Boy #1: The Wannabe Rockstar (Oh, Those Boys)

by Penny Sixsmith

  “It's not him. It's Josh.”

  “Oh, the other man candy? Answer it, answer it!”

  “I probably shouldn't right now,” Cass tapped at her bottom lip. “I'm not in a good place.”

  “Emotionally, or drunkenly?”

  “Both. Either.”

  “Answer the phone, bitch.”

  Cass hit the green button, then brought the phone to her ear.

  “See how cool I am?” Josh laughed. “Made it a whole day without calling you.”

  “Ah, but you said you were going to make me wait a week,” Cass reminded him, then she muffled a squeak as Natalie crowded in close to her side, pressing her ear against the back side of the cell.

  “And I had every intention of doing so. Totally wiped you from my mind all day. I just happened to be scrolling through my contacts, and wondered who the hell St. John was – I'm not particularly religious. Had to call to figure out the mystery,” he joked. Natalie mouthed the word “wow”, then held up her fingers in the okay symbol.

  “Well, then. Mystery solved, Mr. Cavitt. What else can I do for you?”

  “You can check your schedule, see if you're available Wednesday night.”

  “Oh? And what's happening Wednesday night?”

  “Remember those bed time stories I mentioned?”

  Natalie had to stuff a whole breadstick in her mouth to stop from laughing and panting. Cassie shoved her away, then quickly stood up and jogged into the entry way, gaining some privacy.

  “I think I remember some mention of those,” she finally replied.

  “How about I share some with you?”

  Cassie paused, absorbing what he meant. Thinking of everything they'd talked about at the end of their date.

  “Are you saying you want to tell me a bed time story and tuck me in, Josh?” she made sure. “What happened to waiting to unwrap your 'present from the universe'?”

  “Fuck that – after all this time dreaming about what's under the wrapper, I figure I've been good enough.”

  “I think I should be the judge of that,” she laughed.

  “So is that a yes? Wednesday, I'll make dinner at my place, you and me? You can judge me all you want.”

  Cassie chewed on her lip, then pulled her phone away to glance at the screen. Her notification bar showed all the missed calls and unread messages. She frowned, suddenly annoyed. She didn't owe any sort of loyalty to Micah, he wasn't her boyfriend. He'd only pretended to want to get to know her, because he'd worried she'd liked some other boy more than him. His feelings for her never even played into it – mainly because he didn't have any.

  She also remembered how Josh had reacted, when she'd warned him that she was sleeping with someone else. He'd laughed, told her he wasn't proposing, then made jokes about it. He hadn't cared. He'd only wanted to spend time with her, because he liked her.

  He likes me.

  “You better be a good cook,” she breathed, and she heard him let out a sigh.

  “I'm a great cook. Eight o'clock, I'll text you the address.”

  Even though she knew she had every right to see him again, Cassie couldn't help the pang of guilt in her chest. She hadn't really gotten closure with Micah, so this didn't feel quite right. She glanced into the living room, where Natalie was shoving her index finger into a hole made by the fingers of her other hand.

  “Alright. But Josh,” Cass spoke carefully, turning away. “Let's just call it dinner, okay? We'll have to ... see how good your stories are, before we get to any kind of unwrapping.”

  He barked out a laugh, startling her.

  “These analogies are getting confusing,” he teased. “And it's just dinner, Cass. No marriage proposals, not even any Ferris wheel rides.”

  “You said paddle boating, before.”

  “Either. Just dinner, and semi-boring conversation. If that dazzles either of us, we'll see where the night goes from there.”

  “You're a very refreshing man, Josh Cavitt,” she sighed into the phone.

  “Thanks for noticing, Cassandra St. John, I'm trying super hard to impress you. See you on Wednesday.”

  “I'll be there.”

  She hung up, and before she'd even gotten back into the living room, he'd texted her his address. She smiled as she sat on the couch.

  “That's a good look,” Natalie commented, offering her another full glass of wine. Cass was already tipsy, but she figured what the hell, she was juggling two men. She'd earned it.

