myself. When I finally regain my balance and sit back up to whack him in the arm, all he does is grin. I cross my arms over my chest and sit back in my chair with my boots firmly on the floor, trying not to smile.
I missed this. Just hanging out with him. Talking to him because it’s the easiest thing in the world to do, despite the way my heart races and the way my cheeks flush. I missed his laugh and his smile and his eyes.
I missed him.
“I missed this,” Shawn says, and that hidden smile finally breaks free across my face.
“Me too.”
We talk, we joke, we toss the sheets into the dryer and watch the baby mama come and go again. We’re sitting on a bench at a sub shop across the street, trying Philly’s famed Philly cheesesteaks, when Shawn asks me what Mike and I talked about while we were alone at the front of the bus.
There’s no way I’m telling him we talked about him, so I sidestep, sidestep, sidestep. And as soon as I get the chance, I change the subject by asking Shawn something I’ve been wondering about since last night. “Has Mike ever hooked up with a groupie?”
Shawn shakes his head as he chews. How he makes even chewing look cute, I have no idea, but he’s so adorable with his clean bites and good manners, I want to eat him up, even though it would probably make me sick. “He’s hooked up with a fan or two, but never a groupie. Not girls like we had on the bus last night.”
“Why?”
He takes another bite as he thinks about it. “Do you remember the girlfriend he had in high school?”
“Wasn’t her name Danica or something?” I ask. I remember her having flawless honey-brown hair, and bright white teeth inside an expensive designer smile. She was on the cheerleading squad, and knowing Mike like I know him now, I have no idea what he ever saw in her.
“He dated her for like three years,” Shawn confirms. “He put her on a pedestal, but she dumped him right before we moved out here.”
“Because of the long distance?” I bunch up my trash and discard it in the basket my cheesesteak was in.
Shawn shakes his head once. “Because she was a gold digger who tried to force him to quit the band. She said he wouldn’t amount to anything.”
“What a bitch,” I scoff, and Shawn nods emphatically before taking the last bite of his sub. He gathers up our trash, and I follow him to the trashcans.
“Yeah. She broke his heart.”
“Do you think he wants a girlfriend now?”
“Maybe. But he’s . . . careful, you know? He deserves someone special.”
“Someone who deserves him,” I agree, and as we cross the street, Shawn flashes me an approving smile that ripens the pale apples of my cheeks.
When he opens the door of the Laundromat, I enter with the inside o
f my lip pinned between my teeth. I’m nibbling at the skin when I finally ask what I’m wondering. “What about you?”
I glance at him out of the corner of my eye as I open the dryer and start gathering the clean sheets into my arms. He used more fabric softener in the dryer, and the sheets are all as soft as the clothes he wears. I resist the urge to bury my face in them and breathe deep.
“What about me?” he asks.
“Ever want a girlfriend?” I walk ahead of him so he can’t see how red my cheeks are glowing. I don’t know why I’m even asking. I don’t care. Can’t care. Shouldn’t care.
“She’d have to be one hell of a girl,” he says as he catches up with me. The bells jingle as we leave the Laundromat behind, and I know I should close my mouth. I should stop asking questions. I should let the conversation drop.
“Like what kind?”
My question hangs suspended in the air between us, the inside of my bottom lip getting nibbled sore as what seems like an eternity passes in just a few hard thumps of my heart. My palms start to sweat and I think of a million jokes I could tell to make him forget the stupid, impulsive, stupid, stupid question I just blurted. But then he answers me.
“I don’t know . . . ” he says, his magnetic gaze pulling at me even though I resist the urge to meet it. “Maybe a girl like you.”
I DON’T SAY anything on block one, minute five, or step 152. My thoughts are traveling faster and further than my feet are moving, and each step of the way, Shawn is right beside me.
Maybe a girl like you.
A girl like me? Not me, but a girl like me . . . Why a girl like me? What the hell does that MEAN? Why is he always so goddamn confusing?
My mouth has opened and closed at least five times when my phone rings, tearing me from the eternal echo of Shawn’s words.
My twin’s face flashes onto the screen that I free from my back pocket, under letters that spell “Butthead.” He’s wearing a cowboy hat that I plopped on his head while we were Christmas shopping last year, and he has an unamused expression on his face that makes me grin every time he calls.
Well, almost every time. This time, I simply cast an uncomfortable glance at Shawn before handing off the sheets and telling him I really have to answer the call. My phone has been on silent all day, but I have it set so that if anyone calls twice within three minutes in case of an emergency, the call comes through.
“What’s wrong?”
“Aside from the fact that I’ve texted you like a million times since yesterday and you clearly aren’t dead?” Kale asks.
I feel bad for worrying him, but not bad enough to say sorry. “Should I apologize for not being dead?”
Shawn turns his head with his eyebrow lifted, and Kale answers gruffly. “For starters.”
“I’m sorry the bus didn’t crash and burn,” I offer, nearly snickering when I picture the way his brows probably just slammed down with frustration.
“Good,” he says. “You should be. Now tell me all the reasons you couldn’t pick up a phone.”
I finger-comb the loose strands of hair away from my face to prevent myself from glancing over at the reason Kale is asking for—a reason with messy hair, gorgeous eyes, and a smile that makes a girl forget to check in with her family. “The show was awesome, but the crowd was crazy, so we had to hang out inside for a while. And then we went out to the bus, and there was a crowd there too.” I add the last part with a lightning-quick tongue—“And some of them came on the bus and—”
“Wait, what?” Kale interjects. “They didn’t—they brought girls on the bus? Did Shawn—”
“Have you called Leti yet?” I interrupt, discreetly turning the volume on my phone as low as possible so Shawn won’t be able to hear anything Kale is saying.
