by Lane Hart
“Fine,” Tess agrees with a sigh. She gives me another minute before we start walking down the sidewalk again. “This better?”
“Yes,” I say. “Let me recover, then we can alternate jogging and walking.”
“Deal,” she agrees.
“So, are you excited about tonight?” I ask.
“A little nervous,” Tess admits.
“Why? It’ll be nothing but good for you,” I promise her. “And if you’re not enjoying yourself, tell us and we’ll stop.”
“I know, it’s just sort of intimidating to think about being naked with two men.”
“Intimidating? How’s that?” I ask. “Your body is fucking amazing. Must be all the running you do.”
Tess laughs and says, “Thanks. Back home, I did try to get up and run a few miles before work every morning. Then I was lazy on the weekends.”
“What’s it like back home?” I ask, since I don’t know much about her. Our time together is usually just physical or sleeping. But I want to know more about her. Hell, I wouldn’t mind knowing everything there is to know about her.
“It’s lonely, I guess,” she says, her brows drawn together as her eyes remain focused on the ground in front of us. “I didn’t realize how lonely until I lived in a house with two other people. Since I left college, I’ve been living on my own.”
“Oh yeah? Where did you go to college?”
“Santa Clara University,” Tess replies with a grin. “Not that I wanted to go to college. I would have liked to stay on the road with my dad.”
“Your dad?” I ask in confusion. “What did he do?”
Glancing over at me, she says, “He was a singer, the front man in a hair metal band that was pretty successful in the eighties and early nineties. Not so much over the last twenty years, but that never stopped my dad from continuing to pursue his dream.”
“So you know all about the rock star life, huh?”
“I do. I loved it, actually. In the summers, I would travel with him and his band in their big conversion van from city to city. They didn’t perform in arenas, just bars he had to sneak me into, probably like you guys did starting out. Still, though, he loved being on the stage, even if I was the only one listening and they were playing cover songs.”
As Tess opens up about herself, I can’t help but think that something happened to her dad, the way she talks about him in the past tense.
“You said loved. Does that mean your dad gave up on the life?” I ask softly.
“No, he never gave up. But he passed away six years ago, an accidental overdose,” she explains. “At least, I like to think it was accidental.”
My feet come to a stop on the sidewalk as that news settles in, and her steps halt too. Tess lost her father to drugs. No wonder she was so determined to help me get sober. “Damn, I’m so sorry, Tess,” I tell her.
“Yeah, it sucked. I was a senior in high school, planning to graduate and travel with him for good. He was even going to let me start singing with the band. Then we got the news, a few weeks before my graduation.”
“Had he struggled, you know, with drugs before?” I ask.
“He did. It was just such a part of him and the lifestyle that I never imagined he would go so far…”
“That’s awful, baby.”
Tess nods. “After he passed away, I decided to go to college. My mom harped on me about not wasting my life like my dad did, trying to become a singer, so I gave up on my dream and hit the books instead.”
“So you wanted to be a singer? You have a great voice,” I tell her, easily able to picture her being on stage with us. I’ll have to talk to Ford and the guys about adding a part for her into a few of the new songs.
“I did, but my mom was right. Not everyone is meant to perform on a stage. Some of us are just paper pushers that are supposed to be behind the scenes. I decided when I graduated that I wanted to work with musicians, helping them achieve their dreams. You guys don’t know how lucky you are to be successful,” she tells me.
“You’re right,” I reply. “I think we’ve sort of been taking that shit for granted the last few years. All of us have been going through the motions, but our hearts weren’t in it, not like when we played in Ford’s garage as teenagers, making music for the hell of it.”
“You can still bounce back,” Tess says, as we start to walk slowly side by side again. “Getting you sober was the first step, then giving Ford the space to think and write. Next, Clarke needs to put the music together, and you guys will be on your way.”
Her voice drifts off quietly on the last sentence, like she isn’t looking forward to the ending.
