Shy (6 page)

I adored Rowan for a while. And I was hotter than a nuclear reactor for her. She was incredibly fucking sexy. Something about her felt and seemed familiar, too, and it was quite a kick until I figured out that, damn, it's a behavior pattern I'm familiar with from my bipolar, drug-addicted mother. They say guys fall for women like their mothers. I guess I proved that true with Rowan.

We shared incredible sex, incredible music, and incredible fights, and in the end, incredible misery. Rowan wore me down to a nub with her drama and trauma and her look-at-me, self-centered behavior. Even when she was on a manic high, wowing everyone with her voice and her performances, she still preened in her self-centeredness. She's still singing last I heard, after being released from the psych ward in the hospital yet again. She joined an all-guy band, and I hear she's giving them a lot more than just good lead singing. It made me angry and jealous as hell when I first heard about it, picturing those guys with her. For a while, Rowan was like my own addiction, hard to kick, but I'm okay with everything now. And since meeting Frannie, I think about Rowan less and less. Frannie is incredibly refreshing to me, and being in her presence is like a breath of fresh air. She and Rowan might as well be different species.

I like that.

I've been going to Frannie's practice room every day for two weeks now, and she has reached the point where she can sing her two completed songs, “Glass Ceiling” and “Invisible,” all the way through with confidence as long as I'm standing outside the door. She doesn't have Rowan's smoky, sexy, sultry torch singer voice. Instead, she has this gorgeous, lush, feminine voice that, when she really lets loose, sounds like an angel, albeit an angry angel, seeing as how in her songs, she often sings about how she feels screwed over for being shy. She's wounded, yes, but in a different way than Rowan. She's sexy in how she barely meets my eyes when I tell her how good she is. Yes, she
is
damn good. In her way, she's as good as Rowan, but with an adorably humble, timid attitude. I love being around her. She arouses a protective instinct in me. Much more than that, as well.

Frannie told me she'd like to sing while I'm in the room come Monday. I'm looking forward to that more than I could ever have dreamed.

I would like to kiss her. I think she'd like to kiss me, too. She touches my heart in a strange but wonderful way I've never before experienced. It's like she's something more than human, with her shyness and gentility. She's also luscious, gorgeous, sexy—in a completely unassuming way, with her plain blouses, blue jeans, long brown hair, and luminous eyes as she barely meets my gaze, responding to my compliments, her cheeks flushed—and I feel even more for her than I did for Rowan when it was most intense.

That's saying something.

And though I'm a hell of a keyboardist and need my fingers, I'd bet all ten of them that she's a virgin.

I hear footsteps behind me, descending the steps as I'm headed down from the third floor of the music building after a visit to Frannie in the practice room. Who on earth? Could Frannie be leaving early, following me? I've wondered if she'd do that. She hasn't yet. She's always stayed in the practice room when I leave. But I've hoped she would follow.

Anticipation rising, I turn around. But it's not Frannie. Instead, there's Rowan, decked out in tight black clothes, high black boots, and her curly black hair flowing down nearly to her waist. Perhaps it's because I haven't seen her in a couple of weeks, but my heart misses a beat. She doesn't have the innocent, fresh beauty of Frannie. Rowan looks more like Morticia Addams with a bad attitude. But holy hell, she'll always be sexy to me. I haven't tried to contact her. Finding her sexy and wanting her back in my life are two very different things. Except for the first couple of weeks after our breakup, she hasn't been back after me, either. In fact, she made quite a show of how well she was getting along with her new, all-guy band. It doesn't matter to me anymore, given my growing feelings for Frannie, but I'd be lying if I said the sight of her doesn't still arouse me. Because it does.

“Gran,” she says sulkily. “What do you think you're up to with that little mealworm in there?”

“What? You know her?”

“No, but I've asked around a little bit. She's a freshman, music major, studies under Dr. Rosetti. She's a good little classical pianist, she can play the dead white guys by the book, she has no friends, she's terribly shy and is pretty much just a little lump. So what's a guy like you hanging around with someone like that for?” She sounds genuinely offended.

I open my mouth to answer, but she cuts me off.

