“Thatta girl!” Lauren says, and as soon as I set it down, she grabs the bottle and turns it up. “It’s such bullshit and for what? To end up married?”
“To not be alone.” As soon as I say that, a foggy memory from the night I stayed at Stones bubbles to the surface. He asked me to stay because he didn’t like to be alone. And my chest goes a little tight, because I think he’s just as vulnerable as I am.
She snorts and takes another swig of wine. “Can you imagine us married? God bless the fucker that takes the plunge with me. He’ll be in for it.”
I’m a little lost in my thoughts, wondering why he’d admit he hates being alone to me– I guess as drunk as I was it seemed safe. I grab the cutting board and chuck it in the sink before turning on the taps. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I feel emotionally stunted, like an idiot for falling for him. I turn the tap off and dry my hands, shaking my head. He’s too nice. Too hot. Too famous. Something has to give, and I’m terrified when it does, it’s going to be like a sink hole opening up and swallowing me whole.
There’s a knock on the door, and I panic. He’s nearly an hour early. “Shit,” I say.
Lauren rolls her eyes and hops off the counter to head to the door. “It’s not him.”
I hear the front door open then close and Lauren comes back with a white box which she places on the counter.
She points at the box. “Strawberry cake, it’s his favorite.”
“Should I be concerned you know so much random shit about these guys?
“Hello. Google is your friend.” She smiles. “Just take it out of the box and tell him you cooked it. Men love that June Beaver shit.”
“June Beaver?” I snort.
“Yeah, Leave it to Beaver’s mom.”
“Okay, first of all how do you even know about Leave it to Beaver, and second, her name is June Cleaver.”
Lauren shrugs. “Beaver, Cleaver… they all have to do with meat.”
“Meat?”
“A beaver needs man meat, a cleaver cuts the meat…” She goes to the oven and opens it, peeking inside. The savory smell of carrots and buttered crust wafts out.
“God, you are the most perverted person I’ve ever met.”
She turns from the oven and grins. “It’s a gift.”
“Maybe you and Rush are soulmates.”
“Nah, he was just fun for a good fuck. I can’t handle him. He farts too much.”
All I can do is shake my head. She grabs a dish from one of my cabinets, takes the cake out of the box and plops it down on the plate. “There,” she says, folding the box up and tucking it underneath her arm. “I’m leaving, but…” she points at me as she back toward the door. “I want the dirty details, just saying...”
I glare at her.
“I mean it, that poor boy has been hanging out with you forever with no action. Bless him. You better give him something. A hand job, a blow job, hell, at this point, I’m sure a good ole’ dry hump would do.”
I laugh. “Okay, Lauren.”
“Love you,” she says before she opens the door and steps out.
I go about cleaning the kitchen before I change into a tank and pair of shorts. I’m anxious, and I hate this feeling, the uneasy knot in my stomach, the jittery hands. He’s just a guy – that I really like even though I’ve tried my damnedest not to.
The doorbell rings and I take a deep breath as I head toward the entrance. I check my lipstick in the foyer mirror before I pull open the door to Stone Steele leaned against the doorframe, his head tilted down, and his hair in his face. He glances up and smirks. My heart does that stupid pitter-patter thing that makes me feel like a dumb teenager with a crush. I fight the smile; I fight to maintain my air of fuck it all. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Shithead.
“Hey,” I say, and move out of the doorway to let him inside.
He laughs. “I love how excited you get about shit.” He walks up to me, takes me by the waist, and slams his lips over me with a single, hard kiss that takes my breath away. And how often do guys really take your breath away? I’m so screwed. “You look pretty,” he says.
“Thanks.” I feel heat creep over my cheeks, and I turn back to the kitchen before he can see me blush.
“God, it smells fucking amazing.” He inhales. “I love home cooked shit.”
“Home cooked shit?” I glance over my shoulder at him with a smirk.
“Yeah, home cooked shit.” He cocks a brow.