“Will you miss us once our work here is all done?” I ask.
“Yes,” she answers, without having to consider the question. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget the four of you.”
Grabbing her hand and lacing our fingers together, I tell her, “We won’t be able to forget you either, Tess.”
I’m not the only one who is falling for her. Clarke has too, and Ford is so obsessed with her, he’s been writing love ballads. I can only guess that Davis cares about her too, as much as the angry ogre can feel for someone.
Flashing me a smile before her eyes lower to the sidewalk again, Tess keeps holding my hand as we walk, but says, “Sure you will. As soon as you have groupies fighting each other to get close to you.”
“I haven’t had much interest in groupies lately,” I tell her honestly. “Even before I was drinking so much I couldn’t fuck, the random faces and bodies were all starting to run together. Hell, maybe that was the alcohol then too. But I’d like to think that I just wanted more than what they could offer me.”
“Even in his forties, my dad was handsome and charming enough to pull groupies. He never got tired of them,” Tess shares with me. “And my mom hated that about him. I think she was even jealous of me.”
“Jealous of you? Why?” I ask, with my brow furrowed.
“Because after he knocked her up, he disappeared until I was born. Then he kept in touch with me throughout the years when I was in school. He asked me to go to gigs with him in the summer as soon as my mom would let me go with him, which was when I was fifteen. All of those things were more than he ever offered her,” Tess explains.
“Of course he cared about you. You were his daughter, a part of him,” I say. “She had no right to be jealous.”
“She never misses a chance to tell me that I was a careless accident from the one night she drank too much at a shitty White Stallion concert and met my father.”
“Jeez,” I mutter, angry that a woman would do that to her daughter. “It wasn’t like you made her fuck him!”
“Nope,” she agrees. “Still, my mom was only nineteen when she had me, so I messed up her future. Instead of going to college, she was suddenly a single mother of a baby with an absentee father who didn’t care about her and never would.”
“Do you have a relationship with your mom now?” I ask, thinking about my own dysfunctional family of alcoholics.
“Not often. I don’t even go home for all the holidays anymore. Until I went to college and had some separation from her, I didn’t realize how toxic she was in my life. I’m not happy when I’m around her, so I don’t subject myself to spending time with her often.”
“You have to do what’s best for you,” I assure her. “My parents and I don’t talk either. That’s why I didn’t mind staying with Ford.”
“Oh really? Why not?” she asks, giving my fingers still weaved with hers a supportive squeeze.
“I guess you could say that my drinking without limits is hereditary. They stay pretty wasted. And while I send them money every month, I’m pretty sure they spend it all on booze and still live in the same shitty trailer.”
“Wow, that’s awful, Ben,” Tess says. “You’re not going to end up like them, you know?”
“I’m not entirely sure about that,” I disagree.
“You won’t, because you’re
stronger than the addiction and you have friends who care about you,” she remarks.
“And I have you,” I point out. “I sleep better than I ever have with you beside me at night.”
“I like having you in bed with me too,” she replies, flashing me her beautiful smile.
“Are you going to let Clarke spend the whole night with us?” I ask with a salacious grin.
“Probably,” she agrees, her cheeks turning a bright shade of crimson. “He told his mom that he would probably be working on songs late with Ford…”
“And busy sharing you with me the rest of the night.”
“Something like that,” she agrees with a puff of laughter.
Chapter 21
Ford
“You got someplace to be, or expecting a call?” I ask Clarke, when he keeps pulling out his phone and checking it while we’re sitting on the roof going over the lyrics I wrote down in a notepad.
“Something like that,” he answers with a grin.
Groaning, I say, “Let me guess. Tess?”
“Maybe,” he says, with a smile so huge I know that I guessed right.
“What have you two got planned?” I ask.
“All you need to know is that I’m spending the night,” he tells me, making me want to slap the smirk off his face. Instead of hitting him, I try to knock it off with words.
