“I’m not blind!” I yelled. “That’s lying!”
“Your glasses are huge.” Maggie’s eyes widened as if to show me logistically how huge my glasses really were. “Trust me, just pretend like you can’t see, he’ll totally buy it.”
“But I can see.”
“Without your glasses you’re legally blind as a bat,” she pointed out, her long blonde ponytail swishing as she picked up speed. We went from walking to jogging all within the span of a few seconds. I tried to dig my heels into the ground, but she was strong.
And I’d always been small.
Only five foot one. So even though she was barely five four, she still had some strength on me.
“Mags, stop!” I yelped, nearly stumbling into an elderly couple. “We are not doing this. You know I stutter when I get really nervous!”
“Perfect!” She seemed absolutely thrilled at my terror, damn her.
We rounded the corner.
I didn’t see any sign of him. Thank God.
“Look,” I huffed, making a mental note that I needed to work on my cardio if all it took was five seconds of jogging for me to get my butt handed to me. “You didn’t really see him, you’ve just been watching way too much reality TV. TMZ said he’s here for the fall working on his album. He came here to get away from the crowd, not meet some obsessed groupie!”
“I’m not a groupie.” Mags didn’t look back at me as she jumped into the air then went and climbed onto a park bench and continued her vain search of Zane Andrews. “Plus, at his last concert we made eye contact, you know what that means, right?”
I had officially lost all patience. Mags was home for a long weekend, while I’d been home for months since I wasn’t starting my freshman year at Portland State until the spring.
“Fallon!” Mags nearly jumped onto my face as she scrambled off the bench and started sprinting down the street. Well, I was going to have to bail her out of jail. That was all there was to it.
Deciding she could text me later, I turned on my heel and collided with a nice old man.
I dropped to the ground with a huff. My glasses fell off my face, and I was pretty sure I was going to have a bruised tailbone.
“Sorry, dear.” The old man said in a sweet voice. “Didn’t see you there.”
“That’s okay.” Pavement scraped my palm as I fumbled around for my glasses; I really was blind as a bat without them. All I could make out were blurry images of people shuffling around me.
The old man was in a walker, not like he could actually skip over to where my glasses had fallen and hand them over.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yup, I’m great.” I exhaled. “What about you?”
“Fit as a fiddle.” He shuffled by me, at least it looked like he did.
“Shoot.” The glasses should be on my right, they fell that way. Or had they fallen left? The sidewalk was starting to burn my butt in all the wrong places. Stupid Mags!
“Either you just fell…” came a smooth, silky voice, “or you like hanging out between trash cans in your spare time.”
“Trash cans.” I sighed, then slumped my shoulders and gave up. “Would you believe me if I told you right now they look like giant ice cream cones?”
“Sure.” The guy chuckled, and then hands were on my shoulders jolting me to my feet, and my glasses were placed on my face.
I adjusted them on my nose and looked at my rescuer then stopped breathing altogether.
Zane Andrews.
A Yankees cap covered his gorgeous hair and he lacked a shirt. Zane Freaking Andrews, completely and totally without any clothes on his upper body.
I begged my eyes not to fail me twice in one day and kept them firmly fixed on his face.
“A little advice.” Zane leaned in and whispered, forming the words with perfect lips. “It’s creepier when you don’t blink.”
My entire body went numb with embarrassment. “Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry. I’m just in shock, it’s not every day a rock star finds you sitting between two trash cans.”
“And dog shit. Don’t forget that.” His side grin had me sucking in a breath of much-needed air as he pointed to doggy doo right next to where I’d fallen. Awesome.
“Great.” I held out my hand. “Well, thank you for your rescue.”
Well, thank you for your rescue? I mentally slapped myself. Who says crap like that?
His lips pressed together in a suppressed smile as he took my hand and shook it firmly. “A girl with manners. I like it.”
He didn’t release my hand.
“If I didn’t know your name I’d probably call you sir too, it’s just how I was raised.” Stop talking, Fallon. Stop. Talking.
“Hmm, I may like that regardless.” He grinned. “Has a ring to it, don’t you think? Sir…” Somehow he maneuvered himself so that he wasn’t holding onto my hand anymore but had slid his hand up my arm and put his own arm around my shoulder. “What’s your name?”
“F-Fallon.” There it was, the stutter. And I had been doing so good! Why, God? WHY!
“Fallon.” He repeated it. I tried to keep my eyes averted, but it was so hard not to stare at him. At the diamond stud in his nose, or the fact that every time he moved, I felt warm skin against my bare arm. He was bigger than I thought he’d be, extremely fit but just… big all around.
“Would you be offended?” He stopped walking and turned me toward him.
“Offended?” I frowned.
“If I used you as a human shield?”
“A human, what?”
“Ten girls just spotted me. They’re currently skipping in our direction. My choices are run, but I’m kinda winded from all this titillating conversation.” He winked.
