Paper Fools (Hearts and Arrows Book 1)

by Staci Hart

  Lex bit her lip.

  Kara eyed her in the mirror, and the lipstick tube stopped in its track. “Oh no. You’ve got that look.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lex pretended to wipe mascara from under her eyes in the mirror.

  “You can’t lie to me, Alexis Greene. You’ve got the itch to ditch, don’t you?”

  Lex sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it here, okay? Let’s go enjoy this wonderful display of musical talent. Come over tomorrow, and I’ll spill it.”

  Kara finished touching up her lipstick and snapped on the lid, one dark eyebrow climbing all the while. “All right. Let’s go watch Sid Vicious’s wannabe cousin spit all over a microphone, and tomorrow, you will tell all.”

  “Sid Vicious?” Lex snorted as she pushed the door open. “The least talented, most famous punk rocker to ever exist? Spike has about as much talent as a safety pin in Sid’s cheek.”

  Kara laughed at that. “Only in his most productive dreams.”

  Day Two

  Steaming water beat down on Apollo the next morning as he scrubbed a bar of soap across his chest, belting out the lyrics to “The Reflex” along with Duran Duran, the words floating from his wireless speaker and bouncing off the tiled walls.

  He was ecstatic.

  Dean was perfect.

  Apollo grinned involuntarily, holding back a laugh, marveling that he was giddy about the competition, considering he rarely won, especially against Dita. But something felt different. Something was different, though he didn’t know what that meant. Only that he felt good about the whole thing for once.

  He thought again about Dean and Jenny’s display and the fact that everyone had agreed that Dean was a sleaze bag. The guy was deeper than that, but first impressions were important, and he’d made a bad one. It was perfect.

  Apollo’s smile slipped as the thought crossed his mind that Dita had set up the encounter with Jenny, but he shook his head, shaking the idea away with it. No way could she have known whom he would choose.

  Apollo rinsed off and stepped out of the shower. Humming to himself, he dried off with a fluffy white towel before making his way to his closet, deciding on a lambswool sweater and tailored jeans. He stopped in front of his bathroom mirror and combed his golden hair, whistling along to the music as he ran a hand over his stubble, deciding to keep it for a few days more.

  His heart skipped in his chest when he thought about Daphne.

  This is it.

  He’d waited so long, and if he won, he could get her back. They could be together again after thousands of years apart. Dita would have to give him anything he asked if he won her token, and he would ask for Daphne.

  Apollo sat on his couch and looked in on Dean, who walked up the sidewalk to the warehouse where the band practiced.

  Dean could really be the player to win. Apollo had chosen so many before, and every one had been a bust, despite his best efforts. Apollo was terrible at the game; there was no doubt about it. He just didn’t have the cutthroat nature the other gods did, which wasn’t something he was sorry for, but it was his worst enemy when he competed.

  But Dean … Dean could be the key to unlock everything Apollo wanted, all he’d wished for. And with that thought, his smile broadened as Dean reached for the handle to the warehouse door.

  Dean dragged open the heavy metal door of the warehouse and stepped inside, pulling off his sunglasses, blinded and blinking as his eyes adjusted to the dark. But the second the door slammed shut, he froze, taking in the scene.

  His bandmates were bunched up in the middle of the room around their gear, shouting obscenities at each other. They turned to the sound of the door, and as soon as they saw him, all hell broke loose.

  “You’re dead, Dean!” Elliot screamed as he lunged toward him from across the room.

  Roe and Kevin grabbed him and pushed him back. Kevin, the skinny keyboardist, leaned into Elliot with all his weight, his sneakers scrabbling on the concrete for purchase. Roe, the bass player, stood tall and sturdy, holding Elliot in place as he strained furiously against them.

  Dean put his hands up. “Whoa, man. What’s all this?”

