Ball Peen Hammer (21 page)

“Incredible,” Maddy says, applauding, her face on fire. “You’re... seriously... wow. You’re
amazing
, Keane. If stripping doesn’t work out for you, you should join the circus.”

I shrug like it ain’t no thang and flash her my dimples.

Maddy’s face is glowing. Oh man, I betcha if I stuck my fingers deep inside her and touched that magic spot just right, she’d go off against my fingers like a bottle rocket. Not that I’d ever do that, seeing as how she’s nothing but my honorary little sister and I’ve promised I won’t fuck her. But, still—I bet she would. Oh, shit. I gotta stop this. Sisters don’t have tits. And I certainly don’t stick my fingers deep inside them. I feel like slapping the shit out of myself.
Stop this shit right now, Peen
.

“You’re insanely fit,” Maddy chirps, obviously oblivious to the tug-of-war happening inside my head. “The balance that must take—the strength. Wow, wow, wow. You’re a monkey.”

“Thanks,” I say smoothly. “Sweet of you to say.” I level her with my best smolder and place my palm on my stomach and run my hand over my abs, subtly lifting my T-shirt as I do. “This little R&R sesh has been a real
pleasure
, hasn’t it, Maddy?”

“Absolutely,” Maddy chirps out, her Disney-princess tone not even in the ballpark with mine. “So glad we weren’t sitting in traffic this whole time. That was a grand stroke of genius, Mr. Monkey Man. So, you ready to hit the road again? I bet that traffic jam is
finito
by now.”

What. The. Fuck? Is she even human? I was doing my best smolder just now. I was lifting up my shirt and giving her another peek at my abs—and
touching
them suggestively, too. And doing all that while sending a subliminal message to the pleasure-center in Maddy’s brain via Federal Express. And she’s acting like we’ve been talking about the weather?

“Sure,” I say. “Let’s get going.”

“Cool,” Maddy says brightly. She hops off the blanket, grabs it off the ground, and begins shaking it with gusto to get leaves and grass off its underside.

I stand, rooted to my spot, watching her, dumbfounded.

“Wow, if those are your G-rated smoove mooves, I can only imagine how
smoove
your R-rated mooves are,” she says. “No wonder the pickles hurl themselves at you.”

Did I just fall into some sort of psychedelic rabbit hole? Why isn’t Maddy falling all over me? She should be doing that thing she supposedly does with guys she wants to bone—that thing she told me about where she can’t string two coherent words together when she sees a hot guy. Where the fuck is
that
Maddy?

Maddy snorts again as she folds up the blanket. “And here I thought that hot bod of yours was only good for bonin’ the fuck outta pickles and puppets,” she says. “Looks like you’re multi-talented after all, Ball Peen Hammer.” She looks at me and smiles. “You ready to roll, sugar lips? I saw a restroom on the far end of the park. I’m just gonna hit that before we go.”

“Uh. Great.”

“Coolio,” Maddy chirps happily. “Let’s roll.”

Chapter 20

Maddy

I turn up the radio as I drive at full speed down the freeway, the traffic from earlier in the day all cleared up. I look over at Keane. He’s looking out the passenger window, quiet as a mouse. In fact, he’s been unusually quiet since we left the park.

I turn up the music, intending to signal to Keane it’s fine with me if we don’t talk for a bit. I could be wrong, but I’m guessing Keane needs more quiet time than the average person. From my experience, it always seems like people with the most charisma are the ones who, on the flipside, need the most downtime. At least, that’s the way it was with my first boyfriend, Justin. He had the biggest personality of anyone, and always needed the most downtime, too.

The song on the radio ends and a new song—“Trip Switch” by Nothing But Thieves— begins, immediately snapping Keane out of his quiet mood.

“Oh my shitake mushrooms,” Keane says, sitting up in his car seat and turning up the volume on the radio to full-blast. “I
love
this song.” He begins singing along and, instantly, his high-powered charisma re-enters his body.

When the song ends and is followed by a mellow love song—“Like Real People Do,” by Hozier—Keane turns the radio down and settles into his seat again.

“Six months from now, 22 Goats will be the band we’re jamming to on the radio,” he says.

I smile at him. “For sure.”

“Dax’s music is incredible. You’re gonna flip out when you hear it.”

