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  “You fell asleep.”

  “What were we doing?”

  I didn’t know if I wanted to mention his failed attempt at kissing me. “We were just joking around, and you passed out on my bed.”

  He squinted his eyes, trying to remember something. “But…you slept here…in this bed…with me, right?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. This is my bed. That bed over there belongs to my roommate. I didn’t think it’d be cool if I crashed on her bed, just in case she came back needing it.”

  “I lost a golden opportunity. I need to quit drinking so much.”

  I grinned. “Maybe. Now…I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted, and you need your rest too. Do you mind sleeping for a little longer?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “No way in hell will I be able to sleep if you cuddle up next to me like you did last night.”

  “Oh…” I was trying to figure out how to make it work.

  “No. You know what? You said I was a gentleman, so I guess I’ll do my best to keep being a gentleman.”

  “You sure?”

  “Shit, Val…it’s your bed. I’m not kickin’ you out of it just ‘cause I’m a—what’d you call me last night? I might be a bad boy, but I can keep my dogs down.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  He laughed. “No, but I do remember you calling me a bad boy. And you seemed to like that.”

  I just smiled. “So is it okay if I lie here too? I’ll roll over so my back is to you.”

  I heard him sigh. “Do what you gotta do. I’ll…just roll over too.” And so we lay like that in bed for some time, our backs to each other, and I was growing so uncomfortable—feeling like I was in an unnatural posture and as though I were going to fall off the bed—that I was contemplating getting up. But Brad started moving and he rolled over. “I can’t get comfortable. I promise…no funny business.” I turned my head to look at him. “But are you okay if I face this way? Isn’t that what we did last night?”

  I lay my head back on my half of the pillow, so I was sure he couldn’t see me smile. “Yeah.”

  “Do you mind if we do it again? I don’t think I’ll be able to get to sleep the other way, and I’ve got a headache. I just want to sleep it off.”

  “Yeah, that’s fine.”

  He tucked his arm in between his abdomen and my back, and I imagined that wouldn’t be as comfortable either, so I reached behind me and grabbed his arm, pulling it over my waist. “That’s not an invitation.”

  “Is it okay to close the gap?”

  I considered it. “I guess that would be okay.”

  So he did, resting his body right up against mine. And, although I was still inexperienced at this point, I was keenly aware that I’d be able to tell if he was getting a little excited. But I also knew that, no matter how much he might have liked the idea, he still needed more sleep, and it sounded like he had a bit of a hangover. So, even though he pulled me close and cuddled me like a lover might have, all we did was sleep.

  That’s not to say I didn’t have a hell of a time drifting off. He was warm but not too hot, so he was definitely snuggle material. And feeling a man’s body against mine—hard where mine was soft, hairy where mine was not—made it difficult for me to doze off. When I finally did, I’m pretty sure my dreams weren’t about Ethan.

  * * *

  Needless to say, I wasn’t able to sleep as much as I would have liked. I kept waking up, simply because I wasn’t used to sharing my bed. So I got up and decided to start my day. I had plenty of studying I had to do, especially with finals right around the corner, but first a shower.

  After I extricated myself from his arms, I looked back at him. God, he was cute, especially sleeping. He looked like he had no worries in the world. And then I took a deep breath. What was I thinking?

  Time to take that shower.

  When I returned to my room, I was wearing a robe and slipper socks, and while I was covering more than I would have if I were wearing jeans, I suppose it could have been construed as suggestive, but I hated forcing clothes on my damp body. It took longer and was a bigger pain, so I liked to wait a few minutes before getting dressed. So I sat at my desk and opened my makeup drawer, pulling out the mirror and turning on the desk light to put on my makeup. Once done, I pulled off the towel and combed out my hair and then I was ready to get dressed.

  As I stood up, I heard Brad say, “Morning.”

  I looked over at him. He was sitting up in bed, stretching his shoulders. “Did you sleep okay?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” He took me in, realizing I’d been up for a while. “Did I make it hard for you to sleep?”

