Page 40 of Rebound With Me
Nina
I don’t knowif Vince Devlin is a Catholic or not, but I have started thinking of him as St. Vince, patron saint of girls who haven’t had enough fun in their lives yet.
I’m lying here on his big amazing bed, in his big amazing loft in DUMBO, watching him plate the dinner that he just had delivered. My body is both ravaged and revitalized, my brain is both carefree and racing. It must be because he plowed away at me until I was hanging upside-down off the edge of the mattress.
When he called me and told me that he’d be coming to pick me up to bring me to his place, I thought he meant in an Uber. He didn’t. When I came down from my apartment, I found him casually leaning against a motorcycle, a helmet resting between his arm and hip. Every fantasy I’d ever had of Maxwell Caulfield fromGrease 2had still done nothing to prepare me for the reality of such holy hotness.
“You’re kidding, right?” I said.
“Would I kid you?” He kissed me and then grinned as he handed me the helmet. “I won’t go very fast, don’t worry. But it’s easier than driving from here to DUMBO.”
I can’t say that it was on my bucket list to ride on the back of a motorcycle, with my arms clasped tight around the waist of a sexy man, and a warm summer night breeze through my hair—but now that I’ve done it, it is way at the top of my list of things that I am so glad I finally did.
His loft is beautiful and warm in a masculine way, and it smells like him. There is one huge stylish fiddle-leaf fig tree in a corner, leaning towards the light of the oversized industrial window that looks out over the rooftop of a smaller renovated factory/loft building. His living room furniture is spare but exquisite and comfortable. Next to the antique leather sofa are five plastic buckets, one much smaller than the other four. Four of them are overturned, one is a container for drumsticks.
“Is the little bucket for your little brother?”
“What’s that?” he says, all chipper as he brings two plates and silverware over to the bed. He is shirtless and wearing only a pair of sweatpants and Vans.
“Those are for bucket drumming, right? Is the little one for your brother?”
“Why yes it is. You wanna try?”
“Uhh, maybe later.”
“You ever seen someone bucket drumming?”
“In the subway station once, yeah. It was awesome.”
“I wonder if I know the guy.” He puts the plates down on top of the sheet.
“We’re eating in bed?”
He wiggles his eyebrows. “Second course of the night.”
I shake my head, feeling my cheeks get warm. “So you’ve given lessons to kids?”
“Yeah, why? You want me to teach your class sometime?”
The thought of him doing anything for me after September makes me excited and nervous and sad, but I just shrug my shoulders. “I mean, I’m sure the parents will hate me if I introduce my students to bucket drumming, but I’m sure the kids would love it.”
“Oh they would. I’m kind of awesome, myself.”
“I believe you.”
“Oh don’t just take my word for it.” He strides over to pick out a pair of drumsticks from one bucket, twirling one of the sticks between his fingers while he uses one bucket as a stool and brings another between his feet, pulls two more buckets in front of that one.
I sit up, covering myself with the sheet.
Slouching, he taps on the edge of the bucket between his legs, warming up, then starts into a beat, using his feet to move the bucket in different angles, and banging on all three buckets, including the one that has a bunch of sticks in it. It’s not just the primal energy and rhythm or the fascinating way that he manipulates the buckets to change the sounds, or the muscles and veins that are bulging on his arms, but the easy physicality of the performance, the confidence and focus with which he makes this noisy music—every cell of my body is vibrating because of him.
After the finale, after playing for about ninety amazing seconds, he tosses one of the sticks up in the air then catches it, and there wasn’t any doubt in my mind before, but now I know for a fact that he is way too cool to be hanging out with the likes of me. My heart is pounding, and there’s no way that I can digest food after that. I slowly place the plates on the floor, so they won’t fall off the bed…
“Wow. Where’s my purse? You can just have all of my cash. That was incredible.”
“That one was on the house.”
When he saunters back over to me, he is only slightly out of breath, and completely capable of taking mine away again as he pulls down the sheet I was using to cover myself, and presses himself down on top of me.