  “It was a good call,” she replied, taking a few deep gulps. “He's ... lovely.”

  “Lovely?” Natalie responded. “I don't think I want someone I'm dating to ever refer to me as 'lovely'. Forget him, stick with Micah 'Big Dick'.”

  “Jesus, don't call him that,” Cass groaned. “And lovely is a good thing. You'd really like this guy, Nat. He's got a naughty sense of humor, which is shocking because he doesn't look like he would at all. He ... he told me he thought I was a gift from the universe, and that he wants to unwrap me.”

  “Oh, wow. I don't know whether to puke at the cheesiness of that line, or go fuck him myself,” Nat commented, then she belched again.

  “Wouldn't that be awkward,” Cass chuckled, then she finished off her wine and climbed to her feet. “And we'll see how Wednesday goes – see how much I like cheese. I'll let you know.”

  “You'd better! No more hiding shit for three months on end,” Natalie growled, standing up, as well. “Text me the next morning. No, wait, text me that night after it happens. Fuck it, just live stream the whole date.”

  Cass laughed as she began collecting her belongings. The two women hugged goodbye at the door, then Cass went to wait on the curb for her rideshare.

  Once she was in the car, all the wine and tequila started to hit her. She wasn't drunk, or at least not very much so. But she was definitely tipsy. She laughed with her driver, a college aged girl, and they turned up the radio loud, singing along to 90s boy bands. By the time she got to her building, Cassie was feeling pretty good about life.

  Of course, though, being at her building meant remembering Micah. Thinking about him. Being near him. And Micah had a way of ruining everything.

  She could hear the music before the elevator even stopped on her floor. When the doors slid open, she could see that Micah's door was wide open, and people were spilling into the hall. Drinking and chatting, as if it were the lounge area in a club. The smell of beer was strong, someone had dropped a cup at some point, and pot smoke was wafting in the air.

  She refused to be a coward, so Cassie walked straight through everyone with her head held high. But she also didn't want to deal with anyone – or someone in particular – so she did walk at a hurried pace.

  Not fast enough, though.

  “St. John.”

  Cassie didn't turn around at the sound of Micah's voice. Just struggled to fish her keys out of her hobo bag and cram the right ones into the right locks.

  “Lose your phone?” he asked, leaning against her door frame.

  “No. Just ignoring your calls,” she replied bluntly. The locks and keys finally matched up, her door swinging inwards. She stepped inside, but before she could shut it behind her, Micah was stepping through. Forcing it wide open and following her as she stumbled into her living room.

  “You're drunk,” he laughed. “I don't think I've ever seen you drunk.”

  “You still haven't,” she countered. “I'm ... buzzed.”

  “You mean wasted.”

  “I mean tipsy.”

  “Who were you drinking with?”

  Cassie was in the act of dropping her jacket to the floor, and his question immediately enraged her. She lifted her head sharply, shaking her hair from eyes, and stared straight at him.

  “Ten guys,” she responded. “Basketball players that were in town for a swingers' convention. They're coming over later for the gang bang, so you should probably leave – unless you've got an industrial sized bucket of lube I could borrow.”

  “Se
riously? I've slept with you – you've never needed lube,” he pointed out. Flames raced up her cheeks.

  “Why don't you just ask the real question?” she sneered. “Was I drinking with Josh?”

  “I don't care if you were,” Micah belched, and Cassie belatedly realized he was drunk, too. This was not the time to be having this moment.

  But she couldn't stop her mouth.

  “I think you care too much,” she countered.

  “Don't even care a little.”

  “Oh really? Then I guess you don't care that I'm going out with him again,” she sighed drolly. “Dinner. At his place. He's cooking.”

  Micah's eyes narrowed.

  “I tried to call you all fucking day,” he snarled. “I texted. I left voicemails. What, I don't even get a chance to apologize?”

  “I've heard your apologies, they don't mean dick.”

