Thoughtless (6 page)

He smiled at me as I sat down. For a second, I felt really self-conscious in the lounge pants and tank top I had slept in. Irritation at his all-too-perfect face swept through me. Really, did one person need to be so blessed? It didn’t seem cosmically fair. Then I remembered Denny’s conversation with me in the car…about Kellan and his dad. That cooled my anger. Things hadn’t always been easy for this attractive boy.

“Well, what did you think?” he asked, smiling, like he already knew my answer.

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I tried to frown, like I was going to say it sucked, but I couldn’t and laughed a little instead. “You guys are amazing. Really, it was unbelievable.”

He smiled and nodded, sipping his coffee again. Not a great shock to him, then. “Thanks. I’ll tell the guys you liked it.” He looked up at me with the corner of his eye. “Less offensive?” I started to blush, remembering our conversation yesterday, but then his performance started replaying in my head. With mild surprise, I realized that he
had
toned down the sensuality. He had certainly still been flirty and charming, but less…obvious. I smiled over at him. “Yes, much better…thank you.”

He laughed at my comment, and it pleased me a little that he had actually listened to something I had, rather rudely, criticized him for.

We sipped our coffees in silence for a few minutes, and then something said in conversation last night suddenly popped into my head and slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it. “Joey was the roommate before us?” Really, what was wrong with my loose tongue around him? I was going to have to work on that.

He paused in drinking his coffee and slowly set the mug down.

“Yeah…she left awhile before Denny called about the room.” Curious at the odd look in his eyes, I asked, “She left a lot of her stuff here. Is she going to come back for it?”

He looked down at the table for a second, then back up to my eyes.

“No…I’m pretty sure she left town.”

Surprise loosened my tongue again, “What happened?” I really had had no intention of asking him that question. I wondered if he would answer me.

He looked thoughtful for a second, like he was wondering as well too.

“A…misunderstanding…” he finally said, slowly.

Firmly, I shut my thoughts off and focused on my coffee. I was NOT

going to pry anymore. It was not my business and I didn’t want to ruffle
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my new roommate. It didn’t matter anyway; our situation was so vastly different. I just hoped that if she did come back, she would leave the bed.

It was incredibly comfortable.

Denny and I spent the remainder of that lazy Sunday resting and preparing for our jobs that we were starting the next day. Denny’s internship paid next to nothing, so we were both relieved that I had found a job so quickly. I thanked Kellan for his small part in introducing us to Pete and mentally thanked Griffin for not being able to keep it in his pants, the thought of which, of course, made me blush a little.

I
was
nervous about it though. I had never waitressed at a bar before.

Denny and Kellan had a great couple of hours quizzing me on different drinks and what was in them. I protested at first, since my knowledge really wasn’t that great, and told them repeatedly that the bartender was making the drinks. I only had to repeat the orders. But after some amusingly suggestive drinks, some of which I’m sure Kellan completely made up, I started having fun playing their little game. I suppose it would help me to know everything I could.

By that evening, Denny was starting to get nervous about his first day as well. He picked out three different sets of clothes, flipped through all his old schoolbooks, organized his briefcase four times, and eventually sat on the couch, tapping his feet nervously. Kellan excused himself to meet with the band - apparently they met nearly every day to rehearse, probably why they felt so comfortable before a show. I took the opportunity of our aloneness to do everything in my power to get Denny’s mind off of his nerves.

On the second time, I think he finally relaxed…

Monday morning came up quicker than expected. I made my way downstairs for my morning cup of coffee while Denny got ready for his first day. Spotting Kellan at the table, casually leaning back in his chair, drinking his coffee and reading the paper, I had to chuckle at his shirt.

He was wearing a black t-shirt that quite boldly in white across the front read, ‘
Douchebags’
. He noticed my laugh and my gaze and smiled attractively.

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“Like it? I can hook you up.” He winked at me. “I know people.” I smiled and nodded back at him as he went back to drinking his coffee.

Denny came down a little while later, looking very handsome in a nice, light blue button-up dress shirt and khaki slacks. He looked over at Kellan at the table and pointed to his shirt. “Nice, man…score me one of those.”

