by LJ Evans
I stood there, staring at the empty space, as the people around me ebbed and flowed.
Eventually, Rob took mercy on me and brought Trista over. “Phillips, this is my wife, Trista.”
“At least for today I’m his wife,” Trista said with a bright smile that let me know she was both teasing and sending him a message.
“This is why I love her. Keeps me on my toes.”
“And honest,” she retorted.
“Truer words could not be spoken. Mia hasn’t been around all this before. She’s green as a new blade of grass, make sure she doesn’t get trampled?” Rob asked before he kissed his wife’s cheek and then departed.
“Come on, I’ll show you to our seats,” Trista offered, and I followed in her wake, because really, that’s what it felt like. Like I was following a supermodel as part of her posse.
We had seats just to the right of the stage, in an area corded off from the regular crowd. I guess my VIP pass was really a VIP pass. I’d never had that before. Even as Jake’s little sister, we’d still been stuck in the regular bleacher section. Trista turned to me as soon as we sat down.
“Tell me, how exactly have you snagged our unproclaimed bachelor?” She wasn’t asking in a spiteful or snotty way like I half expected. Instead, it was as if she really was curious, like Jake and Cam would be curious about any person who’d entered my world. Slightly protective.
“I’m not sure you’d call him snagged,” I said with a weak smile.
“Then you don’t know Derek.”
“That’s true. I really don’t,” I said, even though I felt like I did know Derek, but not in the way she was talking about.
“Derek has never, ever, and I mean ever, brought a girl backstage. Nor has he ever, after the show, taken any of the girls who have presented themselves to his hotel room.”
I wasn’t really surprised by this now. It was what he’d protested that first day at the caves, and had now been validated by his band, and yet it was still strange to me.
“Why is that?” I asked.
Trista shrugged. “I think it has a lot to do with his dad, but you’d have to ask him.”
“Because he lived at the PlayBabe Mansion?”
Trista smiled. “Not just his dad. Derek and his brother, Dylan, lived there too. I think their mom was actually a ‘Babe’ or something. They all worked for Hugo.”
I just stared at her. She laughed.
“See, story he needs to tell.”
This gave me more pieces of the Derek puzzle that I was collecting. I thought about it while the first band was up—some country blues band that wasn’t bad, but I couldn’t concentrate on. They were local to Oklahoma City. They weren’t registering to me because they didn’t matter… I wouldn’t see them again.
Once Derek came onstage, my brain went blank in a different way. I’d heard him at the fundraiser. Throaty and sexy, playing music that had made me tingle and reminded me of Otis Redding and all the greats. Reminded me of “Fall” and “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed. But, to be fair, I’d had a lot going on at the fundraiser. I’d had a lot of emotions going through me. I’d been worried about Cam and my parents. Even then, he’d drawn me. It was what had started the whole player conversation with Cam. Now I knew that he was literally a PlayBabe offshoot. Weird. Strange.
Tonight, with my focus solely on him, it was different. The surprising thing about Derek onstage at this show was all the different instruments he played. He hadn’t done that the night of the fundraiser. Here, he played dueling keyboards with Mitch and a wood flute that reminded me of Peter Pan. In one song, he pounded some kind of African drum, alternating beats with Rob on the regular drum set in a way that had my veins throbbing. He was extremely talented, in more than just a singer / songwriter way.
I still noticed his smooth movements and the way he drew the eyes in the room, including mine. The whole crowd, men and women alike, were drawn to him. Even when he’d pop back to Rob, drumming away, or stand next to Lonnie as they jammed together, the eyes of everyone were really on him. There was something dynamic and beautiful about him, like watching an eagle soar through the sky. You couldn’t really look anywhere else, even though the snowy mountains might be just as compelling. It was the eagle you watched.
The thrilling part? He still watched me. Like he had at the fundraiser. And the scary thing? The audience noticed. Especially the girls sexed out in the front row, hoping he’d call one of them backstage. They noticed him watching me and stared daggers the way lascivious fangirls do. The way hopeful hunters do. I hated it, but loved it. Good Girl Mia wanted to run and hide because she never wanted to be the center of attention with people hating her.
Adventurous Mia, New Mia, kind of wanted to shove it in their faces but didn’t know how.
Trista, on the other hand, just stared back and eventually flipped a couple of the tramps off and told the muscled security guards to make sure they didn’t make it anywhere near backstage. People listened to Trista. She was the kind of person that anyone listened to.
Toward the end of the concert, before the encore that would be demanded, Trista grabbed my arm and hauled me backstage again as the tramps in the front row screamed obscenities that even Cam would have blushed at.
“We’ll miss the final song,” I said.
“Believe me, you don’t want to be out there when they're done,” she said in a tone that reminded me of Cam watching out for me all over again.
“Why?”
“Those tramps in the front row? They’ll be obnoxious. It gets crazy when they are all vying to be seen by the band. Better to know what happens but not have to watch it.”
We sat on a couch in the dressing room while we waited for the guys.
“How do you do it?” I asked, truly curious.
“Well, I’m not a band wife. I don’t tag along to every event.”