“And she can't sing. She sounds like a scared little girl.”

“That isn't true,” I say. “She's very talented. Yeah, she's extremely shy and needs to get used to singing for people, but once she does that, who knows how far she can go? She can play piano beautifully, too. And she writes music.”

“Yeah, sure. What, two songs?”

I gaze at her, disbelieving. “You've been following me for how long?”

“About a week and a half. I got curious. For Pete's sake, what kind of girl is this? She's so crazy shy that she can't even sing while you're in the room with her? That's nuts, Gran. You think I'm messed up, but this girl is way beyond neurotic.”

“Rowan, we don't need to get all tangled up in each other again. I...” Damn. I didn't mean to say it like that. Into my mind flashes an image from memory, of us physically tangled up in each other, in her apartment, me sitting on her keyboard bench, naked from the waist down, her straddling me and impaling herself on me, up and down, slowly and deliciously before we wind up on the floor among our musical instruments, me going at her hard and fast, her beautiful voice moaning full throttle before building up to a scream.

She must have seen my eyes darken. Yes, some things about Rowan I miss. She takes my hand and leads me onto the second floor. Yes, I'm going along. What does she want? I know what she wants, but where does she want it? That was always one of the fun things about Rowan, seeing exactly where she wants it. Because you never know. She keeps a guy guessing.

When I see she's taking me to the elevator, lust flares in my mind like a supernova, then I tell myself, no. Don't do it, Granville. You'll be damn sorry, bringing Rowan back into your life when you have a chance with a girl who is equally gorgeous and equally gifted, and not one tiny part of her is even close to being as messed up as Rowan, except the part of Frannie that is damaged by people who brainwashed her into thinking she isn't good enough as she is. Beautiful and luminous Frannie, radiant with gentleness and goodness, with deep wounds, but also possessing great stability. Perhaps, one day, it will be me and Frannie expressing our love for one another among our musical instruments, only without drugs, without drama, without trauma. Love without pain.

That is what I want.

Who I want.

“Rowan. I can't.” I stop walking despite her tugs on my hand. I don't know what game she's playing, but I'm not her pawn. Not anymore, and not ever again.

“Why not? For old time's sake. There's no reason we can't be friends.”

I gesture toward the elevator. “What you want goes beyond friends.”

“Okay. Friends with benefits. Whatever. But I miss you, Gran. And I want to show you what you're missing.”

Yes, I miss it, too. But I can do better. I can have a relationship that's filled with music, love, and passion, but without angst, drugs, fighting, and nuclear meltdowns. That's what I want, and that's what I'll insist on.

At least, if Frannie will have me.

“It's that little mealworm, isn't it?” She's glaring at me. “Don't bother to deny it. You're thinking about her, and that's why you don't want to fuck me.” She says
fuck
vigorously, as though to make me think about the act itself, when we'd get unleashed and really go at each other.

No. Don't think about that. Not with her.

As though reading my mind, she says, “It would never be the same with that girl, Gran. Shit, you'd be lucky if she'd let you fuck her at all, unless you wanted to marry her, and even if, after two or three years, she actually did let you into her pants, she'd want to do it the same way, all the time, in a bed, in the missionary position. Boring. As. All. Hell. Is that what you want for yourself?”

She's got tunnel vision when it comes to Frannie. She sees Frannie in such a one-dimensional way, completely and totally defined by her shyness. If she's followed me enough and been close enough to really hear Frannie sing, to hear her intense piano work on her original songs, to hear the lyrics she sings, she wouldn't be saying these things. But perhaps Rowan only sees and hears what she wants to see and hear, which doesn't have a damn thing to do with the real Frannie. She's much more than just a shy girl, and I'm willing to take the time and make the effort to get to know her and uncover the incredible, passionate, deep-feeling girl I can already see within.

“That's none of your business, Rowan. And I've got to head out of here and study for class. You need to go do your own thing, whatever that might be.”

Interestingly enough, Rowan used to be a chemistry graduate student before she flubbed herself up and had to drop out. Bad grades, for one thing. Losing her fellowship, for another. Bad choices. The only thing she has going for her now is that band, and apart from her, they really aren't very good.

