He laughed and shook his head in exasperation, “What am I gonna do with you, woman?”
She smiled, and called back, “Fine, then. If you insist on being a gentleman, then I guess I can't stop you.”
And with that, she blew him a kiss, turned around and unlocked her front door, and stepped inside. Well, this is a fine state, she said to herself. My legs feel like jelly, I can't catch my breath, and I definitely can't seem to get rid of this persistent throbbing down under. Is there such a thing as female blue balls?
She leaned her back against the inside of the front door and slowly slid down, until she hit the floor. Then, sitting on her entryway floor with her legs splayed out in front of her, she began to slowly and methodically bang her head lightly against the front door. It truly felt like a metaphor for her situation.
At that moment, she felt the door shake against her back and heard an insistent pounding.
She smiled wickedly. I knew it, she crowed victoriously to herself, I knew he couldn't stay away.
She scrambled up, brushed herself off and patted her hair into place, and flung open the door.
“Miss me?” she cried out with a wide smile.
“Kind of,” replied Sam, shrugging as she walked past Karina into the house, “It's only been a few hours.”
Karina's shoulders drooped.
“Great, thanks” she said despondently.
“Well, don't take it that hard. I did say KIND OF,” Sam replied.
Karina sighed, “It’s not that. So what, were you like, watching my front door in order to sprint over here the minute he left?”
Sam smiled wickedly, “Affirmative. I got a nice little show, too. Your moves were bordering on acrobatic.”
Karina laughed, “Dance training, my friend. So, I suppose you came over here to get the lowdown on how the date went.”
Sam shook her head, “Nope. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do want the play by play, just not right now. I came over here because you weren't answering your phone, and I've been calling you for hours.”
“I was on a date.”
“Right, well, you weren't answering your phone.”
“We've established that. Why were you trying to reach me, anyway? I thought that the only discussion-worthy occurrence around here was my dating life, and since I was actually on the date at the time, what could there be to discuss?”
Sam pulled her smart phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and shoved it in Karina's face.
“Have you seen this?” Sam demanded.
Karina's eyes crossed, attempting to focus on the screen, which Sam was holding mere millimeters from her nose.
“I can't even see it now,” Karina replied, pulling Sam's hand and the phone it carried a reasonable distance away from her face and attempting to focus on it.
Sam snatched her hand back, just as Karina's view of the small screen had unblurred itself.
“What was it, I never actually saw,” Karina said.
“It's a video on YouTube of you and Ryan singing at the Town Follies,” Sam said with excitement.
“Oh, right,” Karina said dismissively, heading into the kitchen and motioning for Sam to follow her, “Bernie sent me a link to it earlier. I haven't watched it yet. Is it good? More importantly, care for some wine?”
“Yes on both counts,” Sam replied, “But the surprising thing about the video is not the quality, it's the popularity.”
“Oh, people like it?” Karina asked her voice still conversational and light, not realizing the importance of the message Sam was trying to convey. “That’s cool.”
Just then, Sam's phone trilled and she hit the button to answer it, bringing it up to her ear, “Hey, girl! Yes, she's here, she's fine...She was on a date...No, he's not here, I waited until he left, give me a little credit...What do you mean, a track record? You know what, that's not important right now....No, I'm still trying to tell her about the video...Well, I don't know, let me ask her.”
Sam took the phone away from her mouth and covered the mouthpiece with her hand, “Karina, are you happy about the video?”
Karina looked at Sam like she was nuts and said, “I....guess?”
Sam shook her head, exasperated, and put the phone back to her mouth, “No, she doesn't get it, I'm going to explain it...Yes, great, and pick up Amanda on your way....OK, love you, see you guys soon.”
Sam clicked the button to disconnect the call and replaced the phone in her back pocket as she accepted the glass of wine that Karina was handing her.
