by J. Saman
“Deal. And for the record, you look super hot without glasses, but I think I also like your daytime persona with them. I honestly cannot decide which is better. You’re like Superwoman versus Clara Kent.”
She laughs, rolling her eyes at me. “Clara Kent?”
I shrug. “I couldn’t go with Clark. It wouldn’t work for you.”
“It’s easier to go out without them. What kind of shot are you making me drink?”
I think on that for a minute and just as I’m opening my mouth to speak, someone behind me says, “Tequila.”
I shake my head without even turning around to face Jameson. “No. Whiskey.”
Cass shakes her head this time. “Kamikaze.”
Jameson groans behind me. His hand grasps my hip, his thumb gliding along the bare skin peeking out of one of the cutouts. “Too girly.”
I spin around to face him and for a moment, and immediately wish I had stayed put. His black hair is brushed back and off his face. His wolfish blue eyes are piercing and his beautiful angled jaw is clean shaven. He’s easily the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen on a regular day. But like this? It’s just unfair. He’s a freaking Adonis. He’s wearing a blue-and-black plaid shirt over dark, low-hung jeans. I can’t stop myself from staring at the way the shirt fits his chest and arms.
“What are you doing here?”
He laughs, extending his grip on my hip. I thought for sure that once I spun around, his hand would drop. No such luck. His touching me like this—in an intimate way in a not-so-intimate setting—is doing things to me. Funny things. Lightheaded, heat-producing things.
“Same thing as you. Getting shitty before the party. But damn, Lee.” He gives me a slow, languid once over. His eyes raking over every square inch of me. He’s doing it intentionally to annoy me, but that doesn’t mean I feel those eyes any less. I might, in fact, feel them more since he’s making a show of it. “You’re…” he shakes his head like he’s at a loss for words.
“Too much woman for you?” Cass offers, and I laugh despite myself. The coil of desire his heated looks are producing unravel in the pit of my stomach. And other choice places as well. Can one look make a woman’s panties wet? The answer is a resounding yes.
“Probably, but that was not what I was thinking.” His eyes find my red lips. “At. All.” He squeezes my waist, that thumb brushing against the bare skin of my hip once more. He steps forward, those eyes of his dancing all around my face before he pulls me in—not even caring that we’re in a crowded room and Cass is standing right here—against his chest as his mouth descends to my ear. I close my eyes, knowing no one can see me fall into this moment. Knowing he can’t tell I’m breathing in the scent of his cologne, or savoring the sensation of his warmth against my overheated body.
“You’re so beautiful my chest hurts,” he says into my ear and my eyes cinch tight, my breath catching in my chest. “So beautiful I can barely breathe. The idea of another guy simply talking to you makes me deranged and violent.”
I step back. If I don’t, I’ll lose myself in him. “Shots,” I whisper, my voice thick and low from the impact of his words, but I know he hears me. Or at least he reads the word on my lips.
“Shots,” he agrees, his hand leaving my hip and snaking up to mine, intertwining our fingers as he holds my hand. As he holds my hand! He leads me—us—over to the wall-length ancient townie bar, lined three layers deep with waiting patrons. It’s been eight weeks since school began. Eight. That’s not a lot. But week by week, I give more of myself over to him. Whether it’s in the library where we study and talk for hours. Or in his bedroom where we study and watch Netflix shows for hours. Or when we walk all around town and hang out under a tree by the lake for hours. Everything we do together seems to end up in that increment of time. Hours. He rarely touches me when we’re casually out in public, and never on campus. But when we meet up like this, in a bar or at a party, he most definitely touches me then.
Intimately. Tenderly. In a way that unequivocally tells any other interested guy to fuck off.
And you know what? I don’t stop him. I like it. I like it so much my skin thrills with electricity. My heart palpitates. My brain shuts off all sensibility and rationality and gives into the physicality of the moment.
