by Roan Parrish
Rhys was quietly cracking up. “How long did it take you to, um, dazzle camouflage yourself?”
“Oh, like three hours.”
“Weren’t you hot?” I asked. “In a jacket, in August, in a club full of people?”
“Oh, yeah, I fucking roasted! I’m shocked the makeup didn’t just drip off my face,” Theo said, still grinning. “Totally worth it.”
I smiled at the image of Theo’s camouflage slowly sweating off, revealing him in the crowd of music fans.
“So, the show?” I asked.
“Oh, right! It was this band, Carapace—know them?” The question was clearly directed at Rhys, since I never knew any bands. He shook his head. “All-female metal band—or, no, there was one dude—and the lead singer’s amazing, and their stuff is, like…soaring and melodic and harsh and grungy, and the songs are super smart. Like there was this one song, where…”
And then Theo was off, dissecting the song down to the bones, and I drifted, letting his words wash over me like the familiar evening breeze. Happy.
* * *
—
Rhys was leaving Tuesday morning, and he spent Monday packing because he’d left it to the last minute, claiming that things took as long as you gave them and there was no point dragging it out over days.
I made list after list of things he’d probably need, driving to the Target in White Plains once and the nearby drugstore twice, even though Rhys insisted he could pick up anything on the road, as if by sending him off with everything he needed, I could somehow guarantee the whole tour would go well.
At home, I double- and triple-checked the lists, and moved the piles around to see how to maximize the space in his duffel bag.
“Baby,” he said finally, cupping my shoulders. “You’re making me nervous. Do you want to go watch TV or read or something?”
“No, sorry. Sorry, I’ll stop.” I didn’t want to be banished from Rhys’s company when he was leaving in the morning, so I curled up in the window seat and sat on my hands when I’d started biting my nails. But after a few more minutes when I couldn’t stop fidgeting, I said, “Maybe I should make dinner.”
“Okay, sure, thanks.”
I nodded and wandered into the kitchen. But we hadn’t gotten anything to grill, and the only things I ever really cooked were boxed mac and cheese and tater tots. Rhys had fits over the way I would eat cold stew from the can or have cheese and crackers for dinner. I couldn’t have Rhys’s last meal before he left be cold cereal and Hot Pockets.
“I’m going out for a minute,” I called up the stairs, truck keys jangling in my shaking hand.
“Okay, take your phone,” Rhys called back.
I called in an order to Rhys’s favorite barbecue joint and drove around aimlessly until it was ready to pick up.
Over barbecued brisket and pulled pork, onion rings, and corn on the cob, Rhys talked like it was any other dinner. Hell, he’d toured often enough with other people that maybe it really was no big deal to him. But I felt the urgency of each minute ticking by, like each sentence I uttered took up time that meant another one couldn’t be.
“I got it,” I said, when Rhys started to clean up. “Go finish your packing.”
The smell of barbecue sauce was overpowering, even after I packed the take-out containers into the trash, so I took the garbage out. The evening air was cool, and the first stars were coming out as the sky darkened.
I’d hated this time of day for as long as I could remember. I felt the slow slide from day into night in my stomach.
I turned my back on the sunset and went to find Rhys. “What can I do?”
“Nothing, I’m done. Just hang with me. Want to go sit outside?”
I didn’t mind dusk so much if I was with Rhys. I nodded. We grabbed a couple of beers and sprawled out.
“Where are you most looking forward to going?” I pictured Rhys’s tour list, which I’d taped to the refrigerator weeks ago. I’d never been anywhere, and I enjoyed hearing Rhys talk about all the places he’d visited.
“Hmm. Well, I always love playing New Orleans. It’ll be good to be back.” Rhys had spent a lot of time in New Orleans, even lived there with Caleb for a little while. “Austin’s great. But I’m really looking forward to the drive through Montana to get to the Seattle show.”
He reached for my hand and tugged me closer.