  “Don’t play games with me, asshole. Why Jenny? There are millions of girls in this city, and you could have any of them. But you go after my girlfriend? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Dude, I don’t know what you’re—”

  “No,” he growled. “I’m not hearing your bullshit. She fucking told me, you son of a bitch!” Elliot rushed Dean again, who backed up a step as Roe tightened his grip. Elliot screamed wordlessly, baring his teeth as he fought against Roe and Kevin’s grip.

  Roe shot Dean a look over his shoulder with his arms full of Elliot, wearing a look that could only be read as, Seriously?

  And somehow, Dean couldn’t find it in his cold, dead heart to feel bad about Jenny. She’d shown the kind of girl she was by coming over, just like all of them. They threw themselves at whatever they couldn't really have — and everyone knew just how inaccessible Dean was — so he couldn’t see it as a loss. Elliot was better off knowing that she was no different.

  “Listen,” Dean said flatly, “I didn’t plan it, and I didn’t go after her. She just showed up at my place and asked for it.”

  Roe shook his head like it was the worst possible thing he could have said, and the cords of Elliot’s neck strained as he struggled to break free. Dean kept talking, trying to convince him when he should have shut up.

  “Come on, man. You know how these groupies are, and Jenny wasn’t any different.”

  “Fuck you, Dean. Fuck you. Fuck this. All of it. I’m out. I didn’t sign up for this shit.” Elliot stopped fighting, and when Roe and Kevin relaxed their grip, he jerked himself free. He stormed toward the door and past Dean, slamming Dean’s shoulder hard, glaring at him.

  Dean threw his hands up again and took another step back. "It's not worth the fight, man."

  "Maybe not to you," Elliot shot.

  The room grew bright as the warehouse door opened, slipping back into darkness as it closed with a heavy bang. Two pairs of eyes turned to Dean.

  Roe moved to sit down on the ratty couch. “What the fuck, man?” He rested his elbows on his knees and ran his hands through his blond hair.

  Dean shrugged.

  “You do realize that we’re supposed to start recording next week? We just got signed, and you had to go do some dumbfuck thing like screw Jenny? Do you have any idea how far this is going to set us back?” Roe machine-gunned his questions.

  Dean waited in silence, not sure whether or not Roe expected an answer.

  Kevin shifted, his eyes narrow. “I just quit Taco Town, and if I have to go back to asking people if they want mild or hot sauce with a paper hat on, I will make you pay. I don't know how yet, but so help me God, I will do something so disturbing that you'll have nightmares about it for years." Kevin looked back and forth between Roe and Dean. "What are we gonna do now?"

  “Now I guess we find a new drummer,” Dean said.

  Roe rubbed a hand over his mouth as he looked at Dean, his face haggard. “We? You mean, you guess I find a new drummer. You’ve done enough damage. Just go home.”

  Dean took a long look at Roe, who fumed on the couch, and then at Kevin, whose arms were folded across his scrawny chest, his cheeks blotchy and red from exertion. There was nothing to do but leave and nothing to offer but silence, so Dean turned in silence and slid his sunglasses back on as he walked to the door.

  The winter sun beat down on Dean’s black leather jacket as he stepped off the curb and into the street, not really feeling much of anything as he walked to the subway. He didn't get it. Sure, he felt bad for shaking things up and for upsetting Roe, but Jenny, Elliot … everyone knew about him, about who he was, what he was. What he wasn’t. He never hid it, never covered it up with pretense, and the fact that anyone expected differently from him annoyed and frustrated him.

  He wished, not for the firs
t time or even the hundredth, that things in his life were simple and straightforward.

  Why couldn’t people just say what they want without the subtext, the guesswork? His entire life, people had put unrealistic expectations on him when he’d been open and perfectly clear about what he’d wanted. They always wanted more, and he had nothing to give.

  In his life, two people had understood — Roe and Audrey.

  The first time Dean ever spoke to Audrey was at the record store — of course, he’d seen her … everyone in his high school had seen Audrey but she was unapproachable, so far out of his league he couldn’t even fathom the conversation.

