6. Chapter 6
Lennon
His hands skate down my back, cupping my ass and squeezing tight.
I angle my hips so I can feel his hardness pressed up against me, right where I need it most. A thrill passes through me at the effect I’m having on him, though I shouldn’t be surprised.
He was the one who grabbed my hand and led me into the storage room closet.
We certainly weren’t coming in here to talk.
Still, knowing a man wants me the way Marcus does is its own kind of high.
We don’t have much time before someone comes looking for us, so I make quick work of the buttons on the fly of his jeans. I reach my hand into them, circling it around the smooth, hard length…
I rip my earbuds out of my ears and lay my palms flat against my desk in front of me.
My breath is coming in rapid pants, and I have to consciously work to get it under control.
I don’t even want to think about what’s going on between my legs.
If I acknowledge that, then I’ll have to admit that my best friend’s voice gave me a hard-on, and I don’t know if I can do that quite yet.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard Lark sound like this.
Her voice was husky and overflowing with sultry longing.
It sounded like she had just woken up, but not exactly like when my phone call rips her from a deep sleep.
More like a lover had roused her with a line of hot kisses down her neck.
I find myself wondering if she would, in fact, sound like this if someone woke her in that way, and I have to clench my fists against another unexpected wave of desire.
My phone rings from where it sits on the desk next to me. Saved by the bell.
“That was phenomenal,” Noah says when I answer it. “Holy shit, Len. What a find. Where has she been all my life?”
“Michigan,” I grind out with more roughness than I intend.
I had excitedly sent Lark’s audition over to him before listening to it myself, not thinking she’d have started with the first chapter.
In retrospect, I’m not sure which chapter she would have started with instead.
I’m proud of Lark for nailing this audition, but at the same time, I’m regretting my hasty forwarding of her email to Noah.
The edges of rage creep up around me at his obvious infatuation with her voice.
I need to get a fucking grip. Noah is married , for fuck’s sake. With children. He doesn’t want her like that. He just wants her to narrate this book. And regardless, Lark isn’t mine.
She is mine, though. My best and oldest friend. My high school savior and confidante. My Songbird. My favorite person in the world. Just not mine in any kind of way that would excuse me feeling like this .
Noah doesn’t hear any of this in my tone, though. He just clucks from his end of the line and says, “With a voice like that, she should be out here. Or at least doing this full time. I want to get her on our roster—”
“Whoa,” I cut in. “I know you’re excited. I am, too. But let’s see how this one goes, okay? She might not even like doing this, and I don’t want to scare her off.”
I can practically hear the wheels in Noah’s head turning. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “I like that. Play a little hard to get. Make her want it as much as we want her.”
That isn’t at all what I meant, but I let it go. “Right. Okay, so do you want to talk to Jessica about this or…” I trail off before offering to do it myself. I really don’t want to get any more involved than I already am.
“Yeah, we’ll take it from here. I’ll have our intern do some practice editing on this file for extra experience.
You said Lark is coming here in two weeks?
Any way we can move that up a bit so we can get started sooner?
Provided Jessica approves. Which, honestly, if she hears what I’m hearing, she will. ”
“Her daughter is graduating high school, and she’s coming as soon as she can after that. I don’t think we can move it up.”
“Oh. No, probably not. High school graduation is a big deal. I get that. Okay then, leave this with me, and I’ll keep you posted. But man, I’d really love to meet her when she gets here. Do you think you can arrange a meeting?”
“A meeting?” A little kernel of anxiety starts to form in my stomach.
This is turning into something bigger than I suggested it would be when I first broached the topic with Lark, and I’m quickly losing control of both this situation and my libido.
Is he going to woo her and try to get her to move out here to pursue acting as a career?
I’m sure she would have died for an opportunity like that in another life, but he’s kidding himself if he thinks he can drag her away from that professor gig she worked so hard for. No, I need to take this down a notch.
I breathe in to a count of four and out at the same speed to try to tame my suddenly racing heart. “She’s my friend. You’re my friend. We’ll get together for lunch or drinks or something casual.”
