Crash (Band Nerd Book 3)

by Danica Avet

  He doesn’t speak to me in person, just leaves horrible, vicious voicemails and text messages. I blocked him a few times, but he either keeps buying new phones or borrows others’ to spew his hatred for me. Which means I may need to get a new number, something I can’t really afford so I just delete and block, pretending it doesn’t bother me.

  I sigh and let my gaze drift around the gym. I’m not even going to think about Kimber. I just don’t have the energy for her. Not when I’ve had to beg Becca numerous times not to do anything to my roommate. To say my friend is not happy with Kimber is an understatement and I’ve been putting off the come to Jesus moment as long as I can. So I don’t even mention Kimber in their company.

  Becca really doesn’t need to go to jail.

  My gaze is snagged by a wicked pair of dark eyes and I pause. Crash waggles his eyebrows at me, making a silly face that has me smiling back at him.

  That right there is the best and worst part about being single.

  It’s the best because now I can speak with him freely without having to worry about hurting Josef’s feelings, or Josef getting jealous of Crash.

  It’s also the worst because we’re the dreaded F word. Friends. Okay, even that’s good and bad. Crash is actually a great friend to have. He’s funny, sweet, a little inappropriate, but he’s also passionate about music. Just as passionate as I am. It’s beyond wonderful to have someone who shares my interests, who knows the musicians and music I love, and who has no problem popping in my practice room for an impromptu ‘jam session’ as he calls them.

  But it’s also horrible because I’m so attracted to him it isn’t even funny. I’ve tried not to think of him that way. You know, the sexual way, but it’s impossible. That smirk of his makes my heart go pitter-patter and that drawling, Cajun accent is a serenade for my sensitive ears. We’ve spent a lot of time together, not just via band rehearsals and functions, but also on our off time.

  Nessie and Becca are positive I’m setting myself up for heartbreak, while Lena gives me a goofy thumbs-up when she sees us talking. But they don’t understand that even though I wouldn’t mind getting to know Crash that way, it won’t happen. We talk a lot, but nothing really deep and meaningful. Our conversations mostly center around our love of music and what we’d like to do with it.

  He’s not sure if he wants to become a Music Education major because it’d require another two years of school, while I have every intention of becoming a band director. Personally, I think he should go for it. He’s so patient with the guys in his section, working with them over and over until they get a complex rhythm. But he isn’t sure that’s what he wants to do. As his friend—yes, friend—I’ve told him he should do whatever makes him happy.

  A buzzer sounds and I hear a cheer. Breaking my stare with Crash who’s now looking at me with concern, probably because I went from smiling to frowning over my own thoughts, I see that the Spartans have lost.

  Still, even though we’re the losers, we strike up with a jazzy rendition of the fight song that has the diehard fans who followed the team to Indiana chanting and singing along. Heck, I’m sure even some of the opponent’s fans are dancing to the music. The power of jazz and all that.

  Thirty minutes later, bundled up against the ridiculous cold, I’m waiting for my turn at the trailer to store my case. Crash is bringing up the rear since he has the most equipment to load and I can almost feel him staring at me. Probably trying to figure out what made my mood change. Because he’s a good friend. But I don’t look at him. I don’t need him to see the hopeless crush I have on him, not until I get myself under control again. Instead, I pretend to pay attention to the other guys who are mumbling about the loss, talking about offense and defense and who knows what else when I hear some girls call out.

  Turning to look with the rest of the ensemble, I see snow bunnies sashaying up to us. I guess they’re snow bunnies at least. It’s snowy, they’re wearing earmuffs, skin tight pants, and big jackets, but still manage to look cute. See? Bunnies.

  However, unlike cute little, fluffy bunnies these look more like predators with the way they’re eyeing Crash, Princess, and the other guys. It’s nothing new now. For some reason, girls really like musicians and if I’m completely honest, my fellow band mates are cute in various ways. But still, I don’t like the way these girls are looking at them. Like they’re just coming off of a diet and stumbled across an all-you-can eat chocolate bar.

