Jeez. When did my love life get so exciting?
Except…only one of those kisses had actually excited me. Only one of those kisses made my heart soar and my toes curl.
Oakley’s kiss.
The other kiss was a mistake before it even happened. I thought Luke was kind of sleazy from the moment I met him, but the stupid alcohol made me forget that last night. And then he was flirting with me and saying how cool I was, and when he kissed me I didn’t stop it because I thought it would make me feel good.
It didn’t. Kissing only feels good for me when I like someone. I felt nothing when Luke’s lips were on mine. But Oak’s lips? My whole body vibrated in response, and that totally freaks me out.
I bury my head in both hands and groan into my palms, hoping the running water muffles the frazzled sound. I’ve never been more confused in my life. I can’t seem to focus on any one thought—my brain is a huge jumble of them. Thoughts about Oakley. About that amazing kiss. About the fact that I took the year off to work but instead accepted a job that gives me way too much time to think about stuff I don’t want to think about.
It’s like everyone is making decisions for me these days. W decided to dump me. Claudia decides what I’m going to do every day. Oak decided to kiss the living daylights out of me and make me feel things I’ve been trying not to feel.
I lift my head, and my gaze falls to my Vans. Seeing all the doodles scribbled on the sneakers just ticks me off. I used to love these shoes, but I look at them now and they seem…silly. The dumb squiggles of a foolish girl who thought her boyfriend would love her forever.
Slowly, I lean forward and slip the shoes off my feet. I pick them up and walk over to the trash can by the door. I hesitate, only for a moment, and then toss the shoes in the trash.
Oakley isn’t waiting in the hall like I expect him to be. Through the glass windows spanning the corridor, I see that he’s gone back into the studio. He and King are talking animatedly, while Oak tosses a pen in the air and then catches it in his hand.
My cheeks get warmer and warmer as I approach the door wearing nothing but black footie socks. I hope King doesn’t bring up the kiss he witnessed. I hope Oak doesn’t bring it up, either, at least not in front of King.
“Hey,” Oakley says when I enter the room. His tone is light, but there’s a note of wariness there, as if he’s unsure of what I’m going to do.
“How’s the writing going?” I ask, trying to sound casual. I flop down onto the sofa along the wall of the studio and wrap my arms around my knees.
“Awesome.”
Our eyes lock. I see the questions in his, but he doesn’t voice them.
King voices one, though. “What happened to your shoes?”
“I lost them,” I mumble.
The two males exchange a look. Oak arches a brow at me.
“All right, then,” King drawls. “Ah, how ’bout you lend us your ears, Miss Bennett? Our boy keeps trying to slow down this bridge and I keep telling him that’s not fresh, but he won’t listen. Maybe you can back me up.”
Oak rolls his eyes. “She’s not gonna back you up, ’cause you’re wrong.” He picks up his guitar and strums a chord. “Check this out, Vaughn, and tell me I’m right.”
As his raspy voice fills the studio, all the distress I felt in the bathroom starts to fade away. His music is that powerful. Every time this guy sings, it’s like time stops and you’re sucked into his world.
The lyrics are angrier than I expect, until the bridge, when they become kind of melancholy. I can see why he wants to slow that part down. It’s so different in tone from the rest of the song.
“So?” King prompts when Oak is done.
They both eye me expectantly.
I give a sheepish smile. “Um. I disagree with you both, actually. I don’t think it works either fast or slow. The lyrics in that part sound like they’re from a totally different song. I mean, sometimes that’s a good thing, but in this case, it’s kind of…jarring.” I stare at my hands so that neither one of them can glare at me.
“Yeah…I can see your point.” King sounds thoughtful. He grabs the pen from Oakley and starts jotting something down on a notepad. “What if we tweak these lines to this?”
Oak instantly leans over to look, and the two of them start brainstorming again.
I curl up on the sofa and listen to their soft murmurs. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must have, because my eyes suddenly pop open to the feel of a warm hand on my cheek. I blink, realizing that King is gone and it’s just me and Oak.
He’s perched on the edge of the couch, his fingertips stroking my cheek as he looks down at me with those gorgeous green eyes.
“You fell asleep,” he tells me.
I sit up with a yawn. “Oh. I’m sorry. It’s the hangover, not your music. I swear.”
He laughs before his expression goes serious. “What happened to your shoes?”
“I threw them away,” I confess.
“Any particular reason why?”
“They’re part of my past.”
Oak nods slowly. “All right. Can I buy you a pair of new Vans?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m going to get my own. Color a new story for myself.”
He settles into his chair and picks up his pen. “Hope you have room on there for a tree or two.”
“A tree?” I ask, puzzled.
“You know…maybe an oak tree?”
I feel a smile tug on the sides of my lips. “Yeah…I probably do.”
Later, we go to Oak’s house. Not because Claudia says we should, but because by mutual, silent agreement, that’s where we want to be. We order pizza and eat it outside on a pair of lounge chairs in front of Oakley’s gigantic pool. By the time we finish eating, the sun has already dipped below the horizon line, but that doesn’t stop him from popping into the pool house to change into swim trunks.
My breath catches when he reappears. This is the first time I’ve seen him with his shirt off. Well, in person, anyway. I’ve seen his chest in pictures, but the real thing is so much…yummier. And his tattoos are hotter than hell. He’s got a cross on his arm with his mom’s name underneath it. A swirl of music notes and what I think is a guitar fret on his other arm. Black rows of dates and coordinates between his shoulder blades—I gave in and Googled him again the other day to figure out what the back tattoo meant, and it turns out it’s the dates and coordinates of some of his favorite tour stops.
Sometimes I forget that he’s nineteen. He’s so tall and muscular and masculine that he looks older. Actually, he’s looking more and more like his movie-star father, but I keep the comparison to myself because I don’t think Oak would appreciate it. He hardly ever mentions his dad, and it’s obvious they’ve got some kind of beef.
“Always checking me out, huh?” he teases. “Careful, babe, or you’re gonna give me a complex.”
“You already have a complex. It’s called egomania.”
“Ha.” He marches over and tugs on the braid hanging over my shoulder. “Maybe if you quit staring at me all the time, my ego would be normal-size.”
“Nothing about you is normal-size,” I shoot back, and then blush because that sounded like a double entendre, and I totally wasn’t trying to make one.
He waggles his eyebrows. “You saw the Vogue spread, huh?”
I blush harder. “Just shut up and do a cannonball or something.”
“You’re really not going to join me?” Oak looks disappointed. He told me there were spare bathing suits in the pool house, but swimwear isn’t my issue. I’m just not in the mood to swim.
“I’m so lazy today,” I say ruefully. “Seriously. This hangover kicked my butt.”
“Note to self—lock up the liquor cabinets next time Vaughn comes over for a party.”
“Please do,” I beg.
Chuckling, he drops a towel on his chair and walks to the edge of the deck. Rather than dip a toe in to test the temperature, he dives cleanly into the water and swims all the way to the other side of the pool. His blond head pops up near the shallow end, and then he does a slow backstroke while I admire the strong lines of his body.