“It’s gonna be a tight fit in her bed, since Ben will probably be there too,” I tell him and watch his face, waiting for it fall in disappointment.
That doesn’t happen.
In fact, Clarke just glances away and runs his palms over the tops of his sweatpants. “Yeah, I know,” he eventually replies.
“You know?” I repeat. “That’s it? You know, and you’re gonna, what? Wedge in between them?”
“More like we’ll be wedging Tess between us,” he says, before biting his lip like he thinks he said too much.
“Back the fuck up!” I exclaim. “You two are gonna tag team her? No way. If Tess wants to be with two men, then why the hell didn’t I get invited? I fucking live here!”
“At least you’ll have your notebook to keep you company tonight,” Clarke teases with a chuckle.
“Fuck the notebook!” I shout, before I sling the damn thing off the roof like a frisbee into the yard below. “I want to be with her too!”
Clarke holds both of his hands up in front of him and says, “Hey, don’t get pissed at me. It’s not my decision.”
“This is just wrong,” I tell him. Then I come up with an evil plan. “I mean, Ben and I have fucked groupies together, but Tess? That’s asking for trouble, especially if it keeps happening and then she picks one person.”
“If she picks one person, it’ll be me,” Clarke says confidently, right about the time Tess and Ben stroll into view around the corner, holding hands.
“Really? You think so?” I ask sarcastically with a chuckle. “What about Ben? Who do you think he’s betting on?”
“No, she won’t pick him over me,” Clarke shakes his head and says softly, as they come closer.
“Tess took care of Ben when he was detoxing. Wouldn’t leave his side for days,” I throw out, just to get him twisted up, because I’m an evil bastard who wants what he has.
“That…that was nothing but pity,” Clarke declares.
“If you say so,” I tell him with a shrug of my shoulders, as I put the pen cap in my mouth to replace the cigarette I long for. “But Ben and Tess sleep together every night. And she must be really close with Davis, since she goes to see him a lot.”
“A lot? How much is a lot?” Clarke’s neck whips around to ask me in a rush.
“Hmm,” I say, as I roll my eyes to the clouds in thought. “At least three or four times a week.”
“Fuck,” he mutters.
“I take it that’s more times than you’ve been with her, huh?”
“Shut the fuck up!” he barks at me.
“Don’t you see what a bad idea this is?” I ask him. “You’re the brains of the group. Don’t you realize the potential this has to go all Yoko up in here?”
“Yoko?” Clarke asks.
“Yeah, Yoko Ono, coming between the four of us and ruining shit.”
“Tess wouldn’t do that,” he declares with a shake of his head.
“She already is!” I exclaim, loud enough that Tess and Ben both tilt their heads up and find us watching them. “Hey, guys!” I call out with a wave of my hand. “My notebook fell. Mind grabbing it for me?” I point it out to them in the grass below us. Since Ben doesn’t drop Tess’s hand, they both go over and retrieve it.
“How’s it going?” Ben asks, and I figure he means the music and not the fact that I’m going to lose my mind and go gray while trying to figure out how to get in Tess’s bed. It’s bad enough I have to listen to her and Ben fuck. A threesome tonight? Jesus Christ, I’m gonna need to wear my noise-canceling headphones. Or watch. Yeah, I wouldn’t mind watching, even if it’s pathetic and will make me want her that much more. Seeing her head thrown back in pleasure, back arching her tits out, was sexy as fuck. Too bad Ben’s big ass body was blocking the rest of her the other day.
“The songs are great. Ford’s on a roll,” Clarke answers him while I’m lost in my dirty thoughts. “We’ve been working on the music to two of them. If we can get Davis out of his isolation, maybe we can run through them and see how they sound.”
“I can call Davis,” Tess offers, making me snicker as I elbow Clarke to point out his competition is way ahead of him. Not that I know that for sure, but I wouldn’t mind making all the guys doubt where they stand with her.
“We’re gonna go in and take a shower,” Ben calls up to us, followed by a shit-eating grin to rub in the fact that he said we, meaning they’ll be showering together. Fucker.
