Page 10 of #Moonstruck

I tried a different tactic. “We don’t have anything in common.”

Angie started ticking off fingers. “You’re both beautiful, you both love music, and you both lost your moms.”

“His mom died. Mine’s still here.”

She squeezed my forearm, not saying what I knew we were both thinking. That in a way, my mom had died. Physically she was here, but mentally she hadn’t been herself in almost seven years.

One last-ditch effort. “Can I again refer you to the disgust and animosity part?”

Angie shrugged one shoulder, as if that didn’t matter. “Musicians are passionate people.”

“I’m not passionate. I’m the Ice Queen.” A name bestowed upon me by Chuck Glass senior year when I’d punched him in the esophagus after he’d lured me under the bleachers. (Another thing brothers are good for—teaching you how to throw a really effective punch.) Chuck had told anybody who would listen that I was so frigid I’d giveFrozen’s Elsa a run for her money. The nickname had stuck, in part because Cole thought it was hilarious and encouraged it. He shortened it to IQ, which he pronouncedick. He especially liked that it made the guys at school leave me alone. “Keeping them away from you is a full-time job,” he’d muttered. I’d angrily told him I didn’t need a chaperone and then demonstrated my throat-punching skills on him, which he rated as two thumbs-up after he stopped writhing around on the floor.

“You’re not the Ice Queen. You just don’t know it yet.” Angie checked her phone. “We should probably head back.”

Despite me repeatedly explaining my rules to Angie over the years, she didn’t seem to believe me when I said the musician thing would never happen. Especially Rule #2.

We turned around, and I wondered whether anything she’d just said had merit or if she was such a hopeless romantic that she saw potential even where none existed.

“If Ryan’s not happening, I noticed you did seem to like the guitar player. Which I get. What is it about guys in a band that women like so much?”

“I actually know this.” It was something I’d researched because I didn’t understand how a bunch of gross nerds like my three brothers had a line of pleeches waiting backstage after every show. One blog I read suggested that it was because musicians knew they could get whoever they wanted, making them generally disinterested, detached, and noncommittal, which women apparently found irresistible.

A study found that musical ability had a high correlation with levels of prenatal testosterone. Which meant musicians were more athletic, healthier, and more likely to create a baby. Something apparently no woman’s ovaries could resist. “Some of it is social proof. When a guy is onstage performing and every woman around you wants him, that makes him valuable. If you’re the one who gets him, you win. We’re a generally competitive animal.” Which was how I explained my reaction to Ryan last night. It had been all the screaming groupies who wanted him. That was why I had been attracted to him until he opened his mouth.

That he was retina-melting hot had nothing to do with it.

Not wanting to dwell on my mental image of him, I kept talking. “Charles Darwin said musical ability came to be only in order to charm the opposite sex. A caveman who learned to sing and make music was so superior at basic survival skills that he had free time to become artistic. Which made him more attractive as a possible mate.”

“Huh.” Angie seemed to be weighing my overexplanation. “I thought it had something to do with their innate rhythm onstage, translating to other areas.” She laughed while I blushed and continued on. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to scorch your virgin ears. But if it’s an evolutionary thing, that means you can’t do anything to stop it. You have to be with Ryan. For the good of the species.”

Now I giggled, glad I could dismiss my physical reaction to him for what it was—pheromones and cavewoman instinct.

Even if my lizard brain wanted him for his baby-making ability, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like I worked with the guy or something. I thought I’d never see him again.

If only I’d known then what was about to happen.

It wasn’t until later that evening that I realized I couldn’t find my cell phone.

“Parker, have you seen my phone?” I pulled my bed away from the wall, thinking the phone might have slipped down the side. No luck.

My second-oldest brother paused at the doorway, putting on a jacket. The smell of his cologne filled the room. He’d put on too much, as usual. “Your room looks like a crime scene. Why would I have seen your phone?”

“I don’t know. I can’t find it.”

“You say that like this is the first time that’s happened.”

“Shut up.”

He laughed. “Awesome comeback, Maze. Where’s the last place you had it?”

“If I knew that,” I muttered through clenched teeth, “I would have it back already.” I was forever losing my phone. I had thought seriously, more than once, about supergluing it to my hand. If I didn’t love playing my guitar so much, I probably would have.

There was no money to buy a new one, so I had to find it.

“Hey, how’s your friend Angie doing?” Despite the fact that he was a total computer geek, Parker was a capital-Pplayer and had his own personal harem—an ever-rotating roster of women who would drop everything just for the chance to hang out with him. He’d recently decided he should add Angie to that list. I think he did it mostly to annoy me.

It worked. “You stay away from Angie.”

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