“I suppose I should just leave this bottle out if the rest of the Fabulous Four are going to be joining us,” Karina reasoned, setting the bottle on the counter in front of her, “By the way, I don't think I ever got around to telling you, so I'm glad you intuited on your own – please feel more than free to invite other people over to my house. Mi casa es su casa and all that.”
“Oh, please, it's not 'people' its Amanda and Lauren,” Sam said impatiently, “Now, on to what's important. Do you have your laptop around?”
Karina nodded, and crossed to her kitchen table, where her laptop was sitting among envelopes, papers, a day planner, and other various random items associated with running a household.
Sam took it and set it on the counter, opened it, and called up YouTube. Into the YouTube search bar, she typed, “Karina Black Kyle Austen Reed Ryan Perkins” and hit enter.
When the search results populated, Karina saw a small thumbnail photo of herself standing at the mic in the Hope Falls High School auditorium, and Ryan standing next to her with his guitar, both of their mouths open in song. Next to the thumbnail was the title, “Kyle Austen Reed intros Karina Black and Ryan Perkins – Love Is the Key (new song)”
Sam maneuvered the mouse over the thumbnail photo and clicked, bringing up the full size video, which started playing automatically. As promised, there was Kyle Austen Reed introducing Ryan, who walked out onstage in the small video just as he had done a couple of days ago in real life.
Karina watched, interested, as she and Ryan began to sing on YouTube. Of course, it was hardly a new experience for her to watch footage of herself performing, but this was a bit new. She had obviously never seen any interactions between herself and Ryan from an outsider's point of view, and she had to admit, there was a palpable chemistry there that was discernible even if you weren't one of the parties involved. Having been so wrapped up in the experience of being inside the force and power of that attraction, it was somewhat surreal to view it from outside.
As the song progressed, Karina found her eyes wandering the rest of the page. Almost immediately, they alighted on the number of views the video had received.
“Wait a second,” she said, taken aback and pointing at the figure, “Does that say...”
“Yep,” Sam said, satisfied that now Karina was beginning to get the point, “It does say. It says one million views. It also says over 100,000 likes, and thousands upon thousands of comments. And it was only uploaded this afternoon.”
Karina looked utterly bewildered. “How did this happen?”
“I think people can pick up on the crazy chemistry you guys have, and they like it!”
Karina nodded, “Yeah, we do make good music together.”
Sam rolled her eyes, “Give me a break. Watch the sparks flying back and forth on that stage and tell me that the only connection happening there is 'musical' in nature.”
Karina shook her head, letting that go for the moment, “Well, tell me this. How did people even find out it existed in the first place?”
Sam laughed, “Oh, that's easy. Kyle Austen Reed tweeted it.”
Karina groaned, “Seriously?”
Sam nodded earnestly, “Oh, yeah, and then your fans really picked it up and ran with it. It's been tweeted, like, tens of thousands of times. The hashtag #LoveKey is trending on twitter right now.”
Karina shook her head to clear it, and heard bells pealing. She sighed, “Is that the front door or is my head just ringing?
”
Sam scampered out to the front door and returned with Amanda and Lauren.
“So, how's our little viral video goddess?” Lauren asked with a knowing half-smile as she walked in.
“Bite me,” Karina groaned.
“So, better than expected then,” Amanda concluded, and the other two agreed.
“Look,” said Lauren pragmatically, “You hate this being out there because you don't like your personal business being all out in the public, and this video feels personal. But I think the way to remedy that is to try to think of this video as a professional tool, instead of a personal moment.”
Karina perked up, “I'm listening.”
Lauren continued, “This is exactly the kind of music that you've wanted to do, and this video proves to the world, and to the powers that be, that you can succeed and be popular with this style of music. It even gets your real name out there.”
Karina nodded, considering.
“Why don't you look convinced?” Amanda asked.
Karina dropped her head into her hands miserably, “I don't know. What you guys are saying makes sense. It just doesn't feel true emotionally. Inside, this just feels so...complicated...I don't know.”
