by Neve Wilder
I stared at him, trying to gauge whether or not he was really mad. He looked… irritated. But not angry. He massaged the space between his brows with the knuckle of his thumb. Yeah, irritated. Angry would set his jaw harder. He was considering it. Who would’ve guessed?
“You wanna do it,” I said, unable to keep the surprise from my voice.
“I wouldn’t mind trying out some of the new stuff.” He shrugged.
“But… people. And… us.” I gestured back and forth between us. “You know some way, somehow, some reporter’s going to manage to catch wind of it and get in there.”
“And they’ll see us. Putting on a show.”
My heart flip-flopped in my chest, but I nodded. A show. Right. That’s all we were doing.
Considering Maize had promised the drum circle would be low-key, I was curious what she’d consider a blowout, because there had to be at least fifty people in the gathering on her front lawn when we pulled up. I’d been expecting something along the lines of ten. Maybe fifteen. I didn’t even know there were fifty locals around Gatlinburg, much less ones under the age of fifty-five. We could hear the drums as we pulled into the long, winding drive, but now that we were next to the circle, the sound loomed and beat at the air around us. The thumping bass reverberated through the rubber tires of the SUV, and Evan seemed reluctant to undo his seat belt as I stopped the car and turned it off. I suspected he was thinking the same thing about the size of the crowd.
“Still want to?” I asked.
He hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. It’ll be fine. I know you’re dying for a change of pace.”
As soon as we got out, Maize detached herself from the big tom she was pounding on and came over, a warm, welcoming smile appling her cheeks. Evan laced his fingers with mine as I came around to his side, and I wasn’t sure who was more surprised, me or Maize. But she didn’t miss a beat, her eyes jumping from our twined hands to our faces as she leaned in and gave us each an air kiss. “Don’t worry. I told anyone if they act a fool, I’m kicking them out. No one’s gonna ask for autographs or get in your face. I promise.”
And she was right. Aside from some initial staring, and maybe one or two folks who stopped playing momentarily, we were absorbed into the circle with no fanfare. Maize pulled Evan down next to her and passed him a bongo drum. The guy I sat next to jutted his chin over his shoulder, without breaking his rhythm, to indicate a couple of drums sitting just behind him. I snatched up a djembe and listened for a while before finding a place where I could add my own rhythm. I’d started as a drummer, so it was probably sacrilege that I’d never participated in a drum circle before. I’d caught one from my hotel room in Asheville once, but it was a completely different animal to sit in the middle of one and contribute. I felt an immediate sense of connection that wasn’t unlike what I felt onstage, but it was somehow bigger, grander, because the audience and the players were one and the same. It was interactive and exhilarating, and I lost myself to the infinite feeling of it. I caught Evan watching me more than a few times, a studious half smile on his face as we played.
“You love it, don’t you?” he said when the circle finally broke to tap into the kegs set out on the front lawn. He scooted nearer to me and spread out on the grass.
“It’s a different vibe. Don’t you feel it?” I was almost high with it, loving the peaceful backdrop of cicadas and the drone of crickets in the late afternoon.
He nodded. Maize dropped off a couple of Solo cups filled with beer, and I guzzled half of mine in one go because I was thirsty as hell. Evan watched me warily.
“I told you I’d DD, dude. I’m not going back on that.”
He gave me a thin smile, and I set the beer down and sprawled backward in the grass. On impulse, I shifted, resting my head on the top of his thigh. His face registered surprise, and then mine probably did the same when he reached down to brush a few strands of hair from my forehead. He kept his hand on my crown of my head, playing with the ends of my hair.
“It’s more diffuse,” he said. “The energy, I mean. Distributed more evenly. I do like it. I’m kinda surprised we haven’t done it before.”
“That’s what I was thinking earlier. It’d be sorta hard to do it now, though.”
“I mean way back when, though, when we were first getting started. We could have.”
“We were focused on writing and getting the record out.” Probably to an unhealthy degree. Making that first album, I’d swear I didn’t sleep more than a few hours the entire time we’d worked on it.
