I lead Rowan and Leti past the side of the stage where Shawn stands, circling around the back to get to the side where Joel stands. My heels click against the stage stairs, and once we’re at the top, I pull my long chocolate hair over my shoulders, hike my skintight dress up a little higher, and freshen my lip gloss.
It’s hard not to scream like a groupie while I watch the guys command the stage, especially from this vantage point. The way Joel’s blond spikes shine deadly under the foggy blue glow of the spotlights above him. The way he doesn’t even need to look down at his guitar while he plucks the strings. The way his blue eyes periodically find mine and his mouth tips up at the corners. His presence on the stage is magnetic. It turns my blood to lava and makes it impossible to think. Part of me wants to play hard to get, but the other part of me knows all too well the rewards of letting him have me.
When Joel’s impossibly blue eyes capture mine and hold them long enough to make me melt under their heat, my skin flushes and I know I need to do something to put myself back in control. With a devilish smile, I say, “Ro, you might want to close your eyes for this.”
Without lifting my dress up, I wiggle out of my lacy black thong and dangle it from a manicured pointer finger. Joel’s hands are busy playing his guitar, but his eyes remain fixed on me, and when I toss my panties at him, he snatches them out of the air. He finishes the song with them dangling from his wrist, and then he stuffs them in his back pocket, giving me a wink that would make any other girl weak in her knees.
“I can’t believe you just did that!” Leti shouts over the music.
“I can!” Rowan shouts back, making me laugh.
“I’m heading back to the bar,” I tell them, and Rowan questions me with a look.
“Why?”
The truth is, I want to see if he’ll come after me. And if he doesn’t, I need to have enough distance to pretend that I don’t care.
At the bottom of the stairs, I turn around to stop Rowan from following me. “I want another drink. You stay here. Wait for Adam.”
She frowns at me, but I give her a smile and walk backward toward the door. “I’ll see you after.”
At the bar, I sit next to the hottest guy I can find and flash a smile in his direction. Two minutes later, I have a drink and a distraction.
“So do you like the band?” he asks, nodding toward the stage.
I shrug. “They’re alright.” They’re also the last thing I want to talk about right now, since I desperately need to stop agonizing over what’s going to happen when their set ends, but God apparently hates me.
“I went to high school with most of them,” the guy brags, like he can claim some kind of residual rock-star status for having shared a zip code. I almost burst out laughing, barely managing to hide it behind the drink I’m sipping.
“Were you friends?” I ask, not caring but knowing it’s my turn to say something.
He goes on and on about the classes they shared and the time he got to see them in the talent show and how he went to one of Adam’s parties his senior year. I’m mentally plotting my escape when the guy’s eyes flit over my shoulder and open wide, sending untamed eyebrows jumping up into his forehead. His hand latches onto my forearm like a lifeline, and I turn my head just in time for my lips to brush Joel’s cheek. “Is this guy bothering you?” he questions in my ear, his blue eyes turning to read mine before narrowing on the guy’s hand, which recoils from my arm even though the rest of the guy looks totally dazed. With his wide eyes and unhinged jaw, he’s so starstruck that I can’t help but cast a quick glance at his lap to check for a man-for-man hard-on.
“You know Joel Gibbon?” he gasps, startling me from my detective work.
“Who, him?” I ask, pointing a lazy finger at the boy standing behind me. Inside, I’m giddy as hell that Joel came to find me. Outside, I’m mildly bored and totally unfazed.
“Oh my God,” the guy says. “I’m such a huge fan!”
“You apparently went to school together,” I add without turning to face Joel, who loosens up behind me even as both of his heavy arms come to wrap around my shoulders. Since no one else has popped up at my sides, I’m guessing the rest of our group stayed backstage to watch the closing band perform.
Joel’s chuckle rumbles against my back. “Oh yeah? What year were you?”
The guys talk and I tune them out until the hot fanboy eventually gets a picture with Joel and leaves. And then Joel’s suggestive voice is in my ear again.
“Are you ready to get out of here?”
“Are you ready to stop being a man-whore?”
He has the nerve to laugh. “Why, are you jealous?”
Insanely. “Why would I be jealous?” I peel his arms away and turn on my stool to face him. “I’m the one you always go home with.”
“Isn’t that interesting,” he muses with an agitating glimmer in his arctic-blue eyes.
Joel usually begins the night with someone else—or a few someone elses—and on nights I’m not around, he goes home with them. But on nights I am around, I always end up winning his attention—through exhaustive efforts that I’m really getting tired of exerting.
“If I say no, what will you do? Go home with one of them instead?”