Boy #1: The Wannabe Rockstar (Oh, Those Boys) Read online

  He stretched out on his stomach, slowly coloring in a sunset behind the buildings, smudging the oranges and pinks together. He noticed Cass watching his hand more often than not, obviously impressed. When he had most of the sky taken care of, he picked up a fine point marker and started sketching in the buildings, giving them windows and stone features.

  And just like he knew it would, curiosity got the better of Cass.

  “You're very good,” she finally commented, sitting back on her ankles. He shrugged.

  “I dabble.”

  “I didn't realize you were left handed,” she pointed out, and when he glanced up at her, she looked confused. He smiled and knew she was remembering him playing his guitar.

  “There's lots of things you don't know about me, Cass,” he said, and while she watched him, he switched the pen to his right hand, then leaned over and started sketching on one of the buildings on her side.

  “Ah. Ambidextrous. That actually explains ... a lot.”

  When he glanced at her that time, there was a distinct flush in her cheeks. He had to resist the urge to tease her or flirt with her.

  “It comes in handy.”

  “Why are you here, Micah?” she finally blurted out. He dropped the pen and propped himself up on his side.

  “I was an asshole the other night,” he was honest. “A drunk, stupid, asshole. You didn't deserve that, and I'm sorry.”

  Cassie looked taken aback by his apology, and she nervously fiddled with her hair. Tucked a loose strand away, and left behind a blue streak on the shell of her ear.

  “You were drunk. And stupid. And an asshole.”

  “I think I just established that.”

  She cut her eyes to him in a nasty glare.

  “You can't just admit to being an asshole, and all is forgiven. I've known you were an asshole this whole time, and it never bothered me.”

  “So why did it bother you this time?” he asked, rolling one of the pastels between his fingers. Coating his digits in a magenta.

  “Because the things you were saying, they weren't true. I'm not just a walking wardrobe, Micah. I know ... I know we don't know each other very well, but I honestly thought you knew me better than that. It was a shitty thing to say. I don't judge you based on the way you dress,” she pointed out.

  “You should – I dress like an asshole. You never would've come near me, if you'd just been a little more discerning,” he teased.

  She didn't laugh.

  “Is that honestly what you think of me? That I'm just this vain, superficial, silly little girl walking around? All because I like to dress nice?” she asked.

  He frowned and stared up at her. She was so pretty, all buttery soft skin and honey golden hair. Yet she was tough. Not counting the first night they'd slept together, he'd never seen her cry. Never seen her lose her cool. He'd really done her a big disservice.

  “No,” he sighed. “I mean, I don't know, maybe I did, which is unfair – I know that. You're just so different from me, Cass. It's hard not to put you in a little box in my head. Like you said, we don't know each other that well, and maybe that's my fault. I convinced myself you were a certain way, and that I didn't need to get to know you.”

  “That's a pretty shitty thing to do.”

  “I'm a pretty shitty guy,” he shrugged. She frowned again, then dropped her gaze to her lap.

  “It was honestly the first time I'd ever been around you that I didn't like the way you made me feel about myself. We're not good enough friends for me to take that kind of shit from you,” she warned him.

  It was meant as a warning. Meant to be harsh, and he understood that, but he still smiled. If she was warning him, that meant he still had a chance.

  “For what it's worth, I love the way you dress,” he informed her as he reached out and picked at her inseam.

  “You do?” she sounded genuinely surprised.

  “A girl who takes the time to look sexy every day, no matter what's doing? It's awesome. Never change, Cass.”

  “Oh yeah, looking super sexy today,” she laughed, glancing down at herself. He finally pushed himself up so he was kneeling in front of her.

  “I think this might be the sexiest you've ever looked to me.”

  She rolled her eyes and laughed loudly. When her tongue flicked at the corner of her mouth, he couldn't take it anymore. They were drawn together, in a way he'd never been to anyone else; she was literally irresistible. So he gave into the urge and leaned forward, cupping her face with one hand and kissing her quickly.

