Love and Fame Games (Book 1)

20 (Part Two)

Seth fell asleep!

I would take it personally, if I didn't know what he'd been doing last night. His exhaustion hopefully had more to do with the all-night partying than my personality.

Or it could also have to do with freaking out over disturbing coded messages sent to him in the middle of the night. And if so, then I had even less of a right to complain.

There he was, on his side, still facing me, only his eyes were closed. He looked so sweet and innocent against the maroon and navy of his sheets.

Sweet, innocent, and completely helpless. This was the perect opportunity for me to erase the messages I sent on his phone! It would be a piece of cake; just reach over, grab his phone, and delete freaking everything.

And while I was at it, maybe I could also check for hot-tub related convos—since I was already invading his privacy, anyway— and start taking names. I cracked my knuckles for effect, then shook my head, feeling stupid about it.

My creeper level was rising by the second, so I decided against going through with it. Making those messages disappear would be like, an admission of guilt. It'd be better to just act like they didn't bother me, downplay the whole thing.

Besides, his phone was most likely passcode protected, and was in his pocket. In order to get to it, I would have to put my hands down his pants. While he slept.

That was beyond creepy. It was downright criminal.

My face burned and I turned away from Seth's bed to look around. His room was pretty much the way it had always been: study table, lamp, laptop, stereo system, shelf for his vinyls and CD's.

Browsing his record collection was always good for killing a few minutes so I walked over to take a closer look. I thumbed through the newer additions: vintage stuff from the 70's mostly, and one record in particular that caught my attention:

"Whale songs, Seth? Really?" I asked, muttering under my breath and rolling my eyes at his sleeping figure. Was he turning into some kind of hippie? "And you complain about my voice?"

He stirred a little when I spoke, making a soft, contented, humming, sighing sound. My stomach did a little flip when I heard it.

What to do? I sat on his floor, Indian-style and decided that if he didn't wake up by the time I counted to a hundred, I was just gonna let myself out.

"Adrian?"  I heard him ask by the time I got to the upper forties. I looked up to see him propped up on his side with one elbow, facing me. He rubbed his eyes with his other hand, looking incredulous and somewhat disoriented. "Did I fall asleep?"

"Yeah," I said, getting up. "I was just about to leave."

"No, don't! I mean, you just got here. Just—Shit, give me a minute." He covered his mouth with the back of his hand and yawned loudly, sounding exhausted, and then sat up straighter, giving me a great view of sexy bed hair.

Life was so unfair. Getting myself ready before I came down to see him earlier at my house took me helluva lot longer than that and I still didn't look halfway as presentable.

"It's okay, Seth. You need to rest."

"No, wait. I have to tell you something."

The sense of urgency in his voice made me want to hear him out, so when he patted a spot on his bed right next to him, I compromised by sitting down a little farther away, near the foot of it.

"I wanna talk about the things you said last night . . ."

"C'mon, I was drunk," I said, hoping to let both of us off the hook. "And even if I wasn't, you know I say dumb things all the time."