  “Hey, sorry for the loss,” one of them says as they stop within a few feet of the trailer.

  Like the dumb animals they are, the guys hem and haw, but it’s Crash who actually speaks coherently. “Did y’all come over to offer your condolences then?” he asks in that flirty drawl of his.

  I don’t look at him. I can’t. I don’t want to see which one of the pretty, too-skinny bunnies he’s picked out for himself. I may be new to the ensemble and a girl, but I’ve heard about these road trips. Remember I said the guys gossip? Well, I’ve learned about how they have this system of allowing their roommates privacy to ‘blow off a little steam’. And the stories I’ve heard about Crash suggests he has a lot of steam.

  The girl giggles, her eyelashes fluttering. “You have such a cute accent,” she coos. One of her friends nudges her and she shoots them a glare before turning back to us with another brilliant smile. Well, not us. She skips right over me as though I’m invisible. “We’re going to celebrate at a little bar called Mulligan’s and we’d love to buy you guys a drink. You know, to make up for the horrible loss you’ve suffered tonight.”

  Various mutters of agreement come from the guys, with Terry the only one with enough common sense to ask for the address. I turn away and cut through the line to put my case in the trailer. I’m not going to be upset about this, I tell myself. Friends are happy when their other friends have fun and have sex with random people.

  My lip curls.

  “Hey, Peaches, you comin’ with us?”

  Warm breath washes across the tip of my ear from the husky whisper. I shudder involuntarily. Like hard. My ears are extremely sensitive. They’re one of my greatest weaknesses. Unfortunately, Crash had to go and discover it.

  Or maybe he didn’t notice?

  Turning away from the trailer, I look up to see him smirking at me, one of his eyebrows raised. Darn. He noticed.

  “No, I’m not going,” I say instead of talking about my major erogenous zone. “I’m not old enough to get in and I’m not much of a bar person anyway.” I beam at him. Fake it, ’til you make it. “But y’all have fun.”

  Before he can do or say anything else, I duck between Princess and Terrell who’re talking about… Mephistopheles? Shaking my head, I hurry to the van and hop inside where it’s nice and warm and dark. So no one can see my growing depression.

  Becca and Nessie are right. Crash isn’t going to date a band girl. Ever. And that’s exactly what I am which means this stupid infatuation has to stop.

  The guys pile in the van, but somehow Crash ends up right next to me. As in, he’s so close I can smell that cedar and mint scent that I associate with him and his leg is pressed up against mine, making me very aware of how warm he is. I shift a little until I’m almost plastered to the door, but he only takes up the room I put between us.

  I don’t say anything though. It’s not a long drive to the hotel and as soon as the van stops, I’ll jump out and hightail it to my room. Which I don’t have to share with anyone since I’m the only girl in the group and then I can just be me without worrying someone will make comments or want to know what’s wrong.

  “You should come with us,” Crash says quietly, his voice barely audible over the chatter as the other guys start talking about the bar and the girls and the game. “If you act like you belong, no one will ask to see your ID.”

  Act as though I belong. The way I’ve been doing since I came to Sauvage. The thought twists me all up inside and I snap at him without meaning to. It isn’t as though he knows how fake I really am. And I�
��m sure he didn’t mean it the way I took it, but that doesn’t stop the instant response.

  “Oh sure, it’ll be fun to hang out with a bunch of guys who want to get laid. That sounds awesome,” I tell him in a sarcastic whisper.

  I feel him staring at me in the darkness of the van and it suddenly seems too intimate. “It isn’t like that.”

  “Right. Well, I still don’t go to bars.” And I have no plans to. I’ve seen enough drunk people in my lifetime.

  He must hear the finality in my tone because he doesn’t try to persuade me anymore, the drive to the hotel taking much longer than I thought it would. Halfway there, I start to sweat a little and it isn’t because of the heater. It’s Crash’s body heat and my own body turning against me.