  Both their eyes were open, hers wide in surprise. They were so big and gorgeous, deep green pools. He paused long enough to take a breath, then kissed her again.

  “Maybe we should try this all over again,” he breathed in between kisses.

  “What, the drawing?” she asked, also slightly breathless. He laughed at her.

  “No. Us. Whatever we are. We started all fucked up, so we don't hardly know each other. Let's start over,” he repeated himself.

  “You wanna get to know me?” Cass barked out a laugh. He dropped his hand from her face, leaving pink streaks of pastel on her cheek.

  “Yeah. A girl who dresses like a princess but fucks like a porn star. I should've been talking to you this whole time,” he joked.

  “You're an awful man, Micah,” she groaned suddenly, her head dropping forward. He didn't respond, and when she sat up straight again, he was startled by how frankly she was staring at him. “You make me hate you, and then I become quite determined to hate you, and then you show up and make me question my sanity.”

  “Inducing insanity is a specialty of mine,” he teased, scooting even closer to her and toying with the buckle on one of her straps.

  “Yeah, but not in a good way.”

  “Oh, I think I'm very good at it.”

  With a quick flick of his fingers, the strap came loose from its buckle. She let out a startled shout, and while she was distracted, he undid the other strap. The top of the overalls fell away from her body, pooling around her hips.

  “This isn't getting to know each other,” Cass point out, then she seemed to lose her breath as he traced his finger across her chest, leaving hot pink in his wake.

  “Au contraire,” he argued, scribbling on her fair skin. “I think this is the best way to get to know another person.”

  He chuckled and leaned back, looking over his handiwork. He'd scrawled his name in cursive across her chest, ending it with a sharp period. Then he smoothed his hand over her breast, cupping it and gently lifting. When her eyelids drifted shut again, he gave her a gentle squeeze, then let her go so he could see the pink hand print he left behind on the material of her bra.

  Cassie stared down at her chest for a moment, reading his name upside down, then she turned her direct gaze on to him. It was once again very frank – the bedroom eyes were gone, replaced by longing and smoldering passion and frustration and a large helping of worry.

  Micah didn't know what to do with those feelings, though, didn't know how to return her gaze. Really, he didn't know what he was doing at all, where she was concerned. He'd never had a proper girlfriend, and wasn't sure he wanted one now. He just ... liked her. Wanted to be good enough for her. As good as the event hall douche. Better.

  There were only two things Micah truly knew how to do well, and since he hadn't brought his guitar over, he went with his second strongest point – he kissed her hard, forcing her to lean backwards. She let out a muffled squeak, but he ignored it, wrapping an arm around her waist and hauling her up against his chest. He cupped one hand around her neck, and when she moaned, he gently squeezed.

  This could be fun.

  “Micah,” she breathed his name, and it was his turn to moan.

  “The only thing I want to see you wearing right now is my name,” he growled, clawing at the buttons on her hips, desperate to rip the overalls the rest of the way off her.

  “Micah.”

  “We could've been doing this all weekend,
” he panted, his brain on auto-pilot. “If you hadn't been out with that frat jerk. I doubt he can -”

  “Micah!”

  He was startled when she roughly shoved him, causing them both to fall away from each other. When he got his bearings, it was to find Cassie glaring at him angrily, struggling to climb to her feet. He had to resist the urge to laugh – her overalls were still unbuckled, the top half hanging upside down from her waist. His name was written in pink across her chest, and she had pink hand prints on her waist, chest, cheek, and around her neck.

  But since her eyes were shooting fire at him, he managed to hold the laughter inside while he stood up.

  “What the hell is going on?” she demanded, putting her hands on her hips.

  “Uh, I thought we were gonna have awesome afternoon sex, that's what's going on,” he explained, confused.

  “No,” she slashed her arm through the air. “After cleaning at an event hall all morning, I was spending a relaxing afternoon coloring. Then you showed up, barged in, started talking about wanting to get to know each other, made me believe you, and it was all bullshit!”

