“You know I’m agreeing to this because I’m already behind on my draft and need those weeks, right?”
“Exactly!” She smirks. “I don’t have that PhD behind my name for nothing.”
“That’s low.” I just shake my head as I reach over to grab my bag. “So give me the details.”
“You’re a lifesaver!” She reaches out and pats my shoulder. “So the seminar is on sex, drugs, and rock and roll in a manner of speaking.” She quirks her eyebrows up, asking if I’m okay with that.
Like I have a choice. I can just imagine some stiff professor giving a seminar about something so completely foreign to him. Now I’m going to have to waste my time mollycoddling someone when I have so many other things that would be a better use of my time. Sounds like a real barn burner.
“Who’s teaching it?” I ask, my tone reflecting the cynicism I feel over the contradiction between teacher and subject.
“A guest lecturer. I forget his name but he’s a member of some popular band.” She rolls her eyes. Her musical taste includes only classical music and jazz. “Oh and he’s cute,” she says with a smile and then cuts me off before I can ask her any more details. “Now shoo—he’s probably mangling the sound system as we speak. Microphone on upside down or something. Class is in the GFA building, room sixty-nine.”
Mentally I roll my eyes at the room number, thinking how something else that number represents would be a much better way to occupy my time than listening to a monotone oration. And I wonder how big of a name he can really be if Carla’s worried the he has his mic on upside down.
I shake my head one more time and sling my bag over my shoulder. “Thank you Quinlan,” she says in a saccharine sweet tone that makes me laugh.
“Just so you know, I’m cursing you right now,” I say over my shoulder as I open the door and begin the journey across campus.
I’m winded, hotter than hell, and cussing out Carla even more by the time I reach the closed door of the lecture hall. When I pull it open and step into the lobby, I can hear laughter from the students beyond the open theater doors.
Two coeds exit the bathroom across the foyer from me, both way overdressed for students attending a lecture, and one is applying lipstick while the other giggles uncontrollably. They walk past me and I hear hushed comments about how they “just had to see for themselves” if he’s as hot in person and “damn security for kicking them out” before they push through the doors I’ve just entered
My curiosity is now definitely piqued. Who the hell is the guest lecturer if there is security here?
Maybe it’s one of Dad’s friends. Stranger things have happened.
“So you see, it was the Grammys—it’s not like you can say no to him when he just won album of the year and asks you to hang out. Little did I know,” the male voice says in a low tenor that’s almost a contradiction: smooth like velvet but with a rasp that pulls at my libido and makes me think of bedroom murmurs and hot sex, “that I’d go with him and walk into a private club where everything is laid out like candy—drugs, women, record producers. He turned to me and said, ‘Welcome to Hollywood, son.’ Shit, I looked at Vince here and thought is this what I have to do to make it here? Play this game? Or can I do this the old-fashioned way? And I don’t mean sleep my way to the top either.”
The room erupts into laughter with a few whistles as I clear the doorway. I recognize him immediately. He may be on the stage at a distance but his face, his presence, is unmistakable. I’ve seen it gracing tabloids. TMZ, Rolling Stone—you name it, he’s been on their cover.
He’s Hawkin Play, front man and lead singer of the highly popular rock band Bent.
And according to his most recent press coverage, a man on the path to a drug-fueled destruction. So that exaggeration most likely means he was caught in possession of some drugs.
Why in the hell is he here?
I walk farther into the auditorium and falter at the top of the steps because just as my ears are attuned to his voice, my body reacts immediately to the overpowering sight of him.
And I sure as hell don’t want it to.
I tell myself it’s just because I need some action. That my battery-operated boyfriend is getting old and the visceral reaction of my racing pulse or the catch in my breath is just from my dry spell. Well, not really a complete dry spell per se, but rather a lack of toe-curling, mind-numbing, knock-you-on-your-ass sex that I haven’t been able to find lately. It’s the good lays that are hard to come by.
Don’t even think about it. He may be hot, but shit, I grew up with Colton, the ultimate player, so this girl knows what a player sounds and acts like. And from everything I’ve seen splashed across headlines and social media, Hawkin plays the part to perfection.
But the notion that just like the drug rumors blasted across the magazines, his reputation as a player could be manufactured just as easily lingers in my subconscious. I stare at him again as the class laughs, his ease in front of a large crowd more than apparent, and I immediately wonder if I had a chance with him if I’d take it.
What is wrong with me? My head says to stop thinking thoughts like that, things that are never going to happen, while my body is telling my legs to open wide.
I force myself away from thinking such ludicrous thoughts and focus instead on finding a seat in the room packed full of coeds. I begin walking slowly down the aisles, glancing back and forth to try to find an open spot but there’s not a single one available.