  I’ve had sex. Probably more sex than I should considering I never really enjoy it. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I like the kissing and petting, but actual sex? It’s uncomfortable and kind of undignified. I’ve done it because I cared about my partners, although I usually take care of my own pleasure all alone. Neatly, efficiently, and without all the huffing and puffing and becoming a mattress when the guy wilts like a hothouse flower before I can even get warmed up.

  Somehow though, my body thinks sex with Crash would be different and it’s responding to his nearness in a way that I don’t approve of. He’s my friend. He’s going out with the other guys to flirt with strange Yankee women, one of which he’ll take back to his room and have sex with. But here I am aware of the way he smells and feels, the timbre of his voice as he chats with the other guys, the shift of his leg against mine. And I’m burning up.

  Lord help me.

  As though He heard my prayer, I feel my phone buzz. I wiggle away from Crash to pull it out of my pocket and glance at the caller ID. Georgia area code. Mama. If there’s anything guaranteed to cool me off, it’s Mama calling me.

  I don’t take the call obviously. The last thing I want is for anyone to hear my conversation with her because I never know which Mama I’ll be talking to. Drunk Mama, Happy Mama, Hysterical-Just-Broke-Up-With-Another-Boyfriend Mama, or Guilt-Trip Mama. No, I’ll call her back in the privacy of my room. A perfect excuse not to go anywhere tonight in case someone else asks me to join the party.

  Levi

  Taking a deep breath, I knock on Jolene’s door. I doubt the others even noticed that I ducked out of the bar after one beer. Even if they do, they’ll think I’m back at the hotel with one of the girls who asked us out. The truth is I had no interest in flirting or even talking to those girls despite their interest.

  It’s clear as glass that the player is out of the game. Because the only girl I want to talk to or spend time with is Jolene. Even if it is only as her friend.

  Oh yeah, I’m too chickenshit to ask her out even though it’s all I think about lately. I want to know more about her than her favorite musicians and what she plans to do after college. Unless those plans include me.

  How the mighty have fuckin’ fallen, right? And what the fuck do I plan to do when she answers the door? Tell her I’ve changed my mind about not dating band chicks and beg her to go out with me? Grab her and kiss her with all the hunger I feel for her? She’d slap my face. She hasn’t said it in so many words, but I know damn well how she feels about my reputation. It was in her voice tonight when she turned down my half-assed invitation to come out with us.

  She thinks I’m a dick. But she’s my friend anyway because she’s Jolene and she’s good and sweet and kind. And has no feelings for—

  The door cracks open, a reddened blue eye peeking out at me. “What?” she asks, her normally dulcet voice hoarse.

  I frown. “What’s wrong?”

  She clears her throat. “Nothin’s wrong. I was just about to go to bed.” She’s lying. The skin around her eye is all swollen and her nose sounds stuffy. “Did you need somethin’?”

  “What’s wrong?” I ask again, not buying her bullshit. “You’ve been crying.”

  “I was watchin’ a sad movie,” she shoots back without hesitation. “Now I’d like to go to sleep, so unless you need something…”

  She could have been watching a sad movie. I know girls do that for some unknown reason. I never got it myself, but I’ve witnessed it with Mom and Erika, my little sister. They’ll watch something they know is going to make them cry and then talk about how good it was afterwards. Weird. But my gut tells me Jolene’s lying.

  So I say the first thing I can think of. “I need to use your bathroom.”

  That eye blinks at me slowly. “What?”

  “I forgot my key in the room and Princess is still at the bar and I need to use the bathroom,” I lie.

  Her eyebrow comes down over her eye as though she’s frowning, but she opens the door all the way. “Okay.”

  Now I’ve seen Jolene lots of times over the past few weeks. I’ve seen her laughing, smiling, serious, and melancholy when she’s playing her trumpet. But I’ve never seen her crying and I already know I hate it. Oh, not because she looks like a mess because she doesn’t. She’s still pretty, but there’s this wounded look to her that pisses me off.

  I don’t say anything though because she’s playing at being okay. I glance at the television which isn’t on, at the bed which doesn’t show any indentations as though she’s been lying on it, and there’s no sign of her laptop anywhere. She hasn’t been watching anything. So she’s crying for another reason.

