Enough Isn't Everything (Everything Trilogy)

by Shandwick, K. L.

  Saffy and I had been friends since we were spotty fourteen-year-olds. We met when my parents took me on vacation one summer to Colorado. My dad was a big hunting fan, and he rented a camper van during his getting-back-to-nature phase, or midlife crisis as my mother preferred to call it.

  Saffy’s dad was having the same midlife issues and had dragged his family to do the same. Her family was in the next pitch from us on the campsite for three weeks. The two families gelled immediately. Us girls both loved our guitars and wrote romantic love songs. Two of our songs, as far as we were both concerned, still stacked up with the best today.

  Through the years, Saffy’s love of science outweighed her love of music though. Her twin brother Max leaned toward being a penniless musician, so her parents more than encouraged her ideas of becoming a marine biologist instead of chasing rainbows with a guitar for a career.

  At the end of our holiday that summer, we wept so hard when it was time to move on and vowed to keep in touch, and we did. During the last seven years there were times when our respective lives made our contact wane, but we still managed to rekindle our friendship and share the trials and tribulations during our teenage years.

  Max realized his dream to be a musician, like I aspired to be, and now lives in Nashville, writing lyrics for a famous country artist. He left home as soon as he finished high school. I can still picture his handsome face in my mind’s eye, but I haven’t seen him since I was seventeen.

  CHAPTER 2: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

  My amazing friends arrived in the early afternoon after their long road trip from Oklahoma, and they went straight to the coffee house near the condo. This was partly because they were starving, but the deciding factor was that Holly desperately needed to pee and just knew she wouldn’t make it to the apartment.

  My cell buzzed and vibrated on the nightstand. When I answered Saffy squealed excitedly for about thirty seconds, before telling me where they were and asking me to join them at the coffee shop.

  I dressed quickly, in a cream maxi dress with a smattering of gold, and some cream flat shoes. I wrapped my long dark hair in my hands, putting it in a bun and tucking it under my large sun hat. I grabbed my keys, phone, purse, and shades, and headed out to meet them.

  Holly waved at me excitedly from the window of the coffee shop, before both she and Saffy ran along inside, waving at each window as they passed. They disappeared from my view for a second before bursting out of the door.

  Their excited screams pierced my ears, and both of them hugged me in a group hug kind of way. “Wow. You look fabulous honey,” Holly said in her slow Texas drawl.

  I hugged her tightly again. She looked great, and smelled of vanilla and peppermint chewing gum. She pushed me away from her still holding my hands, as she took in my appearance. “Well look at you, pretty as a picture, and cute as a button, but we’ll have to help you get a tan, honey, you’re too pale.” She giggled and flashing her perfect white teeth at me.

  Holly’s pretty sun-bronzed face smiled sweetly, as her almond shaped brown eyes gave me the once over. She was a beautiful woman – a classic model shape – tall, leggy and lean, with natural platinum blond hair. She never had to try to look good, she just did.

  Saffy pushed Holly out of the way. “Hey, stop monopolizing Lily, she was my friend first.” Saffy snickered at Holly, and Holly gave her a look of mock anger. Saffy always looked like a rock chick. She looked a bit like Avril Lavigne but with a bohemian chic twist.

  Petite and pretty, her hair was a sun kissed golden color; it cascaded thickly down to just above her waistline and she had stunningly vivid blue eyes. Her dad called her a ‘pocket rocket’ because she was small, but with a sassy nature and a fiery temper.

  She was wearing the cutest burnt orange dress, with chiffon that hung on her curves and ended mid thigh. Few women could carry a look like that off. Her gorgeous tan legs had little ankle boots, incongruent to the outfit, but on her, were perfect for finishing her ensemble. She’d accessorized perfectly with just the right jumbled assortment of beads and bangles.

