Her Last Temptation

LATE THAT NIGHT, as Dylan helped the rest of the guys load their equipment and instruments into Josh’s van, he tried to ignore Banks’s curious stares. Banks had been watching him, a knowing grin on his face, every time Dylan had wandered over to the bar to talk to Cat when they were on break. During their final set, he’d thought his friend was going to explode with curiosity. Only the fact that the crowd had been so responsive—not letting them wrap up the night until they’d played an hour longer than scheduled—had distracted the guy.

But now they were alone. Josh and Jeremy had gone back inside for the last of Jeremy’s drums. Banks made full use of the opportunity. “So, what happened? You going back in there for a late-night rendezvous?”

“Big words, Banks. Still working on being the smart one?”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to figure out I’ve got a 130 IQ just because I know how to pronounce the word rendezvous.”

“One-thirty, hmm? I’m so sorry.”

It was an old bone of contention and a constant source of baiting. Because Dylan’s was just a smidge higher.

His friend smirked. “Warning, warning, comparing IQs…your geek-o-meter is in the red zone.”

“F. You.” But Dylan was smiling as he said it. He finished storing the microphones and amps, then helped Banks load up his keyboard.

“So, seriously, man, what are you going to do about the Cat woman?”

“Don’t call her that.”

“Right, ’cause, uh, she was much younger when you went nuts over her? So, it’s Cat girl, huh?”

“Do you ever shut up?”

“You roomed with me in college, so you already know the answer to that question. Now stop stalling. Did she recognize you? Did she realize you were the same nerdy little nobody who used to practically wet your Dockers whenever she came around back in high school?”

Banks. Couldn’t live with him. Couldn’t kill him and throw his body off the Chrysler Building.

“She didn’t remember me.”

Banks had the courtesy not to laugh. In fact, he frowned a bit. “Well, you can’t be too surprised, can you? I found your high school yearbook one time in college. You look nothing like you did back then.”

High school. Seemed like a lifetime ago.

He’d only attended public school for one year—his senior year—and he’d been only fifteen years old the day he’d started. A skinny kid who’d been accepted into a dozen colleges before he’d even started shaving.

He’d wanted to be normal. Just…normal. Instead of the whiz kid who’d skipped a few grades in the exclusive private schools his parents insisted he attend. His one outlet—which had driven his parents nuts—was his nonstop devotion to his music. Even though his mom and dad had ranted about how he was burning his brain cells, betraying his intelligence and making a mockery of his brilliant musical gifts, he’d never stopped working out his teen angst with his stereo or his guitar.

Until that year. When he’d finally gotten them to agree to let him finish out school with regular kids for a change, in a public high school.

Their agreement had come at a cost. A high one.

His music. For the entire school year.

That’d been the price—he could spend his senior year at Kendall High if he agreed to let his father lock away his guitar and his entire CD collection.

God, it’d been hard. Particularly when he’d started school and realized a fifteen-year-old senior wasn’t going to fit in very well anywhere. He’d missed his music terribly. So badly he thought about giving up—about going back to his old school less than a week into the new year.

Then he’d seen her—Cat Sheehan, the high school sophomore who’d fired his imagination and awoken every angsty teenage hormone in his body. She’d been the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen and her smile had literally made the breath leave his lungs.

So he’d stuck it out, somehow making it work, if only so he could catch glimpses of her throughout the day. Could feel his heart skip a beat when she smiled that smile. Could share, if only from a distance, in her delightfully wicked personality.

And after the night of the bonfire, he’d made it his personal mission to find out why there seemed to be another side to Cat that no one else in the world ever saw.

He never had. But maybe now, he’d have another chance.

Eventually, he’d found a way to fit in at Kendall High. He’d built his own group of friends. He’d done the brain thing—chess club, honor roll, debate team. He’d made his parents proud, devoting the entire year to more “appropriate” pursuits.

And he’d kept his promise, staying away from his guitar. But that hadn’t stopped him from writing songs in his head. Songs about the blond angel who barely even knew he existed.

“I mean, it’s not like you two had any classes together or anything, right?” Banks asked, still apparently thinking he needed to make Dylan feel better. “You were the same age, but you were a couple of years ahead of her.”

“Right.”

“So it’s not like she knew you and then forgot about you.”

“You don’t have to try to cheer me up,” Dylan said, surprised to realize it was the truth. “Like you said, I don’t look anything like I did then.”

Definitely not. Then he’d been a skinny runt, a geek and a freak. Nowhere near the realm of Cat Sheehan and her crowd.

Her crowd…well, actually, she hadn’t had one. She’d fit in everywhere. Not a stuck-up cheerleader, not a druggie, not a jock, not a brain. She’d just been this nice, smart, funny girl who happened to look like a goddess. One who had a caustic wit and a strong sense of justice that could either get her out of trouble or—probably more often—deeper into it.

She’d been the girl everyone wanted to be like. The girl who’d told off the football squad. Who’d organized a blood drive when one of their classmates had been in a serious car accident. And who, on one occasion, had come to the vocal defense of a nerdy kid who’d made the enormous mistake of sitting at the jocks’ table at lunchtime.

That’d been him.

She’d swooped in right before he’d gotten himself pounded. Taking him by the arm, she’d smiled brightly, saying, “You promised you’d sit with me, cutie.” Then she’d pulled him up and tugged him away, the determination in her eye and the firm set of her lips daring anyone to try to stop her. Beelining to another corner of the cafeteria—a safer corner—she’d pushed him into a seat and plopped down next to him, staying for a good three minutes, to keep up appearances.

He hadn’t been able to get a word out of his sawdust-dry mouth. But that’d been okay. She’d chatted nonstop about inane things—teachers, grades, the unfairness of the dress code.

Personally, Dylan had blessed the dress code. Because if her skirts had been any shorter, he’d have been unable to function at all in school.

Once the beefy crowd had left, she’d stood, saying, “Stay away from the fatheads, kid. Just remember, you’ll be buying and selling them a hundred times over in ten years.” Then, with a wink, she’d snagged his apple off his lunch tray and sauntered away. Leaving him sitting there, gaping, staring after her.

He’d loved her from that moment on, even knowing he’d probably never see her again after he graduated from high school. And he hadn’t.

Until tonight.

“So are you going back in there to make something happen?”

“Why the hell are you so interested in my love life?” Dylan asked with a frown. “Weren’t there a half-dozen women slipping you their phone numbers tonight?”

Banks shrugged. “A dozen, at least.” Then his eyes narrowed. “Which was nothing compared to the ones trying to slip you their phone numbers. By the way, thanks for the spillover.”

Dylan just shrugged, saved from replying when Josh and Jeremy returned from inside. They quickly finished loading the gear, then closed up the van.

“See ya tomorrow night,” Josh said as he got into the driver’s seat.

Dylan nodded, then glanced at Jeremy, who was climbing onto the enormous motorcycle he’d bought a few months back. Since Dylan cringed every time he saw Jeremy on the thing, he could only imagine what his parents thought. “Don’t kill yourself, kid,” he called as the younger man rode away.