Kind of Famous (Flirting with Fame Book 3) Read online

  “I hate to say this.” She closed the door. “I should have planned for another person, especially since the guys are always dropping in unannounced.”

  “It’s okay. I can find something on my own.” I felt like a jerk. “I should have asked you before inviting Shane over.”

  “No! It’s fine.” She held up a hand. “We’ll just have to order in again. Or go out.” She sighed. “I’m glad he’s coming over.”

  A knock sounded on the front door, and my heart fluttered. I’d taken the time to shower and fix my hair and makeup, like I was going on a date. My period had officially tapered to nothing, hallelujah! I’d dug up a shirt that I’d intended for work that flattered me without looking too corporate. I’d paired that with a short skirt, hoping Shane would like me in something flirty.

  Shane hollered, “Hey,” as he made his way to the kitchen.

  At the same time, the sliding door opened as Micah returned, asking, “So, what’s for dinner?”

  Jo leaned on her elbows against the island, one eyebrow raised at Shane. “We could order in or—”

  Shane rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh. No. Uh—” He ducked his head a little, eyeing me with a coyness that reminded of how we’d left things the night before. “Would you want to go out to dinner with me?”

  I shot a glance at Jo, unsure what the protocol was for ditching one dinner invitation for another. She shrugged. “Whatever you want to do is fine by me.” Her little grin told me what she really thought.

  Jaclyn had never gotten back to me with any more information about Shane, and I didn’t delve any further into her fan forum, but if Jo thought it was a good idea for me to go with Shane, then I’d trust her intuition. Or at least that was my rationale for doing what I wanted to all along.

  “Yeah. That would be great.”

  Shane bounced on his toes. “I know just the place.” He slipped out his phone. “I’ll call an Uber.”

  Turned out, we only went a few blocks, but I was starving, so I appreciated that he hadn’t asked me to walk.

  We got out next to a Japanese restaurant at the base of a four-story building with a massive set of fire escapes across the edifice. Unlike Micah’s street, this wasn’t one of those quaint blocks with the perfectly positioned steps and the tree-lined sidewalks. In fact, the entire street level was dominated by shops.

  Shane directed me to a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant. I was a little horrified at first, but as soon as we walked through the door, the smells made my stomach growl.

  “What is that? Can I order that?”

  We circled half a dozen different things on the menu and then grabbed a table under a blinking fluorescent light.

  The atmosphere was a perfect place to talk to him like a real person. If he’d taken me somewhere swanky, I would have felt out of place. Somewhere intimate, and I would have felt awkward. But here, in this take-out Chinese restaurant with three sticky tables and an abundance of individually wrapped duck sauce packets, I could say, “So, how did you start playing with Theater of the Absurd?”

  He took me through the early years when he and Noah had started a Black Keys cover band that wasn’t working out. They’d picked up Rick to add bass, but things hadn’t clicked until Micah had responded to their ad, and then it was magic. “Micah brought song-writing chops, guitar skills, and the front-man charisma we’d been lacking.”

  After years of hard work, they went from playing small clubs to opening for some of the biggest bands in rock.

  The food came out as Shane was explaining how they often fought now, but he believed they were on the cusp of truly breaking out. I couldn’t help but agree.

  We dug into sesame chicken, moo goo gai pan, fried rice, dumplings, Kung Pao shrimp, hot and sour soup, and a couple of egg rolls. It was way too much food, but I discovered the source of the delicious smells (the sesame chicken), and while we ate, I gushed about his band’s better-known songs, not wanting to reveal I knew the deeper tracks too.

  “And the rhythm on ‘Close Enough’ always makes me bang on my steering wheel when I’m driving.”

  “The thing people never realize,” he opined, waving his chopsticks like magic wands, “is that a band without a drummer might as well be an orchestra.”

  I laughed. “It’s true.”

  “And yet, it’s always the damn guitarists who get all the glory. Now, is that fair?”

  “Not remotely.”

  “You understand. But have you ever noticed how few spreads there are of world’s hottest drummers?”

  I chased a piece of chicken around, then gave up and stabbed it with the chopstick. I’d never gotten the hang of eating with them. “That would be a short article. Unless they put you on every page.”

  “Naturally.”

  I snorted. “You really do have it so hard.”

  His eyes narrowed. “For you.”

  I waited a beat for the curl of a smile, an arched eyebrow, some sign I should snicker at the joke, but his features conveyed no irony. What could I say to this boy, throwing himself before me without fear after knowing me for a couple of days?

  It was crazy. What did he even see in me? I couldn’t match his reckless abandon without second guessing at every step. It was too soon to tell him about the men who’d come before him, leaving their individual scars, with fears that had nothing to do with him, fears that he tripped with his too intense interest in me.

  But it wasn’t too soon to confess about the fandom. That was a much easier part of me to share, and one I’d have to cop to eventually. We were well beyond cool points.

  “Shane.”

  I opened my mouth to go on, but he must’ve picked up on my hesitation. He hid his sincerity behind the goofy grin I’d originally expected. “I was supposed to say, ‘That’s what she said.’ ” He picked up his plate and stood. “I really blew that.”