“Right. Yes. Even better. Okay, Len. Thank you. Talk soon.” He hangs up without waiting for a goodbye.
I set my phone down and pinch the bridge of my nose. If Lark is going to do this thing, and it sounds like she is, I’m going to have to get it together, and fast.
It’s not the first time I’ve had to get a handle on my desire for her. I still don’t know why she gave me the time of day when we first met. She certainly didn’t have to. She’s always been the most beautiful girl I’ve known.
I was the new kid freshman year. My parents had decided to move in the middle of September, well after school had already started.
Why they traded the big blue skies and wide-open spaces of Wyoming for the dingy, gray streets of eastern Michigan, I’ll never know.
But I was pissed about it and had stubbornly decided I wouldn’t bother trying to make any friends this time.
The only place there was room for me was in the back of each classroom, so I spent the first three weeks sitting quietly there.
Forget about friends at lunch; I ate alone.
I kept to myself, determined to create as few ties as possible.
About a month into the move, I ended up after school waiting for someone to pick me up.
It’s unclear if my parents had something to do and didn’t tell me or if they had simply forgotten about me.
I figured wandering around the school was better than sitting with a bunch of emotions I didn’t want to have, so I started walking.
No one stopped me. No one asked me what I was doing.
No one even cared I was there. It was like I was invisible.
The sound of gibberish coming from down the hall greeted me as I rounded a corner.
It was too weird to even be a foreign language.
Figuring I was invisible anyway, I followed the sounds to a classroom with the door propped open and looked inside.
The desks had been moved out of the way, and there were about fifteen students standing in a circle shouting words at each other.
Someone must have messed up or something, because they all started laughing or good-naturedly punching one of the kids in the arm.
“Hi,” came a voice from behind me.
I turned around slowly, wondering who could see me if no one else seemed to be able to. A girl with long blonde hair and huge blue eyes was standing there, smiling up at me.
I looked to the left and right to see who else she could be talking to. No one was there. I pointed at my chest. “Me?” I asked.
“Yes, you.” She giggled, and it was a magical sound. Warm. Sparkling. Beautiful , some little voice said, springing up in the back of my head. She was really pretty, I realized. And for some reason, she was talking to me.
“Uh, hi,” I said uselessly.
“I’m Lark.” She stuck out her hand with her long, thin fingers pointed toward me.
By the grace of whatever in the universe is holy, I had the good sense not to stand there like an idiot. I took her hand in mine and shook it. “I’m Lennon.”
She tilted her head, and I steeled myself for what I knew was coming next. Like John? It came without fail, every single time I met someone new.
But instead, she smiled again, like it was easy for her to do so. Like she never had to think about whether or not she was really happy. She just was .
“I like L names,” she announced. “Lark and Lennon. Sounds musical, doesn’t it?”
It took me so much by surprise that I gaped at her for what felt like multiple minutes.
She didn’t seem uncomfortable by it, though.
She stood there, her tiny frame unabashedly taking up as much space as it could with her shoulders squared and her back ramrod straight.
It was clear to me that she was the type of person who was not only used to people looking at her but who liked it when they did.
Must be nice to be seen like that , I thought. I sort of wished some of her visibility would rub off on me.
“You want to play?” she asked, nodding toward the doorway where the kids inside had started up their nonsense words again.
“Play?”
“This is Drama Club. You know, the theater kids? We’re doing improv games today.” She adorably scrunched up her nose. “It’s a little weird, but it’s fun once you get the hang of it.”
“Oh,” I said, my shoulders falling heavy with regret. “I’m not part of Drama Club.” I would have given a lot just then to spend more time in her presence, and I would have settled for joining this group and at least having something to do until someone remembered I existed.
She bounced forward on her toes, leaning closer to me as if she were going to tell me a secret. “No one is part of Drama Club until they come to a meeting. And look at you, here for a meeting.” She ticked her head toward the door. “Come on. I’ll teach you how to play.”