Karina looked pensive, and then took a deep breath to begin speaking, finally ready to get into a deeper analysis of her true feelings, however rare and painful that process might be. Her friends leaned forward, focused on her entirely, waiting with rapt attention for the next words to come out of her mouth.
However, none of them were ever to know what those words might have been, for at the very instant that Karina was to begin speaking, the doorbell pealed again, causing Karina to scream in frustration.
“SERIOUSLY! It's like Grand Central Station in here!” she exclaimed.
Sam hurried to the front door and returned just a moment later, a wide grin on her face.
“Who was it?” Karina asked.
Sam opened her mouth to answer, but instead, a masculine voice called out expansively, “It's Kyle Austen Reed!” as said movie star swept past Sam, his arms outstretched to encompass the entire room.
Karina crossed her arms on the table in front of her and dropped her head into them.
“Go away, Kyle!” she yelled, her voice muffled by her arms.
“...Austen Reed,” her three friends chorused.
“Well, the cat is out of the bag!” Kyle exclaimed happily, his smile making him look like he, himself, was that cat, and had just eaten the canary.
Karina wearily lifted her head and stared at him blankly, “I'm almost afraid to ask...”
Kyle sauntered over to Karina and wrapped his arm around her stiff and unbending shoulders, pulling her to his chest, “I realize this wasn't the way we would have wanted it to come out, but you must never fear when I'm around, my sweet Karina...”
Karina sighed, “Fine, I'll bite. Wanted what to come out?”
Kyle spread his arms wide again, “Our love!”
Karina scowled, “Our what?”
Kyle flung his arms even wider for additional emphasis, and repeated even more emphatically, “Our LOVE!”
Karina began to rub her temples.
Lauren said carefully, “Perhaps if you start from the beginning...”
Karina cut her off quickly, “No, no! Don't start from the beginning. Limiting yourself to JUST this incident, tell me exactly what you mean by the cat being out of the bag, re: our love.”
Lauren smiled and shook her head wryly, seeing where her original question could have gone awry.
“The YouTube video of us has over two million hits,” he said proudly.
The four women looked at each other, puzzled.
Karina, aggrieved, said, “Dear God, there's another one?!”
Lauren said calmly, “Kyle, why don't you show us the video.”
“Of course!” Kyle replied, pulling his iPad out of his supple leather messenger bag. He flipped open the cover and, with a few expert flicks of his fingers, had called up the video of “Love is the Key.”
They watched for a moment, to try to spot any differences, but, no...it was the exact same video.
“That's a video of Karina and Ryan,” Lauren pointed out gently, placing her hand on Kyle Austen Reed's upper arm to try to soften the blow.
“No, look here...” he said, mousing over the creeping red line at the bottom of the video which tracked its progress and dragging the endpoint back to the beginning in order to start the video over.
When the video began again from its inception, there indeed was Kyle Austen Reed introducing Ryan.
The four girls opened their mouths to protest, but Kyle Austen Reed put up a finger to hold them off. “Wait for it...” he cautioned.
At this point in the video, Ryan had finished calling Karina to the stage and she was beginning her walk out. When she and Kyle Austen Reed crossed on the stage, they paused, and Kyle gave her a barely perceptible kiss on the cheek.
Kyle hit pause on the video, so that the screen was filled with the image of he and Karina exchanging this kiss. Flipping out the back of his iPad cover to form a triangular stand, he set it down on the counter facing all of them, and they stared at the image, almost mesmerized.
“I give you...” he said dramatically, “Kyle-ina.”
“Oh, No...” said Karina, looking queasy.
“The comments on the video are quite effusive. They can't seem to get over our overpowering chemistry, my love. They seem quite blown away by it, in fact.”
“Kyle, I hate to tell you this,” Sam said kindly, “But I think the chemistry they are referring to in the video is less about Kyle-ina and more about Ka-Ryan-a.”
“Enough of the name-smushing, for God's sake, Sam!” Karina cried.
