Any Red-Blooded Girl (11 page)

I felt like a moron when I saw how Mick was
dressed. I mean, it wasn’t like he’d overdone it or anything; it
was just that he had clearly put effort into his appearance, which
I, very clearly, had not. His sexy cobalt blue button-down (partway
un
buttoned, of course), his tight indigo jeans, and his
scuffed black leather boots had drool-worthy written all over them.
Meanwhile, I was the epitome of ordinary. Boring to the nth degree.
Hopeless.

“I didn’t know you were dressing up,” I said,
trying to excuse my shabby outfit. I could hardly believe I was
still in the same ragged jean shorts and slub tee I’d worn all day.
How idiotic.

He leaned in and planted a solid, forceful
kiss right on my lips, giving me the tingles all the way down to
the soles of my feet.

“I’m not dressed up,” he said, still
face-to-face with me. “I just wanted to look good for my birthday
girl, who, by the way, looks perfectly spectacular.” He took a step
back and made a show of looking me up and down.

“Thanks for being so polite,” I said. “I feel
like a mess, but I’m glad
you
like me.”

He laughed. “I more than like you,” he said.
“In fact, I don’t know if I should say this, but…”

No way. Not fair. You cannot start an
interesting sentence and just leave someone hanging. “What?” I
demanded. “What shouldn’t you say?”

He hesitated, like whatever was on his mind
was just too dangerous to verbalize. “I don’t know. You might take
it wrong,” he eventually risked saying.

“No, I won’t. I promise.”

Cringing like the mystery information was
actually painful—or at least painful to admit—he said, “How do you
know? You don’t even know what it is.”

“I’m not like that, I swear. Nothing shocks
me,” I said emphatically. And for the most part, it was true.
“Besides, I can’t even imagine you saying anything that would
bother me. So go ahead, spill it.”

“Are you sure?” He frowned. “Because if this
upsets you, or scares you, or freaks you out…”

“Okay, I give,” I whined. “The suspense is
killing me. Just tell me what’s going on. I won’t freak out. Double
cross my heart.”

“Don’t take this wrong,” he hedged again,
“but I think I might be obsessed with you.”

I tried not to giggle—I really did—but I just
couldn’t help it. “That’s it? You were worried about
that?
”
I asked, stunned.

“Yeah. And it’s not funny,” he complained. “I
don’t think I can control myself. Doesn’t that scare you?”

“Not really. Because I
know
I can’t
control
my
self—when it comes to you anyway,” I said, only
half kidding.

“Very funny. Ha-ha,” Mick said, shaking his
head. “It’s more than that. It’s that I can’t stop thinking about
you. Not just here and there, but all the time. If we weren’t
together, I’m sure I would be stalking you. How about that? Doesn’t
that
bother you?”

There was no way on earth I’d admit it, but
the stalker reference did freak me out just a tad. “It’s not
considered stalking if the stalk
ee
is in love with you,” I
said, hooking my thumbs through his belt loops.

Still, he didn’t seem satisfied. “There’s
something else I think you should know then,” he said.

Suddenly my lungs froze. No ordinary boy
would’ve poured his heart out to me like this. Mick was a different
breed altogether. A breed my feeble teenage brain wasn’t equipped
to deal with. And the proof was, when I opened my mouth to say
something, nothing came out.

Mick continued, “I know this probably isn’t
normal, but I think you should know about my experiences before
you. About my past.”

My eyes were tacked open in fear. What if
he’d been in love like this before? What if he’d wanted to stalk a
multitude of other girls? What if he’d had a lot more experience
than I’d had, and I was just some hopeless amateur?

I gulped hard before I squeaked out, “Okay,
go ahead.”

“First of all,” he said, shaking his head and
smirking, “I’m a virgin. I don’t know why, but I wanted you to know
that. I’ve never been with anybody else, so…”

“So am I,” I blurted. What the hell. If he
was willing to put it out there, I might as well too.

“Oh. That’s good,” he said, obviously
relieved. “But, well, on top of thinking about you all the time,
I’ve also been feeling very physical around you—more than I ever
have around anyone before. I just don’t know if I can restrain my
appetite,” he said, breathing a little defeated sigh.

Unless I’d misunderstood him, which was
certainly possible, Mick was saying I was making him horny. I,
Flora Fontain, was making the sexiest virgin alive horny.
Uncontrollably horny. Surely he must be joking.

