Marooned with the Rock Star (A Crazily Sensual Rock Star Romance, with Humor) (7 page)

Though, of course, she did.

And Kurt was the kind of boyfriend I
simultaneously despised and desired. I know. It was a
dichotomy.

He was a long-haired jock, as
stereotypically dumb as stereotypical jocks could get. He was
callously handsome, carelessly popular without even trying. The
type of guy who seemed to coast through life on his good looks and
devil-may-care attitude. He was as bad as bad boys came. And before
he arrived on the scene with Adeline, he had an honor’s roll call
with girls as long as his arm.

Kurt had quite a reputation all right. Maybe
it was bigger than he deserved, but he was rumored to have slept
with dozens of girls and with some of their sisters and mothers
too.

But when he met Adeline, she touched him in
some way that he wasn’t touched before. There were girls who were
prettier and smarter, but somehow, a spark developed between him
and Adeline that neither of them had experienced before. It was as
if the cosmos collided and conspired for them to be together.

Maybe that was what I was jealous of. I was
jealous of my best friend having that kind of connection with
someone who wasn’t me.

And I was jealous that Kurt didn’t find me
attractive.

I was kind of competitive against Adeline
that way.

I said to the two of them, “The Lasseter
brothers always do coke. There could be a raid.”

“That’s what makes it hot,” Kurt said. His
profile was grinning in the dark as he half-turned to me.

“Suit yourself,” I retorted. “But I don’t
want to be hauled out of jail by my parents so close to
graduation.”

“Me neither,” Adeline said. Her looks were a
contrast to mine. Where I was redheaded and green-eyed, she was
dark-haired and dark-eyed. She had gypsy blood and a touch of the
exotic.

“So where do we go?” Kurt said. “Maybe we
can stop at a Seven-Eleven and get a couple of beer cartons and
have our own party.”

“A couple of beer cartons?” Adeline laughed.
“I don’t think we can go through that much between the three of
us.”

“OK. One beer carton. A six-pack.” Kurt
reached down to pull up his T-shirt. He jerked a thumb to his
abdomen. “These . . . are an eight-pack.”

“Show-off,” I immediately said.

We all laughed.

“OK, but I’m the designated driver,” Adeline
said.

“You have no choice since you won’t let
anyone else touch your father’s old junk,” Kurt shot back.

“Excuse me? My father won’t let you near his
cars with a ten-foot pole since you crashed your own car fender
into a fire hydrant.”

“Which flooded the town square,” I
crowed.

“You didn’t have to tell him about it,” Kurt
complained.

“Tell him about it? Everyone knew about it.
It was the front page news,” Adeline said.

“Yeah, in our town, a cat getting rescued
from a roof makes the front page news,” he deadpanned.

Anyhow, we ended up in a Seven-Eleven (yes,
there was actually one in our one main street town, could you
believe it?). Adeline parked and skipped down to get the
six-pack.

“Stay here,” she said to the two of us. “I’m
the only one who has the ID.”

She was right. She had just turned
eighteen.

“I’m sure I pass for eighteen,” Kurt
said.

He was right too. He looked older than his
age. It was that height and the fact he cut quite an imposing
figure with his huge frame.

“Uh uh, Kurt, everyone knows you. I’ll be a
while, guys. I have to use the little ladies’.”

She slammed her car door on us and jauntily
walked towards the direction of the brightly lit Seven-Eleven. She
had her red jacket on. The wind blew her dark hair backwards. She
was a whip of a figure – a pretty young woman perched on anything
she could have in the world.

There was an uncomfortable silence between
me and Kurt, as there always was whenever Adeline left the room and
sucked out all the camaraderie with her.

Kurt turned around. His face was in
half-shadow, lighted up by the distant fluorescent glow from the
Seven-Eleven entrance. He was remarkably beautiful, like a
sculptured piece of flesh. His longish hair brushed his shoulders,
which were clad in brown leather. Underneath his jacket, he wore a
plaid shirt.

“So, Ms. Smarty-Pants. Decided which college
you want to apply to yet?” he said casually.

“Don’t call me that. You know I don’t like
that.”

