Away From the Spotlight (7 page)

“Actually, you do. 
Hazy
Path
is one of my favorite songs of all time
a
nd one of my favorite
videos
is the acoustic version of
The
Sea
you did a few years back.”

“I’m impressed,”
Sean
said
,
walking over my way.  Aren’t you a little young to be a
Voyage
fan?
”

“I
love 80’s and 90’s music
.  I’m also
a
Blue
Spiral
fan.”  At the mention of
Blue
Spiral
,
Sean
blinked.  “
Y
es, I know you worked with
them
.  And, of course, I
’
m a
huge
fan
of yours
.”

“This one’s a keeper,”
Sean
chuckled a
s he
walked back over to Will, who was still halfway across the room.

Drew
passed me an open beer.  “You impressed
Sean
.  Not an easy thing to do.”

Will
then walked
over to me and put his arm around me as if asserting ownership. 
I smiled at that. 
We stood around for a little while, drinking our beers and half
-
watching the game
.  Not
surprisingly for the
O’Neill
brothers,
it was
one of the
Liverpool
teams
. 
When we finished our beers, Will guided me back over to
Sean
to say our goodbyes.  I told
him
what
my favorite song was
and that seemed to please him.

“
We’ll be playing
it
for you tonight
,
”
Sean said.

M
y face
likely
was beaming as we
left the room
.

Once we were
out the door
,
I said, “Are you kidd
ing me?  You’
re
friends
with the
O’Neills
?”

Will just sh
r
ugged, trying to look innocent, and
did
not explain how th
at
was the case.

We returned to the
s
uite, after
buying
a program, and just before
the band
went on. 
We sat in the two seats in the front row of the suite that had been left open for us.  The view was amazing. 
B
efore they played
my favorite song
,
Sean
mumbled into the microphone, “This is for a new friend of ours” and lifted his beer in the air in our direct
ion.  I was floored.

During the concert, Will
had his arm around me
,
held my hand
or
played with my hair. 
When the main part of the concert was over, we all stood.  At that point
,
and b
efore the encores
started
,
Will
grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the back of the suite
to the sofa
where it was dark.  With no one watching, we spent the remainder of the concert making out.

When the lights went up, our group
returned
to the limo.  I was a little weak in the knees, not from the
drinking
, but from the
energetic
make-out session I had just had.
 
During the ride home, w
e
drank more champagne,
blasted
the
songs we heard at the concert
on the stereo in the limo,
and scream
ed
the lyrics
at the top of our lungs.

When we
arrived back in
the
Palisades
, Will said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to drive home.  You may not
seem
drunk, but we’ve both had a bit too much.”

“I don’t know.”
I was nervous. 
We were
moving so quickly,
it
scared me, but I wanted to stay with him so badly.

“I promise
I won’t attack you.  W
e’ll just sleep.”
  He seemed sincere.

“Okay.”  I’m not sure whether I sounded disappointed or not.  I was certainly thinking that I was.  The beer and champagne had lowered my inhibitions a little bit.

Once
in
side
the house
,
Will gave me an oversized t-shirt to sleep in and he
wore
flannel pajama bottoms, but no shirt.  His chest was beautiful
, c
hiseled as I had imagined when we first met with enough hair to be masculine, but not too much.  I was going to have trouble sleeping.

He kissed me goodnight gently and we spooned for a while.  True to his word, he did not attack me. 
Darn it.

I awoke to
the sound of Will
brush
ing his teeth in the bathroom.

When Will
climbed back into bed, I got out
and
headed
to the bathroom to assess the damage.  I had morning hair, morning breath
,
and my makeup had run a little.  Luckily, I had left my purse
in the
bathroom, with my brush in it. 
M
y toothbrush and toothpaste were still on the bathroom counter.  I ran the brush through my hair, used Kleenex to wipe the excess makeup from my eyes, and brushed my teeth.

I returned to bed as soon as I had cleaned myself up. 
T
he spooning began again
as it had the night before
.  This time, though,
I
could feel
what Will wanted
.  M
y weakest time for resisting was the morning when I was warm, cozy and rested
, well, in this case, somewhat rested
.  I turned
my body
around
to face him
and he kissed me hard on the mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “I promised not to attack you.”

“
You may have, b
ut I didn’t,” I said and
,
with that
,
I removed the t-shirt I was wearing
and kissed him back
.

I must have fallen asleep again
afterward
because
,
when I looked over at t
he clock
, it was
a
quite a
while
later.
  Will was awake and staring at me
with his
gorgeous
green eyes.  He did not suffer from bed hair
.  H
is
looked almost better messier.

Totally unfair
.

I rolled o
nto my side
,
put my arm around him
,
and
tucked
my
head
under his arm
and
against
his chest.  “You wore me out,” I said
,
almost too embarrassed to look at him.

“Are you ready for me to wear you out again?” he asked.

I looked up, smiled
,
and kissed him, letting him know my answer.

Eventually,
we got
out of bed
, he showered, and
he drove me back to my
place
so that I could shower and change. 
We left my car at his house, planning
on returning later in the day.

I lived i
n a large
apartment
complex with a ground-
floor garage
.  I
had Will park in my space. 
As I entered
my apartment, I was t
hankful
that
it
was clean.  My sister and I had
really
had at it the weekend before.

When
Will
walked into the living room
, he looked over at me in confusion
.
“
T
his doesn
’
t look much like the apartment of a starving student
.
”

My apartment was well-decorated
and didn’t reflect the
students that lived there
.  To the left
of the front door
was a
fully
-stocked kitchen.  There was a nice oak dining table and matching chairs in the dinette area.  On the other side of that, I had a red velvet sofa with a
framed
hunting print hanging over it, matching chair and
otto
man, formal end tables
with
elegant
lamps on them, a 32
-
inch LCD
TV
hanging over a formal buffet, and a
large
clock hanging on the wall over the fake fireplace.

“It’s what happens when your parents move fro
m Orange County
into a smaller place
in the Bay Area
.  My sister and I inherited some of the furniture.”

My sister was in the Bay Area
for the
weekend
, visiting her boyfriend and making arrangements to move up there.  She wouldn’t be b
ack until
t
he evening
.
 
I left Will
at the dining table with my
i
Pod.  After our various conversations about music,
I figured he would w
ant to see what I had on it.

I entered m
y bedroom
, which
was crowded with all the furniture in it.  I had a small
low
poster bed on the wall to the right of the door with a highboy dresser on the far side of it and a lowboy dresser on the near side of it.  On the wall across from the
door
near the window was my desk with a computer on it. 
T
he dressing area and sink were part of the room
across from the bed
, with a walk-in closet to the
left
and the toilet and shower in a separate room
on the right
.  I had prints of Paris all over the walls
of
my room. 
Although t
hey had been cheap prints that I had bought in Paris on a summer trip when I was in college
, m
y mother had framed them nicely with Wedgwood blue mats.  My bedding was
also
Wedgwood blue as was the shade on the lamp next to the bed.

I quickly showered with the door to my room
closed
.  I
dried off
and managed to
put on
my
underwear,
jeans and a bra before I heard a knock at the door.

“
May
I come in?”  Will
asked
.

“I’m not dressed yet,” I replied.

“
Good
,” he said as he walked into the room
toward me
, eyes smoldering.
 
He
backed me
on
to
my bed and said, “We’ve christened my
bed
room already.  It’s tim
e we christen yours.”

By the time we finally
made it
out of my apartment
,
it was late afternoon and
I was starving.  I
had
definitely had a work out today.  I knew that I w
ould be
saddle-
sore t
he next day
.