Ball Peen Hammer (32 page)

Keane lets out a long, tortured exhale. “Shit,” he says, almost inaudibly.

I’m stunned into paralysis. That’s not what I expected Keane to say in response to my invitation. What the hell is happening? “It’s okay,” I say, my mind reeling even as my body continues writhing underneath him. “I paid you as a joke, remember? I’m not really a client. It’s okay.”

Keane sighs deeply, rolls off me, and lies on his back next to me on the bed. He puts his forearm over his eyes and lets out another long exhale. “I can’t do this,” he says softly. “Oh, shit. I’ve
really
fucked up.”

My stomach drops into my toes. My cheeks flush. “But...” I sputter, my head spinning. “I’m not really a pickle with a dollar bill, Keane.” Oh, God, I can hear how pathetic I sound, but I can’t stop myself from forging ahead. “It’s just me. I give you permission.
Please
.”

“No, it’s not the client thing, Maddy,” Keane whispers, his voice almost inaudible. “It’s...” He sighs, but he doesn’t finish his sentence. He sits up on the bed next to me, his hair tousled, his cheeks flushed, his hard-on still raging behind his briefs. “I just can’t.”

“But...” I begin. But I don’t know what to say. I truly don’t understand what’s happening. “But... that
kiss
, Keane,” I finally manage to blurt.

Keane rubs his eyes. “It was amazing,” he says softly. He hunches over and lowers his head, his mind obviously made up. “You’re sexy as hell, Maddy. This has nothing to do with you. I’ve just fucked up, that’s all. I took things too far. I’m sorry.”

Okay, this moment is definitely brought to me by the letters W, T, and F. If I understand this situation correctly, and I’m quite certain I do, I’ve just blatantly thrown myself at a self-proclaimed
manwhore
—in fact, I’ve literally and explicitly
begged
said manwhore to pretty please do me—
and he’s turned me the fuck down.

What the frickity-frackity fuck? I know Keane says I’m deaf, dumb, and blind to guys’ signals, but I’d have to be a houseplant to misunderstand the signals Keane was just now throwing at me. Right? For fuck’s sake, the guy groped and licked and
bit
my breasts and nipples and massaged my clit until he brought me to the most epic orgasm of my life. And, hell, I need only look over at him to see he’s
still
hard as a rock, for what it’s worth. And the biggest “signal” of all, or so I thought: he gave me the kiss of a lifetime. Oh my God, that kiss! It was the most passionate, intense, heart-palpitating, soul-stirring, electric kiss of my entire life, by far. Sure I might typically be deaf, dumb, and blind to guys’ signals, but what part of all those motherfucking
signals
did I fucking misunderstand this time? “Keane?” I say, my pathetic, hormone-infused brain unwilling to accept the rejection he’s so clearly doling out to me.

Keane doesn’t reply.

“Keane?”

And, just like that, I totally understand what just happened to me.

In fact, the situation is as clear as can be. What Keane did to me wasn’t standard “lap dance” procedure for Ball Peen Hammer—that part is true, but it wasn’t an actual make-out session between Keane and Maddy, either, not like I thought. At least, not for Keane, it wasn’t. Nope, what just happened was a
third
option, something I didn’t even realize was a possibility until just this very second: Keane was merely playing his own idea of a video game.
And the motherfucker was simply racking up points.

I sit up in the bed, yanking down my tank top and shaking with my humiliation and rage. “You
prick
,” I spit out between clenched teeth. I wipe my mouth, desperate to erase all evidence of what I’d
thought
was the best kiss of my life. “You arrogant, egotistical, insecure
asshole
of a little
prick
!”

Chapter 32

Keane

Maddy leaps off the bed, her eyes wild, her face red, and begins rummaging into her duffel bag. “Congratulations, Ball Peen Hammer,” she seethes. “I hope you got what your pathetic ego needed, you motherfucking dickweed.”

“Maddy, let me explain. You’re taking this all wrong.”

Maddy gruffly pulls some clothes out of her bag and marches into the bathroom, slamming the door in my face as I try to follow her.

“Would you calm down and listen to me?” I yell through the door. “I fucked up, okay? But not in the way you’re thinking.”

“You just couldn’t stand it, could you?” she shrieks from the other side of the bathroom door.

“Couldn’t stand
what
?”