As they say, though, not my circus, not my monkeys.

“I wish you good luck, but we each have a new path to walk. Separately.”

I head back to the stairwell. I hear Rowan behind me, but I don't slow down. “Bullshit,” she calls. “You need me, and you know it.”

I keep walking. I reach the first floor landing, then keep going until I exit the music building. She follows but doesn't say anything else until I start to cross the street.

“You need me,” she calls, heedless of everyone walking around us on the sidewalks. “At some point, you're going to remember it. And I'll be there.”

I cast a glance over my shoulder at her. She's giving me her best sultry look.

In my mind, I superimpose over her an image of Frannie, smiling at me shyly, her smile full of promise, joy, passion, and music to share.

From now on, when it comes to love, Frannie is North on my compass.

My cell phone plays Mozart as I walk into the practice room. Wow, what timing, whoever it is calling. It can't be Mom. She doesn't call this early in the morning. She doesn't even know I get up and do this. The only people who know are Jake and Granville, but Granville doesn't have my number. It's like our friendship exists only here, in the practice room, as if it were its own little world for just the two of us.

I smile at the thought. It's Monday morning, the day I'm going to try to sing with him standing here in the room instead of out in the hall. Maybe something else will happen, too. I hope it does. Warm tingles course throughout me at the thought.

Mozart again. It has to be Jake. Guilt pokes needles into my stomach. But there's no logical reason to feel guilty. I still have strong feelings for him, yes, but I can't wait forever, can I? And he was the one to basically end our romance, so it's in his court. I might be waiting for years to come, while he marries some other girl, a friendly country type who can sing bluegrass with him and who isn't ever shy.

I pull my phone out of my purse. Yes, it's Jake. What's he doing, calling so early? He is
so
not a morning person.

“Hey,” I say.

“Wildflower.” He sounds sleepy.

“What are you doing up this early?”

“I couldn't sleep.”

“I'm sorry. Is anything the matter?”

“Yeah. Well, I don't know. I just...”

He pauses, and I can't help but think how sexy his voice sounds when he's sleepy. All husky and deeper than usual. His bedroom voice. What would it be like to wake up in the morning and hear that sexy voice of his after we've made love all night? At the thought, I blush furiously.

“I just couldn't sleep,” he continues. “So I thought I'd give you a call. Just to say hey, I'm thinking about you.”

He used to do that sometimes when we dated, just call and say, “Hi, Wildflower. Just thinking about you. I love you.” Then he'd tell me what he wanted to do to me. Where he wanted to kiss me. What he wanted to be rubbing, touching, massaging. Oh, God. I don't need to be thinking about this now. I'll be blushing red as a fire engine when Granville gets here.

Granville
.

He'll be here at any moment, and here I am, on the phone with Jake. But I don't want to push him off the phone, not when he wanted to call me, feeling lonely and who knows what else. He sounds almost jealous. But that doesn't make sense, given that he's the one who said we need space.

“What's that guy's name you're seeing in the mornings?” he asks.

“Granville.”

“Sounds like a rich guy's name.”

Well, it is a rich guy's name. Granville comes from a wealthy family. He hasn't said as much, but from what I've been able to read between the lines, especially given his expensive clothes and shoes, I can tell his family has plenty of money. I won't tell Jake that, though. It would really send him off the rails. He has a pretty hefty resentment of people who have lots of money. When we've had fights before, he's called my parents snobby, privileged yuppies. Though they aren't rich, they're comfortably middle class. Jake comes from a poor, rural family who scrapes to make ends meet and he resents that, and he resents families who haven't had as hard a time. But he especially loathes the wealthy. In that way, he's like his dad.

“So, what do you and this guy do?” he asks. “Just play music?”

I haven't talked to him much about Granville, but I've told him a little bit. After all, it isn't like I want to hide anything. I've also thought, what if Granville and I start dating? It could happen. We're very attracted to each other. It's different from with Jake, but then, they're very different guys. If I start dating Granville, I hope Jake can stay my best friend, but it might be tough. For one thing, I'm attracted to them both. For another, I doubt they would get along. They're from such different backgrounds. Plus, they're both attracted to me.