by Cari Quinn
She gripped her elbows and stumbled back, right into the hard chest that wouldn’t let her fall.
West answered for her, since apparently she’d lost her voice. “She didn’t want to go back with you. She was afraid. I didn’t know what the situation was, but I wasn’t going to let her get hurt.”
“No. God, no, that’s not right either. Ethan would never hurt me.” She reached up and yanked at her hair, so frustrated that everything had gone so awry that she didn’t know what else to do. Pins scattered over the asphalt. “Until right now.”
“How am I hurting you? Because I came here to see if you were all right? To take you home where you belong?”
“You’re saying things that don’t make sense. None of this makes sense.” Actually, he hadn’t said much. He hadn’t had to. The expression he wore combined with West’s insinuations had caused a fetid brew to start bubbling in her belly.
“I gave you time,” Ethan said evenly. “I made sure I didn’t push. I was the friend you leaned on for everything.”
“You were. You are.” She stepped forward and this time, West didn’t rush to stand behind her. Just as well, she needed to do this on her own two feet.
Whatever this was.
Whatever it all meant.
“You’re right. Which is why if you come with me now, we won’t have to discuss this again. It’ll be as if this night never happened.” He met her gaze, focusing so tightly on her face that she was practically sure he couldn’t see West anymore. It was as if he’d erased his very presence. “We’ll forget all of it and go back to the way things were. Before.”
“I don’t want to erase it. This was the best night of my life. Can’t you see that? I’ve always been so sheltered, and I never got to have the experiences you did—”
“You mean sex. Just be straight, Lauren. You got to have sex, and now you’re seeing birds and hearing angels and who gives a fuck about the guy who’s been by your side for all these years, patiently waiting for something that’s obviously not going to happen.”
She swallowed, fighting to get past the boulder in her throat. “I never knew. Never guessed. Why would you—I’m not—”
“You’re everything.” Ethan let out a harsh laugh. “He sees it. He’s just the one who was lucky enough to get his shot.”
“And I’m not going to waste it either.” West stepped forward to cup her shoulders. “Why don’t you stay, Lo? Stay here on the bus for a few more days. I know it’s not much, but we’re heading to San Francisco next and I’m not ready to let you go.”
She didn’t move. Barely breathed. Because even as her heart—and all the rest of her—rejoiced at what West was saying, she was aching for Ethan. For being so callous and oblivious that she just never knew. Ethan was a gorgeous guy. He was ridiculously smart, with an amazing career and a great dry sense of humor. He could’ve had his choice of women—and had, judging from the endless parade of them on his arm.
Yet he’d pined for her? It was completely illogical. The only thing she could figure was that she’d been the one woman he couldn’t get. Now he saw that more than ever.
Because she was with West. And it didn’t really matter if they’d only had that one night and she never saw him again. Some part of her would always be with him. He’d given her so much more than she could explain, and not just an orgasm. He’d made her feel beautiful. Special. Treasured. As if any man would wish to be in her company, just as she was.
She didn’t need a job, or a super clear life path, or hell, even a checking account. She didn’t have to be seductive or assured or even all that nice. She could just be.
Herself.
Ethan stared at the two of them as if he didn’t recognize her anymore. His face had gone completely cold. “You get that she’s using you for extra credit, right? You’re her ace in the hole. Literally.” His grim chuckle made her cheeks burn hot.
“Don’t. You don’t get to talk about her that way. I don’t care if you’re pissed off, she’s a lady and you’re going to treat her in that manner.” West stepped around her, acting as a human shield she so didn’t need. “Got it?”
“She is a lady, and that’s why she doesn’t belong here with someone like you. I know your reputation, Reynolds. You may think I’m as blissfully naive as she is, but I’m not. I’ve heard about you, and she’s not just some chick you can bang and toss aside.”
“You’re absolutely right. Probably why I didn’t bang her, so get your mind out of the filthy gutter.” West stepped back and slid his arm around her shoulders. “Also why I just asked her to stay with me.”
“You asked her to stay for one reason—to win the pissing contest with me. You know what? Not necessary. Lauren, if you want to stay here, that’s your choice. Just know that when he gets tired of you, I won’t be there to pick you up and drive you back to safety.”
“Just as well, since I’m not going to fucking get tired of her. How can you feel the way you obviously do about her and talk about her like that? Are you really that spiteful?”
She hated, absolutely couldn’t stand, that they were talking over her as if she wasn’t there. Verbally tussling over her like she was a juicy steak.
What she was at the moment was confused. And sad. And angry. And so, so happy she’d met West.
She’d never felt so many conflicting emotions all at once in her life.
“You know what, Reynolds?” Ethan stepped forward, going still as she slapped a hand on his chest.
“No. Enough. No more fighting. We’re all saying things we will regret, and this isn’t the time or place.”
“Hardly. I just felt it my sworn bound duty to tell him why you’re really here, to do your little groupie research—”
Neck scalding-hot, she held up a hand. “West, how much have I asked you about the music business? About any of it really. The fans, the shows, the fame. Have I pelted you with questions?”
“No.” West crossed his arms. “We didn’t have a ton of time to talk.”
