Unmaking Hunter Kennedy (25 page)

Dustin snorted and took the weight off his arms to settle flat onto his back. He crossed his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. “Girls. You’re all the same. You just want to imagine someone is something, without even knowing them first.”

“What do you mean by that?” Vere felt slighted.

He shrugged.

Vere pressed on, “Come on. Give me the inside guy info. You’ve probably had a ton of experience. Did you—do you—hook up—with like, groupies?”

He turned, and gave her a measuring gaze. “I have. Yes.”

She felt her eyes grow wide. “Do groupies really do what they say groupies do?”

“Yeah, and more.”

“Wow. Have you ever had a girlfriend?”

“Nope.”

“What! How can that be? You’re positively perfect boyfriend material. I think you’re full of—” she tore her gaze away from his washboard stomach for the third time and contemplated his perfectly sculpted face, “—full of—niceness, among other things.”

“Watch it. My ego, remember? I prefer the aloof, bad-boy persona I’ve worked so hard to acquire.”

They laughed together.

After a long pause he added, “You haven’t ever had a boyfriend. And I think you’re positively perfect girlfriend material, yet, you are single.” He opened his eyes and regarded her solemnly. “Possibly you have a tad too much of the niceness thing, though. Could be why. Scares them away.”

She didn’t blush, because obviously the guy was lying. “Oh, shut up. As if. I’ve never even been approached for my number. Once, this amazing hot guy asked
me
for Jenna’s number though. That was fun.”

“Criminal.” Dustin sighed and looked up at the sky. “Seems impossible. Girl like you should be locked down.”

Vere’s heart did a strange little flip. “Ugh. Back to you. Tell me why you never had a girlfriend. It’s only fair. You know everything about my dating and social-disaster situations. Why have you never had a real girlfriend?”

“I’ve never thought about
why
.”

“Think now. What was the problem with all those girls? Were they not pretty, or nice, or—what?”

“The problem wasn’t from the hooking up. It’s never that.” He grinned, wickedly.

Vere felt her whole face flame up. But even a snowman would have blushed and melted instantly with the look he had in his eyes. She called his bluff. “If you’re trying to make me bolt and change the subject, I’m not going to. Go on. We were on the topic of you hooking up and ‘
why
’?”

“Damn. Okay. Hmmm.” He let out a long breath. “No denying that all the attention from girls wasn’t a rush at first. And it was good for my education—to say the least.” He shot her a funny grin and then looked back up at the sky. “A guy likes to know he has it all-together and functioning with enough left over. Plus the talent to please—if you know what I mean.” He finished with a wink.

Vere giggled at that. “Ha. I’m sure, ” she managed to choke out even though she was dying inside.

He gave a little self-deprecating laugh as though he thought she were mocking him. “What? I have skills. What of it?”

“God. You are so full of yourself. Someone really said that to you?”

“Easy. You asked. And I will have you know, my skills have been complimented more than once.”

“Uh. Eew?” She giggled all over again and punched his shoulder. “It doesn’t make it less funny!”

“My step father’s assistant said it most, and that was a couple of years back.”

“Woah. Really? When you were 15?

He nodded.

“Are you trying to shock me or simply scare me?”

“Both? If we are going to be friends you might as well know I wasn’t kidding about the dark-sided stuff.”

Vere laughed but had grown utterly uncomfortable. Again, she had the feeling he thought she was about to make fun of him.

“Whatever. That assistant was on the dark side. Not you!” Shouldn’t she be in jail?”

“No, she was seventeen at the time. Turned eighteen, broke up with me and took off with my step-father. Mom pays him not to contact me. Not that I want him too. The assistant is long gone.”

“Jeez...and wow!” She wanted to lighten the mood so she used a lighter voice so he wouldn’t notice how creeped out she was by his story. This, plus all the other stuff he’d told her, was over the top. “How could that assistant girl know so much and be so young?”

Dustin shot her a wry look, picking up on her joking tone. “No clue. Look at you. Sixteen and you’ve only made out with a pillow. Isn’t that your claim to fame?”

“Whoa. Okay, okay. I resent that and so does my pillow.”

He grinned so wide he almost blinded her, then bit his bottom lip like he was holding back a laugh.

“Anyhow.” She had to look away. His smile had sort of made her chest ache. She suddenly understood that he was an expert at hiding his pain behind a huge mask. “We all know I’m behind. Way behind,” she added, hiding her own pain.