“I’ll, ah, I’ll be down in a few,” Clarke says when he squirms next to me, likely worried he’s losing more ground to Ben, and also anxious to join them. Bastard.
“Two peas in a pod,” I tell him. “That’s what those two are. But I guess peas don’t fuck, so it’s more like two rabbits, a boy and a girl, going at it every single night in her bed.”
“Great,” Clarke mutters.
“You should steer clear of that train wreck waiting to happen,” I warn him.
With a bark of laughter, he says, “Not a chance.” Then he jumps down onto the balcony and leaves to go join them, making me feel like the wannabe loser.
How did I fall so far?
Just like that, more lyrics are flowing through my head. Since I don’t have my notebook, I pull out my phone to type them up before I forget them.
And then, like the pathetic voyeur I’ve recently become, I follow Clarke. It’s too bad I don’t have a smoke or a shot to try and soothe the ache of need caused by the one woman who doesn’t want me.
I’ve regretted that random girl in our dressing room ever since Tess turned me down on the bus that first night.
Hell, hearing the sounds the three of them are making all the way out in the hallway makes me regret every girl that’s ever been backstage with me over the last five years. It’s pure torture. For a moment, I even consider calling Davis over to witness it himself, since I doubt he knows Tess is sleeping with Ben and Clarke too. But that would be an asshole move. And someone could possibly die.
Sure, I’m jealous, but I don’t want to end up hurting Tess, or worse, make her push me away even further.
…
Tess
I’m on my knees in the shower with Ben’s thick cock moving in and out of my throat while stroking Clarke’s long, lean shaft in my left fist. The warm droplets of water run down into my eyes, making everything blurry, but I don’t care. I’m taking care of two amazing men.
“Fuck, I need your mouth so damn bad,” Clarke declares, so I let Ben’s cock slip from my lips and turn my open mouth to Clarke while my right hand goes to work on jerking off Ben.
And while I’m enjoying myself and getting so worked up m
y arousal is dripping down my thighs, I can’t help but feel a little guilty that Davis isn’t here and I’m keeping what I’ve been doing with Ben and Clarke a secret from him. Right here and now, I decide that the next time I see Davis, I’ll own up to everything and hope that he still wants to keep seeing me too. I don’t want to lose him. He may be a big, tough guy on the outside, but little by little, he’s been opening up to me, showing me that he cares for me, just as much as Clarke and Ben.
I also feel a little bad that Ford is somewhere in or on top of the house, probably wondering why I continue to refuse him.
The truth is, he’s too much like my father.
I idolized Ford for years, right before I was hit in the face with the knowledge that he could easily chew me up and spit me out fast enough to make my head spin. That’s what Ford does to women. Lots and lots of women. He uses them and moves on.
For whatever reason, I knew that Ben, Clarke, and Davis wouldn’t be so quick to toss me aside. Not just because I’m the only woman constantly around, now that they’re back home, but because they’re not that shallow and selfish. Jeez, I guess I’m the one being selfish by wanting all three of them, maybe even at the same time, since being on my knees for Ben and Clarke isn’t nearly as awkward as I expected.
“Bedroom?” Ben asks Clarke, whose head is thrown back and fingers are tightening in my damp hair.
“Not…yet,” Clarke grits out from between his teeth. “Let me come, please let me come,” he begs Ben and me in a rush. Hearing his desperation, I bob my head faster, taking him deeper in my throat until he shouts with his release that echoes around us. I swallow every drop that he gives me.
Once his dick slips from my mouth, Clarke slumps against the shower wall, panting.
“Since you got off, that means you get to eat Tess out while she keeps sucking my dick,” Ben informs him.
“Fine by me,” Clarke answers with a satisfied smile as his eyes lower to where I’m still kneeling. “Even tasting you twice in one day won’t be enough. But this time, I’m gonna get your ass ready for me at the same time.”