WHEN ROWAN WARNED me about Joel’s snoring, she described it as a polar bear in need of an exorcism. But the sound I wake up to the morning after the concert is more like a demonic Rottweiler trying to chew its way through cement.
I kick my foot behind me to wake the Rottweiler up. He’s on his back, and I’m on my side facing away from him.
He startles, but then the demon-dog starts chewing again.
“Joel.” I reach my hand back and fumble it over his stubbly face to wake him up. “Get up.”
He bats at my arm and whines for me to stop.
“Get up¸” I groan, rolling toward him and trying with my hands and feet to push him out of my bed. “It’s time for your walk of shame.”
He rolls on top of me to get me to stop pushing him, putting all of his weight on me and squishing me into the mattress.
Wide awake and not happy about it, I fist my hand into his hair and slowly tug his head away from where it’s planted next to my face. Nose to nose¸ he gives me a smile full of wicked intentions, and then he resists my grip to press his lips against mine in a kiss that causes my fingers to loosen and my skin to flush.
Last night, he came home with me and lived up to every single promise he had whispered in my ear at the bar earlier that night. He’s like a drug in my veins, one I need to quit before I lose myself completely. I try to muster the willpower to turn him down, but his name is a weak protest on my lips. Just a breathless word that I manage to say before he drops those lips to my neck and steals any resolution I had.
Half an hour later, he’s still in my room and I’m walking to the bathroom down the hall, every step I take reminding me of just how many hours over the past twenty-four he’s been inside me. I’ve left him stretched out on my bed so I can take a cold shower and try to get my head straight—which is nearly impossible when I imagine him sprawled naked on top of my covers with his hair a mess and my fingernail scratches marring his skin.
After a quick shower, I get dressed and do my makeup in front of a mirror in the bathroom, and then I walk back to my room with a towel wrapped around my head and a mask of impatience on my face. It works to hide the smile permanently threatening to bloom anytime Joel so much as glances in my direction.
“You’re still here?” I ask, barely giving him a sideways glance before I plant myself in front of my vanity to comb out my wet hair.
He chuckles and stands up, stretching his arms over his head. He’s slipped into his soft-worn jeans from the night before, but they’re barely clinging to his hips, held up by a too-loose studded belt. There’s just something about a guy with tattoos—something about Joel, with the neck of a guitar inked on his forearm and black script curling up his ribs—that makes brain function impossible. I’m drooling over the reflection of his toned, tattooed torso when my eyes drift up and I realize he’s caught me staring. The corner of his mouth quirks into a cocky smile that makes my cheeks redden, and I quickly turn my eyes away, wishing he’d put his damn shirt on so I could stop wanting to tackle him back onto my covers.
“Can you give me a ride to Adam’s?” he asks.
Most nights, Joel crashes on the couch in the living room of the apartment that Adam, Shawn, and Rowan share. Some nights, he stays with me. And other nights, he stays with airheaded groupies who should really punch themselves in the face.
I knew he’d ask for a ride, which is why I’ve already texted Rowan and Leti to tell them I’m dragging them out for breakfast, but I give Joel a hard time anyway because it’s too tempting to resist. “I think I’ve given you enough rides this morning, don’t you?”
He laughs and steps up behind me, giving me a sweet smile in the mirror. “You look beautiful this morning.”
He’s so shameless about his ass kissing, it’s hard not to smile back at him. With a barely managed straight face, I say, “Are you saying I don’t look beautiful other mornings?”
“You look especially radiant this morning,” he says, dipping his chin onto my shoulder and giving my reflection a cheesy smile that makes me laugh in spite of myself.
“Whatever. Put your shirt on and I’ll think about it.”
I give Joel a ride and curse myself for doing it. Mind-blowing sex is a mutual exchange, but since when did I also become a free hotel room and complimentary taxi service? Next time, I’m kicking him out right after—I don’t care how toe curling the morning extracurriculars are.
After picking up Leti, I drop Joel off and trade him for Rowan, and then I drive myself and my two best friends to IHOP. Thanks to my driving and ability to tune out Rowan’s pleas for me to slow down, we beat the church rush and don’t have to wait to be seated.
“So I suppose you’re all wondering why I called you here today,” Leti announces once we’re settled in a booth. He clasps his fingers on top of the table, and I share a look with Rowan. She’s sitting next to him, looking just as confused as me.
“Uh, I called you here,” I argue.
Leti reaches across the table to take my hands in his. In a lavender My Little Pony T-shirt, with his wavy ombre hair pulled back by the bright rainbow sunglasses on top of his head, he says, “Sweetie, we’re staging an intervention.”