My knees knocked together. I loved it when guys used big words. Having a gorgeous face or body was one thing, but if the guy actually had a brain? Or knew how to spell? He was officially my knight in shining armor, only instead of a sword, I pictured a rather large dictionary in his hand as he whispered sweet words like titillating into my ear while feeding me grapes.
“Or I can make them think I’m pre-occupied with someone who isn’t after my autograph.”
“O-o-okay.” I thanked God I finally got the stupid word out.
“Fabulous.” That was the only warning he gave me before he tugged me down the street and into an alleyway. I barely had time to process the change of scenery before he leaned in and kissed me across the mouth.
Zane
She was nerd hot.
Like the girl who peaks after high school but has no idea how damn cute she is.
Her lips were soft, and I swear they tasted like marshmallow. What the hell kind of chapstick smelled like marshmallows and who did I have to kill to get a hold of some?
I broke off the kiss just as she swayed toward me. “Well, Fallon.” I held out my hand. “It’s been nice doing business with you.”
“Hmm? Wh-what?” Her big blue eyes blinked at me through hella thick glasses.
“The kiss. Business transaction. Human shield. Saved my life. The end.”
“Good story.”
“What can I say? I’m a storyteller at heart.” I winked and placed a shaky hand against the brick wall behind her.
I acted like it was fine.
But the shaking was getting worse.
As if the screaming made the shaking harder to control.
And just like that, I felt the choking sensation of anxiety as I tried to rein in my emotions and concentrate on the nerd in front of me, the nerd who really had saved me from having a mental breakdown in front of ten fans.
It would have made the news.
And that was the last thing I needed.
Better they assume I’m on hard drugs or nursing a broken heart than actually know the truth behind my anxiety and health issues.
“Chapstick,” I blurted. “What kind do you use?”
Her eyes did that adorable little slow blink again as she took a deep breath. “I make it.”
I couldn’t have heard her correctly. “You make it?”
Nerd girl licked the chapstick from her lips with more aggression than necessary which naturally had me staring at them like I’d never seen a sexy pout before. “That’s what I said.”
“I was just making sure.” I really needed to focus on anything but her mouth.
“Because you’re the chapstick police? Or you’re worried I violated some sort of health code by making flavored lip balm in my parents’ basement?”
“You have a basement?”
“What?”
“You just said you have a basement.”
“Where I m-make my lip balm.” She nodded.
Teasing her may become one of my new favorite things, which meant I was procrastinating, because I was in an alleyway with a strange girl, anything to keep from going back to the house. “I’ve never seen one.”
“Lip balm?”
“A basement!” I slapped her on the back. “Keep up.”
“T-trying.” She shivered as the wind picked up. “Okay, well, I think I’ll just go now…”
I grabbed the hood from her sweatshirt and tugged her back. “Where can I get some?”
“S-some?” Her eyes widened like I’d just asked for sex.
“Chapstick, lip balm, whatever you call it.” I clarified with a wink.
“At the store.” She blinked dumbly. “Do you not… go to stores or something?”
I fought to keep my voice from shaking. “Not if I can help it.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Because of the fans?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “They toss condoms in my shopping basket, and it’s pure hell when the sales clerk asks why I have both small and extra large as if I don’t know my own penis size, ergo, no shopping for Zane.”
“Do all celebrities use their name in the third person?”
“Demetri Daniels does.”
“The AD2 singer?”
“The very one.”
“Aren’t you living with him?”
“Ah… So you are a stalker, you’re just a really calm one?”
She clenched her tiny hands into fists at her sides. “Yes. Calm on the outside, doing cartwheels like a cheerleader on the inside, you should see my uniform.”
I placed my hand across my chest. “Oh God, tell me it has a giant Z on it.”
“With chapstick.” She grinned, finally smiling, then tucked her wavy brown hair behind her ears. “So, this has officially been the weirdest conversation of my life.” Fallon reached into her pocket and pulled out a tube of chapstick. “It’s on the house.”
“Our first gift exchange.” I teased. “But I didn’t get you anything?”
“Yeah, you did.” She blushed.
“Ah, the kiss?”
“Yup. Consider your debt paid.”
“It wasn’t a hardship.” I took a tentative step toward her, my body already craving more. What the hell was wrong with me?
A dark red color spread over her cheeks, and I fought every urge within myself to reach out and touch her skin, to feel if it was hot to the touch or just a natural reaction to my presence. I was used to girls flashing me, not blushing around me.
Maybe that was why I was still a virgin.
I saw so much tits and ass that it had lost all its effect.
Or maybe I was a scared chicken shit little girl. Too afraid to get my heart broken to risk the thrill of sliding my dick into home base.
“Zane?” Fallon whispered.
“Hmm?”
“You’re shaking.” She pointed to my hands.
I hid them behind my back. “Sorry, I had a lot of caffeine today, and the sugar doesn’t help.”
“Oh.” She licked her lips. Damn it. “Well, it was nice meeting you.”
“You too.”
I watched her walk off, and felt a little tug, as if I wanted to keep talking to her. But I had no reason to.
I glanced down at the chapstick in my hand. “Hey, Fallon?”
