Read Online She-Rox: A Rock & Roll Novel by Kelly McGettigan - Free Book Online

worry about you hanging out with Slade? This is perfect.”
    “What do you care? Besides, it’s nothing.”
    “Nothing, huh . . . I’ll tell you what nothing is. Nothing is being in a room full of cadavers for company and making friends with the smell of formaldehyde. That’s much closer to nothing. Hanging out with rock stars is definitely something.”
    “We are not hanging out , Kai.”
    “ I even heard of Slade McAllister . . . only you Eddie . . . only you . . . “
    “I got a job recording in a studio and Slade just happened to be there. He came in asking to borrow a guitar string, that’s it.”
    Kai gave a look of disbelief.
    “I’m not kidding. He has a girlfriend. She’s a Hollywood female mud wrestler . . . like I can compete with that.”
    With a mocking curve of his eyebrow, he replied, “It certainly looks like you’re trying.”
    “Kai, you’ve never liked the way I’ve dressed. It doesn’t fit the Stanford coed mold. Why don’t you just get yourself a girl that goes by the name of Buffy, and we’ll both be happy.”
    “I don’t have any kind of mold when it comes to women, Eddie. You’ve . . . changed, that’s all.”
    “No, I haven’t.”
    “Yes, you have,” he insisted, his eyes looking her over again. “Even your body language is different. The last time we were together you were sweet and adorable, you were . . . sweet .”
    “Kai, the last time we were together, was at Club Cathedral and you asked my drummer if he got more than drool on his SAT, which, by the way, culminated in a band argument backstage—”
    “—and I would have known about it, but you took off—Eddie, you didn’t even say goodbye! You packed your stuff up and left for L.A.”
    “What reason did I have to say goodbye?”
    “Oh, get real.”
    “Kai there’s no exclusivity here.”
    The two looked at each other.
    “Eddie, we’re different.”
    “ We are . . . different how?”
    “Our dates are different, where we go and what we do is different. The way we communicate is different.”
    “That’s only because I play in bands, ergo, you hang out in places you normally wouldn’t. I put your name at the door -- you skip out on the cover charge. That’s the difference.”
    “That’s not it – you don’t talk like other girls, you don’t act like other girls, you don’t do the things that all the other females I know, do. You are different, which is what makes everything between us different.”
    “All that and you still need a harem full of Paris Hilton wannabes.”
    Eddie got up to leave, but Kai blocked her.
    With his hands rigid on her shoulders, he ordered, “Don’t go.” Softening his grip, and letting his hands slide down to twine with her fingers, he quietly pleaded, “Sorry, I haven’t been myself, lately.” The warmth from his fingers made Eddie’s pulse instantaneously race. “Eddie, I’m trying to get into what is arguably the most difficult medical school in the country and you’re melting at the feet of some guitar hero . . . and seeing you looking like this, it doesn’t help.” He fumbled with any more coherent explanation and finally confessed, “I didn’t know how much I missed you, till I saw you and—”
    “You missed me?”
    “God, yes . ”
    Kai’s head hung low and his lips came down to meet hers. The same flood of emotion Eddie had longed to feel, the ringing in her ears, and the sensory overload that happened when she kissed Kai came back like a tidal wave. The blaze from his mouth made her free fall, like a good euphoric drug.
    Kai buried his face into her hair, and whispered, “I miss doing that. I miss you being here. Eddie, please come back and go to the Conservatory—”
    “Kai.”
    “You’re wasting your talent.”
    “Stop.”
    “I’m serious,” he pled, as his hands cupped her face.
    “So am I.”
    “What makes you think you’re going to waltz down there and all your dreams are going to magically come true with this girl band?