Riot (4 page)

Joel would never want me to say them, which is part of why I can’t get him out of my head. After five grueling hours of half-assed customer service and another twenty minutes of nightmare traffic, I flick on the switch of my room, kick my work shoes off, and fall face-first onto my bed. I’ve wiggled my phone out of my back pocket so many times tonight that I’m surprised I don’t have brush-burn on my ass, but that doesn’t stop me from wiggling it out one more time and groaning when I don’t see any missed texts or calls from the idiot guitarist who’s apparently lost my number.

With my cheek smushed against my comforter, I pull his name up on my screen and hover my thumb over his number, fighting the urge to call him and ask him to come over. With an irritated growl, I let the phone fall back to the bed and close my eyes.

I’m having a weird dream about my phone ringing when I hear, “Hello?”

I’m still half-sleeping when I open my eyes. I’m still fully clothed. I’m on top of my covers instead of under them.

“Hellooo?” the familiar voice asks again.

I push myself away from my mattress and stare at my phone. Joel’s name is on my screen, along with a timer that ticks from 12 seconds to 13, 14, 15.

“Anyone there?”

OH. MY. GOD. I fucking face-dialed him! In my sleep! WHO DOES THAT?!

I hit the button to end the call as quickly as humanly possible, but my phone starts ringing a few seconds later and I end up just sitting there staring at it like it’s possessed by the devil. After three rings, I realize I need to pick it up or risk having this situation get even more awkward than it already is.

“Hello?” I answer as nonchalantly as possible, trying not to sound like a complete spaz who face-dials people in her sleep.

“Did you just call me and hang up?” Joel asks, and I wish there was a wall within head-banging distance because face-palming really just isn’t going to cut it this time.

“Why the hell would I call you and hang up?”

“Because you secretly love me and wanted to hear my voice?”

He’s joking, but I bristle anyway. “I must have butt-dialed you. Don’t flatter yourself.”

Joel chuckles. “So your
butt
is secretly in love with me. Interesting.”

“Hanging up now.”

“I’m glad your butt called,” he continues, ignoring my idle threat. “I was actually just thinking about it.”

I’m not sure whether to giggle or roll my eyes, so instead I say nothing.

“Come pick me up.”

I want to. I sincerely, desperately want to. Instead, I counter with, “Get a car.”

“Come on. I miss you.”

The crazy part of me wants to ask him why he hasn’t called then, but the rational part knows he’s just saying whatever he needs to say to get what he wants tonight. And Joel only ever wants one thing. “I’m tired. I didn’t get any sleep last night.”

“Hot date?” he jokes, but he has no idea how happy I am he just asked that.

“I guess you could call it that.” I grin as I steal the upper hand in our conversation.

“I thought you had to work?”

“I did.”

There’s an awkward moment of silence, and then I brave teasing, “You’re not jealous, are you?”

“Why would I be jealous?” he counters. “I had a ‘hot date’ myself last night.” When I can’t even muster a response to that, he says, “Are
you
jealous?”

“Oh,
insanely
,” I counter, hoping he doesn’t realize how honest I’m being. I feel like I need a padded room and ice cream. A shit-ton of ice cream with sedative sprinkles.

“Seriously . . . come pick me up.”

“Seriously, why don’t you have a car?”

“Don’t need one.”

“You need one right now, don’t you? Because I’m not coming to get you.”

“Why not?”

“To prove that you need a car. You have money, Joel. Why don’t you get a car or an apartment? You make no sense.” I hug my covers tight, relieved that I’m finally hearing the sound of his voice after a full week and a half of wanting nothing else.

“Life is more fun when you don’t have those things,” he insists.

“How?”

“You don’t have to worry about car payments or bills. You have an excuse to hang out with your friends every day. You never know where you’re going to end up at night, so you get to go wherever you want and do whatever you want.”

“Well I guarantee you’d be having a lot more fun right now if you had a car,” I argue.

“So I can come over as long as you don’t have to come get me?”

Unable to resist the temptation, I tell him he can. But an hour later, when he still hasn’t knocked on my front door, I realize he probably found a girl who
was
willing to pick him up and he’s probably forgotten all about me. I change out of the sexy nighty I put on, dressing in an oversized pair of cotton boxers and a worn-thin cami instead, and then I crawl under my covers and turn out the light, regretting my decision to not go to him when every single piece of me—sane and not so sane—was screaming at me to get in my car.

My room is pitch-dark and I’m deep in a dreamless sleep when my light turns on and I open my eyes to see Joel standing in my bedroom doorway. His hair is always the first thing that catches my attention—buzzed on the sides and pulled up into a spiky blond line that crawls down the middle of his head. And then, those eyes. The brightest blue I’ve ever seen. He’s wearing a black canvas jacket over a long neon-green band T-shirt and faded blue jeans. The loose T-shirt hides his hard muscles, but my fingers remember their lines.

“How did you get in?” I ask, and Joel jingles Rowan’s keys from his finger.

“Peach leaves these just lying around.”

“Turn off the light,” I groan, squeezing my eyes closed and turning my face into the pillow to hide my smile.