“We are?” Rowan asks.
Thanks to Joel, I got next to no sleep last night, so I really don’t have the patience for this. Pulling my hands away, I say, “What the hell are you talking about?”
My eyebrows are scrunched tightly in Leti’s direction when our server, an elderly woman with more than her fair share of pancakes collected around her middle, pops by to take our drink orders. As soon as she’s gone, Leti gives me another teasing smile. “The first step is admitting you have a problem.”
I lift my eyebrow at him. “And what’s my problem, pony-boy?”
“You’re an addict. We’re here to help you.”
My gaze swings to Rowan, but she just shrugs and shakes her head.
“Okay. I’ll bite.” I dramatically take Leti’s hands in mine again and drape myself across the table to meet him halfway. “What am I addicted to? High heels? Hair spray?”
He grins and says, “Oh, something much more dire.”
“Lip gloss? Glitter nail polish?”
He smirks at me. “You’re addicted to whatever is causing you to have those ghastly purple bags under your eyes, and my guess is that the culprit is hot and spiky and rhymes with bowl.”
I can’t help chuckling before I release Leti’s hands. “Jealous?”
“Incurably.” He turns his pouting face to Rowan. “Are you sure none of the other guys are gay?”
“Positive.”
“Bi?”
Rowan shakes her head, long blonde strands tumbling from her messy bun. “Sorry, don’t think so.”
“Curious? Confused? Impressionable?”
Rowan and I both laugh, and Leti sighs and deflates in the seat.
Our drinks arrive, and I’m tearing open three sugar packets at once when he asks, “So what exactly are you and mohawk-boy anyway?”
He and Rowan stare at me expectantly while I finish stirring the sugar into my coffee and answer, “Why do we have to be anything?”
I don’t expect them to get it. Rowan hopped from being in a three-year relationship to living with a guy she’s head over heels in love with. And Leti flirts around a lot, but he seems to be holding out for the right guy. If we weren’t friends, I have no doubt these two would think I’m a slut. And technically, I guess the shoe fits, but so what? I like boys. I like sex. And if I’m safe about it and no one gets hurt, what’s it matter what I spend my nights doing or who I do those things with?
Leti takes his sunglasses off his head and points them at me. “Well you two aren’t nothing. You’ve been hooking up for months now. How many times is that? Like a thousand?”
“What’s it matter?” I ask defensively. “I just haven’t gotten bored with him yet.”
Rowan gives me a look. “Do you remember when you told me I liked Adam, and I kept insisting we were just friends?”
I hold up my hands to derail that crazy train before it picks up steam. “Joel and I are NOT you and Adam.”
“Aren’t you?” Leti asks.
I swing my sparkly purple fingernail back and forth between the Tweedle sisters. “Look, ladies, this isn’t some cheesy Disney movie where Rowan gets a boyfriend and their two best friends end up together too and it’s like one big happy weird little freaky family. This is me we’re talking about. And Joel.”
“Okay, first off,” Rowan says, stirring her orange juice with a straw, “Shawn is Adam’s best friend, not Joel. Joel is more like . . . a mascot.” She grins to herself and stops stirring. “And second, you’re different lately.”
“Am not,” I argue, casting an exaggerated smile at our server when she interrupts our conversation to set down our food. Rowan immediately snatches up the syrup and soaks her pancakes. Then she hands it to me and I do the same.
“Are too,” she insists. “You care what Joel thinks of you. You never care what anyone thinks of you.” She pours a second coat of syrup on.
“Joel is a game.”
“And what’s the prize if you win?”
I’m about to say something smart when my mouth clamps shut and my eyes get wide. Rowan starts to turn around, but I jerk her arms forward. “Don’t look.”
“Why?” she says, and I struggle to think up a believable lie.
“Jimmy just walked in,” I say, pulling a name out of thin air.
“Who’s Jimmy?” She starts to turn around again, and I jerk her forward again. Leti is turned all the way around in his seat, but he’s not the one I’m worried about.
“A guy I screwed around with a few weeks ago,” I lie. “He won’t stop calling me. I need you to get me out of here.” My foot knocks at Leti like a woodpecker under the table, and the expression on his face slowly turns to one of realization. I toss my purse on top of the table. “Leti, can you get our pancakes in boxes and pay with my card?”
He nods and slides out of the booth to let Rowan out, and I wrap my arm around her shoulder, spinning around like a seasoned body guard shielding her from paparazzi. I keep her pinned against my side until we’ve emerged through the double doors into the bright morning sunlight, and then I start telling her all about the fictitious Jimmy.