“Isn’t that hard when they are on the road?”
“Yeah, but I don’t get all of him that way, anyway. He’s thinking music the whole time, or doing that stupid caving. You do know they cave, right?”
I blushed. “Yes. I kind of like it.”
“Really?”
I nodded and she laughed.
“Well, no wonder you’ve snagged him.”
“What do you do then?” I asked, even though I’d heard something about modeling.
“I’m a hand and foot model.” That surprised me because she could be a whole-body model in my opinion. She seemed to read my mind. “Modeling is exhausting. Plus, I like to eat. Anyway, the hand and foot thing pays well, and then I have an organic makeup company on the side.”
“On the side?” I looked at her, flabbergasted.
“Well, it’s just an itty-bitty start-up, but it’s coming along.”
“Wow.”
“Thanks.” She smiled almost shyly.
The band came in. They were sweaty and smiling, hyped up but exhausted too. The energy in the room could have reached the ceiling. Derek pulled off his shirt just as our eyes met, and he smiled that smile that was quickly becoming a necessity of mine just as the view of his six pack abs made my heartbeat increase to the fluttering of a hummingbird.
He reached for a clean t-shirt and pulled it on before loping over to me and squashing down beside me on the couch. “So, how’d it go?”
I stared. “You know you were fabulous.”
He grinned. “I was?”
I hit him on the shoulder, and on my way back, he grabbed my hand and entwined our fingers again. George entered. I found I didn’t really like George. His energy was so not Derek that I wondered how they had even been put together.
“Derek, there are some radio folks outside that want an interview.” He stated it like Derek didn’t have a choice.
Derek groaned, kissed the back of my hand, and said he’d be back in a bit. The rest of the band and the crew all packed up while Derek was gone. I tried to help, but no one would let me. Tri
sta waited for Rob, and then they took off back to the hotel.
Pretty soon, it became obvious that the other guys were just waiting because of me. Derek hadn’t said if he wanted me to stay or if I should just go back to the hotel. It felt awkward.
“You guys don’t have to wait with me, you must be really exhausted,” I told them. I grabbed my bag and stood. “In fact, I probably shouldn’t wait either, right?”
“If you leave, Derek will go fuckin’ crazy. You should definitely stay,” Mitch said.
“Okay.” I sat back down. “But you guys go. Really. I’ll be fine.”
They seemed hesitant.
“Oh my God, I’m not fifteen. Go. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay, okay,” Lonnie said with his goofy smile, and the boys all shuffled off while I waited.
At first, I flipped through my Instagram account again, posting some pictures of the venue. But I didn’t want to hit the pictures that would tear at my heart, so I flipped over to another site. Tiredness washed over me, and I found my eyes drooping. It was almost one o’clock. I fought it, but fell asleep on the couch in the dressing room.
A gentle stroking on my hair woke me. I looked up into Derek’s face. He wasn’t smiling. “I couldn’t find you,” he said throatily.
“Sorry.”
“Goddamn it, stop apologizing.” It wasn’t said in anger, but it was probably the most frustrated I’d seen him, ever.
“Habit.”
He stared at me in the semi-darkness. “We’ll break it. Just like we broke the pantsuits.”
I expected his tease to be accompanied by his gorgeous smile, but it wasn’t. He was serious. It wasn’t his normal mode; the happy guy seemed his norm. But I was finding this solemn side came out with more ease than I’d expected at first.
He pulled me to my feet, hand going to my hair.
“I saw your fan club tonight.”
He watched my lips.
I cleared my throat.
“Trista says you never…”
“I don’t believe in having sex just to have sex.”
My turn to stare, because what? What twenty-something guy didn’t want sex without strings? Wasn’t that what had started this whole three week journey? Him wanting to sleep with me? I knew he wanted me. He’d pretty much said that. But I could also hear Hayden again, telling me that my imagination stopped me from seeing reality. My holes in my heart started to bleed a little.
“I don’t know what to say to that,” was all I could say.
This did bring a smile to his face. Not his huge one. Not the one that stretched his cleft into its own smiley face, but one that did lighten his mood.
“I have a solution for that,” he said with so much innuendo that I was right back to not having to doubt. He did want me.
He proved it by kissing me. A slow kiss that burned from my toenails, slowly up my legs to the pit of my belly, and up until it reached my heart where it caused melting to occur all over again.
I tangled my fingers in those slightly too long locks of dark chocolate and opened my mouth and soul to him as he took them both with his tongue and his musician fingers and his smile. We were lost in a moment of heat until the lights went out on us.
I felt his smile on my lips. “I think they’re kicking us out. Has Miss Mia ever been kicked out of anywhere?”
I shook my head because I couldn’t talk. He grabbed my hand and then his guitar case, and the scent that always surrounded him wafted up from it.
“What is that smell?”
“What smell?”
I pointed to the guitar case. He pulled it up and took a whiff. “I don’t smell anything.”
“It smells like wood wax, or honey and musk, or…”
“Ah. The guitar oil.”
Guitar oil. That was a puzzle piece that finally clicked into place. He smelled like guitar oil. How very, very à propos. And sexy. Guitar oil and him would be embedded into my brain until… well, forever.