“I think you’d love Montana, babe. It’s beautiful—wild and isolated. Kind of reminds me of you, actually.” He kissed my hand. “We should go for real sometime.”
I squeezed his hand and nodded.
* * *
—
When Rhys’s manager had first begun setting up this tour, Rhys had invited me along excitedly. He knew how much I wanted to travel.
“You can go explore during the day, come to shows at night if you want. When you get sick of my music, you can just hang at the hotel, or a bar. Whatever you want. But at least you’d get to see some places you’ve never been.”
The idea had sounded nice on the surface, and it made my heart feel full that he wanted me there. The reality was that I couldn’t ditch work for two months, and as much as he made it sound good, I knew from hearing him talk about touring that it was mostly sitting around in buses and hotel rooms and backstage.
More than that, though, much as I wanted to see the world, this wasn’t how I wanted to do it. This was Rhys’s show. He’d worked tirelessly in the background for years, and now he was the star, and he shouldn’t have to worry about me being bored in some hotel room or annoyed because people insisted on talking to me all the time. He should get to enjoy being the star.
I’d shaken my head and said I couldn’t miss work, and he’d nodded, like I knew he would.
“You’d probably hate it, actually,” he’d said, running a regretful hand through his hair. “I just…I don’t want the distance to come between us. I don’t want to not be with you.” Then his voice had gotten small and scared. “Maybe I shouldn’t go.”
It was the fear he’d always had rearing its head. That he couldn’t have a career in music and a committed partnership. And in that moment I decided that I would do anything to make sure that he could have both. To make sure that both of his dreams could come true. He deserved to have everything.
“Don’t say that,” I’d told him. “You’re going. You’re a brilliant musician, and people love the album. We’re gonna be fine.”
He’d cupped my face in his hands, his eyes searching mine. “Yeah? Are you sure?”
I’d nodded and kissed him, and he’d smiled that smile of joy that lit me up every time I saw it, and I’d made a vow to myself that I would make sure of it.
In bed that night, we went at each other like we were starving. Starving to touch and taste every inch. Starving to be inside one another’s skin. Rhys sucked my cock while he fingered me, holding me down until I was begging him to fuck me. Then he slapped my ass and flipped us so I was straddling his hips.
I ran my hands over his gorgeous torso. Laid out like this he looked even more like a superhero than usual, and I smiled, knowing that even though he’d flick my nose or snort if I said as much, he liked looking like a superhero just fine. Liked how powerful his body was. Loved how much I liked how powerful his body was.
“Get this gorgeous ass on my dick,” he growled. A flush stained his chest, and his eyes burned like neon fire.
I sank down on Rhys’s cock slowly. He was thick and long, and in this position it felt like I would never take all of him. But I did, and my heart pounded in my ears.
“Oh, fuck, fuck.” I reached out blindly, and Rhys grabbed my hands. He tilted his hips up, and we both groaned. I moved on him wildly, the friction building to something just out of reach. My erection slapped against my stomach, and my thigh muscles were about three seconds from giving out. “Rhys, God, pleas
e,” I panted.
“You need me to make you come?” he said, voice a silken promise. I nodded, my legs jelly and my arousal so huge I couldn’t think around it. Rhys crunched up, stomach muscles etching deep, to purr filth into my ear. I nodded desperately at every word. Then my legs gave out, and my whole weight rested on him. I was impaled on his cock, trembling. Rhys pulsed his hips upward, rocking into me even though I’d thought he couldn’t get any deeper.
I scrabbled at his chest, needing him so badly I couldn’t do anything.
“Fuck, baby, I love you so much like this.” A broken moan escaped my throat, and Rhys surged into action. He lifted me by the hips and flipped us over as if I weighed nothing. He pressed my legs up and held my ankles as he fucked me breathless. He was muscles and flashing blue eyes and a blur of messy blond hair and just when I thought I would tip over the edge, everything stopped.
“No, no, no,” I whimpered.