“Even that was different.” He abandoned the ends of my hair to sweep his thumb along my eyebrow, the steady, soothing rhythm making me drowsy. I let my eyes drift shut, content.
“Because we weren’t answering to anything or anyone but ourselves.”
“I miss it,” he said wistfully.
I didn’t. I’d almost burned out at that pace, but I thought what Evan meant was that he missed that fresh energy of possibility, when it felt like the world was hanging on a string and if we could find just the right hook, we could reach out and seize it.
And then we had.
He combed his fingers through my hair, then tapped them lightly over my scalp, playing invisible strings. I wasn’t sure he realized what he was doing, but it was nice as hell. Almost sweet, for Evan.
“What would you be doing if we weren’t doing this?” I asked.
“Nothing. This is it for me. Music is the only thing I’m good at besides bartending, and I hated that.”
I’d always struggled to imagine Evan as a bartender. It had seemed like an odd fit because he was such an introvert. He must have been thinking along the same lines, because as I opened my eyes, he smiled and said, “With music it works because I can keep a stage between me and someone else. A manager between me and reporters if I have to, and I can just ignore the paparazzi most of the time. But spending seven hours in a crowded bar slinging drinks to a bunch of drunk people—it wore me down.”
“There’s me, though. I’m up there on the stage with you. In the bus. In the cabin.”
“You’re different. And besides, I take breaks from you, too.” He finished off his beer and set his empty cup aside. Almost immediately someone brought him a refill. He turned to watch them depart. “People are watching us.”
I laughed. “Of course they are. You’re petting me.”
“I’m not—” His hand stopped moving over me for a second, then resumed. “Yeah, I am. Should I stop?”
“Not unless you want me to start nuzzling into your palm like a cat, which might draw more attention.”
“Touch slut,” he accused, and gave a short, sharp tug to the ends of my hair.
“Unapologetically, and if you pull my hair like that again, you’d better be prepared for what comes next, because that will definitely draw more attention.”
He wiggled around a little, trying to subtly adjust himself, then cleared his throat dramatically. “What would you be doing?”
“Hmmm. I guess I’d be a corporate drone. I would’ve finished college. I’d be a face in a suit. Something in sales, probably.”
He chuckled.
“What’s the funny part? Me in sales, me in a suit, or me with an actual viable future outside of music?”
“The suit. Like some Men’s Wearhouse off-the-rack.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Men’s Wearhouse.”
“Please. You bitched about a Prada off-the-rack once.” Evan honest-to-God grinned one of those rare, delighted grins that was like a shot of epinephrine to the heart.
“Only because I can. And it didn’t fit me right.”
“You do a lot of things because you can. You smile and someone will give you their last dollar,” he said, though it was more musing than disparaging.
I propped myself up on my elbow and brushed a kiss across his lips quicksilver fast before he could jerk backward. “Because I can,” I explained when his brows rose. He hadn’t jerked away, though, just gave my shoulder a
light shove, making the beer I’d picked up again slosh in the cup.
“My music career wouldn’t have gone anywhere, though,” I said. “Not without you. Everyone knows that. Even you. Maybe I’d make some money off lyrics. But most likely I would’ve tooled around bars for another couple of years while I finished my degree, then I’d have been absorbed by the American machine. Gone on to live in a suburb, maybe put a drum kit and guitar in the garage that I’d go down and bang around on every once and awhile. I’d be just another paycheck.” I swallowed the last of my beer and tossed the empty cup beside me on the grass.
Something passed over his face, unreadable to me, which wasn’t unusual lately. His mouth went a little slack, like he was about to say something, and just then Maize called out to us with a big, swooping gesture of her arms.
Evan closed his mouth and hopped up, extending his hand out to pull me up, too.