Kellan laughed and nodded, then Denny came up and slipped his arms around me. I frowned at him as he gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“What?” he asked, looking himself over quickly.

I smoothed out the front of his shirt, then ran my hand along his jaw.

“You…are entirely too attractive. Some perky blonde is going to snatch you away from me.”

He raised an eyebrow and smiled warmly. “You silly nong.” Kellan popped up from the table. “No, she’s right, man.” He shook his head at him quite seriously. “You’re hot.” Then grinning, he went back to drinking his coffee.

Rolling my eyes at Kellan, I gave Denny a long kiss and wished him a good day at work. Kellan came up playfully and gave him a peck on the cheek as well. Denny laughed, and still looking rather nervous, made his way out the door.

I didn’t have a whole lot to do during the day, since I wasn’t starting school for another two and a half months, so I called my Mom again and told her I already missed everyone terribly. She immediately offered me a plane ticket back home. I assured her that everything was going great here, and I even had a job already. Sighing repeatedly, she wished me luck and lots of love. I told her to give Dad and Anna kisses for me.

I spent the rest of the day either watching TV, or watching Kellan write lyrics at the table. He seemed to be constantly jotting down some notes or thoughts, scratching them out, moving things around, and chewing on his pencil, thinking. Occasionally he would ask my opinion about a verse. I tried to give him as insightful of an answer as possible, but music theory was not one of my strong points. It was fascinating to
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watch him work though, and before I knew it, I needed to get ready for my shift.

I showered and then dressed, fixing my makeup and pulling my hair back into a ponytail. I sighed. Not great, but presentable, I guess. I made my way downstairs to grab my jacket from the hook at the front door.

“Kellan?”

He looked over at me from the living room where he was watching TV. “Yeah?”

“Is there a bus schedule around here? I want to look at the route again.” Denny, with our only vehicle, wasn’t home from work yet, and I wanted to leave early since I didn’t know how long the bus ride would take.

He looked at me quizzically before he understood. “No…I’ll take you though.”

“No, no. You don’t have to do that.” I really didn’t want to be a bur-den on him.

“No problem. I’ll grab a beer, chat with Sam.” He threw a charming half-smile at me. “I’ll be your first customer.” Great, I hoped I didn’t spill his beer in his lap. “Oh, okay. Thanks.” I sat with him on the couch to watch TV for awhile, since now I had the time.

“Here, I wasn’t really watching anything,” he said, casually handing the remote over to me.

“Oh, thanks.” It wasn’t necessary, but it was a sweet gesture. I started flicking through channels and stopped when I started getting to the premium channels. I stopped on what I thought was HBO. “Oh, you get these channels?” It seemed odd to me that he would splurge on the extra ones when he didn’t really seem to watch anything.

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He grinned mischievously over at me. “Griffin. He likes to have…everything available to him when he visits. I guess he knows some girl at the cable company.”

“Oh,” I said, blushing just a little. I was thinking about what Griffin might want to watch on our TV, when I finally noticed what was currently playing on our TV. I had stopped on an overly erotic scene involving a naked man and woman, clearly in the throes of passion. And either the man was a vampire, or had a severe biting fetish, and was giving her a rather passionate bite to her neck, with lots of blood and lots of extremely suggestive licking and sucking. Blushing furiously, I turned back to Kellan’s original show and threw the remote back to him.

I tried to ignore the look he gave me as he laughed softly beside me.

When it got late enough Kellan turned off the TV and looked over at me.

“Ready?”

I tried to smile. “Sure”

He chuckled at me. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.” We grabbed our coats and made our way out the door. I had hoped that Denny would be home in time to take me, I’d really missed him all day, but I guess he was still at work. I hoped his first day had gone well.

I hoped my first day went well.

We made our way to Kellan’s car and I had to smile. It was an older sixties-looking muscle car - a Chevy Chevelle Malibu, according to the bumper. Shiny black with polished chrome everywhere, it was sleek and impossibly sexy; it matched its driver perfectly. I rolled my eyes a little at the extremeness of his attractiveness, which the car oddly seemed to accentuate. The inside was surprisingly spacious, with black leather bench seats in the front and the back. I had to suppress a laugh at the old fashioned looking tape deck. Aside from the living room TV, Kellan was a little behind on technology. Not that I was really up on it either - Denny and I didn’t even have cell phones. Kellan smiled when he slid behind the wheel, obviously enjoying his vehicle. What was it with guys being so attached to their cars?