  No way would I tell him that yes, he did, because it wouldn’t be for the reasons he was asking. So I told him I slept fine. He rubbed his face and then slid his legs off the bed. He didn’t see his shoes so he looked on the other side before I could tell him that was where they were. Then he stood up. He looked sleepy, but he still looked like the kind of guy I should keep my eyes off of.

  I think we were both feeling a little awkward by that point.

  He said, “If you can just point me in the right direction, I think I can find Ethan’s place. I need to see what the guys are up to—I’m not sure when we’re hitting the road.”

  So I took him to the door and pointed down the hall. “Go through that door to the stairs. When you get to the ground floor, go out the door. Then there’s a long hallway. Follow it all the way to the end. There you’ll see a door just like this one. Those are the stairs to Ethan’s dorm. He’s on the second floor.”

  “Yeah…I remembered that much.” He paused. “Hey…thanks.”

  “For what?”

  He smiled and shook his head. What was he thinking? “For everything.” He started walking in the direction I’d pointed him, but he turned around. “I’ll be back in a while.”

  I nodded my head. “Okay.” At first, I’d thought that odd, but then I realized they’d want to say goodbye before they left. And then I wondered how poor Nick was doing. Last night, he’d been in even worse shape than Brad had been.

  After he left, I got dressed, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and made my bed. Then I sat at my desk and started reading through the next chapter in the textbook for my poetry class.

  It wasn’t long, though, before I heard a knock at my door. Surely they weren’t leaving already, but I still wouldn’t have been surprised if it was Jennifer needing in. It wasn’t, though. It was Brad…looking more awake and in clean clothes. “What’s going on?”

  I stepped back to let him in. “You think I was fucked up…you have no idea. Zane let me in. All I can figure is they were still partying when Ethan came over here this morning. Nick isn’t even there. Zane said he’s pretty sure he went to that girl’s dorm room sometime after we left. He and Jennifer were crashed on his bed, decided to lay down till morning. Ethan was crashed on his bed too. But…looks like I’m gonna be here a while. I could text Nick, but I’d rather give him a little while longer to sleep.” He shrugged.

  “You can hang with me if you want.” I wondered if he’d want to watch television while I was studying or maybe we could get some breakfast somewhere.

  But he got close to me. “That’s not the main reason why I came back here, though.” And whatever words had been on my tongue went scurrying to the floor. “We have a little unfinished business.”

  I was finally able to swallow, but my voice sounded weak and tiny. “We do?”

  He leaned over and cupped my face in his hands to bring my lips to his. My breath was shallow as he touched his lips to mine. But although his hands on my face were gentle, his kiss was not. His lips were firm and demanding, and I parted mine, inviting his tongue into my mouth. I felt lightheaded in the presence of this man and just allowed myself to enjoy the feeling of finally kissing him. When he let go of my lips, he said, “Unfinished, right?”

  All I could do was give him a thin smile and let out the rest of the air in my lungs. I didn’t notice unti
l then that I’d put my hands on his pecs. And, since I wasn’t pushing him away, he took that as a signal to move forward. He moved his hands to my waist and pulled me as close to him as I could possibly be. And his next kiss transported me. I no longer felt like silly little Valerie Quinn, college freshman, living in a tiny dorm room without a clue of what she wanted to do with her life. Instead, I got my first taste of womanhood, for inside me he opened up a Pandora’s Box of emotions and desires I hadn’t known existed. Yes, I’d thought I knew, but Brad was on a whole other level when it came to arousing me. Maybe it was because we already had some flirty sexual thing going. And while I was confused, I wanted to venture a little further.

  I felt the hair on my arms standing on end while I slid my hands up to his neck to hold his face from his jaw to his temple while his tongue danced with mine, performing some wicked magic inside me. And then, when I moved my hands into his soft hair, I couldn’t help but notice yet didn’t object to his hands moving to cup my ass and push me into him.

