Lingus (7 page)

He smiled a big, toothy grin only a foot away from my face since he was ducking to talk to me. "Whatever you say," he teased. "Thank you for lunch, Kat."

"You're welcome."

"I really need to go," he said, straightening up. "I'm glad I met you."

I couldn't help but smile a little weakly, disappointed that he was in such a rush to leave. "Me too."

Tristan stepped back but smirked a split second later, he then took two steps closer to me, his shoulder hovered only a couple inches away from my face. I caught a whiff of his clean, soapy scent. His warm breath tickled my ear as he leaned in and made a sound like he'd inhaled my scent too, but I was so focused on how close he was that I really couldn't know for sure. A fire ran up my spine at his proximity.

"I think you should find a younger porn star to watch from now on," he said in a husky voice before brushing his hand down the length of my ponytail and stepping away. "Bye, Kat."

My ponytail whispered to me that she would never be the same again.

I felt like I'd been put under a spell from the moment he started breathing right against my ear until he was out of sight. Was I in a trance? My ear felt warm and tingly even in the long moments after he'd left.

My brain was in such a daze I didn't hear the nosey woman in front of me talking.

"Hmm?" I asked, trying to focus in on the heated words coming out of her mouth.

The woman, who looked to be in her late twenties, rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Was that Robby Lingus?"

"Who?" I asked her again.

"Robby Lingus." she whined, her pale eyes looking in the direction Tristan had walked.

"No." I snapped back at her, annoyed by her sharp tone.

Her eyes narrowed in my direction like she didn't believe my answer, but she turned back to face forward again, completely ignoring me. I busied myself with sending Zoey a text to let her know I was in line at the Wood booth, and then started looking around trying my best not to think about Tristan again. I knew I'd probably never see him again, so it was pointless to get caught up thinking about him. I mean, he could have asked for my number if he was really interested, right?

"There you are!" Zoey's sweet voice rang out through the masses as she slid through the people in line to stand next to me. Linking her arm through mine like she usually did, the nosey woman in front of us turned to look back again.

Her eyes narrowed at Zoey and me, with a sneer on her face.

I've had people give us that look before and just like every other time, it managed to piss me off instantaneously.

My sweet Zoey was extremely affectionate. Even before all of this madness of porn and girls, she'd always been very touchy-feeley, and I liked it. I didn't care. Being an only child, and then on top of that losing my mom at such a young age, had left me the tiniest bit starved for attention. My dad loved me, I never had any doubt of that, but he wasn't much for outward displays of affection. As the years rolled by, Zoey had started getting recognized more often but every once in awhile, the appreciative looks she usually received were replaced by ugly, mean sneers courtesy of people who didn't understand.

They didn't know her the way I did. If they wanted to think something bad about her, or about the both of us, so be it. But,
really
? If someone recognized her, they weren't exactly in a position to judge anyone else. So, the look on nosey-ass' face made me mad. Fortunately, Zoey was oblivious as she looked everywhere but ahead.

"I'm really good at spitting across long distances," Nicole barked at the woman staring at us as she made her way over with one blonde eyebrow drawn up in a challenge.

"Don't be mean, Nikki," Zoey sighed.

Nicole stalked over, but her vision was locked on the nosey woman's face. She was really fucking scary for being so pretty, and luckily, the woman has some survival instincts, because she turned her body to completely face away from Nikki.

I could only snicker in response to Zoey's words. "That would be like asking the world not to turn."

Our blonde friend just shrugged, as she planted herself right next to us. "You wouldn't want me any other way."

Zoey and I just looked at each other like we'd done a hundred times in the past and shrugged. "Meh."

"Bitches," Nicole hissed at us while digging through her purse. "Here I was buying my favorite asshole a present..." She'd been referring to me as an asshole for as long as I could remember. She loved me, I had no doubt about it. Nikki pulled a shrink-wrapped DVD out of her impressively-sized, fancy purse and thrust it in my face. "You're welcome."

A picture of Andrew Wood from the mid-nineties was plastered on the front of the cover with psychedelic neon colors highlighting his name. "Nikki..." I started to say, but she waved her hand around, looking away from me.

"Yeah, yeah. I love you too," she muttered like the act of buying me a DVD of my favorite porn star wasn't awesome.

I lived on a teacher's salary as well as royalties from my e-books. While I wasn't poor, I had to limit myself to what luxuries I could spend my money on. I bought generic brand everything, cut out really good coupons in the mail, and relegated myself to free porn websites. On the other hand, Nikki shelled out the big bucks for the good porn sites and splurged on whatever she wanted. She was a good friend though— she shared her passwords for the good sites, so I could enjoy them too and bought me little things randomly. Like me, she was an only child, so over the years our friendship bridged the gap that we missed out on as kids.

I slung my arm around her shoulder, which was pretty awkward. I had to stand on the tips of my toes because she was a giant. "Thank you, Nikki." I said, quietly squeezing her to my side.

She rewarded me with a little smile out of the corner of her mouth and that was good enough for me.

"LADIES! Andrew Wood will be out in just a few minutes. He appreciates your patience and looks forward to meeting you all!" a tiny woman with very short hair hollered at the line.

Nicole's phone chimed the instant the woman started talking. She quickly pulled it out of her purse like her life depended on it. She grinned at the screen in a creepy way and nodded. "That was Calum again," she laughed to herself a little before typing away on the touch screen.

"Are you finally texting him back?" Zoey asked.

She nodded in response, tapping away on her phone with a smirk on her face. "Yeah, I'm tired of playing games. I just want to sit on his face, the sooner the better."

