energy depleted. She couldn’t stop thinking about Julian and moping, moping, moping. Even her photography professor had noticed that she hadn’t been as active in class critiques.
Her best friend Jason had been oddly absent as well. He hadn’t even really been excited for her when she told him about her impossible tryst with the hottest rock guitarist this side of the Mississippi. Sure, he had hugged her, but it was a halfhearted hug compared to most of Jason’s normally exuberant embraces. Maybe he was just jealous. After all, they had both fallen in love with Wilder Side , but only Shannon had gotten to go home with one of the band members. That must be it. He was jealous.
“Well, nuts to him,” Shannon said out loud, not knowing if she meant Jason or Julian. Nuts to both of them. She splashed her hands into the water in a mock tantrum. It was lukewarm already; time to get out. She was already horny again. Ugh .
“It’s okay, Shannon,” she said to herself, toweling off. She looked in the mirror. “It’s going to be okay.”
Even if she never talked to him again, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. She had been through too many one-night stands until she realized that most guys thought that she was an easy lay. Once she got wise to that, she set her standards much higher. Julian had been a slip, a lapse. She would never again sleep with someone as soon as she met him. And hell, he hadn’t even fully undressed – it couldn’t count as a one night stand. Even if he had given her the best orgasms of her life.
Still, she thought it had been different this time...
“Get yourself out! Of! This! Funk!” Shannon tossed her dripping red hair behind her back and toweled off the remaining moisture on her body. She reached over and turned on the radio as she dried her hair. The rock song blared out of the stereo system.
Don’t look back,
Unless you want me... as bad as I want you—
“ARGH!” Shannon screamed. Of course it would have to be Wilder Side on the radio. She could even see Julian in her mind, playing the guitar line as Alex Wilder sang the lyrics. She slammed her hand down on the radio search button. The next station was playing some up-and-coming bubble gum girl rock band.
Shannon sang along to the catchy tune, drying her hair and using the blow dryer as a microphone during the sing-along chorus. Her towel fell to the floor and she danced in front of the mirror, turning the song to full blast.
I WANNA RUN! RUN! RUN! UNTIL THERE’S NOWHERE TO GO!
COME! COME! COME! HEY BOY, I NEED YOU SO!
She shook her butt at the mirror, laughing as she danced in time to the music.
“You are awesome!” She pointed to herself in the mirror. “You are amazing! You are a sexy-ass redhead with a fine booty!”
As she repeated the affirmations, she began to believe them, and for the first time in the past week she thought that she might be okay if she never saw Julian again.
“You don’t need a guy like that anyway, someone who doesn’t even call. Some stuck up rock star...”
Shannon sighed, cocking her head in the mirror. She had thought that he wasn’t the same, that this time might be different. But he had turned out to be just some famous guy who was too good for her.
“Hey!” she said, talking firmly to herself as though she were a child who needed a pep talk. “He’s not too good for you, you’re too good for him. You are awesome, and that’s that.”
The doorbell rang. Shannon barely heard it over the blow dryer and the song, but then it rang again and she turned the radio off. She stuck her head out into the hallway.
“Brynn, you got that?”
There was no response.
“Brynn? Are you here? Can you get the door?” Her hair was dripping onto the floor.
“ARGH!”
That’s right, Shannon remembered. Brynn’s number theory midterm was next week. She had been slipping out nearly every day and night to go study at the library with her study group. Those math majors
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