“All right. I’ll get my keys.” Denny sighed, slowly sitting up on the couch.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Kiera really meant what she’d just said about the band. She’d seemed sincere when we’d been talking earlier today, but she hadn’t seemed sincere when she’d told Denny she wanted to go. Which one was it? I wasn’t sure. She glanced up at me while Denny stood, and I suddenly saw the truth in her eyes and her shy smile. She may have unthinkingly blurted out something she might or might not have wanted to do tonight, but what she’d just said was true. She did want to hear more. I tried not to read too much into that. It was the music she liked.
Shaking my head at the idea that I’d actually coerced her into going to Pete’s by embarrassing her, I told them, “Okay, I’ll see you there then.”
I thought about Kiera on the way to the bar. Sometimes she was easy to read, sometimes she was impossible to gauge. But nothing I’d seen so far was mean or malicious. She was kind and sweet, easily embarrassed and unnecessarily shy, innocent and naïve, yet seductive and playful too. Even though I was sure we were roughly the same age, I felt like I was a million years older than her. It made me want to protect her, even though that was truly Denny’s job, since he was her boyfriend. Well, I could play a big brother role in her life. A friend. Someone for her to lean on. I had a feeling she’d need that, living so far away from her home and family.
There were a couple of beers in front of each of my bandmates when I got to Pete’s; they’d been here for a while. I had some catching up to do. After grabbing a beer from Rita, I took a seat by Griffin. “Want to hear what I did last night?” he said, looking over at me.
Matt, across from me, sighed. “If he says no, will you actually keep your mouth shut?”
Griffin tossed a look Matt’s way. “Suck it.” He returned his eyes to mine and started in on his story without even waiting for my answer. “So, there were these two blond chicks at the show last night…Melody, Harmony, Cadence, Tempo…I don’t know, their names were something musical…”
I glanced at Evan sitting beside Matt and he mouthed, Tempo? I tried not to laugh as I took a sip of my beer and returned my attention to Griffin. “Anyway,” he said, waving his hand, “they were on fire for me, like practically humping me in the parking lot.” Against my will, an image of Griffin being mauled leaped into my head. “They invited me to this afterparty, right. A bunch of people were playing drinking games in the kitchen, so me and one of the blondes sat down to play…”
Griffin smacked my shoulder and raised his eyebrows, like I wouldn’t believe what happened next. While I wasn’t sure what might have gone down during the game, I had a pretty good idea how his story ended. I’d heard variations of this before.
Leaning in, Griffin told me, “She eye-fucked me for a good twenty minutes. I was hard as a fucking rock!” He closed his eyes like he was remembering…or he was getting hard thinking about it. I seriously hoped not. Opening his eyes, he told us, “This girl, damn, she had the best rack I’ve ever seen.” About a foot and a half away from his chest, he mimed boobs with his hands. “And the shortest skirt too. Everybody around us was completely wasted, so I ducked under the table and shoved that skirt as high as it would go. Then I grabbed my beer bottle and stuck—”
Out of the corner of my eye, I happened to notice people approaching the table. I instinctively smacked Griffin across the chest to get him to shut up. His stories usually weren’t safe for mixed company, especially with what I was sure he’d done with that bottle.
While Griffin looked confused, I glanced over to see Denny and Kiera standing at the end of the table. Kiera was bright red and looked like she wanted to be anywhere but here. She’d definitely heard him then.
“Dude…I’m getting to the good part, hold on.”
He looked like he was about to resume his story, so I quickly interrupted. “Griff…” I pointed at our new arrivals. “My new roommates are here.”
“Oh yeah…roommates.” Griffin gave them a cursory glance, then turned back to me with a pout. “I miss Joey, man…She was hot! Seriously, why did you have to tap that? Not that I blame you, but—”
I quickly cut him off with a hard rap on the chest. Griffin could get exceedingly graphic if left unchecked. And I didn’t really want Kiera to know what happened with Joey. She wouldn’t understand. She’d think I was a pig. Wait, what? It shouldn’t matter what she thought of me. With a surprising amount of effort, I shoved that thought out of my mind.
Ignoring Griffin’s annoyance, I pointed up at my roommates. “Guys, this is my friend Denny and his girlfriend, Kiera.”
I looked around for more chairs while Denny and Kiera said their hellos. Spotting some at the table across from us, I stood up and walked over to where a couple of girls were staring our way. Both women started getting a little frantic as I approached, so I figured they were fans. With a disarming smile on my lips, I walked over to the girl beside the two empty chairs I needed. I leaned over the back of her chair so I could talk directly into her ear; it was pretty noisy in here.
She was shaking as I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Sorry to intrude, but would it be all right with you if I took a couple of your chairs for my friends?” She nodded that it was okay, and her friend giggled. I thanked her, straightened, then grabbed the two chairs for Kiera and Denny. There was a lot of tittering behind me as I walked away.
Kiera was watching me as I set the chairs at the end of the table. She seemed a little uncomfortable with the friendly flirting I’d done to get the chairs. “Here, have a seat.” Kiera frowned as she took a seat, and I had to stop myself from laughing. She was even cuter when she was uneasy.
When I caught Rita looking my way, I motioned to her to send two more beers to the table. She gave me an Anything for you smile, grabbed some beers, and handed them to Jenny. I turned to Denny while Jenny worked her way over to us. “So, what are you going to be doing at your new job anyway?” I asked him.
Denny gave me an amused smile. “A little bit of everything.” He started going into the specifics of what he’d be doing for the advertising company, and I could hear both the nervousness and excitement in his voice. Since Kiera was sitting between us at the table, she was in my line of sight as I listened to Denny. It seemed like she’d heard his story before, so she was checking out the bar. Her eyes drifted over the front windows, plastered with neon bar signs, to the darkened stage, waiting for us to play. Then she shifted her attention to the bar at the other end of the room, where Rita was busy keeping everyone refreshed.