  He’d been sitting behind the counter with his guitar, playing along with Led Zeppelin’s “Trampled Under Foot” as Robert Plant wailed from the speakers. Roe was stocking a box of CDs a dozen feet away, and the music was up so loud that they didn’t hear the bell on the door chime as she walked in.

  Dean looked up all the same.

  Her hair was black as ink, her bangs short like Bettie Page, her lips just as red. She smiled at him, and he smiled back.

  Audrey made her way to the vinyl, and Dean turned his attention back to his strings. Everyone knew Audrey — she was gorgeous and unapologetic, brazen and confident, the girl that all the guys in school wanted to get with.

  She’d caught his eye more than a few times, and he’d caught her looking, too. He knew the signals and got them from most of the girls he knew, but with Audrey, something was different. She lacked the desperation the other girls had, that same desperation he saw in his mother.

  Rand, the owner, came out of the back room with another box full of CDs and dropped it on the counter with a thunk next to Dean’s Converse. “Hey, Dean-o. Why don’t you help your buddy out and get to stacking?”

  “Sure.” Dean set down his guitar and propped the box on his hip, heading to the rows of CDs where he deposited his haul and started the task of filing.

  Audrey moved to the section next to him and picked up a Jessica Simpson CD. “Hey,” she said as she turned to him, “you work here, right?”

  “Last I checked.”

  “Have you heard this?”

  “I have.”

  She looked impressed. “And is it any good?”

  “No, it’s garbage.”

  She laughed.

  Dean reached across her body — close enough to touch her, if he’d wanted to — and pulled out Stereolab’s Dots and Loops. “This is what you want. French electro-pop, kind of weird in the best way. It’s the kind of music I picture a girl like you riding her bike to.”

  Her black eyebrow climbed, and her red lips lifted into a sexy smile. “A girl like me?”

  He smirked. “Sure, why not?”

  She was still smiling, glancing down at the case as she took it from him. “Thanks. Dean, right?”

  “Yeah. Audrey?”

  “That’s me. I’ve seen you around, always with your buddy. No girlfriend?”

  “No. No girlfriend.”

  One corner of her lips lifted a little higher. “You’re not … gay, are you?”

  “No. Why do you ask?” He couldn’t keep himself from teasing her, knowing exactly why she’d asked.

  “You realize that just about every girl in school wants in your pants, right?”

  He shrugged, playing dumb. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  She laughed. “I find that hard to believe.”

  Dean turned and leaned against the shelf, watching her, reading her. “Are you one of these interested girls?”

  “Maybe.” Her eyes twinkled at him.

  “I thought you had a boyfriend.”

  Audrey rolled her eyes. “It’s different with college guys. They date, which means they fuck whoever they want when they’re at school. Why shouldn’t I?”

  He laughed. “Straight to the point, huh?”

  “I don’t care for games, and you don’t seem like the type to play them.” She tilted her head and inspected him. “You’re not even nervous, are you?”

  “Why should I be nervous?”

  “Most high school guys practically shit their pants when I talk to them, but if I’m being honest, I’m actually a little intimidated by you, Dean Monroe.” She looked amused and mildly confused.

  He looked her over, surprised and impressed by her honesty. “You’re different from the other girls.”

  “I don’t think you’d still be talking to me if I wasn’t.”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “So, can you check me out?” She held up the CD.

  “Too late,” he said with a smirk as he pushed off the shelves and made his way behind the register.

  He rang her up and handed her the bag, but before she walked away, she pulled out the receipt and jotted her number on it.

  “Call me, okay? Sooner than later,” she said as she handed it to him.

  “Count on it.”

  She turned and walked away, and Dean watched her hips swing all the way out the door. Roe turned when she passed him, slack-jawed, swinging his face back in Dean’s direction once the door closed.

  “Did Audrey fucking Winston just give you her number?”

  Dean held up the receipt.

  Roe rolled his eyes and shook his head. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. How the fuck?”

  Dean shrugged. “She just gave it to me.”