I’m about to say, “Oh, I’ve heard every single one of Dax’s songs, thanks to the full hour I spent stalking him on YouTube—and, yes, he’s fantastic.” But, for some reason, I don’t want to admit that to Keane. So I keep my mouth shut.

“Daxy’s gonna be a huge star,” Keane continues. “When the world discovers him, they’re gonna go nuts for him.”

Aaaaand that’s it for now, apparently. Keane leans back in his seat again and looks out the passenger window, becoming oddly quiet again.

So I remain quiet, too, letting Keane do his thing while I listen to Hozier’s beautiful love song on low-volume.

But when the next song begins and it’s one of my all-time favorites—“Blue Jeans” by Lana Del Rey—all bets are off. I gotta sing my girl’s praises.

“Oh my shitake mushrooms,” I begin, blaring the song, but when I glance over at Keane, he’s fast asleep.

I smile to myself, turn the volume on the radio back down, and steal a long glance at Keane’s sleeping face.

Good lord, he’s handsome. His features are so darned symmetrical and smooth. It’s like he’s the masculine version of Marilyn Monroe. Just sort of... objectively perfect. No bad angle.

Or, hell, maybe it’s just the gorgeous song that’s getting to me. Because this song is oh-my-effing-God.

I focus on the road again for a long moment, listening to Lana Del Rey’s haunting voice singing about eternal love and brutal heartbreak, willing myself not to look at Keane again. But before long, I can’t resist stealing another teeny glance at his gorgeous features.

Yep, he’s still perfect. Same as the last time I looked.

It’s funny, when Keane’s awake, it’s his eyes that grab my attention so much, I forget to look at anything else. But now that he’s asleep and inanimate, it’s his lips that are taking center stage. And his chiseled jawline. That little indentation in Keane’s chin makes him look like a cartoon action-hero—a blue-haired, re-imagined Captain America.

I smile to myself again.

Keane makes absolutely no sense in a logical world. He’s got superhero-looks with a sidekick personality. He’s Batman and Robin all rolled into one. To say the boy marches to the beat of his own drum is like saying Tiger Woods sometimes likes to hit little white balls with a stick.

I steal yet another glance at Keane’s sleeping face and take in the shocking mess of his tousled hair. I can’t believe I’m thinking this, but I think I actually
like
Keane’s blue hair now. It suits him. Especially now that I know
why
he dyed it. Sure, maybe he’s impulsive and crazy, but, still, he did it to help a brother out. And I think that’s sweet.

I sigh.

That’s Keane Morgan in a nutshell. He’s the sweetest asshole-pig-narcissist I’ve ever met. Adorable. Gentle. Silly. Easy to talk to. When we were lying together on that blanket in the park, I felt so comfortable, I could have fallen asleep in his arms, right then and there, my cheek resting on his shoulder, my body warmed by his. To think I didn’t even know him twenty-four hours ago boggles my mind. I feel like I’ve known Keane my whole life.

And, whoa, I’ve
never
talked to a guy about sex the way I do with Keane.

I grip the steering wheel and fix my eyes on the road.

Can Keane really do all that stuff he claims? He says he gave that horrible blackmailer
four
orgasms in less than half an hour? Is that even physically
possible
? It sometimes takes me twenty minutes to give myself
one
with a freakin’ vibrator. No guy I’ve been with, even Justin, has even come close to being able to do what Keane says he can do as easily as snapping his fingers.

I shift my hands on the steering wheel again.

Keane’s gotta be full of shit, right? There’s no other explanation. If “The Sure Thing,” whatever it is, actually makes women come over and over on command in rapid succession, then surely I would have experienced it by now, right? Because, especially in the age of the Internet, why wouldn’t all guys learn that trick and do it every time? He’s gotta be exaggerating. I bet if Keane went fishing in a puddle and caught a goldfish, he’d come back bragging about how he’d harpooned a great white shark on the stormy seas.

I look at Keane yet again.

God, he’s just so gorgeous, especially when he sleeps. When he’s sleeping, he almost looks...
humble
.

The thought makes me snort to myself.

I look at Keane yet again, unable to resist, and it suddenly occurs to me I’ll probably never witness this sight again—the simple sight of Keane sleeping, the light of the late-afternoon sun casting a golden hue over his perfectly formed features.

Shoot.

I shouldn’t do it—I
know
I shouldn’t. It’s reckless. Risky.
Wrong
. Plus, I promised my sister I’d keep my phone in the glove box at all times while driving.

And yet...

