The Carousel

Deux

Ondine resisted the urge to slap the smirk off of Jared's face as he slowly moved his lips away from her cheek. She had a stunned expression on her face, she was sure, but that didn't give him the right to look at her the way he did, like he won round 1 of their proverbial boxing match. She forced her eyebrows to unknit and smiled sweetly at him. 

"Oh, so you're Jared. Nice to meet you. You know, I'd think you were really good looking if you weren't such a jerk on the phone," she rolled her eyes and guided her eyes elsewhere but his face. 

Jared's smile faded as Ben snickered into his fist. Jared was a nice guy...to people he'd known for years. Lately though, he'd been temperamental, like he's always on the defensive, probably because while his parents were supportive of him, they're not really big fans of his big decision to quit school and pursue music full time. He felt like he had to validate himself and his decisions all the time, and he just didn't think he needed the additional stress when he was doing something he loved to do.  

"Excuse me?" Jared finally found his voice. 

"Well, if I recall correctly, I was one of the last people to retrieve my bag off of the carousel, and the one I got was the only yellow one there, meaning you must've taken mine first. But no...you acted like it was such an inconvenience for you to make a switch that would have literally taken 30 seconds. I'm sorry, Mr. Hot Shot drummer, but that was not cool. You shouldn't treat people that way," Ondine continued to say, even though everything that came out of her mouth still sounded sweet. 

"Ames," Shey warned her friend. Ondine sometimes had the tendency to run her mouth and turn all filters off, especially when the other person was rude to her first. 

"What?" Ondine mouthed to her friend with a shrug. 

"You know what?" Jared started to say with a huff, getting close to Ondine.  

"What?" she challenged him, not backing down, looking up at him with steely eyes. 

"Time out!" Ben suddenly blurted out. "Ondine, do you want anything to drink? We have water, soda...vodka tonic?" he smiled at her playfully, trying to cool down her sudden temper. 

"Sure, vodka tonic sounds refreshing," Ondine turned her attention to Ben and allowed the other man to guide her to the makeshift bar in the dressing room with a hand on the small of her back. 

Jared just watched as Ben led the beautiful but volatile woman away from his presence. He had screaming matches with Clarisse all the time, but those fights just annoyed him. Ondine didn't raise her voice once, but the quiet way she jabbed at him was sexier than any fight he had ever experienced with Clarisse. He had make up sex with Clarisse after most of those fights, make up sex that were adequate, but nothing to write home about, and now he really wanted to know if Ondine was a spitfire in another aspect of her life besides putting jerks like him in their place. He wouldn't mind if she took charge in the bedroom, would welcome it, even. 

Soon, more women filled the dressing room for the impromptu after party: women in short, clingy dresses that looked cheap and tacky, but easy to rip off. They were hanging out with Jared, Tommy, Jackson, the lead singer, and Lucas, the lead guitarist. The band and their manager were surrounded by a bevy of beauties...all but one. Ben was sitting on the plush velvet couch preoccupied by just one beauty, one beauty who monopolized his time. Jared watched as Ondine laughed easily at something Ben said, throwing her head back in glee, exposing the throat Jared wanted to pepper with kisses all of a sudden. Her hand rested on Ben's thigh, making Jared gulp down a double shot of whiskey as his eyes narrowed into slits. Don't get him wrong, he and Ben had been friends since they were tots, having grown up with parents who were very close family friends, and he liked Ben just fine, but right now he didn't like his friend very much. This was the first time they were attracted to the same woman. Wait, what? Did he just admit he was attracted to Ondine? Yes, Jared decided. He just wanted to bed her, tame that wild attitude of hers even if only then and in that situation.