We made our way outside, and the muggy air hit us like a fry basket. We looked around. “How are we getting back?” I asked.
Derek looked as if the same thought had suddenly hit him. “I guess we’re walking.”
I looked down at my wedges.
“Butterbeer,” I said just as he said, “Shit.”
He laughed at me, “Butterbeer?”
I shrugged. “There are a lot more interesting words in the world than cuss words.”
He kissed me as if that was the best response he’d ever heard.
“I’ll call a taxi,” he said.
By the time we got back to the hotel, it was close to two. I was dead on my feet, and I knew he must be twice as tired. We were supposed to leave at seven a.m. It was a two and a half hour drive to Alabaster Caverns, and they only allowed the wild caving the guys wanted to do from eight until three, so we had to be there early if they wanted to spend a good chunk of the day underground.
I went to my door, and Derek didn’t even ask, he just came with me and followed me into my room, stripping down to his skivvies at my bedside while I watched. He beckoned to me, and I stood motionless. Because hadn’t he just said he didn’t believe in sex just for sex? We stared at each other until he must have realized that I was incapable of moving to him.
He slowly approached me, watching to see if I’d fly. I was getting good at not flying away scared, but flying to him was still harder. “Little Bird, there is no way in hell I’m making love to you tonight, so don’t give me that look like I’m about to steal from the cookie jar.”
He grinned, but it was a tired grin.
He tugged at the hem of my tank. “Don’t get me wrong. I want to make love to you. But when we make love, I want it to be an all-night adventure. If not an all-day and all-night adventure. I want to hear you moan many, many times.”
I was so confused. Sex? Not sex? Where did I fit? His fingers, skimming my stomach as he pulled at my top, did nothing to help my confusion.
I let him lift my shirt over my head, wrapping it behind me so that he could pull me toward him with it. I was captured by my own shirt. He kissed me tenderly on the lips.
“And tonight, I can barely think, let alone have the self-control to make you moan as many times as you deserve.”
My body was a puddle of mush and my brain went right along with it.
“For tonight, you’re just going to have to put up with me spooning you in a desperate attempt to believe that we’ll have our moment sometime very soon.”
Shirt gone, he tugged at the button on my jeans and then kissed my belly button and my thigh as he slid the jeans off my frozen body. Because I was still very much frozen, even if I felt like a puddle of simmering butter inside.
My jeans got stuck on my wedges, and he gently lifted my foot and removed each of those before pulling off my pants. I balanced on his shoulders as he helped me lose the jeans that I never knew I hated until they were in the way of my body touching his.
When I had nothing left but my bra and undies, he stood and took my hand and led me to the bed. He lifted the covers, and I climbed in. And true to his word, he crawled in behind me, arm draped over my waist, legs tucked up against mine, and I felt that feeling again. That somehow, I had come home. To a place I hadn’t known that I’d wanted, and yet was somehow never going to be able to leave again.
The truth hit me so hard that I couldn’t breathe.
The truth was that I was going to fall for him, and I wondered, would fall too? Would we learn to speak our own language with kisses on cheeks? Or would I be left having fallen off the edge, alone, again?
Getting Stuck
KISS ME
“Kiss me like you wanna be loved”
-Ed Sheeran
It was only four hours later when the alarm went off. I groaned because—have I mentioned?—I hate mornings! Derek kissed me on the neck, and all of a sudden, mornings didn’t seem quite so bad. Then he bounded out of bed
with more energy than anyone who had only four hours of sleep had the right to have, and mornings seemed all wrong again.
“Up and at ‘em, Miss Mia,” he said, and I threw the pillow at him.
“I’m getting the feeling you aren’t a morning person.” He grinned, and I looked at his too perfect body through half-closed eyes.
When I still didn’t budge, he grabbed a leg and pulled me off the bed, where he caught me before I fell to the floor. “Cracker Jacks!” I screamed.
He laughed. I smacked him in the chest.
“Go shower,” he said and then kissed me before propelling me towards my bathroom.
“I’ll be back in a jiff,” he said as he headed toward his door.
“Did you just say jiff?”
He smiled and waggled his brows.
“You’re not the only one who can use interesting language.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. He came back, kissed me quick, and then let himself through our shared door while I made my way to the bathroom in a daze of sleepiness and longing.
I groaned at myself in the mirror when I saw my makeup from last night was smudged and gross. “Good look, Mia,” I said with disgust.
I was in and out of the shower as quickly as I could. I pulled on my jean shorts and a t-shirt, knowing I’d have to change into my new spelunking apparel when we got to the caverns but not willing to layer up yet in the heat in the Camaro. I left my waves to dry on their own, lifting them into a messy bun because they were going to be a wreck after the helmet anyway.
When I came out, Derek was sitting there with his bags and my bags packed. I looked at the closet. Only swinging, empty hangers left.
“Did you pack my suitcase?”
It was a stupid question, because of course he had, but I was a little taken aback.
“Is this a problem too?” He smiled up at me.
“Do you have any sense of privacy?”
“You just spent the night naked up against me and now you want privacy?”
