by Kate Stewart
He blew fresh breath in my face, and that’s when I realized he was still dripping wet, and naked. “So you aren’t mad?”
“I’m fucking pissed, but it’s a new state of normal being with you,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ve never in my life met a woman who needed to know so much.”
“I’ve never in my life met a man who wanted to tell so little.”
“Match made in hell,” he said as he bit my bottom lip. Sensing my unease, he shrugged. “They’re just songs, just an outlet, Stella.”
“Okay,” I said, kissing his chest, eager to get as close as I could. I offered him my lips, which he took and devoured, igniting the flame. We got lost, and I got naked. I clawed and tasted before I met his hungry eyes and kneeled at his throne in worship. He hissed through his teeth as I took him in my mouth. I gripped, sucked, licked, and stroked, starved as he cupped my chin, his eyes on fire, and began to thrust his hips. His mouth parted. I moaned and felt him thicken with each pull. Massaging his sack, I bobbed and gagged, taking him fully, and felt his whole body shudder. “Fuck, goddamn,” he said, guiding my head as I felt the heat grow in my belly and spread between my thighs. I’d never been so turned on in my life. The sound of our mixed sounds had me dripping in anticipation. I drank and drank until he clutched the back of my head and his orgasm rolled down my throat. Still kneeling, I looked up at him with my hands on my thighs. He gripped the top of my arms and pulled me to stand before he lifted me to straddle him, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Grenade.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Santeria: Sublime
The next morning, I made Reid eggs with chorizo and fried potatoes. Because of the heat, we both decided to stay in and do nothing until our shift. Reid was at his counter eating a second helping while I dug through his lyrics.
“Oh, I love this one. God, Band Nerd, you really are a poet.”
“Which one?” Reid said, shifting on the counter to glance at the notebook.
I thrust the notebook at him. “‘Trust’, I love it. It’s really good.”
“I have to rename that,” he said. “And I don’t like the guitar riff I wrote with it. It’s too mainstream. I have to have Rye work that out.”
I gave him my best snooty French accent. “And zee guitar riff is too mainstream.” I picked at a non-existent piece of lint on my T-shirt and flicked it before I deadpanned, “Could you be any more pretentious? And, hey, Ace, when are you going to learn to take a compliment?” I faced him head-on as he smiled before he took a mammoth bite of his eggs, his hair covering his dimple. I hated when that happened. But I loved it when he smiled.
“Well?” I said.
“God, you love to argue,” he chided as he threw our dishes in the soapy water I had waiting.
In a few days, I’d be in my own place, and I savored every moment we played house. I was under no illusions our living situation was permanent. We’d been forced together, but I had to admit, we were thriving under those conditions.
Take that, Paige.
“Change of plans, we have to hit the music store. I need a new set of sticks.”
“Oh,” I said as I moved to my duffle bag. I threw on my Vans and a John Lennon “Imagine” T-shirt.
“Let’s roll.”
Reid eyed me through the head hole of his fresh T-shirt.
“You spend the least amount of time getting ready than any female I’ve ever met.”
“I dress up when the occasion calls for it. It’s August in Texas. I can either go fresh-faced or end up looking like I just left a funeral.” I pulled out my peppermint lip gloss, coated my lips, and smacked them at him. “Happy?”
“You’re so rough around the edges, my little Latina. You should have been a man,” he said while he stared at my glistening lips. “But fuck if I’m not glad you aren’t.”
We walked through the store like a couple. It was our first official outing together, though no words had been spoken. It was a given, especially since we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. It wasn’t so much hand-holding as it was body language. He would lean into me as we walked down the aisles. We’d share an intimate smile. He’d grab my wrist to get me to stop while he browsed. He didn’t want me far away, and I didn’t want to be. When we made it to the display aisle, Reid paused in front of a set of DW drums.
“Drummer’s Workshop,” I said, “these are kind of like the Cadillac of drums, right?”