  Holly ordered some bagels and more coffee, and we all sat down to chat. We ended up trying to talk at the same time. We tried several times to restart, but we all began to talk together again. We soon settled down, though, and were chatting like old times. I felt ecstatic to be able to spend time with them without worrying about how soon we’d be leaving, as was often the case in the past.

  Holly had been Saffy’s friend since the age of five. Her dad was an engineer, working at Holly’s dad’s oil company, but there was much more than an employer and employee connection. Their dads also spent time together outside of work, because they shared a common interest, a love of classic cars. The girls also spent a lot of time together growing up in their dad’s garages with them.

  We sat in the coffee shop until almost 3pm, making plans and talking about the past week. Saffy told us about the night before last very candidly, when she “fucked a guy in the back of his truck,” after spending an evening in a bar with friends.

  Apparently, this really hot looking guy slipped his hand up her skirt when she stood at the bar, tugged the leg of her panties back and began fingering her. My mouth dropped open in shock and she threw her head back, her hair fanning through the air, as she laughed at my reaction.

  I knew she was forward, but still, hearing her saying stuff like that, just like she’d just gone and picked up some milk or something, was too much. “Saffy.” I blinked hard at her, I couldn’t believe my ears. Saffy grinned. Her angelic face looked mischievously at me, and she shook her head giggling, like my reaction was the one that was off.

  “What?”

  I was blushing and dropped my eye contact with her. She responded by giving me a loud belly laugh. “Oh. Sweet, innocent, Lily! You haven’t lived until you’ve had some rough sex in the back of a truck. It was fucking hot. He was fucking hot, all horny and a really dirty boy!” She wiggled her brows at me wickedly.

  I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and looked around the coffee shop to see if anyone else was looking at us. I felt mortified by her behavior. I thought that only boys spoke about sex like that. Holly scolded Saffy for making me feel uncomfortable as I tried to recover from what she had just said.

  Saffy waved the back of her hand in my direction as if brushing me off and continued, “Talk about being uncomfortable, he fucked me so hard I could hardly walk yesterday.” Holly and Saffy giggled again. I smiled, not wanting them to think I was a prude, but I had no real understanding of what she was talking about.

  We made our way to the apartment, and I left the girls there. After I made a quick change to my attire again, I went to make myself look casual, in a jade green t-shirt that hung off one of my shoulders, with a black bra strap showing, and some three-quarter length white pants.

  The t-shirt suited my dark hair, which I’d left long and curly, having given up on the straighteners for the day. Plus, the humidity was wreaking havoc with it. My hair was still kinking, even when I had put product on it.

  I knew I would just be wasting my time trying to straighten it at all. I’d only do it in the future for special occasions where I’m not outside. It wasn’t that much of a problem really since I have long dark brown curly hair. They’re nice curls, not the kind that were all over the place

  My friends always went on about how lucky I was to have the choice of curly or straight hair, but I was not too enamored with the curls as I thought they made me look younger and unsophisticated.

  Even although I had only spent a short time in the sun this morning, my skin had a slight golden glow to it. Granted, it wasn’t a tan by Holly’s standards, but I could definitely see a difference in color. I was already feeling better; my eyes looked brighter, and I didn’t feel as self-conscious about how pale I was.

  I climbed into the little Chrysler PT Cruiser rental car and headed out to the college. I knew I needed to organize a proper car, but for the next couple of weeks I just wanted to concentrate o
n getting settled in at college. Another bout of nerves hit me as I arrived at the college.

  Butterflies took up residence in my stomach and my palms were sweaty and this time I didn’t think it was from the heat.

  I followed the signs to the registration office and waited in line for my turn to speak to the gray haired woman with the soft, friendly tone. She was really helpful, and she seemed to take extra time to help me understand things.

  She pointed out the ‘meet and greet’ sign, a time for new students to meet with existing ones, and suggested it would be a good idea for me to connect with people prior to my courses starting.

  I decided to take her up on her suggestion, because I was eager to network and cultivate new friends, especially with people who were like-minded and musically talented.

