Page 89 of Betting on the Boy Next Door
“Basically.”
I pull her back into my lap and nestle her against my chest. “I get it. I get why on the surface, I seem the same. But I’m not like him. I’m not that guy.”
She presses into me. “I know. There were red flags I only saw in hindsight. I’ve always written music. It was a thing with my grandma and me. My mom told me it was fine for fun but in no way a career, so I’d perform at coffeehouses and small places for open mic nights. Singer-songwriter stuff, very different vibe. He came to one or two and told me it wasn’t bad, but he’d rather we put in time with friends since the Austin scene was too competitive for me to get anywhere.”
I kiss the top of her head. “I’m not that guy,” I repeat.
She tilts her head up to return my kiss with a soft one, pulling away far too soon. “I know. You’ve shown up for me in the ways that matter.”
I kiss her again, a longer kiss, one that tells her how much I want to be her guy. She eventually draws away with a tiny growl that nearly undoes me. It’s like the rock goddess has turned kitten in my arms.
“There’s more. Let me tell you the worst of it, and then we can be done with it forever.”
I wonder if she knows how the word “forever” lands when it’s coming out of her mouth. Probably not, but I’ve never been able to talk about “next month” with someone I’m dating, so I wonder why “forever” doesn’t make me sweat.
“Lay it on me,” I tell her. “I’m ready.”
“I didn’t take the breakup well. Not only did I not see it coming, I’d bought into the life plan most of the Pi Phi girls had. Everything in my future involved Bryce. We were going to make the family I never had. We’d have two kids and the perfect suburban house. And probably an actual Suburban. Soccer mom. Dance mom. Whatever. His family was always nice to me, and I thought I was enough of a catch that I didn’t see any speed bumps.”
“You’re more than enough.” It’s true, but also, I know a dozen guys like Bryce. I can see it all playing out like a slow-motion catastrophe that takes her down before she even realizes she’s in the middle of it.
“I know that. But I was so hurt at the time. I felt like I was never going to be good enough for anyone except someone who came up as rough as I did. Eventually, I was fine with that. But I had no idea that I was such an issue for his parents until they told him that playtime was over.”
She shifts and slides her legs from my lap so she can fold them beneath her and kneel, bringing her almost eye level. It makes it easy to see that hers are burning, not with hurt but determination. “The only thing I’m madder about than not seeing it coming is taking so long to get over it. I think it’s because my mom would never get mad about my dad. Even when things were the toughest and my grandma would say he was a lowlife who should be paying child support, my mom would just tell her it was pointless to be mad. That was her thing. Don’t get upset. Just fix it. So it didn’t feel okay to be mad about Bryce.”
I can’t hide my smile. “It seems like you got there eventually.” She has no problem reading Bryce for filth on stage, even if she’s not using his name.
An answering smile peeks back at me. “Right? I started channeling it into lyrics. But they didn’t fit my usual vibe. And when I found the right rhythms and melodies, the music started pulling things from me in ways it never had before. I reached out to some guys I knew from gigging, and we started jamming together. And we knew we had something. Putting it out there as a performance was cathartic, but I didn’t want anyone I knew to see me because if they knew my situation, they’d see too much in those lyrics.”
“So Lady Mantha was born.”
“Yeah. It kind of started with the tattoo, actually. When I finally hit the point about a year ago that I wouldn’t take Bryce back if he begged, I wanted to commemorate it, so Madi came with me to get my tattoo. I picked a luna moth because it means transformation.”
“Oh,” I say, realization dawning. “I thought it was a butterfly.”
She shakes her head and turns slightly, pulling up her sweatshirt in the back to reveal a tank top. “See how it’s green with those markings on the bottom of the wings? Luna moth. And that’s a purple chrysanthemum. It symbolizes loyalty to myself. I’ve spent the last eighteen months figuring out who I am and what I want.”
I reach up and trace the moth. She goes still when I touch her, and it’s not until I lift my finger that she breathes again.
“You’re kind of killing me here, Josh.” Her voice is low.
“Am I?” I ask, lazily. I can feel it in the almost-physical vibration of the space between us. I can feel it in my lungs and fingertips and the way my muscles tense. “How can I make it better?”
It’s a dangerous question, and I know it. She turns to face me again with a glint in her eye that tells me I’m about to pay in the best possible ways.
“Well,” she says, tapping her bottom lip slowly to make sure I can’t take my eyes off her warm, full mouth, “I guess you could kiss me better.”
I reach up and draw her tapping finger down, entwining it with mine and using it to pull her ever-so-slightly toward me. “I think I’ve given you the wrong impression, Lady Mantha. I’m here for Sami. In fact, I’m all in for Sami. The question is whether she’s got the guts to step into this. To be all in. To see what we’ve got here.”
Sami leans forward until she’s close enough for me to feel the puff of her breath while she keeps her eyes locked on mine. “I don’t know who this Lady Mantha is, but I’m right here. And no one has ever called me a coward.”
“You’re saying you’re not my fake girlfriend anymore?”
“I’m saying I’m not your fake girlfriend anymore.”
But I want to be totally sure we’re talking about the same thing. “You mean you’re my real gi—”
She cuts me off with a kiss that would have leveled me out if I weren’t already sitting. She comes up short of breath for a second to make herself clear. “Yes, Josh. I’m saying this is real. No more talking.”