“Fucking Ferrari,” he said, eyeing them with appreciation. I glanced at a white plastic table in front of them. There was a fishbowl full of narrow strips of paper.
“They’re giving them away,” I pointed out and gripped the pen. “Let’s enter.”
“They’re gathering email addresses,” he said. True to form, he looked at me with a raised brow.
“Fine, if I win them, I’ll give them to some other drummer.”
“The hell you will.” Reid gripped the pen and filled out the form, tossing his own entry in.
We walked out twenty minutes later with a fresh pair of sticks, and I caught Reid’s smile as he looked over at me once we were seated in the truck. I was rummaging through my tiny backpack when I felt his hand on mine. “Hey, Stella?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re beautiful.”
Later that night, I was in The Garage as Rye worked out a new riff for the song Reid had brought to the studio. It was the one I picked out. They wanted to have it ready for a show the following week. While Rye went through a slew of chords, I sat on Reid’s stool, his new drumsticks in hand while he was behind me trying to teach me the basics after a five-minute lecture on how to hold them.
I pressed the pedal and tapped the snare as he chuckled. “Try again. Bass drum on the first, snare on the third, cymbal with the right on all four.”
“This is painful to watch,” Adam said with a glib tone as Ben laughed and threw out a word of encouragement. “Come on, woman, you’re half Mexican. You were born with rhythm.”
“I’m Latina,” I corrected. “And I have rhythm. Shut up.” After a few minutes, my shoulders slumped. “This is kind of hot,” Reid whispered as I growled at yet another false start.
“Nothing hot about a girl who can’t play,” I said, discouraged.
“You wanted to do bass anyway. What do you say, Adam?” Reid asked him with a chuckle.
“Hell no, she scares me,” he said as he protectively covered his bass with his arms. “She looks like she’s ready to blow.”
“You ready to blow, Stella?” Reid whispered playfully as I turned my head and glared at him. “Enough with the jokes. I can do this. Back up,” I said with a heated whisper. “And you two, shut up,” I said to Adam and Ben. Ben cracked a beer and took the couch as Rye really began to dig in.
I counted in my head and started again and again. It seemed like an eternity until it finally clicked and I nailed it. I sat, stunned, as Ben raised his beer and grabbed his mic. Rye grinned over at me. “Okay, Latina, let’s see what you got.” He started the familiar guitar chords of Sublime’s “Santeria” and Adam and I joined in on cue, which I think surprised us all—well, at least the fact that I jumped in at the right time. Elated but afraid to lose my count, I kept my head down in concentration as Ben sang. I kept the beat steady, but I was bursting inside as I tried to carry it through, tapping the cymbals when the song called for it and then grabbing the beat back. With hopeful eyes, I looked up to see Reid smoking on the couch, his eyes mixed pride and amusement as the rest of the guys looked back at me with ironic smiles.
“That was good, right?” I asked, beaming.
“Oh, hell no.”
“Horrible.”
“Really, really bad.”
I laughed so hard, I had tears in my eyes as Reid moved to take his sticks from me. “Thank you,” I whispered. “I don’t think you know how much that meant to me.”
“Yeah, I do, because you told me. You talk a lot. I’m still trying to recover from last night’s nightmare I heard about for two h
ours. Now hand me the sticks, so no one else gets hurt,” he whispered. His eyes reached deep and swept me away to the point of no return. “And I’ll play you later,” he said with a wink.
“You are so in for it,” I promised. We were that sickening new couple and we both knew it.
“Cut that shit out, now,” Ben said into his mic. “I’m fucking jealous.”
I pulled back with a laugh and resumed my seat on the couch as they collectively showed me what good was.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Stay: Hurts
“What the fuck, MOM!” I heard Reid bark from his empty bedroom. “Tell him to stop fucking drinking.” A short pause. “And I’m paying for it.” I jumped as I heard his bathroom door slam. Still, I heard every venomous word. “I’m not talking about the money! I knew this would happen.”
