I stared at the editor. My smile was still in place, but it was more like a waxworks expression, it was so fake.
“Um… what is it that you want, exactly? Because I’m not doing some kiss-and-tell piece.”Glen waved his hands as though to ward off bad mojo. “Oh, no no no no no. Nothing like that.”“…what, then?”“Well, as you know, Kane is notoriously averse to the press.”Actually, I did know that. Just because I hadn’t talked to him since our final day together didn’t mean I hadn’t been keeping tabs on him.‘Notoriously averse to the press’ was kind of like saying ‘The Pope isn’t tremendously fond of gay marriage.’Derek hated the press. Hated them. With a vengeance bordering on lunacy. He’d go on shows to perform, no problem – Letterman, Conan, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel. He’d go on Ellen and banter with her.But what he would not do was talk to the press. Not Rolling Stone, not Spin, not The New York Times, not the Anytown USA Herald. He hadn’t for years.Which had the curious effect of making them slobber over him all the more. Like semi-popular girls spurned by the Prom Queen, they gossiped and backstabbed and gushed over him – sometimes in the same article – hoping that they, maybe, just maybe, might get to be BFFs with him in his first print interview in two years.It really was like high school, in the most shallow and disgusting of ways.Omigawd, did you see what he’s WEARING?! He’s SO over. Totes. Omigawd, did you hear, he just had another hit! It’s the worst song E-VER. Do you think he’d come to my party?“…and what does that have to do with me?” I asked. I wasn’t trying to be bitchy, but I have to admit, my stress over the situation was beginning to leak out around the edges.“We think he’ll talk to you.”There it was. My stomach knotted up seventeen times over.“I don’t think he will,” I said with a forced smile.“Actually, we know he will.”My forced smile faded. “How do you know that?”“We’ve been trying to get him to talk to us for the last six months. Actually, we’ve been trying for longer than that, but it didn’t become a priority until they started charting in a big way. We must have tried thirty times. At first we just did general inquiries through their manager – ‘could we talk to you while you’re playing Madison Square?’ ‘Let me check with Derek.’ And then he’d email back, ‘No.’ We started throwing out names – our best guys. People who have interviewed everybody – Madonna, Springsteen, Obama, for God’s sake. ‘No.’ We lined up authors who agreed to do a one-off for us – Bret Easton Ellis, David Mamet, people it would be a fucking honor for Kane to even be in the same room with. ‘No.’ Same damn thing every time – ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ And then I meet Shanna at a party, and in passing I mention I can’t get Derek Kane to give us a fucking interview… and she tells me about you.“On a complete whim – in fact, and I’m not proud to admit this, but I was pissed off and a little bit drunk when I sent the email – I gave the manager your name.”He let the silence build up the suspense.I was about to puke – not because I didn’t know what was coming, but because I did.“‘Yes.’ No preconditions, no rules, no bullshit… just one word: yes.” Glen threw his hands up in the air. “So you’re it, kid. This is the Call. You’re moving up to the big leagues. Congratulations.”My hands shook as I clenched them in my lap. “Thank you, but… no.”It was the spring of my Freshman year in college, two weeks away from finals. I was in my dorm room at the University of Georgia, reading up for a test the next morning in my English Lit class, trying to ignore the phone call from three days earlier that was still playing in an endless loop in my head.“Are you seeing anybody?”“No, Kevin, I’m not. You know I’m not.”“You’re not attracted to anybody, are you? If you are, I wish you’d just come out and tell me right now and be honest about it.”“God, how many times do I have to say it?”“Don’t curse at me, Kaitlyn.”“I wasn’t – fine. Sorry.”“Well – are you?”“Am I what?”“Attracted to anybody else?”“NO! GOD, how many times do I have to – ”“I told you, don’t curse – ”“I wasn’t fucking cursing, Kevin! NOW I’m fucking cursing!”“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”“You don’t even hear me when I DO talk to you!”“Well, maybe we shouldn’t talk for awhile, then.”“…Kevin…”“Maybe we should take a break.”“Kevin, come on – there’s
I heard the key fumble and scrape noisily across the lock. It was the sound I called ‘the Drunk Doorbell’ – a sure sign that Shanna was blasted.It was usually accompanied by ‘the Drunk Disclaimer.’“Shhhh,” she giggled out in the hallway. “We gotta be quiet cuz I got a roommate…”Ah, there it was.“I’m awake,” I called out. “You don’t have to be quiet.”The lock clicked and the door crashed open, and Shanna stumbled into the room. “Oh, thas’ good…”I turned around from my desk to look at her. She was cute – not gorgeous, but she had a great smile and knew how to work a push-up bra. And she was very outgoing. I’d had a lot of practice in fending off guys – most of them assholes, some of them charming – but I never, ever flirted with anybody. Shanna didn’t just flirt, she manhandled.“I didn’t wake you up, did I?”“No.”“It’s okay, right?” she asked, her eyes defocused, her body weaving slightly. “I haven’t had a Shanna Night in… awhile… right?”That’s what we called the ‘one night a w
