I groaned to myself, and the second I stepped into my dark apartment, I dropped my load of shopping bags on the floor—and it fucking hit me. Here I was, facing down the barrel of another fucking night. And I had zero going on in my life right now that I actuallywantedto do.
Since when had nights sucked so fucking hard?
I used to live for nighttime.
Parties. Drinking. Girls in short skirts.
Music and good times.
Where had the fucking good times gone?
I mean… they were still happening all around me. I could go out. Meet up with friends for drinks. Find some girl in a short skirt…
I could hook up.
But I wasn’t gonna hook up.
I didn’t hook up with Taylor the other night like maybe I should’ve. Totally pussied out and took a cab home alone at like eleven o’clock instead.
I hadn’t even come close to touching anyone else since Courteney told me she was a virgin and kissed me on her bed.
I took my new shoes into the walk-in closet off my bedroom and set them on the built-in shelves. Holy Christ, I had a lot of shoes.
Jo was right.
I had a problem or something.
I grabbed a beer and flopped on the couch. Messaged Trey to find out where the party was at tonight. Trey always knew where the party was at.
I really didn’t want other women swarming on me—as they would if I went to a bar and met up with Trey—but what was the alternative?
Sit here and drink by myself?
Bad idea.
All I could think about, every time I was alone, was Courteney and how to make this right.
Or how to get away with all the wrong I wanted to do.
How to have her, somehow, without knocking Cary’s world off-kilter.
There was just no way I could figure out how to be fucking her on any sort of regular basis and Cary being okay with it.
Why would he be okay with it?
He wouldn’t be okay with it.
He told me to stay the fuck away from her. Because he knew me. He’d seen me with women—alotof them.
He’d seen me on tour, fucking around… like a typical twenty-something single male who happened to become a rock star practically overnight. A rock star who’d once been a total fucking geek and couldn’t get laid to save his life.
A rock star who liked being single and fucking around.
He didn’t want me anywhere near his little cupcake, and I got that. I didn’t have a baby sister, but I didn’t have to have one to understand his point of view on this.
A regular dude might be protective of his little sister under the circumstances, and pissed if he found out I’d fucked her.
But Cary?
