Beautiful Mistake

Eventually, toward the end of the video, the person recording zoomed in on the drummer, who was also singing. His head was down as he banged away on the drums, bobbing along to the beat. There was something so sexy about the assertive way he gripped the sticks and the way his muscles flexed with each wail of the drum pad—what stamina must be required to move like that for hours on end.

The little flutter in my belly confirmed it, even before the musician looked up. But when that face met the camera, my breath caught.

Professor West had been just as gorgeous as a teenager as he was now. Only back then, he’d had that whole bad-boy-musician thing going on. Now, if I didn’t know him and had to guess, I would have taken him for a jazz musician or maybe even classical of some kind. Somehow, sexy bad boy had grown into a sexy maturity.

When the song ended, Caine lifted his head and gave the crowd a crooked smile. His shoulder-length hair was wet from the workout, and he tossed a stick in the air, catching it with the other. Then he used his free hand to reach back over his head and tug off his sweaty shirt. The girls went crazy at his eight-pack abs. Rock star, Beatles-type crazy.

Wow.

That smile.

That body.

Just wow.

There were apparently many layers of Caine West, and I’d barely scratched the surface.

By the time I got home that night, it was after two in the morning. My feet were killing me, and all I wanted to do was soak in a tub and get some sleep. For a change, I didn’t have to be at school or work until the afternoon. The tub was warm, and I let the water from the faucet sluice over my feet as I settled back to relax.

Although my brain had ideas other than relaxing. The minute I shut my eyes, a vision of a young Caine West up on stage infiltrated my thoughts. I’d forwarded myself the videos and watched them more times than I cared to admit between serving drinks tonight.

Giving in, I reached up for my phone and allowed myself one more replay. Finally in private instead of being caught by a smirking Ava as I tried to discreetly look down at my phone, I searched the grainy face for Caine’s mannerisms. There were a few I recognized—the way his lip twitched and he shook his head when women started to scream his name while he played his solo. The way he walked around the stage like he owned it. Today his arena was a classroom, but the confidence he strutted with was the same. Yet it was his arms that really nailed it home. Each time he banged on the drum, the vein that ran from his bicep to his forearm bulged. I’d never thought a vein could be so sexy.

After I finished watching, the tub was nearing full so I used my toes to turn off the water. I knew I wouldn’t be able to relax enough to fall asleep tonight if I didn’t satisfy my curiosity, so I Googled Caine’s old stage name.

Able Arsen.

I was shocked when thousands of hits came back. Scrolling through like a fiend, I found picture after picture of Caine. He wasn’t the front man for the band, but apparently the media adored him—and who could blame them? I noticed the same girl in quite a few photos. She had long, dark hair and was thin—almost too thin. The hollow of her cheeks made her beautiful, high cheekbones jut out just a little too much. In most of the photos, she wore sunglasses and seemed to shun the attention of the camera. There were various pictures of her with the band, some with Caine’s arm around her in an almost protective way. She was definitely younger than him—seventeen or eighteen, at best—and I couldn’t quite tell if she was his girlfriend or perhaps a little sister.

When I sorted the photos and articles into date order, with the oldest ones first, I realized the pictures seemed to have stopped abruptly nine years ago. Three or four pages down in the search results, there was an article about the death of the lead singer, Liam Marshal. Able Arsen had disappeared after that.

What happened to you, Able Arsen?

Better yet, how did you wind up Professor Caine West?

Caine

Fifteen years ago

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” Looking up at the cross in the tiny, dimly lit room, I inhaled, sucking deep until the red ember tip burned through to the end of the rolling paper, heating my thumb and forefinger.

“You can’t ask forgiveness for shit when you’re in the middle of sinning again. You’re supposed to be repentful, dickwad.”

“Show some respect with your language. We’re in a church, for Christ’s sake.”

Liam laughed from the other side of the dark booth. “Yeah, right. You just smoked a fatty in a confessional, and it’s my language that’s disrespectful.”

He had a point. And since my half-baked brain was transitioning nicely into full-on mellow mode, I ditched out the tiny remnant of my smoke on the floor and slipped it into my pocket while it was still warm.

“I’m outta here,” Liam said.

“We’re supposed to work until noon.”

“Screw that shit. Tell Father Frank I went home to spank one out if he looks for me.” The sliding wooden window we’d been talking through, the one that separated the two sides of the confessional and covered the confidentiality screen, slammed shut. The door followed right behind as Liam took off.

There was still a half hour until I could go sign out with Father Frank, so I settled in, leaning my back against the cushioned red fabric, hoping to catch a few z’s. The chair was pretty damn comfortable on the priest’s side, must have been because they got stuck listening to other people’s bullshit for hours every Saturday afternoon. I had no idea how these guys spent their entire lives in this place. Just being here for the last few Saturdays had been enough to freak me out.

Three weeks ago, my mother caught Liam and me ditching school again. It was our senior year, my mom was normally pretty cool, and parents expected a few cuts. That wasn’t what sent God-fearing Grace West off the deep end. It wasn’t even finding a half-naked and fully-stoned Emily Willis on her knees about to give me a blowjob in the yard that had freaked Mom out. Nope. What had gotten me involuntarily signed up for a month of cleaning St. Killian’s on Saturday mornings was my music. Both of my parents hated that I had no intention of going to college or becoming part of the upstanding, family-owned investment firm that bore the West name.

So, I was sentenced to community service for wanting to play my drums and sing. After Father Frank’s long talk with my mother, he also took every chance to remind Liam and me that playing music was no way for a man to make a living. Thank God, I only had one more week left here.