“I know. I want you too,” I said, flinging my
arms as far around his neck as they’d reach. “And for the record,
I’m just as new at this as you are.”

He eagerly slipped his hands under my T-shirt
and caressed my bare back; meanwhile, I peppered his neck with soft
kisses. And just as I was preparing to start a hickey near his
collarbone, he whispered in my ear, “I love you.”

Reluctantly, I pulled my lips away. “I love
you too.”

For a while longer, we stood right there
pressed against the Wiener Tree and made out. But as much as I hate
to admit it, even sucking face with the man of your dreams can get
boring after a while if you don’t mix things up a little.

“Hey, wanna go watch karaoke?” I asked.

Sounding surprised by the idea, Mick said,
“There’s karaoke?”

“Yeah. I think it’s in the…” I slid the
wrinkled recreation schedule out of my pocket. “The Activity
Center. Do you know where that is?”

“Uh-huh,” he said, lacing his fingers around
mine. “It’s the white building over by the basketball court that
sort of looks like a church. Shall we?”

“Well, this is a little sad,” I said, as Mick
and I claimed our metal folding chairs in the back row of the
nearly deserted Activity Center.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said optimistically.
“Those kids seem to be having fun.” He nodded toward the stage,
squeezed my hand, and smiled

It was true. Maybe ten or twelve kids were
huddled together at the front of the room, where a tiny brunette
clutched a microphone and a teenage girl about my age (probably a
Wild Acres employee) exercised fleeting control over the
teenybopper chaos.

And after some heated disagreement among the
teenybopper crowd as to which song the diva should sing, the little
brunette finally started belting out the winning tune:
Genie in
a Bottle
. And at first it seemed like an okay pick, at least
for a seven-year-old. But then the diva’s act dissolved into a lewd
series of gyrations and pelvic thrusts, which just about made me
lose my lunch. I mean, I guess it could’ve been funny in a
Little Miss Sunshine
-esque way, except that unlike the girl
in
Little Miss Sunshine, this
girl had very smooth moves.
Honestly, it was disturbing.

“Okay…that’s a little sick,” I said,
wondering how Mick was taking the provocative display. Before I
could inquire, though, his horror became apparent.

“Why is she doing that?” he asked, screwing
up his face in disgust. “Isn’t anybody going to stop her?” He
glanced around anxiously, like he was expecting the karaoke police
or maybe even the decency squad to intervene, but it was no
use.

“Should we say something to someone?” I
asked. It was a stupid question, really, since nobody but us seemed
freaked out.

Mick stood up. “Wait here,” he said. “I’m
going to do something about this.”

How chivalrous. My sweet, sweet boyfriend was
hell bent on defending the kid’s honor. But from where I sat, I
couldn’t see much of what happened when he stalked up to the stage
and cornered the Wild Acres girl—although I imagined he was
explaining that he had sisters not much older than the little diva,
and that he found the child’s behavior inappropriate and offensive.
Whatever he was saying, though, it was taking a while.

I leaned over sideways to catch a glimpse of
what looked like Mick giving the Wild Acres girl advice on song
titles to ban. But honestly, it was rather ironic that a blatant
face-sucker like him was trying to censor karaoke performances. I
mean, who’da thought?

As another miniature starlet finished a
less-than-accurate rendition of
Oops!... I Did It Again,
Mick stepped onto the stage and took the microphone, which brought
a rumble of complaints from the peanut gallery. But as soon as my
sweet, sweet boyfriend opened his mouth, the crowd settled. I, for
one, was riveted.

“Hi, everyone,” Mick said in a rich, velvety
showbiz voice that made me swoon. And unless I was imagining
things, the rest of the room was swooning too. “I won’t take much
of your time,” he told the audience with a wink, “but I do have
something I’d like to say.”

Huh? Was he actually going to rag these kids
out in public? I was so mortified I could barely even watch—which
was probably a good thing, since instead of embarrassing one of the
precocious preteens, he took aim at an unexpected target:
me!

With a twinkling movie star grin, he said,
“I’d like to wish a very special girl a happy birthday.”

Was he insane? This kind of embarrassment
could kill me.