  “They don't if you won't give me a chance!” he yelled. “I fucked up, okay? I fucked up because I was jealous, and the thought of him touching you makes me want to put my fucking head through the wall! I fucked up the other night, and I fucked up this afternoon, and I'm gonna fuck up a lot more, so you'd better get fucking used to it.”

  “Used to it?” Cass was incredulous.

  “Yeah, because we both know I'm not going anywhere. So call your fucking boyfriend and cancel that fucking date, because you're not going anywhere,” Micah informed her. She burst out laughing.

  “You think your hurt little boy act is gonna work this time? What happens – I cancel my date, we sleep together, then ... what? You ignore me for the next week?” she guessed, tapping her nail against her chin. “Or wait, you say something else awful that makes me hate myself? Oh no, I've got it! You fuck another girl against your wall!”

  “I wasn't going to -”

  “You're not my boyfriend,” she snapped, pointing her finger in his face. “You do not get to tell me what to do. Best I can tell, you're just a guy who likes being in control of the women he fucks. I liked you a lot better when we didn't speak to each other, because you -”

  Cassie let out a shriek when Micah slammed his beer bottle to the ground. The glass exploded, sending foam everywhere.

  “I'm a guy who likes not having to deal with the women he fucks,” he growled, getting in her face. She refused to back down. “Hence why we never spoke. But then you hired my band. You fucking looking at me with those eyes, and talking to me with that fucking voice. You know there's something between us – and that's what gives me the right to fucking tell you what to do.”

  “Are you joking!?” Cass shrieked. “What are you, a Neanderthal?”

  “Well, you do like getting your hair pulled and being thrown around.”

  Without even thinking about it, Cassie slapped him across the face. It was strange – he was the one who got hit, but she felt like she was the one who got knocked back in time. Suddenly it was three months ago, and they were in their dark hallway. She'd slapped him, just like now, and he'd glared at her, just like now. Only back then, they'd wound up sleeping together.

  We should've walked way from each other – just like he's doing right now.

  Cass gaped as he stormed across her living room, shocked that he was giving up on the fight.

  “You want it to be like this?” Micah shouted, spinning around to face her before stepping through the door. “Fine, Cass. Fucking fine. I'll play the villain in your brain. You wanna go do whatever? You want us to not talk again? You want it to go back to normal, like it was before? Fine, then let's go back to exactly the way it was before.”

  It took Cassie a couple moments to absorb exactly what he was saying, and by the time she caught on, he was back in the hallway. Pushing his way through the crowd of people in front of his door. She gasped, then dashed after him, knowing what he was about to do.

  Knowing she was all talk – she didn't want them to go back to not speaking. She didn't want it to be like it was before.

  She didn't want him to do what he was about to do.

  She tried to catch him before he disappeared into his apartment, but the lead singer for his band, Tyler, was standing with the people in the hallway. He shouted when he saw Cassie, then grabbed her arm as she went past. Pulled her into one of his monster hugs and started babbling away.

  She had to physically yank herself out of his grasp, and by the time she turned to look into Micah's apartment, it was just in time to see him wrap his arm around some girl. She laughed at whatever he said, then they both walked through a door at the opposite end of the apartment. On the left.

  His bedroom door.

  Cassie shrieked and flew back into her own apartment. Skidded on the hardwood floors and crashed into her bedroom doors, then scampered up to her wall. She pressed herself flat against it, straining to listen over all the commotion and music. She could distinctly hear giggling, and a low rumble that could only be Micah's voice.

  “Stop it!” she shouted, pounding the flat of her hand against their shared wall. There was silence for a moment, then the girl burst out laughing. Cassie's vision turned red, and she stepped back. “Don't do this, Micah! Stop it!”

  Anger, wine, and tequila were a bad combination. She shrieked and slapped the wall. Kicked it a couple times. Threw dense objects at it. All the while, the giggling and laughing on the other side simply got louder. Then there was a loud thump, something landing heavily against the wall on his side – hard enough to shake a picture she had hanging. Directly after the thump, there was a loud groan, and it was distinctly feminine.

  Fuck this.