His voice boomed in the hollow space while I stuffed my duffle. Lexi was minutes away, and we were moving into our apartment. Ben watched me in the living room as I jumped with his next explosion. I heard a crack and looked over to Ben, who motioned to the open door he held. “Come on, you don’t need to hear this.”
Nerves firing off, I followed him to the porch. It was littered with cigarette butts. Reid had come home from his shift the night before utterly unapproachable. His dinner plate was still untouched. He spent our last night playing house chain-smoking and isolated. He refused to talk about anything that morning after our bodies aligned and he’d burned through me like one of his cigarettes. His eyes were empty and refused to meet mine as he filled me to the brink again and again, his face twisted. The only time he spoke was when he asked me for my phone minutes before Lexi was supposed to show up. I reluctantly gave it to him, knowing whatever conversation he had would only add fuel to his inner fire. He was pissed in a way that scared me. And I had never been afraid of Reid.
“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked Ben.
He shrugged. “What’s always going on. His parents are infants.”
“I hate them already. I don’t ever want to know them,” I said as I thought of his lyrics, the torment in the lines of his songs. I knew enough to know that they hadn’t been there for him. They were selfish and undeserving.
Nervous, sick to my stomach, I stood and heard another loud crash.
“He’s just letting the steam off. He’s calmed down a lot.”
“This is calm?” I said, afraid to look in the apartment.
“Extremely,” Ben said smoothly. “That’s why he plays with so much fucking heart.”
“Right.” I swallowed just as Lexi’s SUV came into view, a small U-Haul hooked to the back of it.
“That’s Lexi,” I said with relief. She looked around the buildings, completely confused until I called her name and met her at the bottom of the stairs. A wicked grin covered her face as she ran toward me and squeezed the life out me.
“Jesus, I thought I would never get here!”
“I’ve missed you so much,” I said, a shake in my voice.
She pulled back and frowned. “What’s wrong?”
Her budding concern was cut short when she spotted Ben over my shoulder at the top of the steps. I let out a breath of relief I didn’t know I’d been holding and demanded her attention as I clutched her to me. She felt like home and was a much-needed comfort at that moment.
She pulled back and gave me a wink. “Finally, right?”
“Hi,” she said as she gave Ben a quick once-over.
“Stranger. Welcome home,” he said with a nod. I looked between them and knew they were far more intimately acquainted than they were acting. They’d been talking or texting every day. Still, they played cool, and I couldn’t wait to see it unfold. A minute later, Reid burst through the front door and tapped Ben on the shoulder.
“A minute, man.”
I could see Ben’s apprehension as he followed him in and shut the door behind him.
“What’s going on?” Lexi asked as she looked me over.
“I don’t know.”
“You look scared,” she said as she stood back and surveyed me. She’d re-dyed the tips of her dark hair red and looked kissed by the sun. Beautiful in a light blue sundress and tied leather sandals. Suddenly, it seemed like I’d spent an eternity without her. It was amazing what could happen in a few months.
Everything. Everything could happen in a few months.
Half an hour later, with Lexi and I covered in the afternoon heat, both Reid and Ben came through the door. Ben looked pissed, and Reid avoided all eye contact.
“Let’s get you moved, ladies,” Ben said, as he carried my duffle down the stairs.
My eyes drifted up to Reid. “Reid?”
His jaw ticked. “I’ll catch up.” He walked back inside and slammed the door.
“Don’t,” Ben warned as he pulled at my wrist.
“He’s not coming?”
Still trying to get past, he gripped me tight. “Listen, babe, you don’t need to—”
I pushed past him and pounded up the stairs and into the apartment to see Reid gripping his hair in the middle of his living room, our mattress pushed up against the wall.
“Reid.”
His bite was instant. “Can never fucking follow directions, can you?”