I know I’m turning into one of those high-school girls I used to feel sorry for. I know I’m becoming another college-girl cliché. I’ve seen him with other women. Saylor Bennet—the biggest bitch in the world multiplied by five. Jordan Presley. Kayla Gold. The list goes on and on. He hooks up with them a time or two and then they’re done. I’ve watched him kiss them. I’ve watched him full-on make-out with them. I’ve watched him walk off to whatever destination they were headed to do things I don’t want to ever think about.
But I make myself do it. It’s a reminder. A necessary slap in the face.
A way to keep my head on straight where he’s concerned.
So, this hand-holding thing? Yeah. It doesn’t mean anything.
Cass and I talk about Daria while Jameson orders our shots and beers. Cass is also bisexual. I knew this about her, but I didn’t want to tell Daria in case Cass wasn’t interested. “You know Matt has been asking about you?” Cass says with a smarmy grin, louder than she should. Matt is a fellow music major. He’s a singer. A somewhat talented one. A gorgeous one. The one who has been asking me to work with him. The one who had a pissing match with Jameson a few weeks back.
“What has he been asking? The usual?”
Cass shakes her head. In the two months we’ve been friends, we’ve developed a shorthand of sorts. She knows that the usual refers to my family. A lot of people have asked. I’ve told practically none. Doesn’t mean they don’t know who I am. It’s like saying that you don’t know Paul McCartney’s daughter is a major fashion designer. Like saying that you don’t know Steven Tyler’s daughter is Liv Tyler. My sister and I try to keep a low profile, but in a school this small with a bunch of music majors, the secret is bound to get out.
“No. He’s been asking about your situation with…” she trails off, jutting her chin in Jameson’s direction. His back is still to us, but I get the impression he can hear everything we’re saying. Mostly because his back is now stiff as a board.
“What did you tell him?”
“That you’re as single as Jesus was and nowhere near as pious.”
I choke out a laugh just as a shot of something amber is thrust in into my face by an angry hand. Cass’s expression is something along the lines of I-knew-it mixed with a satisfied devil.
“Do you disagree, Jamie boy?” she asks tartly, accepting her pale green shot with something akin to fear and nausea as she takes it in.
“I wouldn’t know,” he clips out, holding his small glass filled with clear liquid up that I know is tequila. “Cheers. Let’s drink up, ladies. I need to get back. My boys are waiting on me.”
Is now a bad time to tell him that Travers invited me here tonight? Not as his date, of course. Travers and I have become friends. I’m thinking yes, and I’m also thinking that joining him and his friends tonight, whether here or at the party, is a bad idea. Something is shifting between us and it’s not a good idea to feed into it.
He slams the shot down the back of his throat without waiting on us to join. I want to say something, but for the life of me, I don’t know what. Mostly because I don’t know what this is. There is no description for it. No road map to follow. No way to understand the rules or comprehend how not trip on the minefield and have this all explode in our faces. I want him. I’m attracted to him. I might even like him more than I should.
But I’m not about to give in and commit emotional suicide.
And he hasn’t tried anything other than that handhold just now, which was the first of its kind. Not only that, he’s made his position on relationships known. He doesn’t have the patience or desire for them. “I’m having fun”, is what he always says about the revolving door of women. So, whatever he’s expecting from
me, I do not know.
“I’ll see you later.” He storms off. Angry. Gnashing a wide path through college kids on his way across the bar.
“Oh shit.” Cass laughs, covering her mouth. We’re both watching his retreating form. “You’re so screwed.”
I nod. I think I just might be. This feels like it’s headed somewhere neither of us should go.
Chapter 5
Jameson
* * *
“Have I told you I’m a complete and utter pain wimp?” Lyric asks, her eyes wide, her tiny fists tucked under her chin like a small child as she stares up at the neon sign that says Lick Ink.
“No, but it doesn’t surprise me.”
She turns to glare at me quickly before returning her full attention to the sign. “I want one.”
“A tattoo?” I ask, surprised. She’s never mentioned them to me before. I don’t have any. Honestly, I never could come up with anything permanent I’d want inked on my body. In my estimation, nothing should be forever. Expiration dates are brilliant and way too underrated, and the negative connotation that goes hand in hand with it is unfair.