“Well,” I go to the oven and pull the pie out, “I make no promises as to how it will taste. It may taste like shit.” I glance down at the golden crust with steam rising from the little vents. “But it looks good.”
“Hell yeah, it does.” Stone grabs a plate from the counter, stopping dead in his tracks as he stares straight ahead. “Oh my god. Did you make that?” he asks, pointing at the cake.
“Oh, yeah. Yeah…”
“Holy fuck, woman. Strawberry is my favorite.”
“Huh, didn’t know.”
Sometimes Lauren is a genius; I’ll give her that.
_________
We’re lying on my bed watching Dexter on Netflix. I can’t help but think how ridiculous this is – us lying in the bed, our shoulders touching. He’s a rock star, a whore of one at that. Yet, here we are, fully clothed on the bed.
“Jesus, Lindsay is an evil genius,” Stone says, excitement lacing his voice. “This shit is amazing.”
I glance at the screen, watching the character carefully hang plastic wrap.
“So,” I say, “he’s making a kill tent?”
“Kill room.”
“And a real person, with a job, has the time to just tape up sheets of plastic?”
“Wouldn’t take that long… probably like an hour at most.”
“Wow, you sound like you’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“Says the girl who is all about movies with people sewn together mouth to asshole.”
“That really affected you, huh?” I laugh.
“Scarred me,” he says, and shifts, placing his arm around me and pulling me into his chest. “Can’t believe you’ve never watched Dexter,” he says.
“Shit like this scares me.”
“Again, this upsets you but that centipede movie is fine?”
“Yeah?”
He laughs. “You’re demented.”
“Fuck you.”
Without warning, Stone grabs my face and slams his lips over mine, his finger sliding along my jawline and into my hair. I part my lips and brush his tongue. The softness of the kiss makes me weak as his lips tenderly move against mine. He shifts in the bed until he’s hovering over me. He stops for a second, barely moving his lips away from mine. His dark eyes stare down at me as his fingers thread through my hair, and his gaze drops to my lips. “God,” he inhales, “there’s just something about you…” his lips graze mine again. And it’s in tender moments like this that I feel my weakest, my most vulnerable. It’s the sincerity of it that terrifies me, because, if I’m honest, I’m not sure that I’ve ever known what love actually feels like, and this – it feels safe. He feels so safe that it scares me. I pull him closer to my body, the heat from his skin like a shot of heroin.
“Shit,” he groans before he kisses me deep and hard and brutal. “You drive me crazy.” Another hard kiss. My hands glide under the bottom of his shirt, my fingers roaming over his warm skin, and I know I’m done for when he fists my hair.
“I hate you,” I whisper against his lips, and I can feel him smirk.
“That’s good, because love would make this messy.”
And it’s already a mess.
I pull his shirt over his shoulders and he breaks the kiss long enough for me to tug it over his head. He rolls to the side, bringing me with him until I’m straddling his hips. I stare at him, topless and tattooed, his dark hair messy. I watch my fingers as I glide them down his stomach to the waist of his jeans. My heart hammers against my ribs. There’s this hesitation I’m figh
ting because he feels real to me. I don’t want to lose him. And once we go down this road, there is no turning back. What’s more important here? Knowing what he feels like inside me, being able to say for some amount of time we had something, or being able to always feels safe with him? Friend or lover, because there is no in-between.
His long fingers skim my cheek. “That’s not what I want,” he whispers.
My pulse pounds harder because it’s all too real. “Then,” I hesitate feeling more than foolish, “what do you want from me?”
“This,” he drags my face toward his and kisses me with such reverence it sends that electric buzz coursing through my veins. “And so much more,” he whispers as his hand presses against the center of my chest. “I want so much more with you.”
Words can do funny things to you and those, well, they push me over that cliff I’ve been teetering on the edge of. I kiss him again. Hard, hungry, angry because he makes me feel things that scare me.