I ignored him because he didn’t mean it. Even with his desperate and angry fucking, I felt him with me. “Please, just tell me what’s going on.”
Hazel eyes stared through me as I stood with my heart in my throat. A long, wordless exchange took place, and for a second, I saw the man I love come back, his eyes focused, his hesitance speaking volumes. And then I knew. “No.”
His voice was full of residual anger and defeat. “I have to.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I get it. Okay? I get it. You’ve had a rough couple of months, but you’re so close to something. Can’t you see it?”
“No.”
“Then believe me,” I said, taking a step toward him.
“Stop. This isn’t a fucking fairytale, Stella. Life doesn’t magically start happening for anyone. Things don’t just begin to go your way because you try. I’m living proof. I tried, Stella. I tried so hard.”
“It happens! It happens and you know it.” I clung to hope. “You only see the success of others, Reid. You have to dig deeper to find out how long it took them to get there. It takes years!”
“I don’t have years, Stella.”
“Reid—”
“I can’t fucking afford to believe anymore!”
He’d never yelled at me before. And I could see his regret the minute he did. He flinched as I moved toward him. I was no longer scared of him; I was terrified for him. Shoulders slumped, his chin to his chest, I felt his thread snap.
“One minute past desperation,” I whispered. “You have to wait one minute past desperation, Reid. That’s when it happens. You’ll get a break. You will. It’s coming,” I assured him as he looked at me with disbelieving eyes. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Help me unpack my place and then we’ll go have some fun. You need to be inspired. I know just the place.”
Glaring at me, he dug into his pocket and slammed five dollars and change on his counter. “I can’t go anywhere! I can’t afford to buy my woman a goddamned meal!”
“And you know I don’t care about that. We don’t need money. I don’t need anything.” But you.
He scoffed. “You’re so naïve.”
“Stop. I’m in this with you. You know that, Reid. Let’s go to The Garage. Playing always makes you feel better.”
“There is no more Garage. I’m out of the band. I sold my drums to Jason last night. I’m leaving.”
“Last night?” The blood drained from my face and I felt faint. “Why, why, why would you do that?”
“I’m going back to Nacogdoches to live with my parents. My mom needs my help with my dad.”
“You knew last night?”
“I knew a month ago,” he said with a gravelly voice. “And then you happened. I tried, Stella. I just
got another job to start graveyard next week, and with the gigs, I thought I could swing it. But it’s too late. I got evicted yesterday.”
He had tried to keep from leaving before he ever touched me. He had stayed for me. It felt beautiful and horrible at the same time. Tears slipped out one by one as I realized the gravity of it all.
“That’s why you let Lia take everything?”
He gave a sharp nod. And my fight kicked back in.
“I’ll help. I’ll do whatever I can—”
“Like what? Shoving tips into my books? Your sister told me about that, Stella.”
I would never speak to her again.
“I can’t make it here and keep sending everything to my mother. I can’t fucking make it. I have to go.”
“You can stay with me. I want you to stay with me.”
“I want you to stop trying to take care of me! Goddammit, Stella, stop!”
My heart plummeted as he looked around his living room and then made a beeline for his bedroom. Following him with a flat-lining heart, I watched him pull out a large duffle and begin loading his clothes. “I can’t stay with you, Stella. I just can’t. I don’t want to screw things up for you. And my mom needs me.”
“She doesn’t deserve your help! They got themselves into their own mess. She doesn’t deserve you as a son!”
“Stop,” he said softly. “She’s my mother. And I’ve explained this to you.”
“And I’m the only woman that’s behind you. ME!”
“And I never asked you for that.”
It was a sledgehammer to the stomach. “I’m going to forget you said that.”
“Fuck,” he said through a ragged breath as he ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I don’t regret a single thing that happened between you and me. But I can’t stay here. I just can’t stay.”
“We can—”
“Stella, I want to go.”
“You want to go?” My voice cracked. “Reid,” I said breathlessly, “what about us?”