Kevin sat across the table from me crying as he laughed at one of my many stories about Vinnie and I chuckled at him. "I swear I should write a book about him. ‘My misadventures with a brute named Vinnie,’ I bet it would be a best seller."

Kevin smiled and wiped his tears letting out one of those Wooo sounds that people let out after laughing really hard when they try to get their breath back. "Well if your other books are any indication, I bet it would be a best seller."

"Oh I have a billion stories about my Vino… We’ve been through a lot together...  He’s actually pretty famous among my readers.  I’ve got a blog that I try to update regularly and 80% of my posts tend to revolve around him and how I play with him when I’ve got a case of writers block."

"I’ll have to check that out…" he smiled taking a drink of his beer.

"My life is a little less than exciting, but Vinnie brings a lot of spice to it." I smiled and lifted my glass to my lips then hesitated, "Lot of drool too…" I giggled and finished taking a drink. "Enough about me and my dog… tell me about you. I’m sure that you have a much more interesting life, being a heartthrob and all…"

"I’m not a heartthrob…" he said with a slight blush.

"Bullshit!" I sang.

He laughed, "I’m not…"

"Oh puhleeze…" I groaned and looked around for our waitress. I waved her over and smiled up at her looking at her nametag. "Jill… let me ask you a question okay?"

"Sure…" she grinned giving Kevin a look over. She was probably in her early to mid twenties and I could tell she was about to prove me right just by the look on her face.

"Okay honey, first of all… do you like Pop music?"

She nodded with a grin, “Yeah, sure… who doesn’t?"

"Exactly…" I grinned and looked at Kevin. He smiled and shot me a look shaking his head. "And if you look at Mr. Richardson here…" I said holding my hand out displaying Kevin in a Vanna White fashion. "You know who he is, right?”

She blushed a few shades of red and nodded, “Uh yeah… I’ve been a fan for years.”

“Would you say he’s a heartthrob?"

She blushed again and nodded, "Oh hell yeah… "

I chuckled, "Pretty hot, huh?"

"Yeah… he’s just…" She looked at Kevin, "God you’re gorgeous!"

I held back a giggle and took a drink of my beer while Kevin smiled and reached out placing a hand on her arm, "Thank you…"

"I love you so much, Kevin…" she gushed and went into a story about how long she’d been a Backstreet Boys fan and was so sad when he retired from the group.  After a while, Kevin finally thanked her for all of the compliments she served up for him and then he gave her a hug and she melted like putty in his hot little heartthrob hands.

"Thank you, Jill!" I called out to her as she rushed off squealing to the other waitresses. I grinned across the table at him, "So… you were going to tell me what the life of a heartthrob is like?"

He laughed and shook his head, "You’re evil…"

"Nah… not evil, just right," I grinned.

*****

Several stories, and many beers later we sat on the pier near the bar where we’d had dinner.  I’d taken him to a seafood joint called Crabby Joe’s that sat on the pier a quarter of a mile out over the ocean.  We’d decided to sit and watch the water and sober up before driving back down the way to my house and found a row of benches at the very end of the boardwalk that usually were full of fishermen during the daytime, but at night were pretty empty.  I leaned my head back to look up at the stars and Kevin quickly followed my lead leaning his head back too. "Have you ever seen the stars in the Southern Hemisphere?" I asked quietly as I picked out all of the constellations that I knew.

"Yeah… it’s weird."

"I’ve never seen them for real… just in planetariums, but I always thought it would be odd to look up and not see the stars that I’ve seen here all of my life. To not see Orion, or the Big Dipper… it must be so freaky, like you’re not even on the same planet or something."

"Kind of…" he said quietly. I turned my head and looked at him in the moonlight as he thought about what I’d said. "It’s kind of like you keep…" he turned his head to look at me not realizing that I was already looking at him.  "Oh! Hi…"

"Hi…" I smiled.

He smiled and his eyes twinkled in the light from the nearly full moon hanging over the water, "So yeah, it’s kind of like you keep looking for these stars and you just can’t find them and then it dawns on you that the stars are different there."

"I think it would freak me out, I need to see Orion you know?" I turned my head away again and looked up at the stars.

"I can never find him…" he told me looking up at the stars.

"Really? He’s pretty easy to see…" I pointed towards the stars, "See those three stars in a row? That’s his belt…"

"I see lots of stars…" he chuckled.

I smiled and looked at him, "Put your head by mine." He scooted closer to me on the bench and his head was so close to mine I could feel his breath on my cheek. "Now follow my arm up to where I’m pointing."

He reached out and ran his hand up my arm trying to steady it, "Your arm is moving too much…" I smiled and took a deep breath as his touch caused goose bumps to form on my skin. His hand covered mine and he pointed, "Right there?"

I leaned my head in closer to him and touched his head with my own trying to see what he was pointing to, "Yeah… that’s it…" I moved his hand up a bit, "Now those two stars there… they’re his arms…"

"The arms of Orion…" he said quietly.

"’That’s where I wanna be…’" I sang and chuckled.

"Prince fan?" he chuckled still holding his hand over mine in the air pointing to the stars.

"Totally… you?"

"Since I was a kid…" he said quietly and I could feel his breath on my neck. It was making me dizzy, I felt like the stars that we were looking up at were swirling around in the sky like in that Starry Night painting. Then again maybe it was the beer. "You smell really good…" he said against my skin as his nose pressed against my neck. It definitely wasn’t the beer, Jesus he felt good, and all he was doing was talking against my neck.

"I uh…" Who was I kidding? I couldn’t talk. I could practically feel the Earth rotating on its axis right then and he expected me to talk? He pulled my arm back down to my body and wrapped his around me as he began kissing my neck slowly and gently. I sighed at the touch of his warm lips on my neck and closed my eyes. The closest I’d had to a man kissing my neck was when Vinnie would try to wake me up from one of my deep sleeps by licking my face. Kevin’s kisses were much nicer, and less drooly, than Vinnie’s.

His hand touched my face and gently pulled it towards him. His eyes searched mine for any hesitation and when he saw none he kissed me, nibbling on my bottom lip in the process. His kisses were as perfect as he was. God his tongue… when I got a taste of his tongue it was like the most erotic thing I’d ever experienced. Something about the way he kissed turned me on in a way that no one had ever done, and let me tell you, it wasn’t because I’d been practicing "self love" for so long… he was a damn good kisser.

To tell you the truth, I think the thing that I liked most about the kiss was the fact that it was only a kiss. He didn’t grope me, didn’t push his hands in my pants, or up my shirt, he just kissed me. His hands ran through my hair, and occasionally down my side caressing my waist or my hips, but nothing else. He didn’t dry hump my leg, or drool on me. He just kissed, and it was amazing.

Afterward he took my hand in his and walked me back to his car, we drove silently to my house, he walked me to my door, kissed me again, and said goodnight. There was no, "Can I come in?" Or, "Baby I want you…" Just, "Goodnight, Kel…" and a kiss on the back of my hand. I stood in awe of him as he walked back to his car and I held my keys in my hand. Before he got into his car he smiled, blew a kiss and told me that he’d call me in the morning.

I nodded, smiled and walked in the house, tripping clumsily over one of Vinnie’s toys as Kevin drove off and I grabbed the phone pressing the speed dial. I walked around the living room with Vinnie watching my every move as I willed her to pick up the phone. "Come on, come on, be home…" I walked to the back door and let Vinnie out as she finally picked up the phone with a tired voice. I sighed in relief and sat down at the table, "Mama? Tell me you’ve had another vision about the man with the stunning green eyes…"