Hey Girl (Turn it Up #9)

Chapter 9

9

CHRIS

U ggh… what the hell kind of shenanigans could I have gotten into this time? Because the last I knew I was at Rebecca’s house, but clearly, I passed out in the desert with a sack of beans on my chest. I mean, if the cotton mouth and heaviness in the chest are anything to go by. Or maybe I’m at the dentist. I chance peeling one eyelid open, and holy fuck do I need some Visine. And now I really need to know what the fuck I got into last night because I’m laying here with a naked alien?—

Wait.

“Iggy,” I croak affectionately at Rebecca’s cat in his perpetual birthday suit and give his naked ears a scratch. Holy fucking shit, I … slept!

According to all the experts and everyone else I’ve ever met I should feel wholly amazing but I actually feel like I’ve been wrung out, dried out and fried. When was my last BLAST? Oh shit, it was sometime yesterday afternoon - early afternoon.

No wonder my eyes feel like microwaved grapes and my head is pounding. I need caffeine, stat. I’m hollowed out and I’m certain the blood in my veins has solidified, refusing to flow through my body.

Panicking, I grab Iggy by his cute little face.

“Iggy. Talk me down, man,” I beg of him, just as I hear keys in the front door and it swings open. The sudden flood of outdoor sunshine makes me hiss, just as Rebecca mercifully closes it. She greets me with her usual shy smile as she makes her way around the couch with a drink carrier containing two coffee drinks, one looking suspiciously like the one I ordered at Cafe Dumbass the day I met her there.

“Oh you sweet Angel from the heavens, is that what I think it is?” She pulls the frothy, light brown coffee drink from its holder and holds it out to me.

“I figured you’d wake up feeling pretty rough after going so long without caffeine,” she raises a shoulder as she sits on the coffee table across from where my useless body is strewn across her couch. “There’s a coffee shop a couple blocks up, and closer than the grocery store. Otherwise, I would’ve gotten you a BLAST,” she explains as I’m just about to tip the Frappuccino to my lips and it makes me pause.

“So you walked into a cafe and gave them your order and mine?” I ask.

She nods, taking a sip of her own coffee and her cheek bones blush pink for a second.

“So you went and did your daily challenge - twofold, I might add, - already? For me?”

She lowers her cup nodding some more before letting out a sigh that relaxes her shoulders. “It actually, wasn’t so hard when I thought about how getting it would make you feel better.”

I’m going to cry.

I have a loving weird family, and super-duper friends but I don’t think anyone has done anything this kind for me before. At least not without a heavy eye-roll attached. But Rebecca braved one of her greatest discomforts so that I could avoid one of mine. She gave her social anxiety the middle finger so that I wouldn’t have to suffer withdrawal!

“I don’t know what to say,” I squeak out and quickly try to cover my embarrassment by tipping the cup back and chugging.

Ahhh…caffeine…sugar… bring me to life!

Rebecca watches me in amusement until I swallow the last sprinkle of my ridiculous coffee drink, and I let my upper body spring upwards like Dracula in his coffin.

“Hey girl,” I wink, trying to shake off the emotion coursing through me that I’m not quite sure yet what to do with. “I’m back.”

Rebecca’s cheeks glow to life again as she ducks her face into her hand with a sheepish giggle.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing,” she shakes her head, setting her coffee down and pulling her hair up off her neck to pile it on her head with a hair tie.

Sproingg!

Morning, Captain.

“You just reminded me of those memes that are all over the internet. They all start with Hey girl. They’re so cute and I just love them,” she blinks with a shrug. “And it kind of reminds me of the first time you talked to me. All flirty,” she ducks her head again.

She’s smiling, and I did that. Someone who is afraid of people likes to be with me. I’m in her living room. She ordered coffee for me. I slept at her house. I fucking fell asleep as we merely enjoyed each other’s presence! Oh em gee, what am I feeling in this moment?

I’m not sure what it is, but words are swirling around my head. They’re mostly Hey girl, but they’re dancing through my head to music. I have to fight the urge to tap out a beat on my leg. I need to get out of here, but not in a bad way. I can feel something happening and there’s only one person I can seek out to help me with it.

“Hey girl,” I snicker at her again and try to give her a sincere smile again. “I have to get going.”

Though she smiles reassuringly at me, she also looks a little relieved. She’s probably ready to have her space back to herself for a little while. “It’s okay,” she tells me as I lean in without a thought and take hold of the side of her face with one hand.

“Gimme a kiss,” I tell her more as a warning than a request and lean in and press my lips to hers. I let them linger so she has time to process that I’m doing it with feeling, and she doesn’t pull away, scream, or whip out a taser, so, progress, right? In fact, there’s a warm, dreamy smile on her face when I pull away.

“I gotta shower and take care of some things, but I’ll call you later!” I point a finger at her on my way out the door, and I swear she points back at me before I close the door.

“Hi Chris!” Mayzie greets me at the door of Casa Krasinski. She’s decked out in a yoga getup and a cheerful smile. A coffee cup in her left hand completes her outfit and I wonder if there’s any more somewhere in this domicile.

“Mayzie m’love,” I incline my head in greeting. “I don’t suppose you have any more of that, do you?” I tilt my chin at her cup.

“Of course!” She whirls around and struts away toward the kitchen as I follow her inside, closing the door behind me. Unlike we rockstars, Mayzie is a morning person. At this ungodly hour, she’s infinity times more chipper and bushy-tailed than her husband. Speaking of, where is that sumbitch? I called about ten minutes ago to let him know I was barging in.

Mayzie tilts her watch to note the time before reaching up in her cupboard for another mug. “Nine o’ seven. This is pretty early for you, Bam-bam. Everything okay?” She glances over her shoulder.

