Chapter 2
TWO
Dom silently cursed two things on the short walk to Lincoln’s car.
First, that one or all of his three bandmates could be back at the hotel room and give him a hard time about picking up a guy at an open mike.
Second, that tonight was his last night on the shore.
XYZ had played the three different gigs that had brought them to town, and they’d budgeted out one more night just to hang at the boardwalk before returning home to Philadelphia tomorrow morning.
He’d known Coop for all of thirty minutes, but he already liked the guy. He knew his way around a keyboard, and he had a beautiful voice. Like Bruno Mars and James Blunt got together and had a love child. That was Coop’s voice.
It also didn’t hurt that Coop looked like a younger, less goth version of Adam Lambert.
Thick brown hair, big green eyes, gorgeously high cheekbones.
His skin was so smooth he looked airbrushed, and he’d radiated with a boyish kind of joy while singing.
Everything about him appealed to Dom, and he couldn’t wait to see that toned body naked.
Maybe his bandmates wouldn’t be at the hotel.
It was still earlyish, and if they were boozing it up on the boardwalk, they probably wouldn’t tumble back into the room until late.
Still, Dom was crazy private about his sex life, and even though all three of his bandmates were also gay, he didn’t want anyone stumbling over him and Coop getting it on.
Lincoln’s beat-up Dodge was parked in the far corner of the shadowy parking lot. Dom shoved the key into the trunk and snapped it open. “You can put the keyboard in there,” he said.
Coop obliged without a remark about the piece of shit Dom had borrowed.
His hotel was only ten blocks up, and while the Yamaha wasn’t super heavy, he’d called dibs on the car because the ocean air was bad for his violin.
The other guys got to use Shore Transit.
Snagging the car while avoiding telling them why exactly he needed it had been a fun song and dance.
Not.
Dom tucked his violin case onto the rear driver’s-side floor.
Lincoln always gave him a hard time about how much he babied that thing, but it was over a hundred years old and cost more than they’d made since founding XYZ nearly four years ago.
Dom’s parents would kill him dead if it got broken or damaged.
“So which hotel are you at?” Coop asked.
“Sand Dune, seaside.” Dom unlocked the passenger door with the key, passing close enough to Coop to smell his cologne. Spicy and warm.
“I know it.”
“I figured.” He circled the front of the car to his side. “Beatrice pulled you out of the crowd, so I take it you’re a local.”
“Moved here a few years ago. Before that we spent a lot of family vacations down here.”
They both got into the car. Dom winced at the way the bucket seat squealed. At least the engine roared smoothly to life.
“Your car?” Coop asked.
“My best friend’s car. He’s all super proud of it because he fished it out of a dump and restored it.”
Coop made a show of inspecting the cracked interior seating. “This is restored?”
He laughed. “Well, maybe not the insides so much but the engine is all brand-new. He does street racing with it sometimes. Getting him to let me borrow it tonight was a fight.”
“And him is who?”
Oh, right, Coop didn’t know his friends. “My best friend Lincoln.”
“His name is really Lincoln?”
“Yeah, his dad might have been a little car-crazy. He’s got a little sister named Mercedes, and they aren’t even Latin.”
This time Coop laughed. The sound was high-pitched, but forceful. He wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, but his smile was boyishly charming and he had bewitching eyes. Like he was always telling a funny story in his head and trying not to giggle.
“So how long are you in town?” Coop asked.
“We go back tomorrow morning.”
“Well shit, that sucks.”
Dom very much agreed. He eased out into the southbound traffic. “Yeah, the vacation can’t last forever.”
“Not unless you live here. Except in winter, of course. Then it’s boring as hell.”
“I bet.” The part of Dom that had been horny ever since Coop joined him onstage wanted to skip the small talk, find a dark alley somewhere, and get to business.
Another part of him, the one that had felt an actual fucking spark when they shook hands, was enjoying the “getting to know you” part of their time together.
And that was pretty atypical of Dom, who was a no-fuss, get-his-rocks-off kind of guy.
“It’s June, though, so you’re not here for spring break.”
Coop was fishing. Trying to figure out why he was here with a couple of friends in the early days of summer. Dom could explain why, but he didn’t want to tell Coop about the band. Usually he couldn’t wait to advertise and spread the word. Tonight it wasn’t about the band.
