Starting From Somewhere (Starting From 4)

I swam to his side and emerged with a laugh when he splashed me playfully. I wrapped myself around him like an octopus. My arms around his neck, my legs around his waist. He pretended to try to shake me off, which of course, made me hold on tighter. When he moved to a place where we both could stand, I crashed my mouth over his, roving my hands over the hard planes of his chest and along his sides before resting them on his ass.

“Mmm. I like skinny-dipping,” I said, squeezing his cheeks.

“I had a feeling you might. You can check this one off your list.”

I grinned. “Thank you.”

Bobby J brushed my wet hair from my eyes and kissed my brow. “It’s truly my pleasure.”

The unexpected romantic undertone at just the right moment made my heart skitter out of control. No doubt my expression was beyond dopey. I didn’t care. I could chastise myself later. It was one thing to share a fun and life-affirming experience and quite another to lower my defenses. If I wasn’t careful, I’d fall for him.

5

Bobby J

By mid-July, I clued in that I was secretly dating the intern. We didn’t discuss it or give whatever this was a name, but there was definitely something going on with Cody and me. And it was more than just selflessly helping a fellow brainiac check boxes off his bucket list.

It happened so seamlessly that it didn’t freak me out. Playful flirting gave way to friendship, attraction…and yeah, straight-up lust. We’d share a cup of coffee the mornings he was at the label; then I’d end up back at his desk before he left for the day to talk him into meeting me at my place for dinner. Which was code for naked swimming, blowjobs, hand jobs, and a geek-athon of Star Trek or whatever looked good on the Syfy channel.

Those couple of nights a week always left me wanting more. No kidding. Just the sight of him staring at his computer screen, lost in numbers and patterns, made my pulse rev.

I played it cool. I’d sneak a donut or a random candy bar on his desk, then announce my presence by strumming a wicked riff. Sometimes he jumped from his chair, clutching his heart like a ninety-year-old man while I chuckled merrily. Other days, he’d nod his thanks and hold a single digit up, wordlessly asking me to wait until he’d finished his thought. I almost liked that response more ’cause when the fog cleared and the numbers faded, he’d look at me like I might have the answers he’d been searching for all along.

The crazy thing was that I felt the same about him. He was special—unique, handsome, charming, and sexy as fuck. And the best thing was that he didn’t try to be any of those things. He was completely unfazed by material excess, fame, or fortune. Cody applied for the internship to observe musicians, not to fuck one. He didn’t fanboy over my bandmates or ask me to play for him. And though he’d told me he’d never been to a concert, he hadn’t asked for tickets to one of our future shows.

In short, he seemed to like me for me…not for my job.

And me? I was fucking nuts about the guy.

He’d been under my skin since we met at The Zebra Den. But after our night-swim adventure, everything changed. My awareness of him heightened by a thousand degrees. The problem was that he only worked at Scratch Records three days a week. While he was busy racking up life experiences of the pineapple-upside-down-cake nature, I spent long hours in the studio preparing for Jealousy’s upcoming tour with Zero.

I loved my job for sure. It was a dream to get paid to do something I loved, and after years of chasing the wrong path, I was grateful. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to find a way to spend more time with my geek before summer was over and real life started for him.

So I asked him to go with me to the Griffith Observatory.

“When?”

I shrugged. “Tomorrow?”

“Don’t you have to work?”

“I’ll take the afternoon off.”

Cody knit his brow. “Can you do that?”

“I don’t think it’s a prob—”

“There you are!” Charlie sashayed around the corner, waving his arms. “Dec is looking for you.”

“Oh, right,” I said, stepping backward.

“Was there something in particular you needed from Cody?” Charlie asked, raising one brow and managing to look like a freaking boss.

“Uh…we bumped into each other at the coffee machine,” I bluffed, accidentally knocking my sunglasses off when I raised my mug in proof.

Charlie cocked his head. “Oh?”

Cody handed my sunglasses to me. “Yes, Bobby J forgot the name of your optometrist.”

What the fuck?

I glowered at him when Charlie pulled his cell out and scrolled.

“Dr. Canter! I gave you her number weeks ago. Well, this is fortuitous. Guess who was about to cancel his kid brother’s appointment tomorrow? Moi.” Charlie pivoted on his Italian loafers and opened his arms wide. “You can take Ollie’s place. I have a meeting in five minutes, but I’ll call after that and—"