This Time Around

He was teasing me a lot that night.

Sure, let’s face it, he made it a point to tease and annoy me every night.

But this night was different.

It was like he didn’t want anyone else to notice.

Like, he was just trying to push my buttons.

He was doing everything in his power to turn me on.

And he was doing a damn good job of it.

The past two weeks had helped in lessening my apprehension towards Simon.

I was pretty much back to feeling comfortable around him.

As comfortable as you can feel, anyway, when you wanted him as bad as I did.

And when he knew I wanted him as bad as I did.

And this night was no different; the sexual energy was definitely there.

And the fact that his hands were touching almost every inch of me contributed to the presence of that energy.

“Hi guys, we’re back with American Idol live,” Ryan began as he brought us back from a commercial break. “Have you noticed that this season we have this big, expensive, high tech screen on our set? Alright, let me show you how this thing works. Throw something up there guys, what have we got?”

Some sort of video game, Pong I think it’s called, flashed across the big screen behind him.

The uncanny silence of the audience told me they were confused, as was I, about where he was going with this.

Then again, the producers were masters of dragging the show out, so I assumed this was just another ploy to make this episode last two hours.

“No no no, I mean something exciting,” Ryan continued. “You know, send us into like, sensory overload…whatcha got in there?”

To my horror, the screen changed to the affair clip from last year, cutting in right in time to show the big kiss.

The crowd went wild.

I put my face down on the table to hide my embarrassment and laughter.

I couldn’t escape this damn clip.

Not in my dreams, and not in reality.

I didn’t even want to look at Simon.

So I didn’t, I turned my back to him, facing Randy and hiding my face.

Pulling on my arm Simon tried, to no avail, to make me look at him, but I wouldn’t do it.

“I’m so embarrassed!” I exclaimed.

Embarrassed didn’t even begin to explain it.

Mortified.

Horrified.

Any of those adjectives would work.

God, it was like all of them could see right into my soul.

“There is definitely some tension building between the two of them this season,” Ryan continued, motioning to me and Simon. “I knew we could put that to good use.”

I shot a look at Ryan.

Should have known this was all his doing.

“But let’s get back to the clean world of American Idol, this show was brought to you by - -You’re blushing for the first time ever I think right now,“ Ryan said.

Oh God.

Was my face that red?

I continued to face my right, refusing to look at Simon or, now, towards the stage.

Now the fact that Ryan caught onto my blushing would make this look even worse.

Except…he wasn’t talking about me, he was talking about Simon.

Simon was blushing?

“I’m excited,” Simon said, his voice a little lower and more sensual sounding than normal.

Excited.

Excited??

I went into my overload defensive mode.

I still to this day don’t know why I always felt the need to do this. If anything it only made it more obvious that I wanted him.

“I’m not!” I exclaimed again, hoping to deter any focus on my reactions.

“She’s not,” Ryan echoed me, and I felt Simon reach down and lightly tickle my thigh.

“I’m sick,” I continued, hoping maybe this disgust I was faking would be believable to someone.

Anyone.

“She’s sick,” Ryan continued.

“Don’t believe a word of it,” Simon drawled, smirking.

Ah, he knew me too well.