She knew quite well what he was insinuating—and she didn’t appreciate his manly posturing any more than she’d enjoyed Ethan’s. But she also got that he’d taken quite a few of her best friend’s jabs without delivering any in return.
“I haven’t been in research mode,” she told Ethan quietly, squarely meeting his intense dark blue eyes. “I intended to be. That was the goal. I forgot. I couldn’t focus on that because West and I… I don’t know how to explain it. We connected. I’m not ready to go home, and it’s not just because of my project. It’s because he sees me as I am, and somehow he still likes me.” She reached down to take Ethan’s hand, squeezing it though he made no move to return the gesture. “I hope the same is true about you. That when you go home and have some time to think, you’ll realize we’ve lasted this long because our friendship is strong and true.” Ethan averted his gaze, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “But it was never any more than that. It wasn’t meant to be.”
“Goodbye, Lauren. I wish you the best of luck.” Ethan let go of her hand and walked back to his SUV, parked some distance away from the bus.
And she watched her best friend drive away. Maybe out of her life for good.
When she glanced up at the bus, three faces—Michael, Juliet, and Molly—peered out at her from the windows. As soon as they caught her looking, they disappeared from the glass.
“Sorry.” West rubbed her arm. “They don’t mean to intrude. They’re just—”
“Nosy.” She smiled faintly and went to sit on the steps of the bus. The door was still wide open. “Not like we weren’t being loud enough for everyone to hear. Everyone might as well know I’m a blind idiot.”
West leaned against the door beside her, bracing a foot on the bottom stair. “What project was he referring to?”
She told him how she’d gotten thrown out of school in her junior year of college in a slow, halting voice. Her nose was sniffly—damn allergies—and the sun trying to poke through the clouds kept making her eyes
It wasn’t because she was trying really hard not to cry.
“I plagiarized my paper,” she said in a dull voice, staring straight ahead so she wouldn’t have to read the judgment on his face. “The sociology of fandom class had just been an elective I’d taken on a lark to fulfill a requirement when all the classes I really wanted were full.”
“And you got caught,” West said without any censure in his tone.
“Oh yeah. Big time. I didn’t give a crap about the subject, I admit it. I’m a psych major. I want to work with little kids. What do I care about fan culture? So I went on some blogs and faked my way through a major paper for my class. I pretended I’d done the research on concerts and groupies and all that myself. Instead I spent a few nights on FanBuzz.net learning how it all worked. The way fans become obsessed with the music and chase the people who make it as if they were gods. I thought I was covered. I write well.” She rubbed the inside of her wrist over her mouth. “I just never counted on my professor being a contributor to that same site and recognizing some of the content I’d passed off as my own.”
Swallowing hard, she shut her eyes. “I deserved to get kicked out. The only child of two esteemed professors plagiarizing a paper is like the worst of the worst. I was so ashamed. I am ashamed—and all because I didn’t want to go to a show and do the research myself. I was too good to be a groupie. Too above it all to get down in the pit with the masses.”
“I noticed that about you when you were dancing in your bra the other night,” West said drily. “And looking goddamn hot while doing it, I might add.”
She laughed weakly. “I didn’t know myself. The first concert I went to, I was addicted, even though the band wasn’t for me. The Zeps. Do you know them?”
“A little. Good dudes.”
“But the whole atmosphere, I just soaked it up. It was as if I’d found my people, weird as it is to say. How could I know what was meant for me when I’d lived my whole life in a box? I’d been sent to an all girls’ boarding school for high school and the girls I roomed with fawned over boy bands and did their nails up in pastel blue and pink. The biggest excitement was when we’d have dances with the boys’ school across the way. Oh, and that time I was caught masturbating on JoAnn’s My Little Pony. But anyway, I had no clue—”
“Hold up. You were doing what to My Little Pony?”
She flushed. “I was curious about sex. Who can blame me? I saw something online and well, her stuffed animal was right there. I had my pajamas on. There was no fluid transfer.”
“The pony didn’t do it for you? I always liked their rainbow hair myself.”
She slugged him lightly in the thigh and he laughed, trapping her hand against his bunched muscles before she could pull it away. “It’s not funny. Okay, maybe it is a little.”
“I’ll spare you the stories of how I used to jerk off and with what.” When she would’ve asked him, he cleared his throat. “So you got kicked out of school. Then what?”
“My parents were mortified. They’d already had to endure my several years after high school where I took every job I could get. Anything and everything. I worked at a butterfly zoo, at a clown school, at the mortuary. Anything that sounded unusual and unique and something I could count as an experience, I tried. I so didn’t want to be trapped behind a desk all my life. That was my worst fear. Settling down before I’d ever really lived.”
She curled her fingers around his, surprised to find how much easier it was to talk while their skin was touching. It was as if he was giving her courage just by existing.
“Mine too. That exact one. After growing up the way I did, the last thing I could imagine was buying a box and calling it mine and just staying in that one place forever.”
“Yes. That.” She wet her lips and stopped herself from asking him about his family. If he wanted to tell her, he would. She would give him that space.