This is one quiet moment of magic I simply can’t resist documenting.

Still keeping my eyes on the road ahead of me, I reach across Keane’s sleeping body to my glove box and slowly pull out my phone. And then, ever so carefully, my eyes shifting between the road ahead of me and my phone, I swipe into my camera, set it to ‘video mode,’ and oh so quickly capture a short clip of Keane’s gorgeous, sleeping face illuminated by the late-afternoon light.

Chapter 21

Maddy

Wednesday, 7:04 p.m.

“Whoa,” Keane says, stirring from his nap and sitting up in his seat, his tousled blue hair a complete disaster. “I fell asleep?”

“For almost an hour.”

Keane looks at the clock on my dashboard. “Wow.” He looks outside his window at the setting sun. “Sorry.”

“Did you sleep well?” I ask softly. “Looked like you were sleeping like a big ol’ blue-haired baby.”

“Yeah. Like a rock.” He wipes his eyes. “Do you want me to drive for a bit, Mario Andretti?”

“Nope, I got it. I’m gonna pull off to a motel soon, if that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah, sure. I’m dying to watch your movie.” Keane runs his hand through his hair, pats it down and smooths it, and just like that, he magically looks like a (blue-haired) Abercrombie & Fitch model again. “Sorry I deserted you, Mad Dog,” he says. “Won’t happen again. Co-pilot reporting for duty.” He salutes me.

“It was fine. Gave me a chance to think and recharge for a bit.”

“Yeah, I try not to do that.”

“Recharge?”

“Think.” He grins.

“Are you a big napper?” I ask.

“Totally,” he says. “I don’t usually get a full night’s sleep ’cause of my job. Weird hours. Plus, when I get home from a gig, I can’t fall asleep right away—I’m just too amped—so I’m pretty much always playing catch-up on sleep.”

“Yeah, and besides your schedule, I’m sure it takes regular recharging to keep that ‘ebullient charm’ of yours at full wattage,” I say.

Keane looks surprised, but he doesn’t say anything.

“I wasn’t being snarky,” I say quickly. “I’m just saying being the life of the party all the time, both in your personal
and
professional lives, must take its toll, especially given your natural tendencies.”

Keane looks at me like he’s expecting me to elaborate further.

“I mean, you know, since you’re a natural introvert,” I add.

Keane looks surprised. “Why do you think I’m a natural introvert?”

“You said you were shy when you were little. That’s what that tells me. It doesn’t mean you can’t be extroverted in certain situations; obviously you are, quite successfully. It just means you need to take quiet time to recharge on a regular basis to keep yourself running on all cylinders.”

Keane looks thoughtful for a moment. “No one ever sees that about me,” he says. “Everyone always thinks I’m Ball Peen Hammer, twenty-four-seven.”

“Nobody can be Ball Peen Hammer, twenty-four-seven,” I say. “Not even Ball Peen Hammer.”

“That’s why I don’t answer my phone sometimes. I get this weird, I dunno,
overwhelmed
feeling, like I gotta shut it down or my circuits are gonna overload.”

“I’d imagine that’s pretty common for people with ‘ebullient charm.’” I grin at him.

Keane looks earnest. “You think?”

“Sure,” I say softly, taken aback by the sincerity on Keane’s face. “Nothing comes for free. Not even J.Lo’s love.”

“Um. Actually, I think you’ve got that one wrong, baby doll. J.Lo’s love ‘don’t cost a thing.’”

“Nah, even J.Lo’s love costs
something
. It’s just the way the universe works. If you’re Ball Peen Hammer day and night with the horny pickles, or puppets, or earthquake-sensing dogs, or whatever the hell they are—”

Keane laughs.

“Then at some point you’ve gotta pay the ferryman and revert back to being shy little Keaney Morgan, at least briefly, just long enough to refuel the tanks. You gotta pay for your sparkling personality somehow.”

I glance at Keane and, oh my God, the sweet look on his face is light years away from the cocky peacock I’ve come to know.

I focus back on the road, my heart squeezing.

“Honestly, I know we joke about it, but sometimes I think I’m, I dunno, seriously abnormal,” Keane says, his tone earnest. “I don’t mean abnormal like, you know, wearing an aluminum hat so I can talk to Martians, or collecting tiny figurines for an elaborate dollhouse in my cellar.”

I laugh. “Did you just pull those two examples out of thin air or is there something you’d like to tell me?”