“Yeah?” She turned around quickly, like she’d expected me to stop her, which had my blood pumping harder, faster. She really was pretty, if you looked past the glasses. Then again that was hard to do, considering they were so big on her face.
I tossed her my phone. “I need my dealer’s number.”
“Dealer?” She barely managed to catch the phone, thank God she did since it was the third one I’d had in two weeks.
I held up the chapstick. “Your number, Fallon. Just in case I run out.”
“Because you don’t go to the store,” she said, eyes narrowing.
“You make home deliveries right?”
“If you buy enough,” she grumbled then typed in her number and tossed it back underhand pitch style. “There you go.”
“How much is enough?” I called out as she turned the corner.
But she didn’t answer.
And when I looked down at the phone, it wasn’t her number, but the one to the local Dominos. I only knew because I had pizza every Friday, and Seaside had officially one pizza place.
“Damn it.” I ran after her, but she was gone, lost in a crowd I didn’t want to deal with because I hated crowds.
So I disappeared back into the alley and made my way home.
Home.
Hah, not really.
More like, made my way back to Jamie Jaymeson’s house.
Because home?
Yeah, I hadn’t had one of those in a really long time.
And most nights, when I was being completely honest with myself, I admitted that I never would.
Not in the way that counted.
And probably not ever.
I hated the harshness of reality as it crashed in perfect cadence with the waves across the sand. Having a home had never been about having a safe place — it had been about the feeling being safe brings you.
Sometimes school was home.
Sometimes the tree house was home.
But when the safety nets get ripped away, you realize, home is nothing, without the people that make it that way.
And that’s what I was missing.
The key part of my life.
A family.
Zane
“Pants.” Jaymeson eyed me up and down wearily. “Blokes wear pants.”
“It’s too early to use the word ‘bloke.’” I muttered, slapping his ass as I walked past him to grab a cup of much-needed coffee.
With a grunt, he placed his hands on the counter and moved his lips like he was praying.
“Jay?”
“Shhh.”
“Jay?”
“I’m counting to ten, so I don’t blow your bloody head off.”
“America!” I shouted. “Fun fact: did you know your accent’s really thick in the morning? Almost impossible to decipher if you’re actually speaking English or something else.”
Jaymeson pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m suddenly remembering why I hesitated before saying yes, yes Zane I’d love to have you come stay with me and my new wife. You need a room? A bed to sleep in? A roof to cover your head? Hell, take my bloody dog while you’re at it! Oh, what’s that? You want to steal my friends too? Be my guest.”
With a grin, I sat on the barstool and sipped the hot, bitter liquid. “You done yet?”
“Yes.” He frowned. “Maybe.” A shrug. “I think I have more anger inside.”
“Sex cures anger.”
“So does shooting things,” he fired back, finally grabbing his coffee and slamming the newspaper against the granite countertop before dropping it.
“Tsk tsk, need I remind you who my cousin is?” I teased.
“Oh, dear God, not this again!” He held one hand up stop sign style as if to prevent me from talking “Please spare me the story of your Italian mafia connected family. That’s complete shite and you know it.”
“Fine.” I sighed. “Just don’t get pissed when I call in a favor and a sleek black Mercedes pu
lls up to the curb and a man in a suit tells you to get in.”
“You watch too many movies.”
“This from an A-list actor and movie director?”
His eyes narrowed.
“They’ll put you on ice.”
“The Godfather was on HBO last night again wasn’t it?”
“Hey Vin, we got a problem…” I said using my best Italian Mafioso voice, then rubbed my chin. “We go to the mattresses.”
Jay stared at me, hard. “Sure you don’t want to be in my next movie?”
“And have more fangirls chasing me around while I hide out on a carousel next to a unicorn that just so happens to hump my leg every time it comes down? Hell, no.”
“One instance.”
“It was enough.” And then I added, “It had pink sparkles. Do you have any idea what that does to a man?”
“Come on.” Oh, I knew that look. Gone was my teasing friend. Now he was all business; then again, he had good reason. He was one of Hollywood’s hottest action stars, had married a local girl from Seaside, cast her in his last movie and basically solidified himself as one of the freshest directors of the decade. And he had no trouble at all trying to convince every pretty face around him to hop on the train, including our mutual friends AD2.
It was bad enough that I was helping with the soundtrack to the next movie while still trying to finish my own album.
Knowing Jaymeson was basically like knowing every single hot name in the industry. What was even weirder was that for the most part, we all knew each other, and we were all friends.
“Think about it.” Jay rapped his knuckles against the counter top. “I mean at least it would get you out of the dark.”
“No thanks.” I cut him off, irritated that he’d pulled that card, angry that he’d use my own weakness against me.
When I looked up, I wanted to toss him on his ass and slam my fist into his face.
It was pity.
Always the pity with Jaymeson.
Like I was some wounded-ass bird that needed to be kept in a box.
He was the only one who knew what haunted me.
Because he was the only friend I’d ever really had.
Which was pathetic, all things considered.
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