Page 11 of Dear Rockstar (Dear Rockstar 1)

Then he cocked his head and smiled, and I was done for. He hadn’t even pounced yet— was still in the tall grass watching, tail swishing, while I grazed nervously nearby—but I was already a goner. His smile was instantly captivating. If I thought he’d been as bright as the sun before, his smile doubled the wattage. His smile was perfectly white, perfectly perfect, a dimple appearing high up on one cheek, and it reached the corners of his eyes like a rising tide, finally pooling in them with a warmth that would have buckled my knees if I’d been counting on them to support me at that moment.

And once he saw me, he didn’t stop. He didn’t look away. There was no shyness or hesitation. Part of me hadn’t wanted to be seen, was afraid of what might happen if he looked my way, afraid of what I would feel, what I might do or say, but another part of me wanted to be seen. Not just seen—chosen. That secret part of me, one I hadn’t even known existed until that very moment—he seemed to bring it out—wanted him to choose me.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one.

“Sit here, Dale!” One of the Flashdance twins, the one furthest from me but closest to him, clearly felt his energy shift and didn’t like it, not one bit. She tried her best to redirect him, pointing to the empty table behind her, even daring to reach out and tug a handful of his Dead Kennedys t-shirt in her fist to get his attention.

He glanced down at her, annoyed, taking a step back.

“Mr. Diamond, would you please choose a seat?” Mr. Woodall insisted.

The class snickered, all eyes still on Dale, who changed direction, walking in front of the Flashdance twins’ table like they didn’t exist, their longing gazes following him and finally settling on me with so much jealousy I could feel it like an atomic bomb blast.

“Yes, sir.” Dale snapped him a salute, the energy in the room shifting. They were laughing at the teacher instead of Dale now as he approached my table and sat down.

And my body reacted like Tyler Vincent had just dropped into the chair beside me.

CHAPTER THREE

Mr. Woodall resumed his lecture, but I wasn’t listening. I concentrated on staring at the notebook propped on my knees, hair hanging down to cover the flush in my cheeks—I hoped. I couldn’t focus on anything. Sound receded. Woodall was still talking but I could barely hear him, like I was underwater. To me, he sounded like one of the teachers in a Charlie Brown cartoon.

I tried hard not to pay attention to the guy sitting beside me. It was bad enough he looked like Tyler Vincent, which brought up an instant, involuntary response—at least I understood Aimee’s enthusiasm at the lunch table now—but having him just a foot away was beyond distracting. And quite unfairly so, I reasoned. So he was good-looking—so what? So he looked a little like Tyler Vincent—big deal. There were a lot of cute guys at the academy. What made him so special?

Nothing. That’s what I told myself as I tried to catch my breath and started back in on my drawing, ignoring Dale’s existence beside me. He wasn’t the man I wanted, after all. My pencil on the page reminded me with every stroke who my heart really belonged to, filling in his strong jaw and that sweet dent in his chin, adding a little morning stubble, because in my fantasy it was the morning after and I was watching him sleep.

Beside me, Dale leaned back in his chair, putting one black combat boot up across his knee, drawing my eye away from my notebook, tracing the denim seam up from his knee to the V, hesitating at that shiny, studded belt securing his jeans at his waist, all the way up to the Dead Kennedys logo, but I didn’t dare look up any further. I felt his gaze on me. He wasn’t paying any attention to Woodall either, or the dirty looks we were getting from both the Flashdance twins and Holly Larson across the room.

My heart felt like it wanted to burst out of my chest, my body betraying me with every breath, every damned beat of my heart. What the hell? What was wrong with me? I’d never had a reaction like this to any guy—even David Hall, who I’d dated during most of my junior year and had finally lost my virginity to on prom night. We had a horrible break-up, including him calling me an obsessed, crazy bitch in front of our algebra class, a fight that continued out in the hallway where I told him every time we’d ever had sex, I’d been thinking about Tyler Vincent.

Which, of course, just served to prove him right.

But this feeling, whatever it was, this dizzy, soaring, sick-to-my-stomach feeling, I hadn’t ever experienced it with any guy I’d ever dated or had even been attracted to.

Tyler Vincent aside, of course.

That’s it. It’s because he looks like Tyler!

I was just transferring my feelings for him to this imitation sitting beside me! Relieved, I went back to sketching, even if my palms were still sweaty and my breathing far too shallow, at least I had worked out an explanation for my body’s response. It wasn’t my fault. It was like Pavlov’s dogs responding to a bell. Tyler Vincent made my body react this way. It made sense a look-alike might get the same response.

My stomach growled loudly, reminding me of the lunch I hadn’t eaten. Carrie had obviously interrupted my fry-stealing far before I was full enough to get through to the end of the day. That, too, could have explained the slightly sick, dizzy feeling I was experiencing. In fact, I was sure it was mostly that. I’d been shoving a granola bar in my purse in the morning to eat after lunch, but of course that morning I’d woken up late and had forgotten.

Growwwwwwwwwrrrrreeeerrrrrrlllll.

My stomach sounded like a beached whale and I sank down further in my seat, thankful Woodall was still going on—and on and on—quite loudly about his disappointment in our performance and his plans for correcting our shortcomings as a class. If it had been yesterday, when the whole class was quietly taking the “pop quiz,” my stomach would have interrupted everyone like Moby Dick looking for Ahab.

Greeeeeeeeeooooowwwwrrrrrrrrlllll.

That one sounded more like a distraught cat—Garfield lamenting a missing lasagna perhaps. Lasagna! Now I was really hungry. Mortified, I sank even further in my seat. I was going to be drawing under the table if I got much lower.

“Hungry?” Dale’s breath was warm on my cheek when he leaned in to whisper his question. I smelled a combination of spearmint and Polo cologne.

I didn’t look at him, vehemently shaking my head, cheeks burning. I expected him to leave me alone, but he didn’t move, and I realized, too late, he was looking over my shoulder.

“Nice drawing.”

I snapped my notebook closed, tossing it on the table and crossing my arms over my stomach. It wouldn’t stop rumbling. Loudly. Dale leaned back in his chair again, straightening his long legs and digging into his jeans pocket. I looked at the clock and saw it was only one-fifteen—forty-five minutes left. Now I really did feel faint.

I glanced over at the crinkle of Dale opening whatever he’d taken out of his pocket. Skittles. We weren’t supposed to eat in class. He popped a few into his mouth, cocking his head at me and tilting the red plastic package in my direction.

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