My Secret Rockstar Boyfriend Read Free Page A

from your mistakes. Don’t go for the douchebags.’
    ‘I wish I could learn the same lesson . . . Well, send Seymour a kiss from me.’
    ‘Coo-coo-ca-choo, Mrs Robinson.’
    ‘Daughter, has anyone ever told you you’re too witty for your own good sometimes?’
    My mum is definitely feeling restless at the moment – I know all the signs. It’s been about six months since she and my last ex-stepdad broke up. She gets cross with me when I say
things like ‘my last ex-stepdad’ because she thinks it makes her sound bad. To her credit, I suppose I should add that at least she’s never made me wear a hideous bridesmaid dress
or tried to make me call any of them ‘Uncle Andrew’ or ‘Dad’, or anything repugnant like that.
    ‘After all, you’ve only had two stepfathers, barely even plural – you make it sound so much worse than it really is,’ she protests. ‘People would think I was Henry
VIII, the way you go on!’
    But it
is
technically true. It’s now getting to the point when this is about the longest she’s ever been without a serious boyfriend. Since she was fifteen, as she’s
always telling me. She hates not having a boyfriend, or preferably a husband. I sometimes think she’s a bit like the Sandra Bullock of relationships – a great actress who has the
tendency to pick really bad films.
    I honestly don’t understand it. I’d never had a boyfriend before Seymour, and I’m still not really sure what having a boyfriend is supposed to be like. We just ended up hanging
out together so much as friends that I suppose it seemed like the logical thing to do – unromantic as that sounds. We didn’t ever really have a conversation about it, and it was like
one day he had decided that I was his girlfriend. I wasn’t about to complain, and everyone is
still
telling me how lucky I am to have a boyfriend like Seymour. They don’t know
that he secretly spends forty minutes every morning making his hair look like he hasn’t tried, or that he only pretends to have read Jack Kerouac.
    It’s not really what I always imagined – but, to be fair, it’s probably for the best that it hasn’t been like all my crazy Kurt/Courtney or Sid/Nancy fantasies.
We’re both still taking things very cautiously, even after a year or however long it is – which, most of the time, suits me just fine. I think we’re still both finding our feet
with figuring out what being more than ‘just friends’ entails – we can both be pretty awkward.
    Luckily I’ve always been determined not to be one of those girls who gets carried away by having a boyfriend, forgetting all her friends and letting her principles fly straight out of the
window. So far, that definitely hasn’t happened and I don’t think either of us is in any danger of getting totally carried away.
    I suppose it’s unsurprising that I might choose to be more sensible than my male-fixated mother, but I don’t like to sit about getting too Freudian about it. I can’t stand
people who feel sorry for themselves and blame everything on their parents. I’ve got better things to do, like just getting on with it.
    Whenever I am in danger of feeling down about having no dad – not to mention a mum who sometimes forgets that I exist – I remind myself that other people have it a lot worse. From
what I’ve heard, having a nuclear family can be very overrated. Sometimes I just feel a little bit left out that I’ve never had one, that’s all. It’s yet another one of
those things that I Just Don’t Think About. Sometimes it gets a bit exhausting trying to remember all the millions of things I choose not to obsess over, but it’s better than the
alternative. If I’m not careful I’ll get neurotic about
not
being neurotic.
    Besides, I really like my mum – or Carrie, as she’s more commonly known. Leaving to one side all her own neuroses, general madness, failed relationships and the fact that she chose
to call me Tuesday, we really get on. I was