He glanced over and regarded her with a solemn expression. As though he knew things were getting way sad and serious, he shot her a too-knowing smirk. “Feel free to let me know if you ever need any best friend or coaching pointers on that subject. Maybe you’re doing some stuff all wrong with your pillow?” He flicked her another challenging glance and a comical brow wiggle. “Coach Dustin is here to serve.”

“Please! I made that pillow very happy. And you won’t believe the feathers it put in my ear. Still does, and I haven’t made out with it in over a year. You aren’t the only one with mega-skills,” she joked, amazed that she didn’t even feel embarrassed about this conversation!

Better, she was well past blushing when he’d winked at her!

The cure is back on.

Her heart soared with the knowledge that she trusted him not to go there. “Curtis would kick your ass if he heard you.”

“We’ll see. Call me after he’s asked you out, and I’ll set up a fight date. Kid should be kicking your pillow’s ass, anyhow. Not mine. I’m not a threat. I wish him luck.”

“Whatever back. I hope your next groupie is ‘NICE’. Which takes the conversation right back to you.” She smiled.

He groaned. “No. Can’t we stop? Hasn’t this been enough practice yet?”

“Nope. Tell me a little about what you think about
girls.
In general terms, I mean. If you’re truly my coach—then keep talking. I need this male insight. You said I could ask you anything.”

Dustin rolled onto his side and faced her.

She had the oddest sensation he was staring at her lips.

“God. Not this topic,” he said.

“Yes,” she demanded. “Please. I need to know what goes on inside guys’ heads so I can change. Charlie only tells me so much, you know.”

He shook his head. “Why do you think you need to change? You’re great the way you are and—”

Her stony, determined, glare must have stopped him because he shook his head again and sighed as he lay back again breaking her gaze.

“Fine. I’ve got some ideas about you and Curtis—and what’s not working.”

She gasped. “Really? Go...talk...what?!”

“You know what Charlie said? About you putting Curtis up on a pedestal, and how you shouldn’t? There’s a lot to that.”

Vere’s heart soared. She couldn’t believe how cool this was. She was twelve inches from a guy and talking about girls, and boyfriends, and making out, and life. And it felt normal.

She could hear Dustin’s feet splashing in the water somewhere next to hers but didn’t want to risk a look at him. Her tummy did another little flip.

He went on, “I can only speak for myself but I’ve spent my fair share of time on the fan pedestals.”

“I can imagine, but...isn’t it cool to be admired?”

“No, and yes. But the pedestal thing bites. The girls, the ones that have me on that pedestal, are all the same. They even look weird. Scary. It’s their eyes mostly. I feel like I can spot this hungry, glazed over, excited gleam when they look at me. Makes me want to crawl out of my skin. It’s the wrong kind of excitement. It’s so strange, but they will do whatever I ask them to do when they are like that. It’s a total turn off.”

“Why? I thought all guys loved it when girls were easy—or whatever.”

“It took me a long time to figure that out. The weird part comes from the fact that the girls aren’t meeting me, they are meeting who they
imagine
I am, you know?”

Vere nodded and closed her eyes, enjoying the sound of his rumbling voice as it floated over her. “Yeah. I’ve done that. Stared at posters of guys, or movie characters and imagined totally what they’d be like if they were with me. Everyone does that. It’s what fans do.”

“Yeah, but fan adoration is impossible to live up to. No one can be that perfect. So if you have this Wishford guy on a pedestal, maybe you’re doing that weird ‘fan behavior’ with him. If so, it could make it difficult for you to have a real conversation with him and so—you freak. That’s what my fans do. They just scream, and cry, and babble stuff like,
oooh-my-God-I-love-you-so-much
and act generally insane when they meet me.”

“Impossible. I’ve known Curtis forever. I’m sure I’m not imagining what he’s like. I must already know. He’s the perfect guy for me. Is that putting him on a pedestal?” She opened her eyes and looked for his response.

Dustin shrugged. “All girls—the ones I’ve managed to get close to anyhow, seem to have this messed up fairy tale idea. They all imagine, universally, that they were THE ONE GIRL that I was going to just fall in love with, simply because we’d made it to the hooking up stuff. They acted as if I was going to start calling them or emailing them every day when I got home after we’d—you know....Why do girls go there?”