Joel turns off the light and walks to the other side of my bed.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Two o’clock.” I hear his shoes thump onto the floor before the rustle of more clothes. He usually sleeps in just his boxers, but I know he came here to do more than just sleep.

“Why is it two o’clock?” I ask, still not completely awake.

“Because I walked.” He lifts the covers and crawls in next to me.

I can’t believe he walked all the way to my place. It’s less than a ten-minute drive, but that means it probably took him at least an hour to walk here. I’m trying to make sense of that in my head when his chilled hand sneaks under the hem of my top, making me squeal and jerk out of his grasp.

Joel laughs. “My hands are cold!”

“YOU THINK?” I smack him away and slide my body to the edge of the bed. “I’m tired now. You should’ve come earlier.” I have no idea why I’m turning him down, other than that I’m trying to prove I won’t be at his beck and call, no matter how much I want to be.

When he presses up close, there’s no more room for me to inch away from him. His cold hand circles around my stomach again, but since he keeps it over my clothes, I don’t bat it away. “You’re really going to be like this after you made me walk all the way over here?” His hand slides up my stomach to cup my breast, and an aching starts between my legs and tightens in my core. I don’t pull his hand away.

“I didn’t
make
you do anything.”

Joel caresses his thumb over my soft nipple, and it perks under his touch. “Was the guy from last night better than me?”

When he pinches my nipple with icy cold fingers, my back arches, pressing my ass into his groin. His hips press forward against me, and I nearly flip over right then to lose myself in the way his lips can conquer mine and make everything else cease to exist. “I don’t remember.”

“Don’t remember how good he was, or don’t remember how good I am?”

“Don’t remember how good you are,” I lie, trying to knock Joel’s confidence down a peg because he definitely has all the control right now. I’m warm putty in his hands just waiting to be played with.

My strategy backfires when he leans forward and traces the tip of his satin tongue along my neck, bringing his lips to my ear and speaking to me in a voice that makes my skin shiver. “Then let me remind you.”

Chapter Five

E
MPTY BED.
Q
UIET APARTMENT.
The only signs Joel was here last night are his scent on my sheets and the ache in my muscles. I roll onto my stomach and pull my pillow tight over the back of my head, trying to convince myself I’m content to wake alone—that I
prefer
to wake alone.

“You realize all you have in your fridge is butter and pickles, right?”

I push the pillow away and stare at Joel like he’s an apparition. He’s standing in my doorway with a tub of butter in one hand, a half-empty jar of pickles in the other, and one sandy blond eyebrow firmly raised.

“What am I supposed to make you for breakfast?” he complains, making me feel so warm and fuzzy inside that I’m pretty sure I need to giggle rainbows or explode into glitter. How many butterflies does a girl need to feel in her belly before she turns into a butterfly herself?

“There’s a coffee shop down the street,” I offer.

“How do you
live
?” He lifts the yellow tub in front of his face and narrows his eyes. His mohawk is spiked firmly in place, and I wonder how many of my hair products he had to mix to get it to stand up like that. “This butter isn’t even any good. It expired two months ago.”

“There’s ice cream in the freezer . . .”

I giggle at the look he gives me, and he shakes his head. “We need to go grocery shopping.”

“
We?
”

“Yes, we.” A smirk taunts me from the corner of his gorgeous mouth. “Are you going to drive me, or are you going to make me walk again?”

D
ESPITE HOW TEMPTING
it is to see if Joel would actually walk if I refused to drive him, I take him to the grocery store, feeling awkwardly domestic. I’ve never grocery shopped with a guy before. I keep stealing glances at him as we cross the parking lot, and he smiles at me when I grab a grocery cart and start pushing.

“So is this your thing?” I ask, casting him a sidelong glance as we walk down the cereal aisle and he tosses boxes in my cart—all of them featuring cartoon characters and colored marshmallows. When he looks at me for clarification, I quietly explain, “Your shtick or something. Having sex with girls and then taking them grocery shopping.”

Joel doesn’t try to keep his voice quiet when he says, “I’ve fucked you like a million times and I’ve never taken
you
grocery shopping.”

The old woman walking past us, who definitely heard every foul word out of Joel’s mouth, gives us a reproachful look from behind her oversized spectacles. I smile sweetly at her and nudge my elbow into Joel’s side, but he just chuckles. I tilt my chin up to give him a look, and he tucks his hand into my back pocket and gives my butt a tight squeeze.

“You’re horrible,” I say, not removing his fingers from my pocket.

“You love it,” he counters, and I can’t even pretend to disagree. He fondles my ass until I step out of his reach, and when I glance back at him, he’s enjoying the view. I turn back around, enjoying giving it to him.

“Can you get me that creamer?” I ask when we get to the dairy section. Normally, I get coffee at school or at the place down the street from my apartment building, but if we’re seriously making breakfast at my place this morning, I need something to put in my coffee, and the crème brulée creamer I want is all the way at the back of the top rack.

Joel crosses his arms and leans against the whitewashed wall, smirking and shaking his head.

