Maddy and I couldn’t believe how down-to-earth Aaron was. We always imagined him as the stereotypical teen millionaire-or kid of a millionaire-, as in the whole “if you don’t have money I don’t want anything to do with you” attitude. But he was anything but that, he was nice, funny, smart, and actually cared about his fans, unlike a lot of celebrities.
“So, are you guys from L.A.?” Aaron asked, taking a sip of his coke.
“Sorta’,” Maddy answered. “We live in the suburbs.”
“Oh, so your parents are pretty well off; financially speaking.”
“Yeah,” Maddy answered. Not my mom, I thought. She’s slowly wasting away in self-pity and grief. Pretty soon my dad’s life insurance money will be gone, then we’ll have nothing to live on…
“Kate, are you okay?” Aaron’s voice snapped me back to reality.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, never better,” I put on a fake grin and nodded, to try and cover up what must’ve been that depressed look I get when I think about my mom and how badly she’s been doing.
“We’re gonna’ be in town for one more night, cause we have some extra time before I need to be in San Francisco, you guys wanna’ go somewhere tomorrow night?”
“I don’t think you can handle the both of us,” Maddy joked.
“Well then, I’ll bring a friend. One of my dancers, Eric, has been wanting to hit up a club, maybe he’ll come.”
“Is he hot?” Maddy asked with a grin.
“You tell me,” Aaron went into his bureau pulled out a head shot that was attached to a résumé.
“Good Lord!!!” Maddy half yelled. “He’s gorgeous!”
“Yeah he is!” I agreed. Eric had great hair, it had a natural looking wave that seemed to be the style of choice for sexy men these days. He had a strong jaw and piercing blue eyes that seemed all the brighter due to his contrasting dark hair. And his skin had an almost perfect tan, one that was gained by a lot of time in the sun.
Maddy flipped to his résumé and read, “6’2”, not bad, no criminal record-”
“I don’t think you should be reading that,” I said to her.
She looked up at Aaron, “Do you mind?”
“No, go ahead,” he said, leaning back on his couch.
Maddy continued to read, “Home town of Tampa, graduated from Tampa High, very nice,” she concluded.
Maddy handed back the head shot and résumé and said, “I definitely call that boy.”
Aaron laughed and said to me, “Guess that means you’re stuck with me,” he flashed a smile that made my insides melt. “I promise to make the night as painless as possible.”
I smiled, I had to; he was absolutely adorable. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”
“No problem,” he took another sip of his soda and there was a knock at the door.
A short woman with a business like composure came walking into the room, looking down at a clip board. “Aaron you should really tell me next time you-” she froze when she saw me and Maddy sitting in front of Aaron. “Who are these young ladies?”
“Oh, hey Ellen, this is Maddy, and this is Katie,” Aaron said pointing to both of us as he said our names.
“Nice to meet you both, I’m Ellen, Aaron’s tour manager,” she came up to us and shook both of our hands. “Now like I was saying, you should really let me know next time you’re going to climb a support beam and jump off like that. If you had tried to go up one of the weaker ones, we would’ve had a serious problem.”
“Sorry El, won’t happen again,” he said with an innocent grin.
“Okay, good. I’ll see you all later; I have a crap load of work to do for the San Francisco show Sunday.” She walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
“She seems nice,” I said, looking back at Aaron.
“Yeah, she’s really cool. Unless you’re late for something, then the fangs come out,” he smiled at me and, once again my insides took to the consistency of apple sauce.
We talked for a while longer about everyday things. Music, hot spots down town, good restaurants, etc.. Maddy’s phone cut Aaron off as he was talking about a great burger place he knew of.
“Hello?” she answered. “I know what time it is…yeah, she’s with me…don’t worry mom, we’re on our way home, we stopped to get some food and now we’re stuck in traffic…it’s L.A. mom, there’s traffic at every hour of the day and night…okay we’ll be home soon…love you too…bye.” She clicked her phone shut and looked from me to Aaron. “That’s our queue to screw.”
“Yeah I kinda’ guessed,” Aaron said. He followed us to the door and gave us both a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “It was awesome hanging with you guys, I’ll see you tomorrow. Eight sound good?”
“Yeah that’s perfect,” Maddy said.
“Great, we’ll go grab a bite and then hit the club at like nine or nine thirty.”
“Awesome, see you then,” she said walking out the door.
“Hey Kate,” Aaron called after me when we were half way down the hall.
I turned to look at him, “Yeah?” I asked.
“Promise me you won’t spend the entire night flirting with other guys?”
I laughed and I could feel my cheeks turn a slight pink, “Only if you don’t spend it with all the girls.”
“Deal,” he said with a big grin.
“Good,” I said and turned to continue walking with Maddy, only when I heard his door close that I stole a glance at Maddy, she was barely containing her laughter.
I went over to Maddy’s house around four to start getting ready. We told the boys to pick us up at Maddy’s house, for obvious reason. Mads and I both decided to go with sexy outfits, but not over the top. Mine included a denim mini skirt and a tight fitting Hollister tee.
Aaron and Eric came right on time. They came in and met Maddy’s parents, Eric was tall, dark and handsome, but I still preferred Aaron.
After all the introductions were done we went out to the car; Aaron was driving, I was in the front passenger’s seat, and Maddy and Eric were in the back. We decided to go to Applebee’s for dinner, I got the Oriental Chicken salad and Maddy got buffalo chicken fingers, she was a spice freak, anything that had the word ‘spicy’ in it, she would eat. Aaron and Eric both got barbeque Ribs.
Aaron and I split a piece of Apple Pie a la mode and Maddy and Eric got a hot fudge brownie Sundae.