But I played it as cool as I could, and gave him a You are SO full of shit smirk. “Studying’s important? Really.”He matched me grin for grin. “It obviously is to you.”Shanna was getting pissed that Derek was ignoring her. So she played her trump card.“Kaitlyn has a boyfriend,” she announced loudly.As soon as she said it, my stomach twisted with guilt – and anger.“No I don’t. We broke up three days ago, remember?” I snapped.“You always break up and get back together,” she said petulantly, then turned to Derek. “They’re high school sweethearts. They’ll be back together by tomorrow night, just watch.”In addition to my anger and guilt, I also felt a tiny bit of fear – that Derek would lose interest in me.I reprimanded myself. I was bad to feel that way. Shanna was right, I’d probably be back with Kevin in another couple of days.And if I kept talking to Derek, it would just confirm all of Kevin’s worst accusations.It’s better if he loses interest now, I told myself dejectedly.Bu
The answer sent thrills through my belly.It was obvious that he was flirting with me… and brazenly, at that.But I struggled to keep the upper hand. “It’s the wrong question,” I said.“Oh? What’s the right question?”“What does an individual woman want? Women aren’t all the same. They don’t want the same things.”“Well… what do you want?”Oh my God.His voice…I was melting at the sound of it.And then my roommate spoke up.“I know what Shanna wants,” Shanna slurred from her bed. “Shanna wants to get laid.”Then it hit me how much of a bitch I was being. She’d gotten this guy; she’d brought him back; and here I was, stealing him away from her. Me, with a boyfriend.Well, an ex-boyfriend… who would probably be my boyfriend again within 24 hours.Time to bail.“I should leave you two,” I said, and moved to go.Derek put out his hand. “No – stay. We’re having a very interesting conversation here.”“About the Wife of Bath,” I gently mocked him, totally not believing him.“And the Wife
Derek was still watching me hesitantly, like he was afraid I might be judging him.That was the exact same way I’d felt before, when he’d asked me what I wanted out of life. Afraid of judgment. Afraid of being made fun of.Only difference was, he’d opened up to me, totally and completely.“That was really beautiful,” I said softly.He relaxed. “Thanks,” he said, and flashed that sexy, charming grin.I think it was the grin that broke the spell.I went from seeing the magic and wonder of a child entranced by music, to seeing the incredibly good-looking guy who knew all the girls were into him.I mean, I still felt like everything he’d said to me was real… but for the first time, I considered the possibility that it had also been a performance.I gave him an impish little smile. “And you’ve never told that story to any other girl, have you.”“No. Never,” he said solemnly, though he nodded his head ‘yes’ as he said it.I laughed – at least he was honest (or semi-honest) about his bullsh
Glen stared at me like I’d just turned down a million dollars for doing nothing more than writing a book report.“What?” he asked, stunned.“No,” I croaked, fully aware I was throwing away the best opportunity of my career thus far. Maybe even the best opportunity of my entire career, even if it lasted four decades. “Sorry.”“You do understand what I’m offering you, right?”“To write an article on Derek Kane.”“And the band,” Glen stressed, as though that might be the piece of information I had overlooked.“Yeah. No thank you.”“Not just a half-page fluff piece – I’m talking a full-on, six-page spread. I mean, if you turn in a good enough story, we’re potentially talking the cover.”“Yeah. Thank you, but no.”The longer he stared at me, the more his disbelief turned to anger. “You do realize that is a one in a million offer, right? You don’t just get handed the cover of Rolling Stone – not when you’re some unknown writer a year out of college. I mean, you realize that, right?”“Yes, a
Shanna was cold as ice to me the next morning – and it wasn’t just her hangover. She gave me the glare of death the entire time I was getting ready, though she didn’t say anything.Finally I turned around and blurted out, “I didn’t sleep with him.”“What a coincidence,” she sneered. “Neither did I.”I hustled out of there as fast as possible and went to my English class.I know Shanna was pissed, and she had every right to be – but it’s not like I’d wangled a hot new boyfriend out of the deal.In fact, I was absolutely sure I would never see him again. Not like ‘see’ as in ‘go out on a date with,’ either.‘See’ as in ‘run into around town.’I had resigned myself to that fact for many reasons.He was an incredibly good-looking guy (incredibly good-looking), in a band, cool, charismatic, funny, surprisingly smart – and he was used to picking up women and sleeping with them the same night. He’d had a brief interruption the previous night, that was all. For whatever reason, he had aband
I threw him out of the room and hurriedly switched into a pair of jeans, a nice blouse, and a pair of suede boots, and then walked with him down to the student center.It was a gorgeous spring day – warm but not hot, and blissfully free of humidity. The dogwoods were in bloom, and everything else was green and bursting with life. People were out biking, jogging, lounging on the grass, basically doing anything to soak up the great weather. The entire way to the student center I walked beside him, talking and laughing, but I couldn’t stop from watching the way he moved. Even though he was a rocker wannabe, he moved like an athlete – long, powerful strides, confident, relaxed. I also saw his ass in motion for the first time.Daaaaaaaaamn.Let’s just say his jeans were packed in all the right ways, and were tight in exactly the right places.Added to that, I caught his scent for the first time. Well, the first pleasant scent. Not the dank beer and cigarette smell when he and Shanna came