  Still, I don’t ask her what’s wrong. I just go to the bathroom and close the door. And stand there because it smells like her. Unlike Erika, Jolene looks as though she likes things nice and neat. Her shit isn’t scattered all over the counter, there aren’t any bundles of clothes on the floor, and if it wasn’t for the lingering scent of her perfume or soap, I’d think she never used this bathroom.

  But the awe of a girl who doesn’t leave her crap all over the place is secondary to the emotions warring inside me. Seeing her all vulnerable and shit has everything in me straining to charge out there and fix whatever hurt her feelings. Something I could pass off as just friendly concern, but I don’t want to. I’m tired of fucking lying to myself, to her. I want Jolene. Forget about my ex-girlfriend, forget about my uncle’s advice during his divorce. I want Jolene as more than a friend. And now I have to figure out how to make her see I’m more than just the player she thinks I am.

  It won’t be easy. I’ve been fucking my way through college ever since I enrolled, not wanting to get tied down, not wanting to get my heart broken. My reputation as a womanizer is rock solid. She’ll think I’m just asking her out to get in her pants as she so eloquently put it a couple of months ago. She’ll think she’s just another girl in the long line I’ve fucked. She won’t believe me and I can’t say I blame her.

  Staring at myself in the mirror, I brace my hands on the counter. I fucked myself over, backed myself into a corner with my stupid ass vow and bed jumping. And the girl I want, the only one who makes me want to try a relationship again, sees me as her manwhoring friend. Oh and she’s coming out of a relationship with an asshole who had no respect for her. The respect she thinks I don’t have for any of the girls I’ve been with… I’m such a motherfucking ass.

  A soft knock on the door breaks into my thoughts. “Crash? Are you okay?”

  I turn on the faucet and pretend to wash my hands. “Yeah, I’m good. I’ll be right out.”

  A glance at my watch shows I’ve been in here for ten minutes. Fucking fantastic. She probably thinks I took a huge dump or something while I’ve been standing in front of this mirror pondering my past sins.

  When I open the door, she’s sitting on the edge of her bed, her forehead creased with worry. She never changed out of her ensemble uniform which consists of a black golf shirt with the Spartan logo and jeans. And even with her reddened, swollen eyes and red nose, she’s the most beautiful girl in the world.

  “Thanks,” I mutter, feeling like an ass.

  “No problem,” she replies with a ghost of a smile. “Um, how are
you gonna get back in your room?”

  Right. Because she wants me to leave.

  “I guess I could call Princess, find out when he’s gettin’ back, but he looked like he was havin’ a good time,” I mutter. “I’ll just sit in the hallway until he does.”

  Please don’t let her think about me going downstairs to the service desk to get a replacement key. Because I don’t want to leave.

  “You can’t do that,” she says with a frown. “You could go downstairs and ask for another key.”

  I sigh. Well, there went that hope. “Yeah,” I mumble turning to the door. “I guess I could do that. Thanks for letting me use your bathroom.”

  “Or you could just wait here with me until Princess gets back,” she says to my back, her voice cautious and soft.

  I freeze in place, my heart soaring. She wants me to stay. I turn back around to see she’s twisting her fingers in her lap, her expression uncertain and lonely. “You wouldn’t mind?”

  I watch her force herself to relax. “Of course not,” she says in an almost normal tone of voice. “We’re friends and friends don’t let each other sleep in hallways.”

  While her insistence on reminding me of our friendly relationship grates on my nerves, I decide to see this moment as the opportunity I’ve been waiting for. Oh, not to get in her no doubt sexy panties. No, this is my chance to show her there’s more to me than my reputation as a playboy and a musician.

  “Um, why don’t you have a seat?” she asks with a wave of her hand.

  I want to plop my ass down right next to her on that bed, but that’s too much temptation for me so I choose one of the hard armchairs. Sprawling in it as though I’m not fighting the urge to go over to her and pull her in my arms, I fold my hands across my stomach and smile at her.