  And, oh, was that a delicious sensation. I might have known, in the logical, cold sense, how my body was supposed to work but being a late bloomer hadn’t experienced what those things I knew about actually felt like. My entire body felt like it had been plugged into an outlet, and I could have lit up a Christmas tree. My senses were heightened, and there was nothing he could have done in that moment that would have felt wrong.

  But that stupid little niggling voice in the back of my head. I could hear it. It might have been muffled, but I could still hear it telling me I didn’t want to lose my virginity in the heat of the moment just because I couldn’t control myself. It told me I didn’t love Brad, and that was, of course, my cardinal rule.

  Oh, in those few seconds, I think I tried to convince myself I did. I certainly loved the way he knew how to handle my body. And that time, when he released my lips, he moved to kiss my neck, and I heard a low moan escape my lips. So who could blame him when he took that as a signal to go? One of his hands released my ass and slid up underneath my shirt. Again, I was surprised at my body’s response to him. His warm hand on my side felt delightful and electric, but that little voice tried one more time, urging me to stop. If I didn’t put on the brakes now, it was all over, because that little voice was getting buried deeper and deeper, and the sensations of Brad’s touch were feeling better by the second.

  And so I listened.

  One of my hands released the hair in its grip and brought itself back down to his pec to aid me in stopping the proceedings. And good thing too, because I detected that I might be feeling his piston revving up.

  “Brad…please stop.”

  He opened his eyes and moved his head to look at me. “Stop?”

  “Yeah.”

  He kissed me again, knocking the wind out of me once more. “Stop that?”

  I took a moment and blinked. “Yes.”

  “You don’t seem so sure…” He pressed his forehead on mine and gazed in my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  By now, I had both hands on his chest as though they could push him away…as though my hands wanted to push him away, but we were still in a tight embrace, and I wasn’t pushing against him. “I…It’s not you, Brad. Oh, God, it’s not you. I swear. I want you bad.”

  He was trying to understand. “So why not? If you’re worried about birth control…”

  That got my attention. Yeah, I should have been, but it had been the last thing from my mind. “No. I’m…um…” I swallowed hard. “I’m a…”

  “Virgin?” I took a deep breath and nodded.

  “Oh.” I could see his mind struggling with this new knowledge. He nodded and said it again. “Oh. Yeah. Uh…your first time should be…special, right? At least, for girls. I didn’t give much of a shit.”

  In spite of the overwhelming and heady mix of emotions, I couldn’t help but giggle, and I think that was partly from the relief that I wouldn’t have to explain to Brad how fucked up my mind really was. I didn’t think I loved him, and I had that stupid idea that I have to love the first guy I gave myself to. That’s what would make it special, I thought.

  But his eyes kept scanning mine. “That’s not it, though. It’s Ethan, isn’t it? You still care about him.”

  Did I? I’d been so angry with him, and then that’s when I realized Brad was right. I was only so furious with him because I’d cared so much to begin with. But I didn’t say a word.

  Brad was no dummy, though. He let out a long breath of air and loosened his grip on me. “And…I already told you, as you’ll recall, nothing between you and me as long as he’s in the picture.” He let me go and turned around to pace the length of my room. He let out another deep breath and then looked over at me, still frozen in place by the door. All I could hear was his step, one after the other, as I held my breath, waiting to hear what he had to say. “So…how about we go grab a bite to eat? I’m starving.”

  “Uh, I…”

  “On me.”

  Well, after breaking his heart and crushing his balls, it was the least I could do.

  Chapter Fourteen

  WE FINALLY SAT in a booth at McDonald’s, Brad with an entire tray of food, me with a cup of coffee, hash browns, and a small breakfast sandwich. So…unlike his bandmates, Brad at least appeared to have a little money to spend. It made me curious. “So…what do you do besides play in your band? Where do you work?”