The nosey woman in front of us did something that sounded like a half choke-half cough sound, but Nicole just rolled her eyes.

I suddenly remembered all about my lunch with Tristan and let out a little gasp. "I met his friend, Nikki."

"What friend?" she asked before I even finished saying her name.

"The guy earlier? The one who caught me pulling out my wedgie?" I reminded her and she nodded, her face serious. I decided to skip the part about having lunch, well, more like a snack I guessed, with him for some reason. "He said he was friends with Calum."

She looked pensive for a moment, almost looking like the lawyer she was if it wasn't for the really tight clothing she wore. "Huh," she muttered in response.

The women ahead of me started shifting around, extending the line as they prepared to assault Andrew Wood himself. There weren't as many people as there had been with Calum Burro earlier, but whatever. I busied myself ripping the shrink wrap off of my new DVD, so I could get him to sign it when it was my turn. I missed the brown-haired sex god make his way into the booth followed by a small entourage. The women in line started going insane.

I saw a bra go flying in his direction and hit him square in the jaw. He picked it up and grinned before tossing it onto the other side of the table. The lady behind me, who looked old enough to be my mom, screamed at the top of her lungs, "I finger my pussy to your movies!" Unfortunately for the lady, everyone went silent.

I wanted to die for her.

The line began moving forward as the autograph and picture taking began. Soon enough, everyone was making noise again, probably laughing at what the lady behind me said. Zoey and Nikki stepped out of the line, shoving me forward, while giving me their own versions of a smile. Zoey looked like a cute little angel, while Nikki looked like she was thinking of a way to murder Maya.

My feet moved on their own, I clutched the DVD to my chest as the line kept getting shorter. In no time, the small woman handling the line earlier gently pushing me toward the table.

I took the eight shortest steps ever walked in existence and yes, I included baby steps, to stand in front of the forty-something man who was looking at me with big brown eyes. "Hi."

Like an idiot, I just shoved the DVD case in his direction, whispering a squeak of a "Hi" in response.

"What's your name, sweetheart?" he asked in a voice that was slightly higher than what I remembered in each of his videos.

"Katherine with a K," I said with my best
Stuart Little
impersonation. I wanted to kick my own ass for being such a puss.

Andrew Wood signed my DVD, handing it back to me with a big smile before there was another fan pushing me over to get her own signature. Scurrying over to where Nicole and Zoey stood, while Zoey beamed at me in excitement, seemed surreal. I'd been thinking about getting his autograph for so long, and now it was over and I'd frozen up.

"Let me see," Zoey hummed in excitement, reaching for the case in my hand.

"To Beautiful Katherine," Nicole read out loud slowly before snapping her line of sight back over to the table and observing it for a moment. "You should have given him your card too, Kat. We both could have been getting lucky tonight."

Zoey let out what sounded like a squeak. "You're going to try to have sex with Calum tonight?"

"Not tonight. I'm going to see Jason, Jesus Christ. What do you think I am? Easy?" Nikki asked, like we were stupid.

I gave her a smug little smile as I nodded. "Well, yeah."

Chapter 9

I felt like I was on cloud nine as we continued walking through the convention hall with my DVD in my purse. Beautiful Katherine, kept going through my head like the best broken record ever.
Beautiful
Katherine
.
Beautiful
Katherine
. A girl could get used to that. We stayed by the booth a few minutes after I got his signature, looking at what things the other people in line got signed. From what we saw, I was the only one who got anything besides just a name written out. My self-esteem went up about a hundred million points, if not more.

Growing up, I was really insecure with myself, just like most other kids. Thanks to my dad, I was a tomboy with a really bad haircut for the majority of my childhood and teens. We didn't have a ton of money when I was younger, especially after my mom died. Dad and mom were only children too, so I didn't really have too many female influences in my life outside of teachers; with that being the case, he took it upon himself to cut my hair for me every few months. Let me tell you one thing— there is a reason why stylists go to cosmetology school. Even back then, I knew my uneven bangs were horrific and my "layers" looked like a blind man on opium had gotten ahold of them, but I never complained once. I knew my dad tried his best with me. If the disaster that was my thick, uneven, brown hair wasn't bad enough, I inherited my mom's worst genes: gaps between my two front teeth and weight problems until I hit puberty. I'd always been kind of awkward and clumsy, but fortunately, those were the only two traits I either didn't grow out of or wasn't able to control courtesy of a good hairstylist and braces.

I grew out of my ugly duckling stage right around the end of high school, thank God. Dad called me a late bloomer, I called it one of God's jokes.

"Calum wants to meet up with me before we leave," Nicole said, while she typed away on her phone.

Zoey started grumbling, "I'm tired of walking around in these shoes, Nik."

"No one told you to wear them," she replied, pointing at the 4-inch rhinestone, red platforms Zoey was teetering on. Her shoes probably weighed half as much as she did.

"You know it's part of my job," Zoey mumbled, as she squeezed through a small group of people walking in the opposite direction. A couple of men turned around to look at her curiously, probably recognizing her short mess of inky hair.

"To look like a stripper?" I teased her.

She just scowled at me in return. "You're buying me a steak when we're done then, Nikki."

"Deal."

The three of us weaved our way through the people. Nicole led the way since she was the one on a mission and we were her meager minions. It seemed crazy to me just how many people there were at the convention center; there was so much diversity it was overwhelming. I passed by a couple dressed in clothing I'd seen at a Renaissance festival, which Zoey explained that they were the owners of some sort of business. A man wearing only short pleather shorts and a ball gag in his mouth walked by me, as he trailed behind a pretty blonde in a pleather strapless dress. I was more into the people watching than looking at what was in each booth, until I saw it.