He shrugged. There was always that
electrical spark between us. I didn’t know if he felt it too, or it
was only one-sided on my fuse. He was a boy I found very attractive
despite me not liking his ‘type’. By nature of my friendship with
his girlfriend, we found ourselves getting to know each other a lot
more than our ‘types’ usually allowed.

“You’re smart. There’s no two ways about
it,” he declared. “So you don’t have to pretend anymore, you know.
SATs are over. It’s either make or break or repeat them. Out of the
three of us, you have the best chance of making it out of this
town.”

That was the best compliment he had ever
paid me. I softened.

“I don’t know, Kurt. It’s a long shot to
think I can get an academic scholarship.”

He shrugged again, a graceful contortion of
his shoulders. “Can’t get one if you don’t try. Send the
applications out to a dozen universities. Send them to a hundred.
One of them will bite, if not more.”

His eyes rose to meet mine. I felt a frisson
of desire flower within my groin.

There had been many nights alone in my own
bed that I had fantasized about how it must have been like with
Kurt. Adeline described in detail a couple of their encounters, of
course.

I could feel his body pressing onto mine as
if he was there himself. His cock poised at my entrance, quivering,
his breath and chest heaving against my tits. The forceful thrust
as his cock entered my virgin pussy.

Ohhhhhhh!

I told myself it wasn’t Kurt I fantasized
about, but the actual fantasy of being fucked, of course. He just
happened to be there. He had a romance book cover model face. He
was convenient.

Oh, how our minds lie to us.

“Sure, one of them will bite. That’s what I
keep telling myself.” I had to fight this attraction. I had no
choice. It was a good thing that we were all going our separate
paths. This way, I didn’t have to ever see him again and be
reminded of all the things I don’t want to be.

I said, “What about you, Kurt? Where are you
going?”

He turned away pensively. “There have been a
couple of talent scouts, but I’m a white boy trying to make it in a
mostly black game. I think they want to see how I perform on the
big game next Saturday against Loyola.”

The upcoming home game against Loyola was an
important one. A season decider. It made sense that any talent
scout would want to see Kurt perform under tremendous pressure.

“Anyway,” he added, “I don’t think I want to
go to college.”

I couldn’t think of anyone who didn’t want
to go to college.

“Why ever not?”

He took a deep breath. “It’s too confining
for me. I go to college, and then what? I don’t know what I want to
do. I don’t know what I want to be.”

“It isn’t important that you know it yet,
only that you get an education,” I explained. “That will broaden
your mind. Help you know what you want to do later.”

“Maybe.” He looked out of the window. His
voice was pensive and his profile was like a Michelangelo
sculpture. “But Adeline and I are likely to go to different
colleges, you know. She’s smarter than I am. So I guess these are
going to be our last months together.”

I knew that, of course. What I didn’t know
was that he would be so affected by it, or that he would even have
an internal struggle with it.

It touched me – the fact that Kurt Taylor,
high school jock, had so many layers. A deep warmth spreaded
through me, nourishing me with emotions I didn’t know I had.

Fight it. You’ve got to fight it!

I said, “I guess that’s part of growing up.
Leaving people behind. My Dad says it will happen to all of us. And
that we shouldn’t form attachments that are too strong because then
our decisions to go to college or our choice of colleges might be
clouded by them.”

He was silent for a while.

Then he said, “I guess you’re right.”

I touched his shoulder gently. “Are you sad
to be leaving Adeline?”

He smiled in the dark. His hand rose to
clasp mine upon his shoulder. A jolt went through me. His hand was
very warm and very rough from handling basketballs. And there was
many a time I imagined those hands on my own flesh, caressing my
breasts and stomach and curves.

His fingers stroked the back of my hand. My
crotch contracted, sending a spasm of florid pleasure throughout my
groin.

“We all have to chart our own stars, I
guess,” he said in a soft voice.

Tears came unbidden to my eyes. I smiled at
him. The air was thick and smoky between us, and a knot strangled
my stomach, making it hard to form sounds in my throat.

“Rebecca.” His voice was hoarse.