“Portmanteaus,” Lauren put in, but when she saw the look that Karina was giving her, she rushed to amend, “Not that it matters!”
“At any rate, the commenters – AKA, the voice of the people – have spoken,” Kyle continued as if the others had not spoken, “They overwhelmingly say how much chemistry we have, how hot we are together. CaliGurl818 even said that seeing us together made her blush. The cat, as I said, is officially out of the bag. To that end, I have already contacted my PR firm and instructed them to put out a statement saying that I have no comment regarding our relationship status at this time.”
Lauren raised her eyebrows and said, “Don't you need to actually be asked a question that you don't have a comment to before you can say that you have no comment?”
Kyle patted her on the top of her head, which because of Lauren's height, was no easy feat.
“Dear, dear one,” Kyle said sympathetically, as if speaking to someone whose lack of knowledge about the way the world worked was truly pitiable, “In the business of show, one must be a step ahead of the game at all times if one wants to remain relevant.”
Karina, her voice strangled, said, “If you play the 'no comment' card, that's as good as saying we're in a relationship.”
Kyle looked pleased with himself, and Karina grabbed a pillow from the back of one of the kitchen counter stools and screamed into it.
Kyle rubbed her back, and said to the other three girls, “That's my little flower, such a passionate and fiery little filly!”
Karina raised her head from the pillow and looked at Kyle Austen Reed with murder in her eyes.
“OKAY!” Amanda quickly jumped in, “I think we'd better all get out of Karina's hair before she remembers that we're sitting in a room that has knives in it. Shall we?”
As the group gathered their belongings and meandered toward the front door, Amanda hugged Karina and whispered in her ear, “Call me if you need me, OK?”
Karina nodded, and they both heard Lauren's dry exclamation from the front door, “Amanda, you'd better hurry. Kyle Austen Reed wants to tell us the entire story of he and Karina's relationship, not leaving out even one tiny detail. I know you don't want to miss the beginning.”
Karina smiled widely, “For a
nything wrong you've ever done to me, you are about to be paid back for several mind-numbing hours.”
Amanda laughed, “I think he's charming.”
“Talk to me again tomorrow.”
When Karina heard the front door close behind her visitors, and she was finally all alone, she spent a moment relishing the quiet, but quickly realized that it was not helping her organize her thoughts at all. Instead, it actually felt oppressive.
No, she had never been one for quiet contemplation when trying to work through a big problem. Instead, she did what she did every time in her life that she needed to solve a situation, or process some emotions. She reached for her guitar.
Chapter 15
Ryan irritably flipped over in his bed – the latest turn in a night that had been filled with a whole lot of tossing and turning and very little sleep – and gazed at the glowing red numbers of his bedside alarm clock. 3:04 am. Ten minutes after the last time he had checked.
The bright red numbers shining at him from the darkness seemed to be angry, accusatory. They refused to let him forget that the reason he couldn't get to sleep was because of his own human weakness – namely, the raging hard on that had been plaguing him pretty much since he left Karina hours earlier.
Every time he would manage to distract himself, get both his mind and body under control, a mental movie would pop into his head unbidden, of Karina slipping off her bra and giving him his first unobstructed view of her glorious, full, caramel-skinned breasts, topped with the hard chocolate buttons of her nipples. Of Karina furiously pumping her hand up and down on his shaft, as they stared into each other's eyes, their faces so close that their foreheads touched, and he was breathing in her sweet exhales. Of Karina in his arms, naked and shaking like a leaf, her body contracting around him as she screamed in release.
And then, of course, the illusion of control he had managed to build would shatter in an instant and he would be burning up with passion, his erection calling for his full attention, and the promise of sleep would evaporate just as quickly.
A hundred times, no a thousand times, that night he had to stop himself from just grabbing his keys off of his nightstand, jumping in his truck, and heading back to Karina's house. It had taken all the willpower he possessed, plus some he hadn't even known he had, to keep him in his own house and, more to the point, in his own bed.
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