“Nuh-uh,” my meddling twin counters, refusing to let me change the subject. “No way. What happened?”
“I can’t really talk right now, Kale.” I glance at Shawn again, wishing there’d be anything else on this busy street to steal his attention: a near car accident, a hot chick, a crazy homeless person throwing hamsters at people, anything.
“Why?” A moment of silence. “Is he with you right now? Can you not talk because he’s with you?”
“Something like that,” I answer.
“Fine, then just say yes or no.”
I hold the phone with one hand and rub a spot between my eyes with the other. “Can we not?”
“Did he bring groupies on the bus?”
“No.”
“But groupies did come on the bus?”
“Yeah.”
“And he fucked one of them?”
I growl into the phone, and Shawn gives me a look again. I ignore him and answer Kale. “No. Can I go now?”
“But you’re mad at him?”
Is everything okay? Shawn mouths, and I wave him off to answer my brother. “Not anymore. And Kale?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you. I’ll call you tonight.”
I hang up before he can argue, letting out a deep sigh as Shawn and I round a corner to the lot the buses are in.
“What was that about?” he asks as my phone rings again.
I silence it all the way and shrug. “Wrong number.”
Chapter Twelve
THAT NIGHT, AFTER sweating out another five pounds under the blazing-hot lights of a packed-to-the-rafters venue, Leti’s call is the one that comes through my silenced phone.
“We’re here.”
“Huh?” I towel off my forehead and tip my head upside down, drying off my neck as the blood floods my skull. The crowd is still screaming, high off our set, and Leti is making zero freaking sense.
“You looked amazing. Are those leather pants?” I furrow my black eyebrows at my shiny black leggings. “And your boobs looked fantastic,” Leti adds. “I almost went straight for a minute, but your brother was standing right beside me, so . . . I was torn, Kitty-Bitty.”
I flip my head back up and look around the greenroom the band and I are in. The guys are chatting with the sound crew as bottles get passed around and drinks get poured. “You’re here?”
“Yep. Standing in front of some ’roided-up security guy who’s giving me a dirty look right now.” His voice gets a little quieter, like he pulled the phone away from his mouth, when he says, “What’s your problem, man?”
“And Kale’s with you?”
His volume goes up again. “Currently looking very worried that I’m going to get my ass kicked by said ’roided-up security,” Leti answers. “Are you going to come to my rescue, or are you going to let me get pummeled? I mean, your brother here would make a super-cute nurse, but—”
“I’m coming,” I interrupt. I hang up before Leti can put any more scarring visuals in my head, and then I tell the guys I have to go find my brother.
Shawn’s black kicks are in step with my even blacker combat boots as I walk through the halls of backstage, ranting about my brother being the evil twin and me having no idea why he and Leti showed up here tonight. I didn’t ask Shawn to come with me to find them . . . but I didn’t try to stop him, either.
When I finally do spot them, they’re standing with a security guard who’s impossible to miss. “ ’Roided up” was an understatement, but I march right up to him. “It’s okay. They’re with me.”
The security guard huffs and gives Leti a final dirty look before turning and walking away, a big body on big legs.
Leti grins like a loon as he watches him leave. “I think he wanted me.”
My twin is standing next to Leti in a fitted red tee, his black hair looking perfectly washed and styled, I’m guessing for Leti’s benefit. “What are you doing here?” I ask in a not-exactly-happy-to-see-him voice.
“Waiting for you to call me back,” he replies coolly, his gaze hardening when it drifts to Shawn. It’s a look I’ve seen before—from every single one of my brothers at some point or another. It growls, Stay away from my sister. And Kale’s holds a touch of, I know
you brought groupies on the bus, you asshole.
“Oh, don’t even act like you’re mad anymore,” Leti teases Kale. He smiles at me and continues. “He loved the show. He just kept going on like, ‘That’s my sister! That’s my sister!’ ”
Kale nudges Leti with his elbow, Leti smiles fondly at him, and I’d feel giddy as hell about them being so close with each other if it wasn’t for the thick tension between Kale and Shawn. Kale’s black gaze is razor-sharp, but Shawn doesn’t shy away from its edge. The two of them are in a stare-down, both standing tall and still. I look up at Kale, at Shawn, at Kale.
“This is Shawn,” I say.
Kale tucks his hands in his back pockets instead of reaching out to shake Shawn’s hand. “I know who he is.”
Leti’s eyebrows fly up almost as high as mine, and I stammer, “Uh . . . ”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Shawn says, extending his hand with a smile on his face that isn’t at all like the smiles he gives me. It’s the smile he gives fans who overstep boundaries—nice, believable, but counterfeit.
Kale lets his eyes fall down to Shawn’s hand, looking like he’d rather latch on to it with his teeth instead of touching it with his skin. I’m wondering if I’m going to have to pry his hands from his back pockets and puppeteer him into playing nice with Shawn myself, but then he reluctantly peels five fingers out of his dark denim and reaches forward. “Kale.”
During the walk back to the greenroom, Leti graciously fills the awkward silence, and Shawn and I learn a few things. One, Kale called Leti to get him to call me, but Leti insisted they just come up here. Two, Leti set a condition for the impromptu road trip, and that condition was that they go to a hot new club before they leave. Three, the guys and I have to come along.
“THIS IS A gay bar!” Adam squeals between his giggles as we all step up to the flashing rainbow entrance of Out, the “hot new bar” Leti somehow got Kale to agree to go to—along with the rest of us. Mike, Shawn, and Joel are all standing shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk, staring at the psychedelic door like they might get lost forever inside. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen—all plasma-like technology and Technicolor swirls that flash and dance while tossing their glow into the dark. Adam, always up for anything and everything, spins around, his eyes bright with excitement. “It’s a freaking gay bar!”