Rhys slid inside me so slowly it felt endless. When he bottomed out, he leaned forward and kissed me. My cock was so hard it was jerking against my stomach with every shift of Rhys’s hips. Rhys pressed my wrists to the bed when I reached for it. He pulled out and slid back in again, at that same glacial speed that was fucking up my nervous system. My ass twitched and my dick jumped and my heart pounded.
“Look at me,” he said, voice a rasp. Looking into those fiery eyes flayed me open like this. It was too much, too close. I craved it, and I wanted to scramble away from it like a tiny animal. My heart felt too close to the surface of my skin, my need too visible. I squeezed my eyes shut and Rhys let me.
“I love you,” he said. “You know how much I love you, right? Tell me.”
My face burned and my stomach froze. I was so turned on, and when he said shit like that when I was like this…it took me the fuck apart.
“I love you,” I said, choked. It was all I could say.
Rhys let go of my wrist and cupped my cheek. He kissed me, and I twined the fingers of my freed hand in his hair and tugged. Then we were fucking, fast and hot, hips thrusting, hands everywhere, mouths fused together.
Rhys growled, seeming frustrated that he couldn’t get his entire self inside me, and practically lifted me off the bed with the force of his thrusts. I clutched his shoulders and wrapped my ankles around his hips and held on as he fucked me to an orgasm so powerful it whited out my vision. I cried out as the pleasure surged through me, a lightning strike that found me flat on my back on the bed as Rhys’s hips stuttered and then he sank into me, roaring out his own release as heat flooded me.
My head was buzzing, and my muscles were liquid, and Rhys’s heavy weight on top of me was the best thing in the world. He moaned into my neck and pressed a soft kiss behind my ear. I loved his transition from fuckbeast to cuddlemonster.
After a minute, he started to pull out and I grabbed his hip before I even realized it.
“What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”
I shook my head, but I didn’t move my hand.
“Can you…stay like that?”
I felt the rumble of Rhys’s moan more than I heard it. Then his mouth was at my ear again. “You want me to hold you all night with my dick inside you? Want to feel like you belong to me even when we’re asleep?”
Rhys’s voice was filthy and intimate. Hot shame pulsed through me, and my spent cock gave an impossible twitch. I nodded.
Rhys rearranged us so we were lying on our sides, still connected, him spooned behind me, to one side of the wet spot I’d made. Some of Rhys’s come seeped down my thigh as we moved, everything wet and slick. But just as I was deciding maybe this was a terrible idea, Rhys pulled the covers up over us and slid his palm between my legs.
He cupped my balls and gave my exhausted cock a few gentle strokes, making me gasp despite myself. He thrust his hips gently until I could feel his dick firm up a little inside me. Then he pulled me back so we were tight together, threw his top leg over me, and wrapped his arm around me. He was behind me, all around me, inside me. I clenched my ass experimentally, making sure I could feel him, and we both groaned.
“Fucking hot,” he said. His hand drifted down my ribs and over my hip to my ass. He traced the place where we were joined with one callused fingertip, rubbing his come into my skin. “I’m inside you,” he murmured. “Part of me will still be inside you when I leave.”
I moaned. It was exactly what I had wanted.
Chapter 3
Noé Caldera slouched into my office fifteen minutes late for his appointment on Tuesday morning, radiating a deep desire to be elsewhere.
“You strike three or what?” he asked, eyes narrowed.
“Nope. Imari just figured if she and Fernando weren’t a great fit for you, maybe I would be.”
He stared at me. It was probably supposed to be intimidating or rude, but all it meant to me was that he was still here, and if he was still here, maybe I could help.
“Argento. You Italian?” he asked finally.
“Half.”
“What’s the other half?”
“Pure charm and outrageous good looks,” I deadpanned. “So you wanna keep shopping the Mariposa staff or you wanna let me help you?”
He snorted and dropped into the plastic seat, legs spread, slouching. Then he leaned forward, eyes narrowing again. “Puerto Rican?”
