Somehow, though, I couldn’t feel upset with Leah for the way she pointed all of it out. She was just too adorable about it, earnestness in her face like she really wanted to help me out.
I shook my head and didn’t respond. She chattered on about something else, the girls that she had been there with, the reason behind the number of shots she had taken, and her current state of drunkenness. I only half-listened, my mind fixed on the band.
I knew we had to break out of this spiral. We couldn’t keep going down this road with the way things currently were. If we did, I knew there was no way I was going to achieve my dream of making it big.
There were two options: either Mark and Carter needed to be replaced, or else they needed to shape up and start putting in the effort again. The first didn’t really seem like an option, but then again, neither did the second. I felt sick at the thought that my dreams of touring, of crowds who really knew and connected with our music, might die in some dive bar in LA. I didn’t want to be just another washed-up bar band.
We finally made it back to our duplex, and I escorted Leah to her door. She looked around in surprise, like she had suddenly realized, just now, that she was no longer at the bar. She started to pout. “Hey, I was having a good time until you came along,” she complained. “I wasn’t ready to go home yet. I didn’t even say goodbye to everyone!”
“Tough,” I said, reaching in her pocket to grab her keys and unlock her door. “Go inside, drink some water, and get some sleep.”
Leah frowned but headed inside, flicking on the light and grumbling about me, her “overgrown babysitter,” as she kicked her shoes off. I was just about to go home, my good deed done, when she muttered, “Thanks to you, I didn’t even get to make out with a hot rock star tonight.”
Something surged inside of me, and my restraint broke. I knew that it wasn’t right to take advantage of her like this, no more than it would have been right to let Carter kiss her when she was drunk. Actually, it was even worse since I was still sober and had my wits about me.
Reason couldn’t hold me back now, though. I had wanted her too much all evening to let her go like that. I grabbed her and kissed her, pouring all of my lust, worry, and frustration into the kiss. If she wanted to make out with a rock star, then I was what she got.
She gasped, opening her mouth to me, and I thrust my tongue inside, expecting at any moment for her to push me away. Instead, she melted into my arms, kissing me back just as passionately, moaning as I nipped at her lower lip and tilting her head to the side to give me better access. She wasn’t holding anything back, and I kissed her until we were both breathless, and I was hard again.
I could taste the alcohol from the shots she had been doing, and that was what finally sobered me up. I pulled back, shaking my head as her lips chased mine. I tried to find something to say to her, but I wasn’t about to apologize. I wasn’t sorry for what happened, I just knew that things couldn’t go any further.
“Get some sleep,” I told her.
Leah scowled, but I turned away from her and went back to my own place, trying not to think about the other course of action I could have taken. It would have been only too easy to let her lead me inside. It would have been only too easy to take her.
But it wouldn’t have been right. And at the end of the day, that wasn’t the kind of guy I wanted to be. I didn’t want to be like Mark or Carter. I wanted to focus on the band and make good music. I didn’t need a distraction, especially not one who lived next door to me.
I leaned back against my door, breathing hard. My breathing wasn’t the only thing that was hard at the moment. I groaned, pushing my hand down my pants, body jolting with energy as I wrapped my fingers around myself. There was no relief in that sort of release tonight, though.
I stumbled into the living room and sat down at my drums. Surely she was drunk enough that she wouldn’t hear me tonight.
Except that if she did, she would be back on my doorstep, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hold myself back a second time. I got up and went to take a long, cold shower.