Take Me with You (Take Me #2)(21)

A smile crept up on one, and the other looked as if she was ready to pounce. “Hey,” one of them crooned.

“What’s up?” I grunted.

The girl on the right nudged her friend and giggled. “Uh…you’re Grant McDermott, right?”

Whoa. I wasn’t f*cking used to getting recognized at gigs that weren’t my own.

“Yeah, we saw you at The Drift show on New Year’s. You were brilliant. That ‘Life Raft’ song. Oh my God.”

“She listens to it on repeat,” the other girl cut in.

“Well, thanks.”

The first one was kind of hot in a trashy sort of way. Her friend looked a little more put together, but it was probably because she didn’t have as big of a rack as the first girl.

I bet they’d be down for a threesome. Nah, maybe I’d just go with the first chick. She had some serious dick-sucking lips. Chick could probably suck a f*cking golf ball through a garden hose.

“So…are you guys here for the band?” I’d never made small talk to groupies before. It usually consisted of smile, smile, grope, f*ck.

“Yeah, we are,” she said, leaning into me and running her hand down my arm, “but if you want to get out of here—”

“Sorry. I’m here with my girlfriend,” I tested the words out. They might have been the first time I’d ever officially said no or told a groupie I had a girlfriend.

“She won’t mind,” the other girl said with a giggle.

“You clearly don’t know my girlfriend.”

Ari would murder them before being okay with me leaving with them.

I scooted around them as Ari reappeared before me. She looked flustered.

Her eyes landed on the two girls standing nearby, and she glared disapprovingly. They frowned and then scurried away.

“That was my parents. My dad is coming into town this weekend for my birthday.”

“And you’re upset about that?”

“What? No. I miss my dad. It’ll be nice to see him.” She fidgeted and then cocked her head back toward the show. “Is that for me?” She grabbed a beer out of my hand and took a swig. “You want to get back to the band?”

“Yeah, but are you going to tell me what the f*ck has you upset?”

She sighed and glanced down. “My parents got a letter in the mail from the health insurance company about my test work.”

“Test work? Are you okay?”

“Grant, I got a pregnancy test.”

My body stopped functioning, and the music seemed to disappear. A pregnancy test? What the f*ck! She couldn’t be pregnant.

“No, no, no!” she said quickly. “I’m not pregnant. It was a routine exam. I, uh…got birth control,” she said.

Her voice was so quiet during the last bit that I almost didn’t hear her.

But when I puzzled it out, my face lit up. “That’s f*cking great! Princess, that’s great news.”

“Yeah, and well, Plan B after we had sex at the League.”

“That’s good, too. I know I’m not f*cking ready to have a kid. But why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I was worried you’d be angry that I wanted to get, um…STD tests.”

“Are you f*cking kidding? Do you know who I am? Do you know how many times I’ve been tested? And birth control! Fuck condoms.”

“Grant,” she groaned, “we’re in public.”

I picked her up around the middle and crushed her to me. “I don’t care where we are. This all sounds like great news to me.”

She teetered when I set her back on her feet. “Yeah. I mean, not being pregnant is good, but uh…my parents got the insurance letter. Now, they’re asking questions. I didn’t want to have the I-lost-my-virginity talk over the phone on Valentine’s Day just because they read the medical insurance paperwork.”

“How exactly did you want to have that talk?” I asked, amused.

“Preferably, I never wanted to have that talk.”

“Well, did you tell them about us then?”

She cringed as if she had been waiting for this. With that reaction, she didn’t even have to answer. It was clear she still hadn’t told her parents we were dating or that she was even seeing anyone. Did they think she had f*cked a stranger?

“I know. I know. I should have said something, but it wasn’t the right time.”

“Is there going to be a right time?”

“Yes. Yes,” she said. She pulled me closer and stared me in the eyes. “I’ll tell my father next weekend when I see him. It’ll be better in person. I promise.”

I would have laughed when I’d gotten the message from my father to meet him at Orchids in the city only two weeks after Grant and I had dined and ditched at the same restaurant, but I was too nervous.

My father loved me fiercely. He’d always had high expectations for Aaron and me, but since I was three years younger, I felt the weight of his disapproval so much stronger. The thought of disappointing my father was debilitating. He never explicitly came out and said he wanted me to graduate with a practical degree and marry someone successful, like him, but he didn’t have to.

And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t tried.