Mayhem (Page 47)

He frowns like he doesn’t believe me. “Then what is it?”

“You don’t think it would be weird if we sat on the same side?”

His head tilts slightly. “Why would it be weird?”

“It’d look like we were dating or something . . .”

“So?”

“So . . . I don’t know.”

“So what you’re saying is you have no good reason?” A one-sided smile is sneaking onto his lips, making me feel a strange mix of emotions. Embarrassment and . . . something I don’t want to think too hard about.

“I’m sure I have a good reason . . . I just can’t think of it right now.”

Adam laughs and picks his fork back up. “Then I think you should get back over here.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

I don’t answer him. Because again, I have no idea what the hell to say to that. Instead, I busy myself with drenching my pancakes. I stir a mountain of sugar into my coffee as I let the syrup soak in, and then I pour another layer on. When Adam cuts off portions of both of his French toast piles and his crepe and slides them onto my plate, I cut off a big chunk of my pancakes and slide them onto his.

He smiles down at the pancakes as he carves into them. “The guys really like you.”

The compliment makes me blush. I’m glad they don’t hate me. “They’re pretty awesome.”

Adam takes a bite of my condiment-logged breakfast and chuckles with his mouth full. “Holy shit, this is syrupy.”

I grin at him. “Only way to have it.” While he’s swallowing it down with a big gulp of coffee, I tell him, “My friend Dee and I eat at IHOP a lot. We always get the strawberry pancakes. And if we’re hungover, we order them with sides of bacon, and she always tries to steal mine.”

Adam starts cutting into a second bite. “Really? It happens enough that you have a routine set up?”

Okay . . . I really need to stop opening my big mouth. I attempt a casual shrug. “I guess. She’s kind of a wild child. We’ve been friends since . . . well . . . forever.” I hope that changing the focus from me to Dee will help steer this conversation away from drunken nights, one of which was notably spent with a very hot rocker boy who is currently sitting across from me paying nerve-racking attention to my every ill-conceived word.

“Shawn and I are kind of like that.” Finally, a topic I’m comfortable with. The muscles in my shoulders immediately loosen, and I forgive Shawn for all of the stupid “Peach” comments he made yesterday.

“Yeah, I can tell you two have been friends for a long time. What about the other guys?”

“Shawn and I have been friends with Mike since middle school, and friends with Joel since high school when he moved to town. Cody is his stepdad’s brother’s cousin-in-law’s son or some shit like that. He joined when we started getting big. Before that, it was just the four of us.”

I nod and dig into Adam’s blueberry French toast, which is pure amazingness. “He’s kinda quiet.”

“It’s better that way. When he’s not, he’s usually saying something stupid.”

I chuckle, remembering how Cody asked me how it felt to be the “only girl to turn Adam down.” God, that had been awkward.

Adam adds, “He’s cool for the most part though.”

Really, they all are. Even the roadies seem great, especially Driver—even though his extracurricular activities leave something to be desired. Our server pops back in to ask if we need anything else, but so far, breakfast has been perfect. When she leaves, Adam slides from his booth seat to mine, pulling his plate over. I swallow hard and watch him. He’s so freaking close. “Yes?”

He slides the textbook and notebook over without taking his eyes off mine. He looks far too amused. “We need to get back to work.”

Oh, right. I flip to the page we were on and get back to it. By the time we’re both finished with our meals, we’ve pounded through two whole chapters. We order more coffee and stay until we’ve gotten most of the way through the third, but I’m distracted. There is now a group of girls our age sitting two tables down, and they’ve been stealing glances at Adam for the past twenty minutes. Every time they look our way, I find myself glaring. If we weren’t sitting on the same side of the table—looking utterly couple-ish—I don’t doubt they would have come over to get his number, his home address, and his dick size for future convenience-store shopping purposes. I don’t know if they keep staring because they recognize him or because of the whole sexy bad-boy vibe he gives off, but either way, it’s getting under my skin.

When Adam shifts toward me in the seat, resting his knee between us, I’m distracted from my scowling. I give him my attention, and he brushes a loose strand of hair away from my face.

“What are you doing?” I ask, not stopping him.

He smiles warmly at me, but there’s mischief in his eyes. “Don’t you want to make them jealous?”

More than anything. “Why would I want to make them jealous?”

Adam snickers. “All girls want to make other girls jealous.”

No arguing there. I let him play with my hair until he starts to lean in, and my eyes get wide. He doesn’t go for my mouth though—he whispers in my ear. “Relax. I’m not going to kiss you. Just play along.”

Adam kisses a spot next to my ear tenderly, and I don’t know how he classifies this as not kissing—because I am definitely feeling thoroughly kissed. He marks a two-kiss trail along my jaw and then looks into my eyes as he comes in close. His lips are warm against my skin when he presses them against the outermost corner of my mouth in an agonizingly soft and teasing kiss.