My Life as an Album (Books 1-4): A small town, southern fiction series

by LJ Evans

  “Do you have any sense of privacy?”

  “You just spent the night naked up against me and now you want privacy?”

  “Um. We weren’t naked.”

  Derek chuckled.

  “Okay, Miss Mia. Whatever makes you feel better.”

  His nicknames for me rolled round like a carousel. Which one would I get at the next stop?

  “How do you know what makes me feel better?” I tossed back.

  He crossed to me and tugged at the curls in my messy bun but didn’t pull it out, even though I could tell he wanted to. “I can think of a lot of things that would make you feel better, but for now, words will have to do.”

  I was a puddle of confused goo again because words were so much better than most things people did. And he always came at me hot and heavy, but his words from last night also rattled around in my brain. The words about not having sex just for sex.

  “Come on, Miss Mia. We have to hit the road. Big caving day ahead of us.”

  We were in the Camaro and on the road before seven. I was driving. I wasn’t sure it was smart, because I didn’t necessarily trust myself on four hours of sleep, but Derek promised he’d keep me awake by reading and fueling me with Starbucks.

  And he was right. He did.

  About an hour in, he put the book down and dug through my bag again. “Anything I can help you find?” I asked.

  “It’s not that I’m not enjoying Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, because I am quite enjoying their banter, but I’m tired. I need something spicier to keep me awake.”

  “And you think you’ll find spicier in my bag?” I didn’t know whether to be complimented or insulted.

  “You did mention something about erotica the other day.”

  Like the tween I often felt like around him, I flushed. I couldn’t help it. This made his smile widen even further, in that way that sunk into my gut.

  “No erotica in there,” I replied, eyes on the road.

  “How about on your Kindle?”

  I swallowed. No way in all the shades of Hades was he reading erotica to me while I drove.

  “No.”

  “Liar.”

  I shrugged. My phone with its Kindle app was plugged in so we could use Google Maps, so I wasn’t worried.

  “Okay. Twenty questions then,” he said in his typical chipper fashion.

  “You have way more energy than me this morning, maybe you should be driving.”

  “No. My turn tomorrow.”

  “Fine,” I agreed with a huff.

  “You want to go first, or shall I?” He asked it so seductively that I knew I was in a lot of trouble. Over my head in trouble. Ready to just drown in the lake after jumping off the forbidden cliff trouble.

  “You,” I whispered out.

  “Who was your first kiss?”

  My fear eased a little. That was easy. “Tim Martin. He was a junior. I was a freshman. He was friends with Cam and picked me up as a side benefit.”

  “A side benefit?”

  “Is that question two?”

  “No, that’s a clarifying question, it doesn’t count.”

  “It’s a question,” I insisted.

  “Fine, it’ll be question two. Explain.”

  “Everyone loved Cam. Everyone wanted Cam. She was madly in love with my brother, though, so no one stood a chance. In enters me and her best friend, Wynn. Good alternatives.”

  “I cannot believe you just classified yourself as an alternative,” he said.

  I shrugged again. It didn’t make it not true even if he didn’t like it.

  “My turn,” I said. He didn’t look like he wanted to move on from the first conversation, but he waited for me to ask my question anyway. “Did you really live in the PlayBabe Mansion?”

  His turn to groan. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “Is that a second question?” he teased.

  “Clarifying one, but okay, yes.”

  “And it sucked.”

  “That was not my question.”

  “You didn’t really ask a specific question.” He smirked knowingly.

  “How did you end up living at the PlayBabe Mansion? Is that better?”

  “Yes, but it’s question three.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him, and he reached out to rub my lips when I darted it back inside my mouth. I swallowed hard and concentrated on the road ahead of us.

  “My dad ran the PlayBabe Casino in the Bahamas until it closed. Hugo brought him back to the states, and Dad became his right-hand man at the house.” Derek shrugged. “It was easier for him if we all lived there because he could have my parents at his beck and call whenever he wanted.”