When we pass a silver Cobalt on the way to my car, I amp up the story to distract Rowan from noticing. “And THEN,” I say, throwing my hands in the air, “he had the NERVE to tell me I’d never forget him! Like HELLO, if you stopped calling me every two minutes, maybe I could!”
Rowan chuckles and continues walking, oblivious to the car or the way my heart is pounding in my chest. “Sounds like he really likes you.”
“Him and a million other guys. He had his chance, but he was all hands, Ro. And not like Joel’s hands, because those are just . . . well, Adam plays the guitar, so you know.” She blushes, and I continue rambling. “But this guy’s hands . . . God, it was like making out with the Hamburger Helper guy!”
She laughs hysterically, and my heart slows just a little. When we get to my car, I unlock the doors and she gets in. I open the driver’s side but pause before sliding in next to her. “Shit,” I say, “I forgot to tell Leti which card to use. My Visa is maxed out.”
She reaches for the handle to get out. “I’ll tell him.”
“No!” I force a smile at the startled look she gives me and add, “I’ll do it. In and out, real quick. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
I jog back to IHOP, slip just inside the front doors to wait for Leti, and take my purse from him when he hands it to me.
“Her ex?” he asks, and I nod while flipping through my keys to find the sharpest one. Brady broke Rowan’s heart into a million pieces when he cheated on her—and ground those pieces into dust when he did it again—and I’ve been itching for payback ever since. He’s here with a girl, and he’s lucky Rowan was with me or I would have scratched his eyes out right in the middle of IHOP.
With a jagged key pinched between my knuckles, I smile at Leti and say, “Smile and pretend you don’t hear this.” As we pass by Brady’s Cobalt, my key digs a deep, screeching gash into the silver paint, all the way from front to back, and Leti and I smile like lunatics. By the time we hop into my car, we’re both laughing hysterically.
“What?” Rowan asks, her eyebrow raised as she stares back and forth between us.
“Nothing,” I say, starting the car and shooting Leti a smile in the rearview mirror. I begin backing out of the spot and add, “Thanks for getting me out of there, Ro. Love you.”
I smile at the confused look she gives me but lose it less than a half-minute later, when Leti abruptly recalls what we had been talking about back in IHOP.
“So,” he says, his big head popping between my seat and Rowan’s, “Bowl.”
“I could crash this car right now, you know.”
My warning just makes him laugh. “Really? That’d be better than just admitting your feelings?”
My head snaps in his direction with a look that should make him flinch. Instead, his smile widens and I’m the one who looks away. “What feelings?”
“Mushy ones. Probably feels like butterflies. Or mashed potatoes.”
There’s a chirp at my right as Rowan barely contains a giggle, but I ignore it and let my foot weigh heavier on the gas so I can limit the amount of time Leti has to annoy me. “Yeeeah, I don’t have any of those,” I say, but I can feel his bright-as-ever smile burrowing into the side of my head.
“What about Joel? I bet his stomach is fuuull of mashed potatoes.”
“Joel has never had mashed potatoes in his life,” I counter, immediately cursing myself for going along with Leti’s stupid mashed-potatoes analogy.
I’m going forty in a twenty-five when Rowan says, “He said you’re special.”
Leti and I both look at her, and it’s only by the terrified look in her eyes that I manage to slam my foot on the brake to avoid running a red light. “He said what?”
She has one hand glued to the dashboard and the other clinging to the armrest at her right. “Can you please not kill us?”
“Tell me what he said and I’ll think about it.”
Rowan’s fingers unpeel from the dashboard one by one, and she takes a deep breath when the light turns green and I ease onto the gas again. “I asked him why he keeps going back to you when he doesn’t really do that with anyone else, and he said you were special.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Rowan shakes her head. “I asked, but he just smiled and shrugged.”
Typical Joel. My brow furrows at the road ahead of me, and Leti singsongs, “See! Mashed po-tat-oes!”
“He’s full of something,” I say, “but it isn’t mashed potatoes. If he thinks I’m so special, why was he slumming it with that groupie last night?”
“He picks you every time he gets a kiss card during Kings,” Rowan counters, and I scoff.
“He doesn’t mind when other girls pick him.” The last time we played, one groupie bitch lucked out and picked all three remaining kiss cards. She picked Joel every. single. time.
Leti chuckles. “He held your hair back when you got so mad about it that you scarfed down margaritas and ended up puking your guts out.”
“See?” I argue. “Joel fills my stomach with margaritas, not mashed potatoes.”
“And puke,” Rowan adds, and I chuckle as I manage to stop at the next stoplight without my tires screeching.
“And puke.”