I rolled my eyes. “My mother was from southern Italy; my father was Mexican-American. My blood type is A positive, I’m an Aquarius, and I like long walks in the park. All right? Anything else?”
“It’s chill,” he said, adjusting the brim of his hat.
“What a relief,” I said, and he gave me a wry smile that was the twin of the one I felt on my own mouth.
We spent the next hour going over his transcripts and job history, both of which were moth-eaten with absences and notes on his authority-averse behavior. He had a juvenile record that was sealed and insisted that it didn’t matter what he wanted to do because no one was going to let him do it.
“You don’t know that,” I told him. “Expecting the worst is useful for managing disappointment. But after a while it just means you don’t try shit anymore. Then you’re the one not letting yourself do anything.”
He glared. “That’s a good one, you got postcards?”
I glared back. “Sure, lemme write it down for you.” I took out a half-piece of scrap paper, flipped it over, and wrote, Sometimes other people stop you. They’re dicks. If you stop yourself, it means you’re a dick too.
I handed it to him. When he read it he smiled. A real smile, warm and unself-conscious. Then he folded it into a small square and shoved it in his pocket.
“Okay, fine,” he said. “I get it. They stuck me with you cuz you’re one of us.”
“Yeah, how could you tell?”
He tapped his temple. “I got foster-dar. I can always tell.”
He was trying to get a rise out of me, but it was an interesting way in.
“What is it that you think we all have in common that you’re picking up on?”
His shrug was a quick roll of the shoulders. “Big talk.” When I didn’t say anything, his gaze dropped to his own hands on his bouncing knees. He shrugged again, a nervous tic. “Gotta talk big if no one else’s gonna talk for you.”
I nodded. “I want to help you think as big as you talk. Maybe you’ll fail. Maybe you won’t get everything you want. That’s okay. It happens to everyone, even people with parents and money and fancy cars.”
“You think as big as you talk?” he asked, gaze intense.
I considered my life, so very far from what I had ever imagined it might be when I was Noé’s age. The fear that still held me hostage despite it.
“Some days I do.”
* * *
—
The night before, I’d fallen asleep with Rhys still inside me and wo
ken hours later to his hot breath on my neck and his cock swelling in my ass as he rocked gently against me. We’d fucked slowly, dreamily, until the fire caught us and I found myself sprawled on my belly with Rhys groaning into my back and my erection catching wicked friction on the sheets.
My orgasm was almost painful, wringing me dry, and Rhys came with a muffled whine before gathering me in his arms and falling back asleep.
I’d awoken this morning with my face in Rhys’s armpit and him sprawled on top of me. I’d felt raw, my eyes like sandpaper, lips kiss-swollen, and ass sore. Then I’d remembered that Rhys was leaving, and the ache in my belly eclipsed them all. We’d showered together without talking, and I’d trailed after Rhys as he gathered his things in the early-morning light.
When his ride had arrived, he’d swept me into his arms and held me close, and it had taken an actual push of willpower to wrench my arms from around him. He’d kissed me and promised he’d call whenever he could and told me he loved me. I’d whispered it back against his lips because I hadn’t trusted my voice.
I’d left for work right away so I wouldn’t have any time to think about him being gone. Now it was seven o’clock on a Tuesday evening, and I wasn’t sure what to do. I wandered through the empty house as if I might find Rhys in a cupboard or under a chair like a misplaced book. I’d been in the house without him before, of course, but never without the promise of his imminent return.
I was used to feeling alone, but being alone wasn’t something I had much experience with. Living in a two-bedroom apartment with my mom, an aunt, and four cousins as kid, it was catch-as-catch-can with beds, couches, and sleeping bags. Foster families meant sharing rooms, always hyperaware of every sound and movement. At St. Jerome’s it was rows of bunk beds in each room, always someone snuffling, snoring, or talking in their sleep. And New York rents never found me with fewer than three roommates at a time.