  “So, your mom lived there too?”

  “Just so we’re clear, that’s number four.”

  I just nodded.

  “I’ll even save you a question. She wasn’t a ‘Babe.’ She wasn’t one of Hugo’s ‘girlfriends.’ She met my dad at the casino, stupidly let him knock her up and marry her, and then followed him to the mansion. She helped out at the house, mostly organizing events. We were, not quite alternatives, but at least side benefits.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I didn’t. There seemed a lot I could ask about why he thought it was stupid that they’d gotten together, and about whether he liked living there, but I couldn’t figure out which one to ask, so he moved on.

  “My turn,” he said and then grinned, which should have warned me that I wouldn’t like the next question. “Oral or regular?”

  I choked. “Excuse me?”

  He laughed. “You have a dirty mind, Miss Mia.”

  Good Girl Mia groaned, but Other Mia wished she had a witty comeback. “What in Merlin’s beard did you mean?”

  He chuckled at my non-cuss word.

  “I meant oral reading or regular silent reading, of course, whatever did you think?” He was laughing at me. I knew it, but I also knew he’d done it on purpose to see my reaction. He still wanted me to surprise him.

  “Oral isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” I told him with my own smile.

  “Explain.”

  I smirked. “Just so we’re clear, this is number four.”

  He nodded in agreement, smile widening in that way I liked.

  “Okay. But don’t judge,” I said.

  “No promises.”

  I looked at him as he shrugged. “I did meet you in a pantsuit.”

  I eye-rolled him, then we were silent for a moment until he prodded. “I believe you were going to explain how oral isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  I sighed, gulped, and continued.

  “I had a roommate who liked to tell me every detail about her sex life. I mean. Every. Detail.”

  “Your own live erotica.”

  I ignored his dig. “She’d be telling me all about how her boyfriend had come in her mouth, and all I could think was, ‘Ew, that’s kind of gross,’ because, let’s just be honest, that body part is what you pee with and other stuff coming out of it isn’t exactly chocolate cake so, really, who would think oral sex is hot?”

  I couldn’t look at him after all of that. I’d just said things to him that I had never said to anyone. Things I’d barely been able to register in my own brain, let alone speak out loud to another human being. A sexy human being to boot. One that I was really thinking about having hot sex with on a daily basis.

  He didn’t laugh, but when he spoke, I could hear the laugh in his voice anyway. “I don’t think you’ve been doing it right.”

  “What? Sex?”

  “Oral sex, specifically, but maybe sex all together.”

  I couldn’t help yet another shrug. Because he may not have been wrong. Plus, just to be clear, I hadn’t done any oral sex. The one time, I’d had regular plain old missionary-style sex; it hadn’t been all that earth shattering. Not the way people in books explained it, at least. And the guy I’d had sex with had returned
to his ex-girlfriend, so there was a good chance that I had been doing it all wrong.

  “By the way, that’s number five,” was his response.

  “I didn’t ask anything.”

  “You asked a clarifying question, and you seemed to have set the ground rules that clarifying questions count as a question.”

  “You’re impossible,” I grumbled.

  “But gorgeous.”

  “I’m debating the gorgeousness as we speak.”

  I was surprised I wasn’t more uncomfortable. Good Girl Mia usually shied away from any talk of sex with anyone. Safety discussing sex was only found in books. Definitely never live and in person.

  “Are you going next or me?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure I want to play anymore.”

  “Fine, my turn then. How many times have you had oral sex?”

  I blushed again because, God, he just kept pushing at the edges of me. I didn’t know if it was because he liked it when I was uncomfortable, or if he thought there was more to me than what I shared on the outside. Either way, admitting some of this stuff out loud was going to be embarrassing. And as I freely admitted to myself now, I wanted to have sex with this gorgeous guy, but I was worried that if I admitted how little I’d had sex, maybe it would turn him off.

  “Miss Mia?”

  “You first.”

  “Are you asking me how many times I’ve had oral sex?”

