Effortless (Thoughtless, #2)(80)
Cheyenne beside me giggled. “That from Kellan? He’s pretty funny.” She shook her head. “Gorgeous and funny, no wonder Candy hates you.”
Laughing at her comment, my eyes swept over some of the other chairs. How had he known I’d pick this particular seat? I really had been extremely lucky to find this note at all. When I started spotting tiny corners of papers sticking out of some of the other seats, I reconsidered. I wasn’t lucky…Kellan had tucked notes everywhere. My God, that must have taken him forever. When the hell had he done that? And what did they all say? As the professor had just started class, I couldn’t start collecting them yet. I’d have to wait until after class to find out. My smile was huge all throughout the final exam…I’m sure I was quite possibly the happiest person taking it.
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Cheyenne waved goodbye after class, wishing me luck on my scores.
Smiling at her, I pretended to take forever gathering my stuff together.
When the room was mostly empty, I began my note-seeking quest. It took me a while, but I eventually recovered every scrap that Kellan had tucked away. When all the chairs were clean, I ended up with about a hundred little messages. I immediately went home, to ponder them all in the privacy of my room. Some were hot, some were sweet, but all of them were a joyful surprise. He’d done so much to make sure that I wouldn’t forget him, almost like he was still scared that I would. Clutching the necklace around my throat, I shook my head. My eyes stung with tears. Like I ever could.
Tucking a note that merely said, ‘I love you,’ into my pocket, I started to get ready for work. Since today had been the last day of school for all of the college kids, we were expecting it to be pretty busy. Especially since our new band had started to gather a fan base around themselves.
I wasn’t too thrilled with someone else being up on Kellan’s stage, but I had to admit that the group was good. Evan and Kellan had signed them up for Pete before heading out of town. The Seattle music scene was sort of a small social circle, with everybody knowing everybody else, and Kellan had thought that this particular group of guys would be the best fit for the bar.
When I say guys, I should clarify…I mean girls. Yeah, Kellan had signed up a girl band. Don’t get me wrong, they rocked like any other male band on the planet, but, I smirked when I saw them for the first time. I had the distinct feeling that Kellan had picked a group of girls on purpose. Wouldn’t want me fawning over another male, moody artist.
Putting my stuff away in the back room an hour later, I was assaulted by my peppy best friend. Wrapping her arms around me, Jenny kissed my cheek. “Hey, Kiera. How was your last class?” I grinned like a dopey idiot, thinking about the dozens of love notes currently sprawled across my bed. “Wonderful…” I exhaled, a little dreamily. Jenny looked at me like I was mental. And I supposed my love-filled sigh was sort of a strong reaction to taking a final. Laughing a little, I shrugged. “What can I say, I love school.” 223
Smiling crookedly, she shook out her golden locks. “You’re so weird.” Playfully batting her on the arm, the two of us headed out to start our shifts. In the hallway, we were stopped by someone exiting the bathroom. “Oh, hey, Kiera, Jenny.”
Looking over to the doors, I contained a sigh. A member of the girl band playing tonight was smiling at me. They called themselves Poetic Bliss, and the girl heading my way was the lead singer. Her name was Rain, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t what was written on her birth cer-tificate. Pretty sure, since the other band member’s names were Blessing, Meadow, Sunshine, and…Tuesday.
I had a really hard time saying that last one with a straight face. I wasn’t sure if they’d all changed their names once joining the band, or if a group of uniquely named girls had just happened to come across each other. I was leaning more towards the name change. The only thing I was certain of, was that Rain knew my boyfriend in ways that most women around here seemed to know my boyfriend. Intimate ways. That was why I always wanted to sigh every time she talked to me. There was a definite downside to dating a former man whore.
Jauntily walking up to me, I tried to not picture her entangled with Kellan. It was kind of hard to not think about it, though. She was spunky, energetic, one of those people that was constantly moving. I kept imagining her being sort of…wild…behind closed doors. Knowing that I really wasn’t outrageously great in bed or anything, I immediately felt like I fell short. But love and lust were different things, and all of her playful antics hadn’t made Kellan fall for her, so I must be doing something right. Besides…Kellan never complained about our sex life.
Rain came up and gave me a swift hug. “Hey, thank Kellan again for lining up this gig for me. It’s awesome here, I love it!” The petite woman was three or four inches shorter than me but she made up for it by wearing six-inch heels on her chunky boots. With her jet-black hair cropped into a short, shaggy mess and her dark eyes highlighted in dramatic shades of gray and pink, she looked the part of a tough rocker chick. The clingy, low-cut shirt and barely-there pleated miniskirt completed the look. Well, that and the spiked collar around her neck.
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“Yeah, I’ll tell him,” I mumbled, wishing I could go back in time and tell a much younger Kellan that saying no was a perfectly acceptable response to come-ons, that sex wasn’t the same as love. But I’m pretty sure young Kellan wouldn’t have listened. He’d had to figure that one out on his own.