  “Hey!” he snapped. “It wasn't all bullshit!”

  “If it wasn't, then you would've been talking to me instead of shoving your tongue down my throat.”

  “I didn't exactly hear you complaining, St. John.”

  “And on top of all that bullshit,” she barreled right through him, “then you bring up Josh! What the fuck is with that? Are you only over here because you're jealous!?”

  No. That couldn't be right. Could it? Micah internally panicked for a moment. He and Tyler had talked about it, Cassie was cool. Cassie was a girl worth pursuing. So why hadn't he pursued her before? Why had it only become an issue once she found someone else?

  “I'm not jealous, Cass. I'm just ... it's hard when I'm around you, sometimes. It's like I can't ... I can't not touch you. I don't know when it happened, but at some point, I don't know ... it's like you became mine. Touching you is like touching myself.”

  Micah was no great lyricist, but those were his honest and true feelings. Word vomit at its best, just spilling forth from his mouth. And for a moment, he was filled with relief when her features softened.

  “Oh, Micah,” she sighed, which was beautiful.

  But then she kept speaking.

  “I get what you're saying, I do. I feel the same way, a lot of the time. I think we've gotten so used to, like, having access to each other, that we just expect it now. And that's part of the problem – nothing has changed, nothing at all. I just had dinner with someone, a colleague. Maybe it'll become something more, maybe it won't, but right now, it doesn't change anything between us. Yet you're acting like ... like ... like I cheated on you, or something. I can't imagine anything worse than a demanding, jealous boyfriend, and that's what you've been acting like, Micah. And you're not even my boyfriend.”

  Her words poured ice water into his veins. He felt like he'd bared his soul, somewhat, and here she was, accusing him of being a jealous boyfriend type. That wasn't what was going on, this went deeper than that, but he was too angry to articulate his thoughts. To hurt.

  Fuck her.

  “Of course I'm not your fucking boyfriend,” he spit out. “Have I ever even asked you out, St. John? Have we ever gone out? Stop making this into something it's not.”

  “I'm not,” she argued, holding up her hands. “You're the one who came in here talking-”

  “Yeah, trying to talk,” he kept going, his anger taking full control. “But I can hardly say anything with you always telling me what I'm doing wrong, or what an asshole I am. Yeah, I'm not your boyfriend, Cass, so I don't get to tell you what to do. So guess what? That means you're not my girlfriend, so stop fucking acting like it.”

  Her jaw dropped.

  “I wasn't!” she snapped. “I haven't!”

  “Oh, really? Because every time I see you, you're bitching at me about something else. Like a nagging wife. Well, you're not. Why would I ever go out with someone like you? You barely even knew my full name, and you gave it up to me. Probably gave it up to that Josh dude. I like my girls freaky, St. John, not slutty.”

  The minute the words were out of his mouth, Micah knew they were wrong. A lie. Mean. But he couldn't take them back, time didn't work that way. Besides, even if he'd been able to, Cassie didn't give him the chance.

  She scrunched up her nose, whipped back her arm, and slapped him so hard, he felt his teeth rattle.

  And I can't even get mad, because I totally deserved it.

  “I'm a slut!?” she shouted, moving around him and shoving him to her front door. “You fuck anything with a pulse and tits! And I'm pretty sure the pulse is optional! And I'm a slut!? Screw you, Micah!”

  She was much stronger than he would've thought possible – rage must have been fueling her – and he let out a shout as he stumbled over her threshold, stubbing his toe along the way. He'd barely righted himself when she threw his jacket at his face.

  “I have listened to you fuck countless women!” she shrieked, and he ducked as one of his shoes was launched at his head. “And I've never said anything! Yet I go out to dinner with one guy, and suddenly, I'm a slut?” He jumped, but the next shoe still clipped the side of his hip. “You're gonna die of syphilis by the time you're thirty, and I'm the slut!? Eat shit and die, you pathetic excuse for a rockstar.”

  Okay, that was a bit much.