  He laughed as he carried the empty trays to the trash. I stared at a glob of rice that hadn’t followed the script, escaping the threat of capture from inept chopstick handling.

  Right when he returned, my phone exploded in vibrations and that Walking Disaster song. I really needed to change my ringtone.

  “Sorry,” I said, as I reached back to grab my phone. Seeing Ash’s message irritated me to no end. I swiped the notification off the screen without reading it and muted the damn phone before tossing it into my bag.

  His eyebrow rose, curious.

  “Not important.” I wanted to get back to the more serious conversation, the one he’d aborted with a joke, but Ash’s interruption had broken the moment. Besides, it was getting late for a work night. “I should head back.”

  He nodded and held out a hand to help me to my feet. Out on the sidewalk, I waited for him to suggest an Uber, but he spun around on one foot in a complete circle, like he was stalling for time. “I could walk you back to Micah’s.”

  The prospect of accompanying him through the dark Brooklyn neighborhoods again gave me a warm fuzzy. I reached out to take his hand, but he immediately roped me over and put an arm over my shoulder, just cuddling me into him as we started walking. It felt comfortable to press into him, and I allowed myself to slide a hand up his back, just under his shirt hem, hooking my thumb into his belt loop. Here we were, out on a busy sidewalk, two near strangers, and our touch created an intimacy I craved, opened a doorway I wanted to walk through.

  He sighed into my hair. “Layla.”

  And in that moment, I didn’t want him to walk me back to Micah’s. I wanted him to whisper my name somewhere private. “Maybe we could go somewhere else?”

  His breath tickled my ear. “I could show you my apartment.”

  My chest rose and fell. “How far away is it?”

  “It’s right here.”

  Whoa. Déjà vu.

  We turned the corner, and I saw that paint-chipped door wher
e we’d kissed the night before. I hadn’t recognized his building from the busier avenue.

  As if the location released muscle memory, he lifted a finger and ran it across my forehead, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, before he leaned in and placed a kiss on my cheek. “We could pick up a bottle of wine.”

  I shook my head, fearing something in the outside world might waylay us or detour me from breaching that door. “I want to see your place.”

  Now.

  His hands trembled as he punched in the security code. My own knees grew weak in the stairwell. Two flights up, he unlocked another door and gestured for me to lead the way.

  The transition from public to private was exhilarating, intoxicating, and frightening all at the same time. I held my breath and stepped into his lair.

  I’d expected a cookie-cutter apartment like I had back at home: beige carpets, efficient square rooms, and cream walls. Instead, I encountered a fairly open space with hardwood floors, exposed brick, and a unique decor. The vibe it gave was at once cozy and charming, and yet trendy and fun. Smoke-brown wooden floors shone where they weren’t covered by large area rugs and colorful furniture.

  “This isn’t like Micah’s place at all.”

  He followed me in and tossed his keys onto a distressed console table. “Thank God.”

  His face held all the delight of a parent watching a child on Christmas morning. He knew this place rocked.

  To my left, beside the entrance to the kitchen, a bright red spiral staircase wound up through a hole in the ceiling to another level. My curiosity got ahead of my logic. “Oh, I have to see what’s up there.”

  He chuckled. “Be my guest.”

  As I climbed up, intending to merely peek my head in and then come right back down, I sensed him behind me. As soon as my eyes crossed the threshold, I saw his bed looming before me, and my breath caught.

  With Shane blocking my way down, I had no other option than to fully emerge onto his second floor.

  The loft had soft brown walls and a loaded bookshelf running across one entire length. An open door revealed a small office with a desk and a papasan chair.

  Nervous now about the implications of where we were, I stepped over to the window to check out the view, staring stupidly when the black metal of the fire escape grate met me. I wrapped my arms around my elbows and said, “It’s quiet here.”

  He was behind me in another moment, hands on my shoulders.

  I shivered. It had been one thing to throw caution to the wind in the heat of the moment out on the street. But here, with his bed mere feet away, possibilities gave way to probabilities.

  When I turned to face him, his expression matched my thoughts. I bit my lower lip, wishing I could stop the questions running through my mind. “Maybe we should have stopped for that bottle of wine after all.”

  My attempt at a laugh came out shaky, telling him everything I’d been trying to hide.

  He exhaled. “Come here.” He sat on his neatly made king size bed. His whole place was so tidy, as if he’d been expecting company. As if he’d been expecting me.

  “Were you planning on bringing me here?” I blurted out.

  “Not planning. Hoping? To bring you to my apartment I mean. Not necessarily up here. I don’t mean to rush into this. I just . . . like you.”

  His nose wrinkled at the quasi-confession, so cute. The image of him straightening up for me endeared him to me. The speed with which he shared how he felt terrified me.

  “Would you mind if we just talked for a bit?”

  His crooked smile put me at ease. “Most people tell me to shut up.”

  “I love listening to you talk.” And staring at him when he did. I loved the way his features changed so dramatically as he spoke about things he felt passionately about. I loved that he could go from animated to totally still, and somehow his intensity never abated. He gave off all the potential power of a lit stick of dynamite.