The check came and I tried to grab it, but Aaron beat me to it. He put a card in the little black book thing and handed it right back to the waitress.
“You didn’t even look at it,” I said.
Aaron shrugged with a smile and dipped his fork of apple pie and ice cream into the butterscotch sauce that came with the desert. “Try this,” he said to me. “You’ll like it, I swear.”
We walked into the club and it was surprisingly alive considering it wasn’t even ten yet. The dance floor was crowded with people, and it pulsed to the beat of the techno music that played through what seemed like a thousand speakers throughout the club.
Aaron kept close to me, holding my hand, as we walked through the crowd of people on their way to becoming drunk. When I looked back Eric and Maddy had already started grinding, I smiled at the cute couple as Aaron wrapped his arms around my waist and we started to copy our friends’ moves.
A little over an hour later, around eleven o’clock, Aaron and Eric said they had to go to the bathroom. Maddy and I took a seat at one of the few tables they had in the club. We were there for no more than thirty seconds before some drunk guy and his friends came over and started hitting on us.
“Hey hot stuff,” one said. “Ya’ wanna come ozer here and give me some *hiccup* lovin’?”
“Eww!” Maddy screeched. “Get away from us you drunk loser!”
“Maddy!” I half yelled half whispered. “Take it from someone who knows drunks, when they’ve ‘had a few’ DON’T INSULT THEM!!!!”
“Wudidja call muh?!” he yelled, red faced.
“Uh…a very nice business man who doesn’t want to kill us and get blood all over his just as very nice suit?”
He let out a growl at Maddy and turned his attention to me. His expression softened to that of a pathetic drunk that thinks he’s sexy. He got right in my face, smelling stunk of liquor and vomit, the smell of a true drunk, he said, “You ’er’un prettyyyyyyy lady. *Hiccup* Whatduya say we *hiccup* go back to my place and haz a lil party in yer pants?” he straightened out and waved his hands in the air.
I was an expert on how a drunk mind thinks, pretty much all you have to do is talk nonsense and their wasted minds will make some sort of sense of it for you. That in mind, I said, “Sorry, I’d absolutely love to, but I need to go home and clean my toaster oven so it won’t attack my dog.”
He gave me a blank stare and grumbled, “I f- ckin’ hate toasters...” and walked away with his buddies in tow.
Maddy and I burst out laughing, “That was great,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye. “I need to learn the language of the drunk.”
Still smiling, I looked over towards the direction of the bathroom to see what was taking the boys so long and sure enough, they were rushing over.
“You guys okay?” Eric asked. “Maddy, why are you crying? What did that jerk off do?!”
“We’re fine,” Maddy said. “Thanks to the amazing genius sitting next to me,” she pointed to me and kept laughing.
“Why what happened?” Aaron asked, taking the seat next to mine.
“He was wasted and Katie told him something about a toaster and he was like ‘I effin hate toasters’ and stomped off.”
“Wait…what?.” They both chorused, obviously confused.
I explained to them my theory of drunks and how their minds work, when they finally understood what was so funny they laughed too.
When all was well we went back to the dance floor. After another hour and a half dancing, we headed out to find something else to do. I was walking next to Maddy and Aaron came up behind me and took my hand; Eric did the same.
We walked down the crowded street and saw a small 24 hour café. “You guys wanna stop for some coffee?” Aaron asked. We all nodded and walked into the small and quaint café.
It was really nice, soft jazz music was playing through speaker stations around the café. We got our drinks and went to sit on one of the couches in a small corner. Aaron and I took one side of the couch, Eric and Maddy the other.
We sat, talked, gave each other our numbers, and drank our coffee’s for the next hour. “Hey Mads,” I began, leaning forward to see around Aaron.
“Yeah?”
“Why hasn’t your mom called yet?”
“I told her I’d be out late,” she laughed and put down her cup. “Come on I gotta’ pee and I need you to come in case some drunk guy tries to rape me in the bathroom.”
“What good will I be against a drunk guy bent on raping you?”
“Two things, a translator, and if need be, a shield,” she grinned and grabbed my hand, dragged me into the bathroom.
“Okay, so I told my mom I was going out with you and two guys and she brings me into her room and is all ‘I know that you’re still a little young, but sometimes you just can’t control your urges,’ and I was like ‘MOM! IT’S JUST DINNER AND SOME DANCING!!’ but she gave me this anyway,” she pulled out a condom and I cracked up laughing.
We finished laughing and came out of the bathroom to see Aaron and Eric laughing, themselves.
“Okay, what’d we miss?” Maddy asked.
“Nothing,” Aaron said. “Just something some girl said to Eric when he was walking to his room.”
“You guys ready to go?” Eric asked.
“Yeah, I’m exhausted,” I said followed by a yawn.
The boys stood and we put our coffee cups in the dish tray and went back to the car.
When we got to Maddy’s house I realized that Eric had driven his own car there and they had just taken one car out. Smart, now we didn’t have to wait up for him to say goodbye and it didn’t have to be awkward when Aaron and I said our goodbyes.
Aaron pulled in front of my house and walked me up to my door, holding my hand. We got to my door and he said, “Did you have a good time?”
“Yeah, it was fun.”
“Good. Maybe, when I come back, we can do it again?” it was a suggestion, but it sounded like a question.
“I’d like that,” I said with a smile.
“But...uh…next time, do you think it could be just us?” he started to scuff his foot against my front step and he looked so adorable all nervous.
“I’d like that even more,” I grinned when he look at me with relief in his eyes. “Good night Aaron,” I leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Call me when you get back.”
I walked inside and closed the door, I was ecstatic, nothing could bring me down…or so I thought; my mom was awake…and she DIDN’T look happy to see me………