  I nodded.

  “As question number six?”

  I nodded again.

  “Given oral sex or received?”

  God, I didn’t want to go there, did I? Did I really want to know how many people he’d touched and who’d touched him? Was that going to make me feel more comfortable with my own limited experiences once he had me undressed in his bed? No. No. And Jiminy Cricket, no.

  “Never mind. Scratch it. I don’t want to know.”

  “It still counts as being asked.”

  “Not if I don’t make you answer it,” I griped back.

  “But I wanted to answer it,” he said with that sexy tone back in his voice that made me want to stare at him instead of the road. My fingers tightened on the wheel.

  His phone rang. Thank God, I’d been saved by the phone. He answered it with a sigh, “What do you want, dipshit?” It had to be Lonnie. Lonnie was the one he called names the most. I thought it was because they had been friends the longest.

  “He wants to know if we want to stop for food at the diner five miles ahead, or if we just want to wait ‘til we get to the caverns and make something in the bus?”

  “You have food on the bus?” I asked, surprised, and he held up seven fingers to mean that I had just asked question number seven. I shook my head in disgust.

  “I’m easy,” I responded and then blushed and thunked my head momentarily on the steering wheel as he laughed out loud at yet another double entendre that I’d let slip.

  “Let’s just make something at the caverns. We’ll be there in about twenty, anyway,” he said into the phone. Pause. “Sounds good.”

  He turned to me. “You are a mystery, Miss Mia.”

  “Hardly.”

  “Very much so.”

  He didn’t ask me any more questions, though as we wound our way to the caverns using the Google Map lady to guide us. “I think I could fall in love with this lady,” he said when she got us to the caverns without any mishaps.

  “She’s too old for you, moron.”

  He laughed.

  At Alabaster Caverns, we made grilled cheese sandwiches in the bus, and the guys clowned around as always. I changed in the tiny bathroom while the guys changed anywhere they saw fit, and I had to look away.

  Derek was impressed with the gear I had bought. “You’re really invested in this now, aren’t you?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, I didn’t want to continue with the hazing suit.”

  He pulled me to him and kissed me. Just a quick kiss, but it still curled my toes in my new boots. “Wh-what was that for?”

  He smiled. “Because you’re cute when you eye-roll.”

  I couldn’t help it, really. The second eye-roll just happened as part of my everyday existence, but it got me another kiss.

  “Are you kids ready?” Lonnie asked with his loopy smile. It was just Lonnie, Owen, Mitch and us again. No Rob. He’d stayed in Oklahoma City with Trista. He’d meet up with us in Denver.

  We put on our packs. Derek helped me fill mine with the important gear and lights, then we headed out with the permits that Owen had gone and obtained for us. We were “wild caving,” which meant we were on our own. I wasn’t nearly as nervous as I had been in Tennessee, but I still had some butterflies. I was trusting a group of nothing more than adolescents to take me in a cave through tight spaces, rock climbs, and dark tunnels. I could hear Mama in my head screaming, “Run, Forest, home!”

  I didn’t think of my solo kidney often. Other than a side thought when I was feeling guilty over Jake or when I went for my annual checkup to make sure nothing was out of whack internally because of it. But I also realized that rock climbing probably wasn’t something that would be on my doctor’s approved activities list.

  When we got to the cave entrance, Derek double-checked my lights and equipment, as if sensing that I was nervous. “You got this, Phillips?” he asked in his serious coach voice.

  It was cute. Still all sexy BB and yet also cute. I smiled at him. “Yep, Coach Waters, sir,” I teased, and he smiled that smile that made my heart ache.

  “Did you warn her about the bats?” Lonnie asked.

  “Stop teasing me, lumberjack,” I couldn’t help but quip back, but all the boys stared at me, including my gorgeous BB.

  “Wait, there are really bats?” I asked, a little breathless.

  Derek nodded. “Yep. In fact, they don’t even let anyone cave in here for part of the year while they hibernate.”