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We were both quiet on the ride over and I quickly started getting nervous butterflies in my stomach. The first day on a new job always made me feel like getting sick. I stared out the window and started counting the street lights to distract myself.

Upon arrival at Pete’s, and the twenty-fifth light, I suddenly realized that I had no idea what to do or where to go. Luckily, the pretty blonde girl that was our waitress the other night, introduced herself as Jenny, and waving at Kellan, she led me to the hallway, which led to a backroom across from the bathrooms. The backroom was a large storage area, with multiple shelves along one wall, holding boxes of liquor and beer, napkins, salt, pepper and other random bar supplies. A couple of extra tables were propped up on their sides against another wall, with stacks of chairs beside them, and another wall had a group of lockers that the staff used. Jenny grabbed a shirt from one of the boxes on a shelf and showed me which locker was mine and where to clock in. I took my very own red Pete’s t-shirt and I changed in the bathroom. I immediately felt a little more relaxed. Something about looking like everyone else that worked at the bar, made me feel like I belonged, somewhat.

When I had told Pete I was a waitress, while not quite a lie, I was exaggerating a tiny bit. I had filled in for my sister one summer while she went off to “discover herself”, whatever that meant. The tiny diner maybe got half the amount of traffic that Pete’s got on a typical night. I was a little terrified.

Coming out of the hallway a few moments later, I noticed Kellan sipping on a beer and leaning against the long bar. The bartender was also leaning over the bar (her red Pete’s shirt purposefully cut obscenely low), eyeing Kellan seductively. Kellan, ignoring her, sipped his beer casually and smiled when he saw me.

I frowned a little bit at his beer. He noticed my glance. “Sorry, Rita beat you to it.” He smiled. “Next time.”

The bartender, Rita, was an older blonde woman (although, I highly doubted that was her natural color) with skin that had been fake-n-baked one too many times, and was now a little leathery looking. Maybe at some point in her life she had been attractive, but time had not been kind. In her eyes though, she still was and she was outrageously
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flirtatious. And, as I learned throughout the night, she thoroughly enjoyed her job, and seemed to enjoy relaying all the juicy gossip customers told her even more. I blushed several times during my shift while she repeated their stories. I mentally reminded myself to never (not that I ever would) confide in a bartender…especially this one.

Throughout the night, I shadowed Jenny as she took customer’s orders. It was a little confusing, since most of the people who came in were regulars who always ordered the same thing. She would simply walk up to the table and say, “Hi-ya, Bill, same for you today?” He would nod and she would smile and head to the bar or the kitchen to relay an order that I’d never actually heard. It was intimidating.

She noticed my worried expression. “Don’t worry, you’ll get it.

Weeknights are pretty easy with the regulars…they’ll be nice to you.” She frowned a little. “Well, most of them will be nice to you. I’ll help you with rest.” She smiled warmly and I was very grateful for her kindness.

Her looks perfectly matched her sparkling personality. She was, as the phrase went, cute as a button - petite with flowing, silky blonde hair, pale blue eyes and just enough curves to get more than a few appreciative glances from some of the customers. She was too sweet to be jealous of though, and I instantly felt a connection with her.

Sometime in the night, Kellan came up to me and tipped me for the drink I never actually gave him. He smiled and excused himself to meet with the band for a gig they had at another bar. I thanked him profusely for the ride over, lightly kissing him on the cheek, which, for some reason, made me blush, and caused Rita to raise her eyebrows speculatively.

He smiled and muttered something about not mentioning it and left the bar.

Later in the evening, Denny stopped in to see how I was doing. He gave me a long hug and a sweet kiss, also to the delight of Rita, who looked at him a little too appealingly for my taste. He only stayed for a few minutes though; he had a project he wanted to start working on at home. He was insanely happy and that happiness infected me. I found myself smiling widely for a long time after he left.