  “Tell me you’re going to call her.”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  “What do you think she wants?”

  Dean raised an eyebrow.

  “You think?” Roe asked, disbelieving.

  “What else could she want? You think she wants a boyfriend?”

  “No, probably not. What are you gonna do? I mean, you’re a virgin, and she’s … she’s Audrey Winston.”

  “I’m pretty sure I can figure it out.”

  “Well, no shit. But you’re not going to impress her since your skills in the bedroom are a grand total of nothing and never. How are you not freaking out?”

  Roe was giving him that look again, the one that reminded him that he didn’t feel what other people did, that he was somehow not normal.

  “I don’t know. I’m just not worried about it.”

  Roe shook his head. “You’re superhuman,” he said as he made his way back to his box of inventory.

  Dean looked down at Audrey’s number again and smiled, curious about her. An unfamiliar flutter of excitement flickered in his chest at the prospect of seeing her again.

  Dean called her the next night after he got off work and agreed to meet at her place once her mom left to work the night shift. He wondered if he should be nervous as he walked up the hall. He wondered why he wasn’t. But once she opened the door all his wonder took a swan dive.

  She stood in the doorframe wearing a very tight dress and a very wicked smile.

  “Hey,” she said, looking him over.

  “Hey,” he echoed, doing the same.

  “Come on in.”

  He followed her into the living room, and she motioned to the couch.

  “Want a drink?”

  “Sure.”

  “Whiskey okay?”

  He didn’t know, so he said, “All right.”

  Audrey poured him a whiskey and Coke and sat down next to him, handing it over. Dean took the glass and then a sip, trying not to cough as the liquor burned a trail of fire through his chest.

  Audrey watched him with curious eyes. “Can I ask you something, Dean?”

  “Shoot.” He rested the glass on his thigh.

  “Have you ever had a girlfriend?”

  He shook his head, not sure how much to say, not wanting to say anything. “I’m not exactly boyfriend material.”

  She rested her elbow on the back of the couch. “No? Is there anything I should know?”

  Dean shifted in his seat. “I just know I can’t be what they want. I can’t give them what they need from me.”

  “Well, I’m going to make this easy for you. I won
’t ask very much from you, partly because I need to know you won’t ask much from me. Let’s keep this simple. I don’t want anything other than whatever we have, whenever we have it. Fuck who you want, and I’ll do the same. We won’t owe each other anything. No obligation, no strings. The minute you put strings on me, I’m out.”

  Dean nodded, relieved, but one question burned in his mind. “Why me?”

  “Because you’re the only guy I know who I think can handle me, and I think I might be the only one who can handle you.”

  She took the drink from his hand and set it on the coffee table. As she slid a hand inside his jacket, she leaned toward him until her lips were inches from his neck.

  His nerves fired with anticipation.

  “No girlfriends, so I’m assuming you’ve never …”

  He turned and looked her in the eye as he gave the slightest shake of his head. She smiled, and his heart raced.

  “Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried,” he whispered.

  He slipped a hand into her hair to pull her to him — their lips met in a way that was natural and easy and exactly what they needed, what they wanted.

  And he found himself in the comfort of her touch.

  It went on that way for months until she left for college. They went to a couple of shows, and she’d visit him at the record store every once in a while, but they kept their promise to each other, which wasn’t hard.

  They were both broken, unable to give their hearts away. Which was why they were perfect together.

  Sex healed him somehow. He could keep all his emotions packed down inside of him in the dark, but the release he found in her was a small joy, something that made him feel alive. The contact, the touch, was a drug after a life without.

  He supposed it was as close as he’d ever come to a girlfriend even though they were never exclusive. She’d encouraged him to find other girls, he assumed to keep him at arm’s length, to try to stop him from falling for her. But there was no danger of that. He was too damaged to care about anyone, not even himself.

  She told him to be honest with them, even though they’d never believe him — and was right. But he released himself of responsibility because they always knew the truth even though they’d thought they would be different, that they could change him.