“That there was one pickle in the entire
universe
who wasn’t hurling herself out of her jar and throwing herself at you!” She makes a loud scoffing sound. “Well, congratulations, Ball Peen Hammer. Job well done.” I hear clapping from inside the bathroom. “You got that last pickle hold-out to
beg
you to fuck her. Phew. Your ego’s safe and sound.”

Oh, Jesus Christ. I’ve fucked up so bad here. “Maddy, listen—”

Maddy bursts out of the bathroom wearing her jeans and one of the tight-fitting T-shirts I bought her this morning—almost breaking my nose when she swings open the door, by the way—and then she beelines to the front door of our motel room, grabbing her purse off the dresser as she goes.

“Where are you going?” I ask, panic flooding me.

“Well, unfortunately, since I’ve had two beers, I can’t hop into my car and drive straight to my sister’s like I want to do.” She opens the front door of the motel room and marches through it toward the street without even a backward glance at me. “So I guess the only rational thing for a girl to do under the circumstances is get shitty-ass drunk.”

I follow her into the night, panting, my almost-naked body prickling with goose bumps in the cool air. “You’re going to the bar?” I shout at her back, referring to the small bar directly across the street from the motel.

She doesn’t reply, but the trajectory of her marching leaves little doubt about where she’s headed.

“We’ve still got a couple beers left!” I yell lamely, but Maddy keeps marching, not even acknowledging me. “You can’t go to a bar alone!” No response. “Please. Just. Fuck, Maddy, stop and listen to me.
Maddy
!” I spin toward the room like I’m gonna dart inside but immediately turn back around, not wanting to lose sight of Maddy. “Well, shit, just wait for me to get dressed!” I shout to her. But she’s not waiting. She’s not stopping. As far as she’s concerned, apparently, I don’t exist. “I’m coming with you!” I shout.

But Maddy’s already halfway across the road, not even glancing behind her.

Damn, I didn’t think Maddy had it in her to be this decisive and hostile. I would have figured her to sit on the bed in the motel room, crying and going all wilty-flower insecure on me about what just happened. But she’s a bat outta hell.

“Wait for me!” I scream again. But it’s futile. She’s already made it to the other side of the road and she’s striding purposefully up the walkway leading to the bar.

“Maddy!” I scream at the top of my lungs.

Without the slightest indication she’s heard a word I’ve screamed at her, Maddy shows her ID to the dude at the door of the bar and slips inside the building, but not before three asshats standing just outside the door say hi to her and blatantly look her up and down.

Oh, shit
. That’s right. Cal Poly’s just up the road, which means that entire bar’s gonna be filled to the rafters with college guys just like those three asshats, all of them looking to get laid on a Thursday night. Jesus Christ. What the hell have I done? Maddy’s gonna be irresistible to every single guy in that bar, because, not only is she adorable and pretty and rocking some gorgeous tits, she’s also gonna be giving out big-time “green light” signals to every guy she meets tonight, thanks to the blue balls I just gave her.

I scramble frantically back into the motel room and throw on my clothes. Shit. Where the hell are my shoes?

My phone rings and I lurch toward it. “Maddy?” I blurt into the phone, not even looking at the incoming number.

“Do you have my fishing rod?” the voice on the other end of the line calmly asks. It’s my oldest brother, Colby. “I’ve called you three times and you haven’t returned my calls, Keane.”

Oh, Jesus. The hits just keep on coming. I scour the small room, frantically looking for my shoes, my phone pressed against my ear. “Why the fuck are you calling me about a fishing rod?” I bark. “Text me that shit. You know I hate talking on the phone.”

“Wow, someone’s in a prick-ass mood. Do you have my rod or not?”

“Yeah. Z and I went fishing a couple weeks ago. It’s in my closet, way in the back.”

“Goddammit, Keane.”

“No big whoop. Just go get it. It’s sitting right there.”

“I tried. I couldn’t reach Z and Mom couldn’t find your extra key.”

“Oh, yeah, Rum Cake stole my extra key.”

“Shit. Would have been nice to know that before I went down there and wasted my time.”

“Yeah, total dick-move by Ryan, huh? He totally should have told you he took my key. Anyway, nice talking to ya, Eldest Morgan Brother, but I gotta go. I’m having a situation that can only be described as an emergency.”

“What’s up?”

I spot my missing shoe peeking out from under the far bed and quickly grab it. “Can’t talk. Found my shoe. Gotta go.”

“Come on. Three-second version.”