  My nerves were jangling in anticipation of having to put myself out there, but I was determined to lose some of the shyness and immaturity that everyone else told me was holding me back.

  I wasn’t worried about my musical ability. I mean, I know I’m not exceptional, but I knew that I could make people happy listening to me. I’ve been playing guitar and piano since I was six, and I already knew that I had a presence with that.

  My dad once said I had the ability to capture the room in my hands when I played, but then again, he was my dad and tended to be somewhat biased where I was concerned. My music tutors didn’t have to rave about me, even though they did for some reason.

  Everyone also wanted me to sing. I knew my voice had an unusual tone and a wide range, but I didn’t have the confidence to put it out there. I had no issues at all with people watching me play, but as far as singing was concerned, I think I’d be less self-conscious if I were to model naked in a life art class, than I was singing with all of my clothes on.

  I seemed to become incapacitated and tongue-tied when the focus was on me trying to sing. I knew it sounded crazy, but it seemed more intimate somehow. I was hoping that being here might change this for me, and I’d be able to at least challenge myself to sing one day.

  At the present time, I needed to be very drunk to be okay with singing in public. No one knew me here, though, and maybe I could reinvent myself. I’ve been told many times never to say never to anything. So the jury was still out on whether I could achieve singing in public or not in the future.

  The campus was massive, and I got lost several times during my orientation, but I was able to collect some pre reading material as well as my study timetable. I turned and headed toward the sign pointing to the canteen, where the ‘meet and greet’ for the new students was taking place. On the way, I thumbed through the literature to check that everything was in order.

  I’ve chosen to study commercial music, which gave me classes in music theory, ear training, music history, and also private instruction on my instrument. I’d added courses in; audio recording and production, and obviously, performance as a combination, focusing on voice and my guitar.

  I’ve been writing lyrics myself since I was thirteen, and I didn’t want to take a formal lyrics writing classes, as I’ve written over one hundred songs and felt my formulae was doing okay. I just didn’t want anything to put that into a funk. Music was my first and only passion.

  I was very proud of my song bank, twenty of these in particular, and was interested to hear what the expert critiques would say about some of them. Until now, I’ve never shared them with anyone apart from my cat, Saffy, and my parents. On the rare occasion I did sing in London, it tended to be in very dark places at the end of the night, and it had mainly been covers of other artists.

  The managers of the clubs I sang at didn’t want me experimenting with my own stuff when I was being paid to entertain. They seemed to want popular tunes, from the sixties to date, to entertain their clientele.

  I rounded the corner and stayed on the path sign posted for the canteen. I stopped when I saw some musicians jamming on the lawn in a shaded area. I wandered around listening to some of them playing. There seemed to be a lot of talent here, but I was drawn to one sound in particular. The low, rich tone of a male voice sitting some way back from the rest. I went looking for the guitar player with the great voice.

  When my eyes caught up with the singer, I was captivated. His stunning looks more than matched his amazing voice. He looked every bit the rock star sitting there, but he could easily have earned a living modelling as well.

  I could only see a hint of his beautiful face. He was looking down at the neck of his guitar. From where I stood, his face had perfectly symmetrical features, and his eyelashes were to die for.

  His mouth looked perfect, with luscious, plump, extremely kissable lips. He had a slightly chiselled look to his face, which complemented his amazing sultry look.

  The faintest stubble on his strong perfect jawline was just scruffy enough to be sexy without looking to make him look dishevelled.

  He frowned down at his notebook, and strummed quietly to himself, deep in contemplation to what he was trying to achieve. It was impossible not to stare at him.

  His skin looked amazing, flawlessly golden and tanned. His sandy blond hair, with little sun kissed flecks of lighter blond near the edges looked so clean, soft, and shiny.

  If that wasn’t enough, he had a little strand of hair in the front that kept falling forward. It was as if God gave it to him for the purpose of attracting someone to sweep it back into place. I checked myself when I imagined how it would feel to run my fingers through it or pull it into the palm of my hand at the nape of his neck.

