Read Online Friends with Benefits by Melody Mayer - Free Book Online Page A

down her chin and onto the Chloé T-shirt. Damn. Now she’d have to get it dry-cleaned before she returned it to her aunt’s closet.
    â€œYou don’t hear him much on the radio anymore. My dad turned me on to him. Back when Dad was in college, he was the only white guy in an R and B band.”
    â€œR and B is . . .?”
    â€œRhythm and blues. Damn. You
have
led a sheltered life.” Billy took a sip of the white wine from the bottle.
    â€œIt just so happens that the Amarakaire asked me to handle the drums at a fertility dance last March, so I’d say I’m not so sheltered.” Lydia cocked her head toward the guitar case he’d lugged along with the picnic stuff. “Are you fixing to explain that?”
    â€œMy dad taught me.”
    â€œI thought your dad was in the Foreign Service.”
    â€œHe is.” Billy reached for the guitar case. “He’s an eclectic guy.”
    So is his son,
Lydia thought as Billy took an acoustic guitar from the case and started to tune it. He looked so serious, and so incredibly hot, with his chestnut hair falling boyishly onto his forehead. His pecs bulged under a blue Lucky Brand long-sleeved T-shirt with a V-neck. He had a great casual ease, so comfortable in his own skin. Unlike Scott the lifeguard, Billy wasn’t trying to impress anyone, which impressed Lydia all the more.
    What would it be like finally to have sex with him? Would bells go off, would the earth move? She remembered when she was a girl back in Houston, walking into the private screening room where her parents watched movies, way before anyone else had a big-screen TV. Her parents had been together on the couch. Lydia had scrambled into her daddy’s lap—anything that interested adults was interesting to her. She’d never forgotten how the woman in the movie had been wearing a butt-ugly one-piece bathing suit with a built-in bra that made her breasts look like bullets. Lydia had watched wide-eyed as the couple onscreen kissed passionately in the surf. Even at age eight, Lydia had been curious about such things. Was the couple actually going to
do it
? What if the actress didn’t even like the actor, or he had bad breath, or a booger was sticking out of his nose? Wouldn’t that ruin everything?
    But what if she
did
like him? What if she loved him, the way her mother loved her father. Then it would be the most romantic, passionate thing in the world, right? Or would seaweed get in your hair and sand in your butt and you’d feel all grungy, gross, and disgusting?
    Lydia hadn’t known the answer then, and she still didn’t know now.
    Billy strummed a funky blues beat and Lydia drummed her fingers against the blanket, keeping time. He had great hands, she noted. What would it feel like to have those hands on her?
    Billy began to sing in a low, throaty voice.
    â€œI got nowhere

To call my home

Say got nowhere

To call my home.

That’s why I’m blue

That’s why I roam.”
    â€œWho wrote that?” Lydia asked as he picked a bluesy riff on the guitar.
    â€œMe. First thing I ever wrote. We were living in Australia then. I was—I don’t know—fourteen, fifteen, maybe. My dad showed me four chords and I decided I was B. B. King. Very deep and misunderstood.”
    â€œYou were singing about not having a home way back then, huh?”
    Billy kept picking—the notes flew fast and furious. “Maybe I just thought it sounded cool.”
    â€œIf I could sing—trust me, I can’t—I would have sung about that same thing.” They shared a smile of recognition. “Poor us, huh?”
    â€œBullshit,” Billy challenged with a huge grin. “We got to live in cool places that most people never get to see. Besides . . .” He leaned toward her. “Everything you’ve experienced makes you the unique girl that you are.”
    He put down the guitar and kissed her softly. It was so