Marooned with the Rock Star (A Crazily Sensual Rock Star Romance, with Humor) by Dawn Steele

change. Of course, she had me as a study partner.
    Adeline was driving the car. She was the
only one of us with a halfway decent car. I didn’t have the money
to get one, and Kurt had a banged-up number that probably wasn’t
worth as much as its weekly gas consumption.
    We were delirious with joy. With the SATs
finally over, a burden was lifted off our shoulders. Our fates were
in the wind.
    “The night is ours!” Adeline whooped. “Where
do we want to go?”
    “I heard the Lasseters are having a party,”
Kurt remarked.
    He was in the front passenger seat and he
had his arm around Adeline’s headrest, as always. His incredibly
long arms made for easy grabbing.
    I sat at the back, of course, watching their
two heads turn to each other’s to gab. Adeline’s hair was a sleek,
shiny silhouette while Kurt’s was a wavy shimmer. They were both so
compatible it was stunning to watch, except that I always nursed
this little kernel of jealousy in me.
    I never told anyone about it, of course.
    I wasn’t sure if I was jealous of Kurt being
with Adeline, or Adeline being with Kurt. Kurt being with her took
her time away from me. Time we used to spend doing stuff together –
just the two of us. And the fact that she got a boyfriend before I
did rankled deeply in me, although I never told her.
    Of course she would get a boyfriend before I
did. She was prettier, slimmer, better than me at everything except
schoolwork. But I was hoping against hope that she wouldn’t get a
boyfriend until she went off to college.
    Though, of course, she did.
    And Kurt was the kind of boyfriend I
simultaneously despised and desired. I know. It was a
dichotomy.
    He was a long-haired jock, as
stereotypically dumb as stereotypical jocks could get. He was
callously handsome, carelessly popular without even trying. The
type of guy who seemed to coast through life on his good looks and
devil-may-care attitude. He was as bad as bad boys came. And before
he arrived on the scene with Adeline, he had an honor’s roll call
with girls as long as his arm.
    Kurt had quite a reputation all right. Maybe
it was bigger than he deserved, but he was rumored to have slept
with dozens of girls and with some of their sisters and mothers
too.
    But when he met Adeline, she touched him in
some way that he wasn’t touched before. There were girls who were
prettier and smarter, but somehow, a spark developed between him
and Adeline that neither of them had experienced before. It was as
if the cosmos collided and conspired for them to be together.
    Maybe that was what I was jealous of. I was
jealous of my best friend having that kind of connection with
someone who wasn’t me.
    And I was jealous that Kurt didn’t find me
attractive.
    I was kind of competitive against Adeline
that way.
    I said to the two of them, “The Lasseter
brothers always do coke. There could be a raid.”
    “That’s what makes it hot,” Kurt said. His
profile was grinning in the dark as he half-turned to me.
    “Suit yourself,” I retorted. “But I don’t
want to be hauled out of jail by my parents so close to
graduation.”
    “Me neither,” Adeline said. Her looks were a
contrast to mine. Where I was redheaded and green-eyed, she was
dark-haired and dark-eyed. She had gypsy blood and a touch of the
exotic.
    “So where do we go?” Kurt said. “Maybe we
can stop at a Seven-Eleven and get a couple of beer cartons and
have our own party.”
    “A couple of beer cartons?” Adeline laughed.
“I don’t think we can go through that much between the three of
us.”
    “OK. One beer carton. A six-pack.” Kurt
reached down to pull up his T-shirt. He jerked a thumb to his
abdomen. “These . . . are an eight-pack.”
    “Show-off,” I immediately said.
    We all laughed.
    “OK, but I’m the designated driver,” Adeline
said.
    “You have no choice since you won’t let
anyone else touch your father’s old junk,” Kurt shot back.
    “Excuse me? My father won’t let you near his
cars with a