  He sneered. “I work for one of those places that changes oil. Pretty much sucks.” He smiled. “Course, anything that doesn’t have anything to do with music sucks, as far as I’m concerned.” He took a bite of his sandwich, and after he swallowed, he said, “But I’m saving up so I can actually make something of my life.”

  “What are your plans?”

  “I’m pretty sure you have the idea. I don’t have any crazy notions, like we have to move to New York or L.A. or Seattle, but we need to amass a fan base. Nothing happens nowadays without fans, and we won’t get fans by sitting around on our asses. That’s part of why I booked that show here—the sooner Ethan and Zane realize college isn’t their future, the sooner we can get on with our lives. They need to feel the need in their blood.”

  Oh…so Brad planned to take Ethan out of my life for good. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t decided if college was my future either; it was all I’d known in my short adult life, but the one constant so far for me had been Ethan. For him to be gone, whether I wanted to scratch his eyes out or not, hit hard. But I tried to keep my emotions under check. “So what are you thinking?”

  “I dunno. Colorado Springs, Denver, some of the big college towns. But that would involve moving to one of those places. I’m thinking Denver. It’s huge. I bet we could have shows booked all the time.”

  We ate in silence for a few minutes until he said, “So, that’s what I’m saving up for. I’m sure my mom will be thrilled for me to move out.”

  “You think so?”

  “Actually, no. I’m her youngest kid and she’s divorced, so she really doesn’t want me to leave. But I’ve been trying to prepare her for it.” I nodded and took a sip of my coffee. He looked up at me. “So what about you, Val? What big plans do you have for the future?”

  I took a deep breath. I was no more decided about my future this early morning in April than I had been when I’d chosen my classes at freshman orientation the summer before. I shook my head. “I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.”

  He laughed. “Okay…I’ll ask you what my douchebag counselor asked me my junior year in high school.” He sat up straight in the booth and wrinkled up his face, pretending to peer over the rims of glasses and screwing up his mouth. Then he talked in a garbled voice that was higher pitched than his regular speaking voice. “What are your interests, Mr. Payne? What do you find yourself doing when you lose track of time?”

  I giggled. “Those seem to be reasonable questions.”

  “Yeah, they were, even though he was reading them off a card while looking out the window watch
ing the cheerleaders practice on the front lawn. And when I told him my answer, he told me to be realistic.” He used the counselor’s voice again, once more sending me into peals of laughter.

  “You seem to be talented with your impersonations too.”

  “Yeah, but seriously…what interests you, Val? There’s gotta be something, right?”

  I thought about it…really thought about it. But I still gave a lame answer. “Well, isn’t that why I’m taking all these classes, these varied classes, to help me figure out what I like?”

  “Maybe…so have you found something?”

  “That’s the problem. Everything seems fun…for a while.”

  He looked at me hard, as though he were peering into my soul…and it felt like it. “You like writing?”

  “I guess.”

  “Because that shit you wrote for us was phenomenal.”

  I felt my cheeks grow warm. “I thought you were just saying that.”

  He smiled. “Because I was drunk? I’ll let you in on a little secret.” He winked. “I’m brutally honest when I’m drunk. Scary honest.”

  I tried to think back to exactly what he’d said last night about the songs I’d written. I couldn’t remember his exact words, but he’d pretty much gushed. So I just nodded and took a sip of my coffee, hoping it had cooled down enough that I could get lost in it for a bit.

  But when I put the stupid cup down, he was still looking at me, intent. “You ever think about being in a band?”

  Yes, I had, but it was something I’d never admitted to anyone else before. Yeah, there were more women in metal today than ever before, but it still seemed to be a mostly boys’ club. Add to it that many guys in that culture still loved to objectify women. They acted like we lived in the middle ages, like women were theirs for the taking. Would someone like me even be able to hold her own in a business like that?

  I knew the answer. So even though I knew I would love it, I shrugged my shoulders and conjured up the most blasé face I could muster. “Nah.” And then I focused on my coffee again.

  * * *