Page 83 of Dear Rockstar (Dear Rockstar 1)

I’d wanted to spend Thanksgiving with John and Dale, but we’d spent it with my stepfather’s family in upstate New York, his pothead mother and her crackhead husband and a myriad of siblings I could still never get straight because we only saw them on holidays, but my mother insisted I come anyway. “It’s the only family we have,” is what she always said, but as far as I was concerned, having no family would be better than having a family like his.

At least it sounded like Aimee had a far better holiday than I had!

I settled myself back in the sleeping back, stunned. “And?”

“And…” she hesitated and I waited, breath held. “It was sweet. He was very sweet and gentle. Kept asking me if I was okay. It hurt at first. He’s not… small.”

I flushed in the darkness. “Well the first time does hurt.”

Mine did, for sure. David hadn’t exactly been huge but it had hurt anyway. And he wasn’t exactly gentle. There hadn’t been much time for that, given the rushed circumstances.

“But the next time… it was… wow.”

“The next time?” I grinned. “When was that?”

“About twenty minutes after the first time.”

We both cracked up.

“So what about you and Dale?” Aimee was up on her elbow. “What’s it like? You haven’t told me anything!”

There was a good reason for that. There wasn’t anything to tell.

I hesitated, not wanting to admit the truth. But I wasn’t about to make anything up either.

“We haven’t… yet.”

“What?” Now it was her turn to sound shocked. “You’re kidding me?”

“No.” I sighed, rolling onto my stomach and pressing my cheek to the pillow to try and cool it. I’d been momentarily distracted by Aimee’s news, but now I was thinking about Dale again and that inevitably made me hot. Hotter than hot. My face felt like it was burning up, and that was nothing compared to the rest of me.

“But… why not? It’s not like you’re still…” Aimee paused, and I filled in the blank in my head. No, I wasn’t a virgin. There was no real reason to wait. “Unless… oh my God! Is Dale… a virgin?”

“No.” I laughed. “Hardly.”

We’d had that discussion, he and I. I told him about David, and the one guy who had come after him, Brian, who hadn’t lasted long—a month or so—and we’d only had sex once. I didn’t worry about pregnancy anymore. I didn’t have to. I was on the pill now, thanks to Aimee’s mom. Linda Wells was a single mother and had insisted, when she took Aimee, who was having so much trouble regulating her periods—of course that had to do more with her fluctuating weight than anything hormonal—that I come too.

She’d pretended to be my mother and had signed all the paperwork and I’d gone and filled the prescription every month since. I was supposed to have some sort of regular exam to get more, but I never had. I didn’t know if it was some sort of mistake, but I didn’t question it. I filled the prescription, hid the pills in my room, and took them faithfully every day.

Of course, Dale had told me about the girls he’d been with—fewer than I’d expected, honestly, but far more than me. I had to ask him every detail about them, what they were like, how long they had dated, had they done it? How many times? I told him it wasn’t fair, he only had two guys to agonize over, but I had a whole harem to think about—eight girls in total—when it came to him. Of course, that’s when he reminded me of Tyler Vincent and I shut my mouth.

“So then… why?” Aimee asked again, sounding genuinely curious.

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. I had my ideas, but I didn’t know, not for sure. “I think he’s afraid of things going too fast. He wants it to be different than it’s been… for him and for me… in the past. I think…”

I smiled into my pillow, remembering the way he’d looked at me when he’d told me he was renting a limo to take us to the concert and he had a “surprise” for me afterward.

“I think he’s a closet romantic. I think he wants it to be… perfect.”

Aimee snorted. “You could be waiting forever.”

“Feels like it sometimes.”

But I had a feeling my wait was almost over.

“Left me standin’ on the porch too many times

Kept the boys in the band waitin’ at the bar

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