  “Stop teasing me,” I said, but I had a sinking feeling they weren’t.

  “You got this. They hardly ever bother the humans. They’re more afraid of us than the other way around,” Derek said.

  “Um… Somehow I doubt that,” I said.

  They didn’t let me think about it. Instead, we were in the caves and moving before I could say or think much more. Because, really, it was the thinking that usually got me into trouble.

  I soon lost myself inside the peaceful darkness like I had in McMinnville. The cool, quiet air. The beauty of the formations standing as they had for centuries. The challenge of the spaces. It was something that even Good Girl Mia didn’t seem to mind, because she was quiet in my brain the whole way. Or maybe Other, Adventurous Mia was taking over more than ever.

  At one point, I could hear the bats. Little shuffling noises that were high above me and made my heart skip a beat, but I just reminded myself that they didn’t eat humans. At least, not that I knew about. I continued on into the next chamber where there was no sound again.

  About an hour and a half in, we went through a really tight spot. We had to climb up a little and then squeeze through a crevice to the other side. I hadn’t had any problems with the tight spaces the other day, or so far today. I hadn’t panicked or embarrassed myself yet, which I considered pretty good, but then, about halfway through the crevice, I got stuck. Backpack and E-boobs… um, not always a great combination in the middle of a cave.

  The more I struggled to get through, the more I seemed to jam myself in.

  Owen was behind me. I could hear him in the crack not too far away. Mitch and Lonnie had gone ahead, followed by Derek, then me. Owen was the caboose as he had the most experience.

  I tried not to panic, but a well of fear curled up from my stomach to attack my heart. I felt a rush of blood come and leave my face. Nausea hit me.

  I knew Owen was nearby, and that Derek was only a few inches away, just outside the fissure, waiting. I wasn’t alone. But I was stuck. Butterbeer!

  “H
ey, Phillips, what’s the hold up?” Derek called back. He didn’t sound concerned yet.

  Breathe, Mia, breathe, I told myself, and I took a huge breath in and out to try to calm the racing in my heart and to relieve the twirling in my stomach.

  Owen reached me. “Hey,” he said calmly and quietly.

  “Hey to you, too,” I said, but my voice was shaky.

  “Mia?” Derek’s voice was concerned now because I hadn’t answered. No Phillips this time.

  “I’m stuck,” I called back.

  “Stuck?” Derek asked, and there was laughter in his tone as well as relief.

  “Yes, moron, stuck.”

  “Like your foot?”

  I looked at Owen and rolled my eyes in the greenish twinge of our cave lights. I could vaguely see his distorted smile that returned mine. If I was a more fearful girl, I’d say it looked manic and crazy, like I was going to get eaten for dinner, but really, it was just the lighting, my overactive imagination, and my panic speaking.

  “Um. No. Not my foot,” I called to Derek, but Owen started chuckling because he realized quick enough that it was my boobs and backpack that had wedged me in.

  “What—” Derek started and then stopped as he realized just what I was talking about even without seeing me. He burst out laughing. I was so going to smack him when I reached him. “Just push them in, Phillips. It’s just fatty tissue.”

  I thunked my head against the cave wall. “How would you like your balls squeezed between a rock and a hard place?” I shouted back at him.

  “Totally different animal. I’m going to have to give you some anatomy lessons.”

  Even though I was stuck, embarrassed, and annoyed, that still hit me in the loins like a forbidden kiss. Holy potato peels, I had it bad for this boy.

  “Let me see if I can push on—” Owen started.

  “No!” I cut him off.

  Owen laughed. “Your pack, Phillips. Just going to push on your backpack. I kind of want to keep my hands attached to my body, and Derek would cut them off, along with my balls if I touched anything else.”

  Owen pushed on the pack, and it budged a little.

  “Owen, you there?” Derek called out.

  “Yep, I’m here.”

  “What’s the situation?”

  Owen laughed hard. “She’s stuck. Like she said.”