And eventually, he lies back on the pillow and drags me onto his chest, just holding me like I’m the only thing that may keep him grounded. His fingers brush through my hair as I listen to the rhythmic beating of his heart beneath my ear. This right here, lying in each other’s arms the way we are – it feels more intimate than sex. And it is. Sex is human nature. It’s survival of a species when you get down to it. It takes nothing to fuck someone. This honest affection – this takes something. I’m not some other girl to him, and he’s definitely not some other guy. And I am more than screwed because how do you ignore something like this?
You can’t.
23
Stone
I shift in bed before I open my eyes. Phoenix’s hair is fanned out on the pillow, and I brush it to the side before pulling myself closer to her. I nuzzle my face into the crook of her neck and she moves ever so slightly, groaning. She fits perfectly against me, and I realize it’s shit like this – a sense of belonging, of normalcy – this feeling is what I’ve been chasing.
All my life I’ve been chasing things that few people ever obtain, and while it was fun, while it was nice for a minute, I’ve always been restless. This is what makes you happy in life, not money or fame. Simply having someone to wake up to. To hold.
I didn’t fuck her last night. I could have, I wanted to, but some things, I guess you want to hold out on. Some things hold more meaning when you hold out until you just can’t. And maybe it’s because sex has never held meaning before. It’s always been a means to an end, a primitive satisfaction, but with her, I want it to mean something. And that’s a first.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. Phoenix grumbles, swatting at the table. I reach over her and grab it before pressing it to my ear. “Yeah?”
“Dude,” Rush says. “What the hell is up with you? You’ve been MIA.”
“Just taking a break, I guess.”
“A break, huh? No way, I think you are up to some shady shit.”
“Rush,” I sigh, “what the fuck do you want?”
“There’s a party in the Hills tonight.”
I glance at Phoenix. “I don’t wanna go to some fucking Hills party.”
“You suck. Who the fuck am I supposed to tag team girls with then? Your bro’s saying he’s got the shits.”
“Use Pax.”
“Fuck that.”
“I’ll call you later.” And I hang the phone up.
“Tag team girls?” Phoenix says, her voice husky with sleep. “Wow.”
My face heats. “It’s Rush, come on, what do you expect?”
“I really need to make Lauren go to the clinic…”
“Probably.” I laugh before pinching her side. “Want to do something fun today?”
“I’m not awake,” she groans.
I glance out the window. The sun’s bright. The sky is blue. So I do what any reasonable man-child would do: I jump on the bed and basically body slam over her.
“What are you doing?”
I grab her, tickling under her arms. She screams and punches at me. “Waking you up,” I say.
“Oh my god. I’m going to pee. Get off. Get off!”
I let go of her and she hops up, running to the bathroom. When she comes out she glares at me before stumbling back to bed. “I hate you right now.”
“That’s fine.” I grin. “Get dressed.”
“Why?”
“Not telling you.”
“Okay, then I’m not getting dressed.”
“Ah, fuck that. I went to a cemetery with you after you made me watch that sick movie.”
She rolls her eyes. “Come on,” I say. “Get dressed. We’re going to do normal people shit.”
_________
People are everywhere. Kids. Screaming children are running around like little maniacs, and it smells like feet. Phoenix glances over her shoulder at me with this shit-eating grin on her face. “I’ve actually never been here,” she says.
“What? You’ve never been to the aquarium?”
“No,” she shakes her head.
“But, didn’t you grow up here?” I ask just as some kid with a chocolate covered mouth bumps into my leg and falls right on his ass. I go to help him up, but his mom snatches him away.
“Yes, but Pam couldn’t be bothered with stuff like this. I’m sure the noise would have made her hangover worse.” She rolls her eyes before facing toward the front again.
I grab her hand, threading my fingers through hers as we make our way into the dark tunnel. People’s voices echo off the glass as the conveyer belt takes us through into the bright blue tube. Tropical fish dart through the water. Sharks slowly swim above us. Phoenix tightens her grip on my hand. “You okay?” I ask.
“Yeah, just…a lot of people in a really tiny space.”