  “Oh yeah!?” Cass shouted, bouncing on the balls of her feet, slamming the side of her fist against the wall. “You think you're the only one, Micah? The only one who can do this? The only one with a fucking wall!? Fuck you, Micah! I know someone else with a wall!”

  She dashed out of her room, scooping her jacket and phone up off the floor as she went. She pulled on the voluminous material as she ran out her door, slamming it shut behind her and barely taking the time to lock it before running again.

  Just as she sprinted past Micah's door, he came bursting out it. His shirt and shoes were gone, the belt on his pants undone. Usually when he was in that straight of undress, it meant good things for Cassie. This time, however, it just made her even angrier.

  “Cass! Stop!”

  When he'd come out his door, he'd rammed into several people, creating a traffic jam of sorts. It gave her too good a head start. The elevator wasn't on their floor, Cassie could already tell, so she immediately started running down the stairs, taking them two at a time. She was already dashing across the third floor before Micah managed to untangle himself from his friends and start down from their floor.

  “You don't wanna fucking do this, St. John!” he yelled after her. He had longer legs than her, he could cover more ground. But as Cass finally hit the ground floor, she realized she had a trump card.

  “You made me do this, Micah!” she taunted back, hurrying for the exit.

  As she shoved her key into the security door, she could hear him sprinting down the last set of stairs. She turned the lock, slipped through the door, then shut it behind her. Just as she slid her key in and turned the bolt, Micah slammed into the plexiglass door. He pounded his hands against it.

  “Open this door, now!” he demanded, pointing at her.

  Cassie started walking backwards, laughing at him the whole way. Her back pressed to the exit door behind her, and she let out a shriek when it fell open. Another tenant was coming inside.

  “What's going on?” the middle-aged woman asked. Cassie pressed her hand to her chest.

  “Crazy party,” she panted. “Fifth floor. His apartment. You should make a noise complaint.”

  “Oh my gosh, this is awful!” the woman tutted as she pulled out her phone. The whole time, Micah knocked angrily on the security door and yanked on the handle. Cassie made her way outside, making a face at him.

  “You're gonna regret this, St. John!�
�� he warned.

  She held her middle finger up over the woman's head, then pursed her lips in a kiss before turning away and running to the sidewalk.

  11

  A block away, Cassie was able to hail a taxi. She quickly prattled off an address, and was surprised to realize it wasn't that far from her own home.

  As they pulled up to the curb, she paid the driver using an app, then made a call. Pressed the phone to her ear. By the time she was standing on the sidewalk and the cab was driving away, the line connected.

  “Two conversations in one night, it's my lucky day,” Josh chuckled, though he sounded a little out of breath.

  “Yeah, yeah. What are you doing right now?” Cass asked.

  “I just got back from a run, I was gonna work out.”

  “Oh, you're at the gym?” she was disappointed.

  “No, I turned my guest room into a gym, I'm at home. What's up?” he asked.

  She wasn't disappointed anymore.

  “Can I come over? Like right now?” she asked.

  “What ... like now, now?”

  “Like right now, now.”

  “Of course. I mean ... yeah,” he stammered. “Is everything okay?”

  “Peachy keen. Buzz me in?”

  “Wait – you're outside my building literally right now?”

  Over the phone, Cass heard what sounded like blinds being fiddled with, so she stepped back and stared up at the building face.

  “Literally,” she assured him. “I've also consumed a possibly unhealthy amount of wine, so I'm pretty much guaranteed to be a hot mess. Let me enter at your own risk.”

  Josh just laughed.

  “I take full responsibility. Sixth floor. Door is at the end of the hall, to your right.”

  She could hear the buzzing over the phone and in front of her, so she hung up and pulled open his security door.

  A couple minutes later, Cassie found herself walking towards his apartment door. She glanced down at herself, then winced. Before going over to Natalie's, she'd dressed for comfort and anger-eating – she was wearing a large t-shirt, possibly Micah's, and her high waisted leggings. Her oversized trench looked ridiculous with the ensemble, and she wore a pair of Vans with no socks on her feet.