Meet Me Backstage

14. Here Comes the Sun

JACKS

A knock wakes me from my sleep and I glance at the bedside clock. It's just a bit after noon. I stand up and stretch as another knock sounds and I realize it's not coming from the door to the hall, but from the adjoining room.

I rub my eyes and open the door to Dré holding a binder and two coffee cups.

"Rise and shine, superstar!" he says as he walks inside and sets the coffees down on a nearby table. He looks around suspiciously as if he's searching for something else.

"What are you looking for?"

"Nothing." He smirks slightly but shrugs. "How was your night?"

"It was really good, actually."

"Must've been. I heard you two laughing all night long. What the heck were you doing, anyway?"

He sits down in the armchair, crossing his ankle over his knee.

"Reading fanfiction."

Dré raises a brow and tilts his head as I sit across from him on the sofa.

"Come again?"

"We were reading Jackson Ford fanfiction."

"No kidding." He laughs and shakes his head side-to-side. "That's hilarious. What's it like?"

"In summary, everyone on the internet thinks I'm an asshole womanizer with a 10-foot dick. Oh and sometimes I'm a vampire or a werewolf—or both."

"I don't even know where to start with any of that. I'm not touching that with a 10-f... you know what, bad choice of words. Was it all sexy stuff?"

"Sexual? Mostly. Sexy? Not so much."

"What'd she think of it all?"

"She said women like to fantasize about bad boys."

Is that what she likes? Bad boys?

Her boyfriend is about as far from a 'bad boy' as I can imagine. Maybe that's a good thing for me.

"Daaamn, she said that? You might just be in there after all."

I sigh and lean back, combing my fingers through my tangled morning hair.

"I don't know. I just... I really like her. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, like maybe she's not really everything she seems... but she just keeps getting better."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe this girl is the one."

"Really?" I ask, sitting upright and giving him a questioning look. "You're not gonna make fun of me for being a hopeless romantic or scold me for being interested in an unavailable woman?"

He shrugs and takes a sip of his coffee.

"I guess I just see why you like her," he says.

"What do you mean? You haven't even met her yet."

"I did actually, last night in the hallway—it's a long story. Let's just say I was having a lousy night and she stepped in to help me. I got a good vibe off her. She seems like the real deal. Reminds me a lot of you actually."

"That seems about right. Everybody who meets her loves her."

"In a sense, that's kinda your problem though, isn't it?"

He's right, but I'm not exactly in the mood to hear it. I'm well aware that she's already taken.

"Thanks for the reminder," I groan. "This guy, though... I get why he would want to be with her, but the other way around? That's a mystery to me."