I get the way anxiety creeps through you, and I want her to feel safe so I let go of her hand and pull her close to my side, watching through the glass as a whale shark overshadows the tunnel.
“Holy shit,” she says. “That thing’s huge.”
“Yeah.”
A shrill cry pierces my ears. I cringe as the parent goes shoving his way through the crowd with an angry little toddler perched on his shoulders.
“What would happen if this thing cracked?” she whispers.
“The tunnel?”
“Yeah,” she exhales, “you know, like in Jaws 4 when the shark starts ramming into the glass and it cracks and all those people get stuck in there.”
I stare through the thick glass at all the sharks and shit, my chest getting a little tight. “Fuck, I don’t know. You know what?” I grab her hand again and lead her through the winding maze and out into the open atrium again. “You need to lay off the horror flicks.”
She laughs for a second, but suddenly stops, her eyes going wide. “Oh, my god.”
I follow her gaze across the room to a sign that says: Penguins.
She squeezes my hand hard. “They have penguins,” she whispers.
“Yeah.”
“Those are my favorite animals. Poor confused bastards, waddling around, unable to fly, and dressed up in a little suit.”
“Well, come on then.” I drag her toward the stairs and down the corridor with an arrow pointing toward the ‘confused bastards’.
The hallway opens into a room with a large glass wall. The smell is awful, like open ass and mulch, and it takes my breath away for a second. “Jesus. Fuck.” I cough, but she’s already across the room with her face plastered to the snotty, handprint covered window. This room isn’t near as crowded as the others. There’s only a few kids in here. And only one’s crying. I guess birds aren’t as terrifying as sharks or some shit. I stop behind her and place my hand on the small of her back.
“Oh, they are so cute,” she says.
I watch them stagger around. “They look fucking drunk.”
A woman next to me clears her throat and I turn around. She cuts her eyes down toward her kid who has his finger crammed up his nose just staring at me. I wait, but she do
esn’t ask for a picture or an autograph, so I shrug before peeking over Phoenix’s shoulder, watching one of the birds waddle around on fake ice. “I guess they are cute little fucks, aren’t they?”
The woman clears her throat again. Again, I glance at her, then at her kid before turning back to the window. One of the birds runs up to another one and pecks it right on the face. I laugh. “Oh, shit that one’s a little bitch!”
“Excuse me,” the woman says so I turn around– again.
“Yeah?”
“Children,” she says, cutting her gaze back down to her kid whose ears she has earmuffed with her hands.
“Yes, children,” I say, because I have no fucking clue what she is trying to tell me.
“Your language.”
“Oh, shit–sorry.”
She rolls her eyes before yanking her kid to the side, mumbling as she escorts him out of the room.
“She’s lovely,” Phoenix says.
“Yep.”
A tiny door in the exhibit swings open and one of the workers pops out with a bucket of fish. All the birds come hopping over, flapping their stubby wings, screeching and pecking each other. Phoenix is still glued to the window with this huge, adorable grin on her face. God, if she could touch one, I bet she’d shit herself. So… I tap on the window, but the woman feeding the birds doesn’t even look up. I tap again.
“What are you doing?” Phoenix asks.
I smile before I bang my fist over the glass. That time the lady looks up with a scowl on her face. She narrows her eyes as she peers through the sticky film on the window and takes a few steps toward me. This is when I have to use this entire international rock star to my advantage. I smile and wave. Her brow wrinkles before she takes one more step toward me, then her jaw drops just enough for me to know she recognizes me. I motion for her to come out with my finger.
“What are you doing, Stone?” Phoenix asks again.
“Don’t worry about it, just keep staring at your little bastards,” I say, taking her shoulders in my hand and spinning her back toward the glass. The woman tosses a few more fish out to the penguins before hunching down and crawling back through the exhibit door. A few minutes later she comes into the viewing room, winded with red cheeks.
Stone: A Standalone Rock Star Romantic Comedy (Pandemic Sorrow) Page 12