  “Look,” he sighed. “I'm sorry, okay? I'm all fucked up because you've got me fucked up, and we both said things we didn't mean, so why don't we talk again after you've calmed your ass down, then we can -”

  She screamed – actually screamed – and Micah dove to the side when she grabbed a dirty pot off her counter top and threw it at his skull.

  By the time he was upright again, her door was slammed shut. While he stood there, looking at the clothing and cookery around him, he heard her deadbolt lock, followed quickly by her chain lock. He wouldn't be getting back inside today, that was for sure.

  And maybe that's a good thing. God, why does this chick get under my skin!? I just need to chill out. Have a couple drinks, and calm down, and then I can talk to her the way I want to talk to her. Yeah, that's a good idea ...

  10

  “And then what happened?” Natalie asked.

  “I walked out the front door and caught a cab,” Cass replied.

  Then she shoved three cheesesticks into her mouth at once.

  They were sitting cross-legged in the center of Natalie's living room floor. An obscene amount of food from a local pizza place sat in between them, as well as several empty bottles of wine.

  Cassie had turned up at her bestie's house uninvited, one arm full of food and the other full of booze. She'd quickly been invited in, and after handing over the art project, she'd told Nat all about her awkward evening with Micah, then her great date with Josh, and then her shitty afternoon with Micah.

  I'm sensing a pattern here ...

  “Okay,” Nat sighed, then burped into her fist. “So this Micah dude's dick is how big, again?”

  Cass held her hands apart, and her friend groaned.

  “Goddamn. Okay. Okay. That might honestly be worth getting treated shitty for,” Nat argued, but Cassie shook her head.

  “No, it's really not. I mean, it was for a long time. He treated me like shit pretty much for the whole three months we slept together. But now? Talking to me the way he did, calling me a slut? Like a woman seeing multiple guys is a bad thing? Nuh uh, no, fuck that, he doesn't get to treat me shitty anymore, and especially not when an awesome guy like Josh already treats me good.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, and besides,” Natalie perked up. “Maybe Josh is packing heat, too!”

  “Maybe, Nat. Maybe.”

  They toasted their glasses to each other, then downed shots of tequila. From the floor next to Cass, her cellphone started vibrating. She glanced at the screen, then snorted and declined it.

  Micah had been calling her of
f and on all day, ever since she'd pushed him out of her apartment. She had a whole barrage of voicemails, running the gamut from sweet and sorry, to angry and annoyed. Natalie had listened to them and swooned over his rough voice, then drooled when Cass informed her that his hands were even rougher.

  The last voicemail, though, had a very slight slur to it. He'd started drinking with his friends at some point. Clearly a good idea, Cassie couldn't deny as she chugged down her umpteenth glass of wine.

  “He did say he was sorry,” Natalie pointed out, then both girls started laughing when she got the hiccups.

  “Of course he did – I closed the muffin shop,” Cassie pointed out, and she snapped her knees together for emphasis. “I'm just ... just ... a plaything to him, and he likes to get his way. He doesn't give a shit about me – he just cares about screwing me. And that was fine before, but it's not anymore.”

  “Good lord, you are wound up about this guy. It must be more than good dick, for sure. You said he's hot, right?”

  Cassie pictured Micah in her head, and her breath got short and her breasts felt tight and her temperature rose. She cursed him for being able to turn her on, even when she was mad at him, and she shook the image out of her brain.

  “No. He's a jerk. A stupid douchy jerk, with boring hair and boring eyes and hardly anything special about him at all. All he can do is play the guitar, and not even very well, at that. Just a lame, pathetic excuse for a musician.”

  A blatant lie, Micah was gorgeous and special and talented. But maybe if she lied enough about his looks to other people, her libido would start to believe them.

  “Pity. You should –” Natalie started, but then the phone ringing cut her off. “Jesus, he's relentless, isn't he!”

  Cass looked down, ready to thumb the decline button, but when she saw the name scrolling across the screen, she hesitated. Picked up the device.