“Perfectly fine, tiny dancer,” I assure her as I swagger into her kitchen and shove my hands in the pockets of yesterday’s jeans to keep from fidgeting. “There’s been an interesting new development for which I need your husband’s expertise.” I bounce on the balls of my feet just as the rock legend himself saunters into the kitchen.

Jack looks like his half-lidded glare could incinerate me. His dark, shaggy hair is sticking up in the back, and I don’t know if he’s trying to intimidate me with his absence of a shirt and his tattoos on display, all over his lean and sculpted torso but it’s only working a little.

“The fuck?” He greets gruffly, his voice full of disdain. Asshat.

“Nice to see you too.” I reach for the cup of java that’s surely been doctored with flavored creamer and a mountain of whipped cream if Mayzie knows me at all.

“What do you want?” He grumbles as he shuffles to the coffee pot.

“Jack!” Mayzie gives him an admonishing look that makes him immediately wave a hand towards me.

“Have you seen this asshole when we wake him up before noon? It’s like waking a coked-out wolverine.”

“He has a point, Mayzie. But that’s why I called ahead,” I remind him with a tone that suggests I deserve a medal and a parade.

“Ten minutes ago,” he shoots back as Mayzie hands him a mug and he thanks her with a kiss to her temple and a squeeze of her ass. Gross. She practically skips off in the direction of their sun deck as Jack takes a cautious sip of his black evil - er, coffee. “This better be good,” he warns after he swallows.

“I need love advice,” I tell him, cutting to the chase and he spits half his next sip back into his cup.

“Excuse me, what?” He looks up, his eyes a little more awake now.

“Yeah, some crazy shit has been happening,” I nod at his bewilderment. “And I’ve reached a point where I feel like I need to do… I don’t know, something. Like I need to keep it moving, or take some kind of steps. We all know Josh is a jerk-wad about this kind of thing, and Matt’s a newlywed, and I don’t want to disturb him boinking his wife, so that leaves you.”

“Hey,” he holds his mug out in my direction. “First of all, he married my sister, so don’t say disgusting shit like that. And second, what makes you think I’m not busy sticking it to my wife every chance I get?”

“William!” Mayzie’s voice shouts from the sundeck, and he huffs through his nose.

“Sorry sweetheart,” he calls over his shoulder before looking back to find me raising an eyebrow, the rest of my expression doing its best deadpan.

“William?”

“My middle name.” He shrugs, taking another sip.

“Oh my god, your wife middle names you when you mouth off -?”

“So what the hell kind of advice do you need?” He cuts me off. “Because I have so many questions.”

So do I, I think to myself. Like when can I get Rebecca to do that? The idea of her bossing me around and calling me Chris Tal sounds incredibly hot. “Dear lead singer of mine, your energetic, restless, playboy drummer is off the market.”

I dash over to the coffee pot for a refill. Oh, Mayzie left all the fixings out, God bless her.

When I look up from doctoring my second round, I find Jack staring at me, mouth slightly agape.

“Okay, I admit…” he begins. “I feel privileged to be the first to hear this groundbreaking news. Let’s go talk in my office.” He grabs his cup off the counter and heads for the stairs with me trailing behind.

“Okay, but can you put a shirt on? I’m feeling a little vulnerable.”

“You showed her your penis?!”

“You know me, I get carried away,” I wave a hand. “Things are going great. So great, I want to bring this up a level. But my mind-blowing first impression is only going to get us so far. I need to connect with her on a deeper level,” I lower my voice to my lowest bass tone with those last two words to demonstrate my point. “That’s where you come in,” I point a drumstick at him.

“This is the first time you’ve found yourself taken with anyone. Are you sure you’re not just caught up in the idea of it?”

“Solid point, but I’m sure!” I insist as I take a sip from the straw sticking out of Jack’s coffee carafe. “I love her, man!”

“Okay, calm your face a minute,” Jack blows out a breath as he straightens up and pulls open one of his desk drawers. “When did you know?”

“What do you mean?” I look up confused.

“When did you know you were in love with her?” He rephrases as he grabs a pen and slaps it on top of the notebook

“How the fuck should I know, it happened gradually!” I bark out, getting frustrated. I hate when people ask me to dig deep, or step outside the box and shit.

“But you obviously know it, so how long have you known?” He asks, sliding them both in my direction.

I blow out a breath from between my lips and look up at the ceiling for the answer.

I get a flash of Rebecca: hair wet, no glasses, gleeful smile on her face as she laughed, unabashedly; not caring for once who could see or hear her.

I look back at Jack. “I just do.”

Jack shuffles the pen and opens the notebook to a blank page. “Write it down, in as few words as possible, right in the middle of the page,” he instructs me, and while I want to scream at him for trying to make me do some kind of homework exercise, I keep my mouth shut and do what he says. Weird. We can probably credit that to Rebecca.

“What the hell are we doing?”

“Writing a song,” he tells me calmly.

“A song?!” I squeak. “I can’t write her a song. It’s too early, it will freak her out.”

“So don’t show it to her yet,” he shrugs.

“Then what’s the point?”

“Hey you want to meet her on a deeper level, this will help get you in the mindset. Do you want my help or not?”

“Yes sir.”

“What’s something you find yourself saying a lot since you’ve been with her?”

“Mouse,” I nod firmly.

“Yeah, we’re not using that.”

“Good call.”

“What else?”

I get a quick flash from this morning in Rebecca’s living room. “I’ve said hey girl to her a couple of times, and she … seems to like that.” What the fuck? I’m blushing! Blushing!

Jack sits back, his dreamy blue eyes staring off into space. Finally, his lips pull into a lazy grin. “Write it down,” he orders.