I should have known better. I did know better. But I did it anyway, because I couldn’t stop it. I mean, I tried, but I just couldn’t do it. I knew right away that Kick wasn’t the kind of girl that you can fuck out of your system. She might have thought she was that type of girl, and I might have treated her like she was, but she wasn’t.

And so here I was, scrolling through her social media accounts while I sat in the back of the tour bus, wanting her so fucking bad it hurt. How was that even possible? We spent, what, less than two hours together total?

Worse, I was actually a little worried about the woman. She hadn’t posted anything since that night, and it had been two weeks. Kick had over twenty thousand Instagram followers, almost as many as I did, and I was the one who was supposed to be a “public figure” as a musician. Looking at her account history, it seemed she posted at least once a day, if not more, up until the night of our show at the Happy Hollow. And then, nothing.

She was a train wreck. A beautiful one, but on a fast track to crash all the same. A few brief encounters over twenty-four hours, intimate ones, but brief, and I thought I knew the girl. Not only that, I had feelings. Actual feelings for her, and I couldn’t even pretend to deny it. It was the contrast of boldness and vulnerability that pulled me to her, I guess. I didn’t know. But I hadn’t gone much longer than an hour without thinking about her.

I didn’t know if I expected her to call or what, but I knew I had to see her again. Couldn’t leave it like I had. I was angry as hell when I left that night. I wanted more with her, and that was all she would give me. And I had to take it. I tried to keep my feelings out of it, but I couldn’t. I wanted to hold her, worship her, lick her entire body from head to toe, and stay up all night figuring her out, but she wanted one quick fuck. That was it. And hell was it quick. Once I made her come with my mouth, I didn’t hold back. I found the me that only wanted the physical connection from sex, the rush, and nothing more. I held onto that as I took her, until I couldn’t anymore, and had to get the hell out of there, away from her.

Kick didn’t know it, but she was what I’d been looking for. I guess I used to be like her, and I could understand the appeal of short, fun, no-strings sex. But it got old, and I’d started engaging in it less and less over the past few years, looking instead for a woman who could be relationship material. Turned out that was a lot harder than I imagined it could be. I lost interest quickly, I suppose. Maybe it was because I already had two women in my life, my mom and my sister, and aside from music and the band, they were my world. I was starting to give up on the whole relationship thing until I met Kick, and she sucked me into her orbit, intrigued the hell out of me.

And now what was I supposed to do about it? On tour, rarely back in town, and she didn’t even want me. Probably wanted me even less after how I left that night. I guess I’d have to hold out and wait until an opportunity presented itself. It was one hell of a long shot, but it was all I had. She was a junior, at least I knew where to find her until she graduated, and it was right near home base. Until then, I’d get off on images of her in a Speedo from my phone like a complete perv while women pounded on the bus door, trying to get in. Yeah, one month after signing a record deal and we already had groupies. Imagine that.