“Yeah. I thought about getting a rose between my shoulder blades, but I don’t want it to seem cheesy or cliché.”
“It’s your name. I’m not sure that could come off as cheesy.”
She shakes her head, her eyes still locked on that pink neon. “My dad wrote a song about me and Melody when I was fifteen.”
I turn to face her, cataloging Burnt Tears’ songs one by one.
“Day Dreamer’s Life,” she says when I can’t come up with anything.
I smile at that. That song is all about love and life and finding the true meaning behind both. I had no idea he wrote it for his daughters. It makes me like her father more than I already do. “I see my soul through your eyes. The way you strip me of my lies. I’ve come undone. I’m forever on the run.”
“That’s the one,” she interrupts. “I know the notes by heart. I can play it on every instrument within my power and I think I want the chorus tattooed on my body along with a rose.”
“Now?”
She nods, and I think I just swallowed my tongue. I don’t know if I can watch that. If I can be a part of something so intimate with this girl. I’m trying. I’m trying really freaking hard.
And I’m failing.
I know I am. I spend so much time with her. Studying. Classes. Just hanging out, the two of us or with other people. She’s a fixture. A current running through me. A harmonized note, to put it in her terms.
I want to give in to this thing between us so goddamn bad. I want to kiss her. Possess her. Make her mine. And yet. I don’t want any of those things with her. Because Lyric would never just be a fuck. She’d never just be a girl that I sleep with a few times and then move on from. She’s Lyric, and Lyric is something very rare and special to me.
But where would that leave us? A relationship?
Neither of us are interested in that.
I like my life of unattached freedom. That’s how it’s supposed to be when you’re twenty-one and in college. And before you think I’m an asshole for that, Lyric feels exactly the same.
My few guy friends that have girlfriends always complain about them. About the things they get suckered into doing in the name of regular pussy. But I get regular pussy and I don’t have the aggravation of someone dragging me to a romcom, which I’d have to pay for, or being obligated to spend my free time with them instead of hanging out with my boys. I’ve never really had a girlfriend, and honestly, it doesn’t sound all that appealing. At least not the way they describe it. It’s not like I have the best relationship role models the way Lyric does. When I was ten, my mom died after a grueling, five-year battle with breast cancer. My father married Dianne—the bitch who pretends to tolerate me while badmouthing my very existence—three years later.
“I’m afraid of pain,” Lyric says, this time a bit more urgently. She reaches out for my hand and I give her mine freely. I want to absorb her fear. Annihilate it. Because she’s so strong. This woman is so goddamn strong. And smart. God, is she smart. She makes me outline chapters and sections and comes up with questions I didn’t even know I needed answers to. All about corporate finance.
I mean, can you think of a more boring subject?
It’s my least favorite of my current classes, and yet, it’s the one I look forward to the most. It’s the one I haven’t missed, not even once. Not even when I had a cold and felt like crap.
“You don’t have to do it.” I’m stalling. I’m trying to find a way out of this. Because I know her. She’s going to want that ink in an intimate part of her body. Which means she’s going to have to remove articles of clothing to reveal her chosen canvas. Hell, my cock is hard just thinking about that.
“Will you come with me?” she asks, finally turning her body to face mine, her pretty eyes filled with hope. Damn her for this. Doesn’t she know what she’s asking?
“Of course, I will. What are friends for?”
She smiles and I hate myself just a bit more for that last bit. But I’m not her boyfriend, and I am her friend. Even if it tastes all wrong on my tongue. Especially given this particular situation.
“Come on.” She squeezes my hand and leads me inside. The door chimes overhead and the walls are lined with pictures and ideas of tattoos. The ubiquitous buzzing sound associated with a tattoo parlor fills the vanilla-scented air. The furniture is glossy art deco mixed with hipster chic. The woman at the counter is a colorful variety of fun between her tattoos and piercings. It’s everything I ever expected it to be and more.
