Nicole's face flickered in my head and I knew what I needed to do. Grow a damn backbone with the stranger.

"You okay?" Tristan asked me, like he could sense I was deep in thought.

"Yeah," I answered back. "I was just thinking about what you asked earlier." I wanted to vomit but that would be terrible. Beyond terrible. "I think Andrew Wood has a perfect dick."

The noise that came out of his throat, not his mouth, sounded like a backed up dishwasher.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times. Those pretty pink lips moved silently up and down for no apparent reason. The movement of his mouth made it seem like he was having a silent conversation with me. He looked flustered as he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, making another funny noise deep in his throat.

"Well, um..." he said with a gravelly voice, looking down at the concrete floor beneath us. The sound of robots chiming from his pocket broke the awkward silence we were in as Tristan fished into the front of his jeans for his cell. "I'm sorry, I need to take this. Hold on a second, okay?" he asked, already pressing what I could assume was the answer button. In less than a second, he slipped the phone into the space between his ear and the cotton of his hoodie.

We walked slowly through the crowd while he talked quietly into the phone. The only thing I heard him say was "Five minutes... yes... I understand..." Tristan's eyes stayed glued to the floor as he made his way through the throngs of people.

I eased my step to follow his trail because his much larger frame moved through the crowd easier than my average-sized one. He was so tall that the top of my head only grazed his broad shoulder. He turned around to make sure I was still following him, even though he was on the phone.

Having memorized the map of where Andrew Wood's signing booth would be, I knew we were really close, and I spotted a small line just a few feet ahead. A giddy feeling spread through my body all of a sudden, knowing I was just minutes away from meeting the man who had kept me company for so many nights via the internet.

We were right in front of the booth at the same time that Tristan ended his call with a long, drawn out sigh. The line was already about ten people deep, facing a large poster of a girl with a Texas-sized amount of jizz spread all over her face. "ANDREW WOOD" was printed across the bottom of the poster in huge, block font.

Like the perv I was, my eyes stayed glued to the pearl necklace made of bodily fluids spotting the girl.

I eased my way into the short line while my new acquaintance pocketed his phone and cast a wary glance at the line of females ahead of me. He ducked his head a little more before facing me again.

Tristan gave me a soft smile. "I'm sorry about that. Someone is waiting for me. I need to get going."

I wanted to ask him why he'd been so vague every time I had seen him, but that would have been kind of weird. We barely knew each other, so I just nodded and forced a smile. "Okay."

My auburn-haired companion shoved his hands deep into the front pockets of his low-slung jeans, and I caught sight of the sliver of creamy skin where his hoodie failed to meet denim. "I'm," he whispered, as he took a step closer to me when the woman in front of me turned to give us a curious look. "I'm glad that I found you digging in your butt."

"Oh God, I was only picking my undies out," I murmured, trying to keep my voice low enough that the nosey woman didn't hear us.

He smiled a big, toothy grin only a foot away from my face since he was ducking to talk to me. "Whatever you say," he teased. "Thank you for lunch, Kat."

"You're welcome."

"I really need to go," he said, straightening up. "I'm glad I met you."