“I don’t know. You must be onto something though. I can confirm that Jenna and I are all dreamy-goofy like that about movie stars. Like if Leonardo DiCapprio were 25 years younger, and he met me—I’m sure that he’d fall in love with me on sight.”

“You are such a twisted person. Leo is older than your dad!”

“But not in the Romeo and Juliet remake. He’s forever young there. And he loves me. ME,” she joked, but then sobered. “Sorry. Go on. Tell me. What’s it like then, from your side if the famous person doesn’t fall in love with the adoring fan?”

“I can only speak for myself. But...after awhile, the whole scene of the adoring girls bummed me out. I knew I wouldn’t fall in love with any of them. The longest I’d spent hooking up with a girl backstage was for a few hours. We locked ourselves in a cleaning closet and she had so much stamina that we...”

“Okay, coach.
TMI
. Stop on the specifics. I’m sorry I asked.”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t want to be responsible for taking you from a G rating to an R.”

She scowled at the sarcasm in his voice and was rewarded with his flash of teasing, light blue eye twinkles.

“Hey. I’m at least a PG-13 kind of girl.”

He laughed again. “The official definition of PG-13 includes foul language and kissing and you haven’t crossed either boundary. Do you ever use foul language?” he asked in a stern, comical voice.

“Yes. Of course. And just because I haven’t done—stuff—doesn’t mean I don’t know stuff. I read books. And watch MTV. Movies.”

He raised one brow really high.

“Oh—never mind. Stop trying to change the—the—
damn
subject,” she said in an attempt to prove she could curse.

Her cheeks had flushed to mark her a total fraud, and he chuckled.

“Ugh.” She turned away in frustration and he laughed louder.

“I bet you led some of those girls on.” She already sensed that he probably hadn’t, but she wanted to dig at him a little for embarrassing her.

“No. I did not. I made sure the girls who were—willing—were also well aware I wouldn’t call them afterwards. I made that very clear.”

“Ew. That’s weird and creepy. Especially the part where the girls still stuck around for the hook-up after you’d told them all that.”

“Well, they did. But I felt bad about it, so like six months before I....”

He stopped and looked away and took in a deep, almost shaky sounding breath before going on, “Six months before I came here, I’d stopped hanging out with girls all together. I’d sort of given up on them. Given up on trying to make a connection with anyone. I’d worked so many hours. And the thing with my mom—I got tired. I sort of turned into a hermit.”

Vere looked at him as she readjusted her bun so she could rest her head flat on the dock. “This whole story of your dating life—or non-dating life you could call it—makes me go back to that idea I have of you that you’re from another planet.”

“I am. Compared to you, I’m a jaded, black-hearted, dark-sided, cold, bastard, ass. That’s the truth. I feel like some type of innocence despoiler for even hanging out with you and telling you my stories.”

She glanced over and he was regarding her as though he believed what he’d just said. “Oh please. Unless you’re going to tell me you’re secretly a vampire and your wealthy, gorgeous family is hiding in the woods wondering why you don’t just bite me already, you can just leave your ‘big bad wolf’ front for someone else. You aren’t fooling me. I think you’re just afraid, like me. Like any, normal,
anyone
is afraid. You simply didn’t give any of those girls a chance to be your girlfriend.”

“Hear me right, it’s not a front. I never went into any of those hook-ups wanting a girlfriend. I wanted to hook up. That’s it. I did not, nor do I today, ever, want a girlfriend.”

She flushed again. “But why?”

“To me, a girlfriend is just another person who would want me to perform for them in some way. At the end of my days, I don’t seem to have any performing left in me. After the sex, it’s too much damn trouble to hold a conversation with any of them.”

“WHAT?” Vere sat up straight and brought her legs under her, crisscross. She glared down at him. He hadn’t moved. “Aren’t you just inspiring! I wonder if all guys think that?"

Dustin stretched and sat up. “I don’t know. Maybe you know guys who are coming from a more normal place. All I know is that boyfriends are supposed to be able to make their girlfriends happy for more than one hour. I do not have that capacity.”

“Duh. And duuuuh! Yes you do. Everyone does.” She had the strangest urge to clock him just then so she yanked out her bun and remade it back in its normal spot to keep her hands busy. She could not randomly whack him, no matter how stupid he sounded. “This is what goes on in guys’ heads?” she ranted.