“May I help you?”
“I want a tattoo done, but it’s something very specific.”
“Can you draw it?” the acid flashback asks, propping her elbows onto the counter and taking in Lyric with a skeptical eye.
“Yeah. I think I can. But I need someone who understands music to be able to do this.”
The woman smiles and nods her head. “What sort of music we talkin’ about?”
Lyric whips out her phone, pulls up the song and hits play. Another guy, who, if possible, has more ink on his body than his female counterpart, joins us. “You want me to put the lyrics on your body?” the guy asks, a bit too gleeful over the prospect if you ask me.
“No,” Lyric says, shaking her head, her expression so very serious. “I want the notes. They were written first. He felt those notes before he wrote one word. I also want a rose incorporated in it somehow.”
The dude’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t question her on that. “Draw it out, fill out the form and we’ll get started.”
Thirty minutes later, we’re in a backroom listening to Moses—that’s the guy’s name—explain the procedure and the aftercare, and everything we need to know about getting a tattoo.
Then she takes off her shirt.
Then she unhooks her bra.
Then she covers her full, beautiful, perfect tits with her forearm.
Then she blushes when she catches my eye.
I can’t look away. I’ve been begging myself to do just that for the last two minutes, but I cannot force the action. I have to look. I have to take her in. I have to memorize every curve, every dip, every pink, peaked bud and every freckle. A lust I have no right to burns inside me.
She swallows softly. I swallow loudly.
She blows out a heavy breath. I suck one in.
“Lay on your stomach,” he says and I haven’t averted my eyes from her once. She follows his direction and once her chest is pressed into the vintage red plastic, she reaches out a hand for me, her face tensing up at the impending sting of the needle.
I take her hand in mine, lowering my body onto a rolling stool and scooting up until I’m practically nose to nose with her. Our breaths become one. Our eyes see only each other’s. Our lips are tasting without kissing. “You okay?” I whisper the moment the buzzing begins and the needle impales her porcelain skin. The moment her body tenses up and he t
ells her to relax.
“Yes,” she half-pants, half-whimpers. “It hurts.”
“What can I do?” I ask, feeling so helpless. So consumed. So desperate.
Her eyes somehow search deeper into mine and I know exactly what she’s thinking. God help me, I know exactly what she wants because it’s exactly what I want.
I press my forehead to hers and close my eyes. Our noses rub, back and forth, back and forth. Our lips brush on the last swipe of our noses and her breath hitches.
“Relax,” the guy says again, and I can’t tell if he’s speaking to me or her. I can’t relax. Relaxing is giving in. How can I kiss her like this? With another man less than a foot away. While that man has his hands on her body.
I open my eyes and hers are right there, swirls of green and gray and brown. Beautiful. Unique. Lyric is a fingerprint on my soul. “I want to break my promise,” I mouth, the words inaudible, but they’re finally out there and I won’t take them back. But we’re so close that she misses it and I can’t figure out if I’m relieved by this or not.
Lyric begins to hum the melody of the song the guy is permanently etching into her back. The notes, the sound, reverberate through me. Light me up. Her voice is so achingly sweet. I don’t know what’s happening between us. She’s become my best friend. And I need her. I need that friendship and I need her in my life.
You just want to bag her, I convince myself. Keep your dick under wraps, I plead. Don’t do something you’ll regret, I demand. She’ll only ever be your friend, I force.
After the longest two hours of my life, she’s done. Black music notes gently floating with a bright red rose intertwined between her shoulder blades, the thorny vines twisting and twirling outward. It’s angry and mean-looking right now, but when her skin calms down, it will be exactly what she dreamt it would be.
I turn around this time as she gingerly puts back on her shirt sans bra. I don’t think about that. About the fact that her breasts, her nipples, are more than likely visible beneath the thin layer of her tangerine blouse. She pays, and we leave the shop, and I take her out for an ice cream because she was brave, and I need something to keep my mouth busy with other than her lips.