I glare at him, but then I do exactly what he wants: I stand on my tippy-toes and reach up as high as I can. My ass curves out, my shirt pulls up, and my breasts push into the icy air of the refrigeration. My cold nipples strain against my top as I turn my face to Joel and make my eyes big and my lips pouty. “I still can’t reach it,” I say.

“Do you need my help?”

“Please?”

His lips pull into a satisfied smile, and he comes up behind me, pushing his hard-on tight against my ass as he reaches up to get the creamer for me. “This one?” he asks, intentionally pointing to the wrong one to torture me.

“The one next to it,” I say, and he curls his fingers around my hips with his left hand to tug me even tighter against him as he reaches for the creamer with his right.

“This one?” he asks, pointing to the one on the wrong side.

“The other one,” I say, standing on my tippy-toes again to create friction between us. I point to the one I want, my shirt lifting up to reveal my taut stomach again.

“Oh, you mean this one.” While Joel reaches for it with his right hand, his left snakes around my waist. His fingers trail lightly over my stomach and sneak under my raised top, giving me goose bumps all over and making me shiver. His lips press near my ear and he says, “I can’t wait to get you back to your place.”

I don’t think he means it literally, but I sure as hell
feel
it literally. I’m about to pull him into a dirty bathroom so he can fuck me against a wall.

“Split up so we can get this done faster?” I suggest, and we speed-walk in opposite directions.

I don’t even know what the hell I’m shopping for, so I throw a few things in the cart—bacon, eggs, bread, whipped cream, extra-large condoms—and then I walk back through the grocery store searching for Joel.

I find him in Aisle 6 with two girls who barely look legal.

I take a step back to be better hidden from view, watching as he flirts with them. They smile and giggle, flip their hair and bat their eyelashes. Then they mold themselves to his sides for a picture.

They must be fans, and fans, I’m fine with. Pictures, I’m fine with. I’m even fine with one of them writing what I’m assuming is her number on a piece of paper and handing it to him. What I’m
not
fine with is him tucking it into his pocket and reaching forward to play with her necklace.

Part of me wants to march right up to them and stake my claim, wants to let the girls know that Joel is
mine
and if they don’t want to get their eyeballs clawed out, they’d better stop looking at him. But I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of turning me into that kind of girl, especially not when he’d just continue being a man-whore and driving me crazy. Instead, I grit my teeth and abandon my cart right where it’s parked, walking from the grocery store with my head held high but my molars threatening to grind each other into dust. I climb into my car, back out of the spot, and drive all the way home. When my phone beeps along the way, I don’t bother looking at it. I don’t check it until seven beeps and two missed calls later, after I’ve slammed my apartment door behind me and have grounded myself on the couch.

Where the fuck are you?

Joel’s latest in a long line of texts—which went from being confused, to concerned, to angry—just pisses me off. My phone receives the brunt of my temper as I type back,
Home. Looked like you got another ride, so I figured I was off the hook.

What the fuck are you talking about?

I don’t bother responding. Anything I say will just make me sound jealous—because I
am
jealous. I hope Joel fucks those girls and makes them a breakfast they all choke on.

Did you seriously leave me at the fucking grocery store?

Not responding.

This is so fucked up!

Not responding.

You’re fucking crazy!

I text him a GIF image of Marilyn Monroe blowing a kiss at the camera before I turn my phone on silent and toss it on the coffee table.

When Rowan calls me, I’m angrily biting into an unlucky pickle.

“Did you really have sex with Joel and then leave him at the grocery store?”

“He brought it on himself,” I insist, and she starts laughing.

I hear Joel yell in the background, “I TOLD YOU!”

“What did he do?” she asks.

“He dragged me to the grocery store, and I left him alone for two minutes—two freaking minutes, Rowan—and he goes and gets some other girl’s number.”

She yells at Joel, “You took her grocery shopping and got some other girl’s number?!”

“She just gave it to me!” he yells back.

“And you took it?!”

“He’s an asshole,” I say, biting off more of my pickle.

“It’s not like I was going to go home with her right then or something!” Joel insists, like that makes a difference. I can practically hear Rowan’s eye-roll.

“Joel, you should probably stop talking,” she orders.

“Why?”

“Because if you don’t, I’m going to smack you and it’s going to hurt.”

“Whatever,” I hear him say. “Dee is crazy.”

I hear a loud
WHAP!
and then an “OW! WHAT THE HELL!” Loud laughter follows—I’m guessing from Adam and Shawn.

“One more word, Joel!” Rowan warns, and I smile around a mouthful of pickle. “Hold on,” she tells me, “I’m going outside.”

A door opens and closes. Footsteps. “He’s such an ass,” she finally says. “I’m sorry he did that.”

“Don’t be.”

“You seem okay.”

“I’m always okay.”

A short pause, and then, “Are you over him now?”

“I was never under him.” Unless last night counts . . . and the dozens of times before that.

“You know what I mean. Are you two done?”

“For now.”

A longer pause, and then, “Are you still coming to Mayhem tomorrow?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” I say, already planning what I’m going to wear to make Joel sorry he ever even
considered
calling another girl.

Rowan sighs heavily into the phone. “You’re so not done.”