The sun dropped behind the tree line, leaving the sky glazed in a syrupy orange that darkened and turned the color of a bruise as night fell. Someone started a fire in the pit behind Maize’s cabin, and we ate hot dogs coated in char from the open flame. Evan was laughing at something somebody whose name I’d forgotten was saying. He had a relaxed smile on his face that I couldn’t stop staring at—one I’d seen more of over the past couple of weeks than I’d seen on our entire last tour. He sprawled his legs out in the grass, stretching his arms behind him to look up at the sky as the guy he’d been talking to drifted off, and I dropped down beside him with another hot dog. He shook his head when I offered him a bite.
“My mom used to take me on these camping trips every year. It was our big trip. A KOA somewhere. Usually in state, but God I loved it,” he said. I’d once asked him about his dad, who ditched out before Evan was born, but he never cared to talk about it, said the guy left and that was it for him. I knew he gave money to his mom. I wasn’t sure how much, but enough that she was able to quit one of her jobs. Evan had said she kept the other cleaning houses out of stubborn pride. When he’d told me that, I felt so shitty about hoarding my earnings, I started setting aside a quarter of it each year and paying it out anonymously to local charities. That was another reason I liked Evan. I was far from perfect, but he was the only one who ever made me want to try to be a better human just by being himself.
“Every year?”
“Almost. The only time we didn’t go was when I was fifteen and she used up all the savings to buy the Martin.” Evan still brought that particular guitar everywhere. I knew the story. How he’d ask his mom to take him to the music store downtown every other week to play it because the sound was so much better than the shitty second-hand he’d saved up for by cutting yards and washing cars after school and on the weekends.
“We should do this more.”
“Go to drum circles and eat hot dogs and drink beer?”
“Yeah. Simple stuff. I mean, doesn’t it feel good?” The way he looked up at me then, with that loose, drowsy smile and the fire making his eyes glossy and large, hit me deep inside, spread warm through me like melted butter. It felt so damn good I could almost forget all the crap that had come before. And might be yet to come.
I went inside to get a water bottle and use the john and got sidetracked on the way back by a cute little twink who asked me about fifty different questions about our music and touring. When the conversation turned to my relationship with Evan, I begged off and went back outside to find him. I was ready to leave, but Evan wasn’t by the fire pit where I’d left him. Everyone had scattered wide over the lawn in little clusters. A girl with pink hair saw me looking around in confusion and told me he’d gone down to the pond with some other folks. Her blue-haired friend disagreed, telling me he was with Maize, who was showing him her chicken coop. I laughed at that and dug out my phone.
Les: You better not be looking at other cocks with Maize.
Evan: Wtf?
Evan: Oh. Yeah. Already saw ’em. Stiff competition for sure. Jealous?
Les: I don’t do jealousy.
Evan: Ever? I don’t believe that.
Les: Seriously. Where r u?
Evan: On the dock. Come down. I think this guy is trying to hit on me. Need backup.
Les: Tell him your boyfriend will break his face. I don’t care if he’s a fan.
Evan: I thought you didn’t do jealousy?
Les: I do it selectively when the person in question is my fake boyfriend.
Lie. Total, total lie. I was seething with jealousy right then, wondering if Evan was actually serious and there was some dude down there hitting on him.
Evan: Oh. Right. I forgot.
Les: No you didn’t. But if you need a reminder, I’m more than willing to give you one.
Evan: Maybe. When we get back to the cabin? Because I might pass out.
I looked around and caught sight of a greenhouse-looking structure off in the distance.
Les: No. Now. Not willing to risk your lightweight ass passing out.
Evan: Maybe. Kinda busy here.
Les: Will. Break. His. Face. Get the fuck up here. Greenhouse. Five minutes.
Chapter 27
I half thought Evan wouldn’t show up. Five minutes passed. I pulled a few needles from the boughs of the pine above me and broke them between my fingers, inhaling the pungent scent. Another minute and I was just about to walk back toward the house when I glimpsed a dark silhouette weaving in my direction. Evan stumbled over something on the grass, and I chuckled as he closed in. “Got caught up on the way. Man, Maize is a chatterbox.”