Space was what they’d both been searching for most. Space to grow and be and discover. She just hadn’t been nearly as gifted at going after that one thing as he was.
“Eventually, I realized what I enjoyed most was working with kids. I got them. They made sense to me. They have so much enthusiasm for life. So much excitement to learn and grow until life beats it out of them. I wanted to help them beat life back.” She bit her lip, chancing a glance at him. “Does that sound stupid?”
He just stroked her hair away from her cheek with the hand not holding hers and left his fingers there, cupping her jaw, while he waited for her to continue.
“I got free tuition at the school my parents taught at, and I was desperate to make it up to them for what they saw as wasting my life. So I moved back home and I enrolled in college and for a couple of years, everything was okay. Except I didn’t know how to date, and I didn’t own a My Little Pony.” At his doubletake, she laughed. “Just checking to see if you’re still with me.”
“Oh, I’m with you.” He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles and a wave of warmth swept over her, so different from her feelings of humiliation earlier.
“Then I got kicked out of school last fall. And Ethan, well, we’d been friends since we were young. He’s a few years older, but he was the one constant in my life. I never went more than a few days without speaking to him. Ever.”
Because he was in love with you—or maybe in lust?—and you were too dumb to see it.
She would never be able to wrap her brain around that one. Just could not.
“He’ll come around. You’ll see. It just shocked him to see you living for yourself. On your own. He’s used to being your savior, I bet.”
Nodding, she exhaled. “Yeah, I guess he has been. He swooped in to ask me to move in with him. I didn’t have another place to go, and we always had fun together. He came with me to all your concerts, West. It wasn’t his music, but he came because he was my friend.”
Something passed over West’s face, but rather than saying it, he cocked a brow. “What do you mean it wasn’t his music? We’re awesome.”
“He wouldn’t hurt me. Not intentionally.” She grimaced. “Except today, and he wasn’t being himself. If I somehow gave you that idea last night, if I made you think you had to protect me from him, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lead you on that way. I kept enough from you.”
“Like your project, and why you were stalking my band. And it wasn’t for sex.”
“Not at first. Now? It’s probably partially for intercourse, yes.” She leaned back into the aisle to ascertain his bandmates weren’t lurking too close by. “You’re really good at it, so I’m not taking full blame for that one.”
“And just think, I haven’t even shown you a fraction of the whole yet.”
“The whole was in my mouth this morning, and I loved every second.”
Laughing softly, he wrapped a handful of her hair around his hand and pulled her up so that he could lower his mouth to hers. Gently. Exploring her as leisurely as if time itself had slowed down just for them.
Between kisses, Lauren heard snatches of squabbling, getting louder and louder. But West’s warm, soft lips stole most of her focus.
“…next time someone hassles you, you come to me. Don’t go off halfcocked looking for security when they’re on a lunch break.”
“I told you the professor wasn’t hassling me, Ry. He was after West’s new virgin.”
“His new virgin? Does he collect them?”
West stiffened but Lauren snorted out a laugh. “That would be some collection.”
“It’s not funny.” West let her go to step down to the pavement. “Hey, we’re standing right here. I think you owe Lauren an apology.”
West’s bandmate Ryan and Denver came around the side of the bus. “Sorry, man.” Ryan glanced from West to Lauren then held out a hand. “I don’t think we’ve met, and that had to be the worst way ever to do it. My apologies. My name is Ryan.”
All she could hear was Ethan saying “my apologies” in that wounded tone over and over in her head.
She shook Ryan’s hand and quickly let him go. “It’s okay.” She turned to rush up the steps into the bus. “Sorry, nature calls. Be right back.”
Hurrying toward the bathroom, she passed the others in their bunks and in the small kitchen area and paid them no mind. Thank God the bathroom was empty. She shut the door behind her and tipped back her head to stare at the ceiling.
This was her new reality. She was now the current bus groupie, and she probably didn’t have a best friend anymore. Her project was in flux, and her parents would hate her even more when they found out how she was spending her weekend.
Yet somehow she still managed to grin as she looked at herself in the mirror. Even with her leftover makeup still around her eyes, they had a sparkle she hadn’t seen in…well, maybe ever.
Two guesses why.
She rooted around in the cabinet until she came up with a jar of makeup remover and went to work with some tissue and cold water. The cream was miracle stuff. She didn’t even look that tired anymore.
A few moments later, a knock sounded at the door. “You okay, Lo?”
She blew out a breath and opened the door. “I’m better than fine. Just needed a minute. And some cold cream, which I did borrow from someone. Sorry!” she called out, knowing the owner of the jar was probably listening.
Even the cramped quarters of the bus didn’t bother her. Sharing space with West’s bandmates—even with their eclectic personalities—was fun.
An experience.
The best one ever, and it had just begun.
Nine
Why don’t you stay…
Those words had been going around his head for the last twelve hours. Pretty much from the moment he’d taken her to the bowling alley. Asking her to stick around had been an impulsive moment outside the bus, but it had felt right. Now she was sitting on the couch with Juliet and Elle looking through a pile of girl magazines. They were everywhere on the damn bus. With the amount of iPads between them, he figured they would turn to the e-magazines like the rest of the world.
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