My heart leaped. Whatever was affecting me
so profoundly was affecting him in some small measure too. I didn’t
know what this was – this connection between us. But it was deep.
And magical. And something more than purely physical.

A movement to my right made me turn. Adeline
was striding back to the car, the six-pack in hand. Kurt and I
leaped apart as if our hands were on fire, and we settled back in
our seats. My guilty hands were folded neatly in my lap. The one
which touched Kurt’s skin still burned.

“Hi.” Adeline opened the driver’s door and
got in.

The guilt was extremely palpable in the air
between Kurt and me, but I didn’t think Adeline noticed it.

She was gabbing away: “There was a queue
before me, and these two underage guys tried to get away with
buying cigarettes, can you believe it? They were fourteen if they
were born a day.”

She looked at both of us.

“What were you two talking about?”

Kurt seemed nonplussed, but I recovered
quickly enough.

“College,” I said. “It’s a tough
subject.”

“Oh yeah.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell
me about it. I’ve had enough arguments with my Dad over it already.
He has just this amount of money in my college fund bankrolled for
me.” She emphasized this between her thumb and forefinger. “Which
cuts out a lot of colleges in the East.”

Our parents couldn’t help the amount of
money they have, I thought. And what more Kurt? He came from the
other side of the tracks. There was no way he could ever get into
college without a scholarship. At least my parents had a little bit
stashed away.

Adeline plunked the beer down on Kurt’s lap.
He grinned, and the tension dissipated. I doubted Adeline noticed
anything was wrong.

*

You would think you have guessed the reason
for Kurt leaving Adeline now.

You must think it was because of me.

Well, you are wrong. You are so wrong by a
long shot.

What happened was a lot more tragic than a
love triangle.

KURT

I stare at Rebecca across the table.

That
night.

“I didn’t exactly leave her,” I
splutter.

“Oh, yes, you did.”

The waiter arrives with our starters, and we
have to call it a truce for a moment. Correct that.
My
starters. The lobster bisque was in a boat-shaped bowl and piping
hot. Thick and creamy, the way I like it. The foie gras came with a
spring of parsley and some lemon dill.

I have absolutely no appetite.

“Do you want some?” I ask Rebecca.

She shakes her head.

“Do you remember?” she says in a low
voice.

I remember what happened in the car at the
parking lot of the Seven Eleven, but I think that is not what she
is referring to.

It is what happened after.

*

Adeline was driving into the night, and our
spirits were up again.

What was I thinking of when I touched
Rebecca’s hand? I felt her freeze, and I knew what she must have
been thinking of me. Especially with a reputation like mine.

You cad. You’re my best friend’s
boyfriend.

But Rebecca seemed unnaturally affected. I
liked Rebecca, though I had always felt a little uncomfortable
around her. In fact, I secretly thought she was a lot more
interesting than Adeline. I didn’t want to think that, but the fact
was out there, like a puff of acrid smoke that trailed and lingered
in the air.

I had never ‘dated’ a Rebecca before – a
girl who could give as good as she got. She was feisty and so smart
I honestly thought she was too good for this town. She deserved to
go out there and make a better life for herself. She deserved
better than us.

It would be terribly interesting to be with
Rebecca. And I didn’t know why the thought kept encroaching into my
brain recently, like a spreading tumor.

I mustn’t think such thoughts, I told
myself.

The atmosphere between the front and back
seats began to lighten, especially as Adeline jabbered on about our
SATs and which questions she found particularly difficult. We were
on the highway, heading for the Interstate turnpike ten miles
down.

And then it happened.

I was preoccupied with not being preoccupied
by my thoughts for Rebecca, when the white SUV barreled down onto
us on the same side of the road.

“Shit!” I yelled. “Swerve, Addy,
swerve!”

She turned the wheel all the way to the
left, but there was a car on the other side of the road as well. We
would have slammed into it had not Adeline turned further left, off
the asphalt and onto the grass. The car kept running forward as the
trees rushed at us like a swarm of low-flying birds. The car
creaked and jolted and flew over bumps and roots and stuff, and
there was no way we could continue this. Somehow, somewhere, we
would have to stop or be stopped.