“But you’re going to anyway,” I say hopefully.
“I might have kept up with the Kardashians on occasion,” he says with a deep grimace. “And HGTV gets a lot of play at my place. Once JT came over and found me like four episodes into aLove It or List Itmarathon. He mocked me, but by the time Shane came over, he found JT and me in a heated debate about pendant lighting. And he just gave us a look and then turned around and walked right back out the door.” Kevin laughs at the memory, and it’s so easy to join in. He’s got a great, warm laugh.
I open my mouth to teasingly ask about his intense stance on pendant lighting, but then a loud cheer drowns out anything I’m going to say—apparently JT has stopped making out with Miranda long enough to engage in an arm-wrestling contest with one of the crew members, and a ring of people is forming around them, cheering them on. I don’t see Miranda, but Leigh is doing well, sitting with her legs across Shane’s lap while a group of them does shots.
The increase in noise and chaos skates across my nerves, and I can tell my discomfort shows on my face. “Sorry,” I say again. “I’m not used to all this.”
“I totally get it.” He toys with his beer bottle. “If you don’t want to stay, I could call you a cab or something.”
My heart sinks. I mean, I can see how he’d probably much rather hang out with someone who didn’t just accuse him of running a harem, or who didn’t admit to liking horror movies because they feel safe . . .
“Or,” he says. “If you still want to hang out, we could go somewhere else. We could find a bar or something, but those will be loud, too, this time of night.” He pauses uncertainly. “The hotel I’m staying at is nearby. No expectations or anything, I promise,” he says hurriedly. “But it would be a hell of a lot quieter.”
My heart pounds, and I’m not sure if it’s more at the thought of hanging out with him or the hotel room part. Honestly, I find myself wondering if it would really be so bad to just forgo my caution—and my pride, I suppose, after my judgmental rant—for one night and get myself good and laid. It’s been a while (way too long, my friends would say) and I can’t deny how attracted I am to him.
Dating a rock star, hoping for anything serious, would be a terrible idea, for lots of reasons. But hooking up with one, getting mine and getting gone—is that really as bad an idea as I made it seem to my friends? Especially with a guy who doesn’t seem at all like the overgrown frat boy his friends are.
Really, though, I actually want to spend more time with him. I want to talk with him, learn more about him, and I’m not sure how much of a problemthatis.
Either way . . .
“Yeah,” I say, smiling. “That sounds great.”
Three
Kevin
Iknow Shane saw us leave the party, and I already know what he’s going to say about this tomorrow—me leaving the party to spend a few hourstalkingto Maya, and probably not doing anything else. But I was enjoying spending time with her. Sometimes I wish my lifestyle afforded me more opportunities to get to know girls who don’t expect to take their clothes off inside of ten minutes of meeting me.
Maya makes me feel lucky just to be in her presence, and if Shane doesn’t get what that feels like, I guess the joke is on him.
We go back to my hotel room—which is one bedroom off of a bigger suite that I share with the band. “We can sit out here,” I tell her, “but Shane and the guys are likely to plow through with their conquests at some point. Or we can go back to my room.There’s a couch in there, and I promise not to try anything unless you want me to.”
I bite my lip.That last bit sounded more hopeful than I meant it. Maya is hot, and the longer I listen to her, the more I want to kiss her. She’s infinitely more interesting than I was hoping, and that’s a decently high bar, given how gorgeous she is. It’s not that often I meet girls who get prettier the longer I’m with them, though maybe that has something to do with how clear it’s becoming that I don’t have a chance with her.
And yet, I still want to take her back to my room and hang out with her where Shane won’t blow through and harass me about still having all of my clothes on.
“Your room is fine,” Maya says. “I’ve seen enough of Miranda without her shirt on for one night.”
I laugh and show her back. I grab us both sodas from the mini bar and sit down on the end of the bed. Maya, as I expected, stretches out on the couch.
“You’re sure you want to hang out with me?” she asks. “Even if we probably won’t sleep together tonight?”
That’s more hope than I thought I had. “Weprobablywon’t?”
Maya shrugs. “Well, I never say never.”
“Ouch,” I say. “Good to know where I stand with you. But yeah, I still want to hang out.” It’s true, especially here, away from the noise and the partying. I’ve been tagging along with Shane and JT to parties since we were fifteen—and sneaking out early to get some peace and quiet just as long. Half the girls I’ve hooked up with were the type to follow me, and what the forum groupies don’t seem to have figured out yet was that talking to me one-on-one upped their chances with me by a hundredfold.
Not that Maya appears to care about her chances. I’ve made it pretty clear she can have me if she wants me, and she’s made it equally clear that she doesn’t.
Still, something about her intrigues me.
“So, the girls you came with,” I say. “Are they your roommates?”
“No,” Maya says. “Just friends. I live at home with my family, actually. As uncool as that sounds.”
“Eh,” I say. “Until the band started having success and moved out to LA, I was still living with my mom. All of us in the band were living with our families, actually. Saving money and trying to get the music thing going.”