“You’re drunk,” I observed, amused. His hair was windblown, cheeks slightly flushed. Not that I minded. Hell, I wished I was there with him, but I was trying to show him I could be reliable and not a fuckup.
“I’m not.” He bullied right on into me, knocking me into a tree trunk, then took a step back, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking around. “So.”
“So,” I repeated.
He cleared his throat. “Here we are in the trees, which is weird.”
“You’ve never made out in the woods before?”
He shrugged. “Not that I can remember, nope.”
“Oh c’mon, you’re a country boy. Really?”
He tipped his head back, gazing up into the boughs in thought, then shook his head. “Nope, nothing. I was always working for extra money or playing music or… I didn’t get invited to many parties. Any parties.”
“Shit, that’s kind of depressing.”
“It is what it is.” He shrugged, then laughed at my expression. “Are you really pitying me? Don’t. I didn’t miss out on anything.”
“That’s ’cause you didn’t know any better.” I reached out and caught his wrists in my hands. “Let’s fix that.”
He let me pull him closer, his chest bumping up against me, and when I hooked two fingers over the collar of his shirt and tugged, his mouth slanted hungrily toward mine, teeth scraping at my lower lip. I kept my grip on his collar and walked him backward across the grass until his back was against the greenhouse, the glass still warm when I pressed my palms into it, caging him in.
“Definitely drunk.” My whisper came out a little garbled between the action of our tongues. He tasted like cinnamon and licorice.
Evan pulled back an inch. “Maybe that last shot was overkill. But I’m fine. Shut up before you ruin this.”
I wasn’t good at shutting up. “Ruin what?”
“What I’m considering doing to your cock.”
I lied. All hail shutting the fuck up.
He reached for the string tie on my shorts and yanked it loose with one hand, pushing my shirt up with his other and pinching one of my nipples so hard I hissed out in pain. He chased the sting with the heat of his mouth, dragging his lips across my chest as it rose and fell with my shallow breaths.
“You’re so easy to get hard,” he mused, like this was some fascinating aspect of my character.
“Don’t preen. I’m always horny.” And when it was Evan, I
was as combustible as gasoline near an open flame. I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of telling him that, though.
“Yeah, I’ve gathered that over the thousands of hours we’ve been together.”
“Shhhh. It’s hotter when your mouth is closed.”
“Yeah?” He tugged my shorts down my thighs, easing to his knees as he did so. “You sure about that?”
Who was this man and where could I get more of him? Should I start spiking his morning OJ?
His breath streaked hot over my cock, and as he looked at me expectantly, I realized I hadn’t answered because I was fixated on the sight of him kneeling in front of me, his mouth a scant half inch from my raging hard-on. This was a sight I’d only ever dreamed of, so he’d have to excuse me for a couple of seconds while I made sure it was properly encoded into my spank bank for life. I’d be making frequent withdrawals in the future, no doubt, after we went back to the real world.
“I’m willing to reconsider,” I said after a moment. “Open that pretty mouth, Porter, and make me reconsider.”
I expected some kind of resistance, or some smartass comment. Instead, Evan kept his gaze fastened to mine as he leaned forward, dragged the tip of his tongue across my slit, and licked his lips.
“Shit,” I hissed out. The look in his eyes was a perfectly sinful mashup of daring and desire, a little teasing, and a whole universe of sexy that was way hotter than I’d given him credit for in my jerk fantasies. “More,” I demanded, my gaze dropping to his mouth as it hovered in front of my cock. I still couldn’t believe this was happening.
He flicked his tongue against me again, and I shivered. Then he opened wide and took me to the back of his throat, and my knees almost gave out at the torturous wet slick of his lips wrapped around me. “God, that’s good,” I gasped, and he murmured something that translated only as vibration. Delicious, hot vibration that coiled around the base of my cock. I was sober as fuck, and the guy who could give me a contact boner the way some people got contact highs was on his knees going to town on my dick. I’d clearly died, and as it turned out, the afterlife was fucking awesome.