His performance hadn’t been about getting their name out there.
It had been a much more personal, therapeutic thing for him.
For the first time in six years, he’d pulled bow across strings in front of a live, nondigital audience.
He’d played the instrument that felt like an extension of his very being for people again, and the response had been overwhelming.
For twenty minutes or so, he’d been able to make beautiful music with his violin and nothing about it had made him sick to his stomach.
Nothing had reminded him of his last public performance with his violin.
“Dude, red light!”
Dom smashed on the brakes, stopping the car two feet from crashing into the idling SUV in front of him. He hadn’t noticed the red light.
Coop stared at him from the passenger seat, a little saucer-eyed. “You want me to drive?”
“Sorry, I got lost in thought.” Dom stared at the red brake lights in front of him, his face hot, feeling like a total tool.
“Yeah, maybe save that for when you’re not driving, okay? I’d like to make it to my twenty-first birthday, thank you very much.”
Dom filed that tidbit of information away. Coop was only a year or two younger, roughly in the age range he’d guessed. The under-twenty-one made hitting up a bar difficult, but there were other things they could do together.
“Seriously,” Coop said. “I know we’re in bumper-to-bumper traffic, but you should at least be able to see the back wheels of the car in front of you.”
He side-eyed his passenger even as he eased up on the gas. “Have you always been a side-seat driver?”
Coop shrugged and turned his head away. “I was in a bad accident a few years ago. I don’t really like riding in cars. Here I can pretty much walk anywhere I need to go.”
“Sorry, man.” He couldn’t blame Coop for being jumpy. Dom knew all about PTSD reactions to bad shit. “Why don’t you live in DC or New York? They at least have subways.”
Coop turned his head back, grinning. Cute, even with all kinds of random neon lights splashing patterns on his face. “They don’t have the ocean.”
“True story.”
“So this your first time here?”
“Second. I came down for a week with my family a long time ago. I was like five or six, I think. My parents didn’t like to take us to the same place twice for summer vacation. Said we needed variety and to experience different parts of the country.”
“Does ‘we’ include siblings?”
“Yup.” Dom had the weirdest urge to whip out his phone and show off pictures of his mismatched siblings.
He never did that with hookups, because it led to larger explanations.
Hell, sometimes with his hookups they barely exchanged names before getting down to business. “Three sisters and a brother.”
“Five of you? Damn, your parents were busy.”
He had no reason to tell Coop that each one of them was adopted. But he wanted to. “I was never bored,” he said instead. “You?”
“I’m bored all the time.”
He lightly punched Coop in the shoulder. “Do you have siblings.”
“Only child.” The way his mouth pinched up suggested not a fun topic.
The hotel’s blue and white sign appeared in the distance, about a block away.
They didn’t talk the rest of the ride, and Dom was extra careful making a left turn through summer beach traffic, even with a green arrow.
Instead of pulling into the garage, he double-parked near the main entrance.
“I’ll run everything up and be back in a few,” Dom said.
“Cool.” Coop stuck in a pair of purple earbuds. “I’ll be here.”
The keyboard case was extra heavy with one hand, and he probably could have left that in the trunk, but he didn’t want to risk a six-hundred-dollar piece of equipment getting stolen.
So he hefted that and his violin to the elevator.
As expected, the room was empty. It reeked of beer and yesterday’s supreme pizza.
The windows weren’t the kind that opened, so he jacked up the air-conditioning.
It was barely eleven, and the room was predictably still empty. The bed was tempting, but he had a funny feeling that finding a private place to fuck in this town was going to be an adventure worth experiencing.
He dug into Linc’s bag for a condom and a lube packet.
Dom hadn’t expected to get laid during their stay on the shore, but Lincoln went everywhere prepared.
“Never miss an opportunity to enjoy yourself” was his life philosophy.
Dom checked himself in the mirror. No unexpected zits.
Hair still perfectly gelled. He needed to shave but whatever.
Coop probably wouldn’t care. Some guys enjoyed a little beard burn.
Dom certainly wasn’t opposed to some extra heat between his cheeks, and the mental image of Coop rimming him sent blood right to his dick.