Mayhem
“You and every other girl he’s ever talked to.”
Her eyes dart back to me, her finger pointing accusations. “Including YOU.”
I shrug. “Anyway, no, we didn’t hook up,” I say, answering her earlier question.
“BUT?”
“He tried . . . He kissed me, but I turned him down.”
Dee stares at me in shock for a minute, and then she lets out a deep breath. “Rowan . . .”
“Yes?”
“Why?”
“He’d break my heart, Dee. Just like Brady. Come on, you have to know that. I mean, this weekend, he almost hooked up with Michelle Hawthorne.”
“From high school?!”
“Yes!” I say, glad that she’s just as disgusted as I am. “He had a concert in Fairview, and she was all over him! They apparently hooked up a few months ago.”
“EW,” Dee shouts, her face contorted with disgust. She stares down at her drink like she’s watching a hi-def movie of something I don’t want to imagine. “Ewww.”
“Exactly.” I remove the lid from my mocha to scoop the whipped cream out, eating that first.
“She’s such a skanky whore-faced bitch. Do you know that she slept with BOTH of the Hazelton twins?!”
“So did you!” I laugh.
Dee’s straw stops swirling around in her drink as she pauses and scrunches her nose. “I did?”
“Yes! You slept with Henry at Beth Miller’s Halloween party in eleventh grade, and you slept with Hoyt at Laurel Lake that following summer.”
She cocks her head to the side, clearly not remembering. “Are you sure?”
“Positive! You said it was weird that Hoyt was the quieter twin because he was so much louder in bed.”
“Oh! That’s right! Oh my God, he was so LOUD.”
I laugh, remembering the way she had mocked the sounds he made. Her gorilla impression and her Hoyt impression were pretty much identical, minus some armpit scratching and imaginary-bug eating.
“Still though!” Dee says, looking positively disgusted. “Michelle Hawthorne, ugh! Why would Adam be interested in a girl like that?”
“Because he’s a total man-slut,” I say casually, replacing the lid on my mocha. “You think Brady’s bad? He and Adam aren’t even in the same league.”
“But Adam isn’t in a three-year-long committed relationship with you . . . It’s not the same.”
“And he’s not interested in a relationship, either.”
“And if he was?”
“He isn’t.”
Dee grunts at me, and then she says, “So why not just have fun with him? Like friends with benefits?”
“Can you imagine me doing that?” I pause to sip my mocha as she considers. “I’d get attached, and then it would get weird and we’d have to stop hanging out. I’d rather just stay like we are now. We have a lot of fun together. He’s cool.”
Dee nods. “He does seem pretty cool . . .” She shrugs and stirs her frappuccino. “It’s just a damn shame. Is he a good kisser?”
I giggle and blush a fierce rosy red. “What do you think?”
She groans. “I think I should’ve taken French in high school.”
What transpires next can only be described as the Coffee Shop Inquisition. Dee shows no mercy; she’s like an iron maiden, stabbing every last detail out of me—with one major secret I manage to keep hidden behind my teeth. I tell her about Adam crawling into bed with me on the bus and kissing my shoulder. I also tell her about making out with him outside of Emily’s. But I still can’t tell her about making out with him at Mayhem a month and a half ago. It’s been too long; she’d kill me for not telling her sooner. This coffee shop is filled with potential weapons: plastic forks, scalding hot milk, sharp metal syrup taps. By the time Adam strolls back inside, I’m rubbing my right eye, trying to rid myself of the phantom pain that’s taken root there in anticipation of the straw Dee would lodge in the socket if I dared breathe a word about my first time on Adam’s tour bus.
“So are you two finished talking about what an amazing kisser I am?” he teases as he sits back down beside me.
I gape at him, resisting the urge to dive under the table to check for bugs because HOW THE HELL DOES HE KNOW THAT?!
Seeing my startled expression, he laughs. “Oh wow, you were talking about what a great kisser I am!” He glances at Dee, whose equally shocked expression hides nothing, and then his gaze swings back to me. “Scale of one to ten?”
“So anyway,” I interject, ignoring him as I desperately try to get Dee on board with changing the subject, “I’m really just hanging out with him for the free backstage passes. I got you one for next Saturday.”
She laughs and finishes off her frappuccino. “Yeah, that makes sense. Especially considering what a horrible kisser you said he was.”
“Bullshit!” Adam protests.
I shrug. “You can’t be good at everything.”
He turns on his stool to face me, his knees pressing against the side of my leg. One of his hands rests on the back of my chair and the other flattens on the table in front of me. “Let me try again,” he insists, and my blood somehow manages to burn hot and flash cold at the exact same time.
Dee kicks me hard under the table. “Let him try again!”
“OW!” I yelp. “What the freaking hell, Dee!” I lift my leg so I can rub the throbbing pain away and scold, “You got me right on the bone!”