I exhale an exasperated breath as I put my shoes on. “I fucked up with a smart girl. And now she’s in a bar across the street from our motel room with a bunch of Cal Poly nerds and I gotta go over there and stop her from bonin’ the fuck outta some engineering major just to show me what I’m missing out on.”

“How’d you fuck it up with her? Did you cheat on her?”

“Fuck no. I’m a
Morgan
. Plus, you gotta be exclusive with a chick to be able to cheat on her in the first place, and that particular sitch ain’t happenin’ with me any time soon. Still haven’t figured out how I can be Ball Peen Hammer and someone’s devoted boyfriend at the same time.” My shoes on, I lurch out of the motel room and stand just outside the door, my phone pressed against my ear, my eagle-eyes trained on the door of the bar in case Maddy comes out on the arm of some hipster with a man-bun and a guitar. “So, hey, Cheese, I gotta go. Nice chatting with ya.”

“Just gimme a sec. I could have texted about the fishing rod.”

“I don’t have time, Bee. I told you—I gotta prevent a spite-fuck in progress.”

“Just gimme two minutes, Keane. This is exactly the sort of thing that made me wanna call you.”

“What ‘sort of thing’? Me screwing up with a smart girl?”

“No. I mean how you never talk to anybody anymore. You’ve been doing your turtle-crawling-into-his-shell thing a lot more than usual lately. You doing okay?”

I laugh. “You’re calling because you’re
worried
about me? Ha! Dude, I’m fan-fucking-tastic. I’m the mighty Ball Peen Hammer. Couldn’t be better.”

“You sure? Because it kinda seems like maybe you’re having a tough time getting past the let down on the whole baseball thing.”

“Pfft. Yesterday’s news, son. I’m slaying it. So, okay, is that it? Because as much as I’d love to stand here and talk about how shitty-ass my life is, I gotta go across the street and stop my off-limits, platonic
friend
with gorgeous tits and Tootsie Pop eyes from leaving a bar with some guy who’s probably talking to her about Nietzsche right this very minute just to get into her pants.”

“You know who Nietzsche is?”

“I don’t have time for this, Cheese. My girl’s probably doing a
Coyote Ugly
dance on top of the bar right this very minute.”

“Who is this girl? She’s got you pretty worked up, huh?”

“Her name is Maddy Milliken and I
really
gotta go.”

“Oh, any relation to Kat’s friend, Hannah Banana Montana Milliken from the wedding?”

“How the fuck does everyone but me put that together so fast?” I sigh. “Yeah, she’s Hannah’s little sister. She’s starting at UCLA in a week and Dax made me drive with her to L.A. as a favor to Hannah. Long story short, Daxy declared her off-limits—not because he wants her for himself, but because he thinks there’s some kind of Kevin-Bacon-six-degrees-of-separation between Maddy and the dude who owns his record label.” I quickly describe the chain of people linking Maddy to Reed Rivers and explain the full breadth of my brother’s ridiculous logic in designating Maddy off-limits.

“Well, that’s an insane leap of logic,” Colby says. “Except for the part about her living across the hall from him. That part’s not crazy. He’s right about that.”

“Yeah, I guess he doesn’t want me trifling with her and leaving a mess for him to clean up after I leave.”

“But you trifled with her, anyway, I take it?”

“Well,
yeah
.”

Colby chuckles.

“Don’t laugh. I did my best, brah. I’ve been on the road all alone with the girl for a whole day and a half. And, tonight, out of nowhere, she went from cute and pretty to sexy as hell. I’m only human, Bee.”

Colby chuckles again. “That remains to be confirmed after the autopsy.”

“
Whatever
. I gotta go.”

“No, no. Tell me the story. I’m listening.”

I exhale. “So, okay, we were fooling around a few minutes ago in our motel room and then I grew a fucking conscience out of nowhere along with my boner—God knows how the fuck that tragedy happened—the
conscience
, I mean, not the boner—that’s certainly never happened to me before, that’s for sure—so I stopped before I’d even gotten a finger inside her ‘Adventure Time’ pajama bottoms and the—”

“
’Adventure Time’
pajamas?” Colby says, laughing.

“I know, right? She’s such a fuckin’ cutie. She also tap-dances and makes documentaries. And then, on top of all that, come to find out she’s unexpectedly sexy as hell, too? A little animal, that one. Oh my God. Forget about ‘off-limits,’ son. That’s a concoction no man could resist.”