“She’s sixteen today, and her name’s Flora.
And she’s right over there in the back row,” he announced, pointing
straight at me. He encouraged the audience, “Let’s all wish her a
happy birthday, okay?”

So while I turned a hundred shades of pink
and red and probably even purple, fifteen complete strangers bid me
a joyous sweet sixteen. Then, like a sound effect from an action
movie, Mick’s voice boomed out again. “Happy birthday, sweetheart,”
he said, topping the spectacle off with a pair of air kisses.

On that sappy note, the crowd groaned in
unison. I, on the other hand, vowed to get the boy checked for
rabies at our earliest convenience. Yes, rabies was a definite
possibility.

But as blindsided as I’d been by the
Happy
Birthday
ambush, I was still woefully unprepared for what came
next. Because before I could even wrap my mind around what was
happening, Mick launched into a love song in my honor. He was
singing. To me. In public. I was completely blown away and so
freaked out I felt like I might actually have ants in my pants.

Still…

There was no denying that my sweet, gorgeous
boyfriend was to die for. I mean, even in my near panic, I could
appreciate his guts. Plus, his voice was quite good. And the song
he’d chosen—
I Swear
—was akin to a marriage proposal. All
things considered, I really couldn’t complain.

“Thanks for doing that,” I said—stifling a
sob—when he returned to my side. “You’re amazing, you know. And
you’re a great singer too, by the way. Is there anything you’re
not
good at?”

He just laughed. “Of course
you
think
I’m great,” he said. “You’re wearing love goggles.”

“And
you’re
not?” I challenged. “I
mean, I hate to break it to you, but you’re the first guy who’s
thought I was special enough to sing to.”

“Well, I can’t help it if they didn’t know
what they were missing,” he joked. “Hey, who are
they
anyway?”

The truth was, I hadn’t really had any
serious boyfriends before Mick. I mean, sure, there was this one
guy, Brian Moore, who’d pretty much strong-armed me into being his
girlfriend in seventh grade. But other than that, I’d spent my life
in the romantic desert. Of course, this information would never
penetrate Mick’s ears.

“There’s no
they.
There’s only you,” I
said, snuggling up to his chest and resting my head on his
shoulder. “I love you.”

If I did say so myself, I was getting pretty
good at this mushy, lovey-dovey girlfriend stuff. I guess it was
another way Mick had changed me: He’d turned my jaded negativity
into visions of sunshine, rainbows, and butterflies. How
fitting.

Thirteen

MICK pulled the rugged iron handle and held
the Clubhouse door open for me, but instead of just letting
us
through, he played doorman to a stream of people flowing
in behind us. And, of course, one of those hangers-on was my pain
in the ass brother, Will.

“Yo, Flowbee,” Will said with a laugh,
bumping up against me in the crowd. “I didn’t know
you’d
be
here.”

“Don’t even start,” I muttered. “Buzz off.”
Right away, I knew what Will was up to. My parents must have begged
him, or coerced him, or maybe even paid him to spy on me. And I
wasn’t having it. I mean, even if I had to have Mick remove him
from the Clubhouse by force, my brother was absolutely not going to
tail me like a puppy-dog all night. “Get lost,” I ordered
again.

Predictably, Will didn’t budge. “It’s a free
country.”

“Yeah, well…” I started, but I was stumped
for a convincing argument or a motivating threat.

And before I could dig anything useful out of
my addled brain, Mick was back at my side. “Who’s this,” he asked,
with a slight edge to his voice. I guess maybe he’d assumed Will
was a rival for my affection, the idea of which sent my stomach
lurching.

I sighed. “Mick, this is my brother—Will,” I
admitted reluctantly. “Will, this is my boyfriend—Mick.” While I
made the obligatory introductions, I tried to shoot Will an evil,
menacing glare, but it just didn’t take.

“Oh, hi. Nice to meet you,” Mick said,
relaxing and shaking my brother’s hand in this macho, man-to-man
way. “I didn’t know Flora had a brother.”

“Well, I didn’t know she had a boyfriend,”
Will claimed. “So I guess we’re even.”

What a liar. Golden Boy knew very well that I
was madly in love. “All right. See ya later,” I said abruptly to
Will. Then I grabbed Mick’s hand for a quick getaway, but
unfortunately my sweet, polite boyfriend wasn’t blessed with a
heart of stone like I was.