  I’m not sure whether it was his tone, or how, like the taste of melted chocolate, his voice was when he sang, or how incredibly sensual he looked, that gave me goose bumps. The hairs on the back of my neck crept up and made my scalp tingle as the full effect of this man hit me.

  I suddenly found myself trying to imagine how he would look naked. The mental image was sensational, and an involuntary smile crept over my face, but I also blushed and felt really perverted to be thinking such a thing.

  He was oblivious to me though; absorbed in his work, composing his music, and trying to lay the melody over this. His head was bent forward, eyes closed, strumming away on his guitar with his strong, smooth, veiny hands and long fingers.

  His guitar looked like an extension of him, just like my mine does with me, so I figured he’s been playing it since he was little as well.

  I sat myself down on the grass, leaning back on my oversized bag, and continued to watch him intently. I had never spent this much time just staring at a man before, but he was irresistible to look at, so I allowed my eyes to soak up every delicious inch of him.

  He was still struggling with some lyrics, playing the melody over and over, trying to make it fit with the words of his song. I listened patiently as he tried to find the right line. It really wasn’t a chore doing that, I would have happily sat watching him all day long.

  The song content was about making love, but the lyrics weren’t crude, they were clever words, but the inferences were there all the same. Or maybe it was just my mind that saw it that way since my knowledge had been broadened with my new sexual experience with Sam.

  I had an idea and felt that I had the perfect line for his song. I didn’t want to interrupt his artistic flow, but I felt compelled that the line needed to be in his song.

  He stopped and banged the side of his guitar hard, his jaw flexed tensely, and then he stared straight at me. My eyes connected with his briefly and desire surged through me when his sparkling hazel eyes met mine. I felt like I’d been hit by a lightning bolt; my heart sped up, and I felt as if he could see into my soul.

  He looked like he was going to burst with frustration with each line he tried that didn’t gel with the song, and he looked seriously pissed about it.

  I thought he was going to speak to me, and I drew in a deep breath, but he shook his head and broke our gaze. He looked down, and scratched out the words he had written.

  CHAPTER 3: SEXUAL TENSION

  H
is anger only made him more attractive. He looked so damned sexy and hypnotic to watch. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. In fact, at that point, I would have rather had my eyes gouged out with a screwdriver than look anywhere else voluntarily.

  I cleared my throat, for no other reason than the effect of him had given me a lump in my throat, and he looked up again. He seemed to stare directly into my eyes. I felt my cheeks flush as I saw the full effect of just how seriously hot this guy was.

  My reaction to him was like nothing I’d ever experienced, and he hadn’t even spoken to me. He oozed sex appeal in a rock star kind of way. I’d seen guys like him before, full of charm and seriously hot, and could only imagine his lap getting plenty of bottoms volunteering to sit on it.

  This extremely handsome man in front of me was the kind of guy that women lost all self-control over. Previously, I would have given a guy like him a wide berth, but in this case, I could definitely re-evaluate my boundaries.

  He dropped backwards, and lay flat on his back on the grass. He stretched out, splaying his hands high above his head on the grass, and I fought the urge to get up from where I was sitting to cover his body with mine.

  He still didn’t engage with me, and I began to feel uncomfortable sitting there watching him, especially when he’d stopped playing.

  I was almost tempted to move away, but the sight of him lying there in his faded jeans that were hugging the contours of his muscular legs made it impossible for me to drag myself away. So I sat in silence instead, taking in the sight of him.

  He was wearing a black Fender t-shirt which clung to his chest. It was tight fitting and had risen up as he stretched out. He was exposing his abdomen, showing just enough for me see the bottom contours of his abs and a lean muscular body.

  There was also a hard ridge of V shaped muscles disappearing into the hips of his low-rise waistband. As his arms rose up, he laced his fingers and flexed his palms outwards. His movement flexed his hips upward as well. I could almost feel what he felt in his bones.