  But my mind was urging me to beware. His interest in me was too much, too fast. What if I changed my mind?

  My history with men had never been successful.

  Back in college, when Liam hadn’t taken my rejection well, he’d persisted for months, nearly stalking me, trying to make me change my mind. He hadn’t done anything illegal or violent, but it left me leery of fanatic devotion. Ironically.

  And yet, Shane drew me to him, like the moon pulls the tides. I liked that he didn’t play games. I liked that he didn’t play it cool.

  It scared me in equal measure.

  He scooted onto the bed and fluffed the pillows against the backboard. “This okay?”

  I propped myself beside him but slid down flat and turned on my side. He did the same, and we faced each other in what felt like a bizarre sleepover.

  His mouth was maybe six inches from mine. “What should we talk about?”

  Our bodies didn’t touch, but I felt as though we did. Something like an electric charge built up in the space between us. “Maybe get to know each other?”

  His hand found mine, but he didn’t twine our fingers. Instead, he followed my arm until he reached my shoulder and then took a sharp detour to the hair falling over my neck. With a strand twirling between his fingers, he answered. “I’m an open book. Ask me anything.”

  It was hard to think of words with him looking at me with those dilated eyes, with his shallow breathing, with his tongue running along his lower lip.

  “Um, how old are you?”

  He smiled. “Oh, good. You didn’t research me ahead of time.”

  If he only knew. “Why? Is there something you don’t want me to know?”

  He shook his head. “Like I said, I’m an open book. But you can’t learn everything about a person from a Wikipedia entry.”

  Wikipedia! I hadn’t even thought to check there. “You have a Wiki page?”

  “Not much of one. It would have told you I’m thirty-one.”

  I peered at him, memorizing the planes on his face, the curve of his lips. I wanted to watch those lips move. “Where are you from originally?”

  “Outside DC.” He met my eyes, and I knew he felt the desire I was failing to combat.

  He let go of the strand of hair he’d been examining and used his fingers like a comb, tickling behind my ear, my neck, along my collarbone.

  My brain shut down.

  I didn’t want to ask him questions or think or glean facts that didn’t matter. I just wanted to give in to feeling.

  I touched his wrist and traced the length of his arm. His gaze locked with mine.

  “What else do you want to know, Layla?”

  Nothing. I didn’t want to know anything else. “Can I kiss you?”

  He didn’t respond in words. His eyes softened, and he moved an inch closer. I rolled toward him the rest of the way.

  This time when our lips met, we were closer in spirit than in body. He kissed gently, coaxing, like we had all the time in the world, and this deserved our full attention. He shifted slightly, and his hand slid up my spine, urging me closer, until we lined up perfectly, legs against legs, chest against chest. My fingers worked their way under his shirt. I needed to feel his muscles. Every touch brought another adjustment from him until our legs were completely intertwined, our arms wrapped around each other, and our mouths inseparable.

  But feeding one need only birthed another. We were as close as we could possibly get, except for the thin layer of clothes that might as well have been a hundred feet thick.

  The same thought must have occurred to him because he grabbed the hem of my shirt and tugged. I sat up to help him slip it over my head. Then he spent an eternity exploring the edges of my bra, touching my skin, inching down the lace until he’d exposed my very hard nipple. He devoted his full attention to licking me as he unhooked my bra and slid the straps down my arms. My entire body melt
ed from the delicious magic in that tongue.

  A groan escaped my throat, and he pushed me back against the pillows, kissing my lips, my neck, my breasts, hands now exploring my stomach along the waist of my pants.

  He was getting ahead of me. “Take your shirt off,” I rasped.

  With one arm, he had it over his head and tossed onto the floor, revealing a mess of tattoos I hadn’t known he had. I traced them, but where one ended, another began. I didn’t know why, but they made me even crazier for him. And those muscles. I’d never been with a guy who had such prominent biceps, but his chest was worthy of a Pinterest board—sculpted and hard. I shoved him over so I could devote myself to running my fingers along every pronounced bulge in his six pack. I was overwhelmed with desire to see the rest of him.

  “You are insanely hot, Shane.”

  Seriously, if he’d been drumming shirtless all this time, Noah would have been chasing after his castoffs. Who knew? How was this all mine?

  I threw my leg over his waist, savoring the feel of his hands as they slipped around my back.

  “Layla, you are—” he took a sharp breath “—I can’t think of words that haven’t been ruined. Beautiful seems so inadequate.”

  I froze in place. I’d had men tell me I was beautiful. That was never an issue. I’d never actually felt it though.

  Until now.

  My body thrummed with pulsating energy, all of it coalescing like nuclear fission onto an ever-increasing heat at my center. I needed him, and if I didn’t have him, I would detonate.

  I ground against him, dry fucking him like he was my own personal sex toy.

  “You’re killing me here,” he grunted.

  Unable to contain the combustion, I reached down and unsnapped his jeans. Leaning back a bit, I slowly opened the zipper and wiggled the denim down until his erection pressed up through the fabric of his boxers. I couldn’t stand the suspense and tore down the boxers, too.

  The exact word I thought at that moment was glorious. He was smooth and cut, long and thick. And so damn hard.