Chapter 37 Echo
Echo
Gemiah
Echo is…not as annoying as I remember.
He’s still way too pretty—if jet-black hair and weirdly blue eyes are your thing—and he’s still cocky as hell, but the incessant need to treat every interaction as a challenge for top dog has disappeared. He seems settled in his skin.
Or maybe that’s me.
“You a Coke or a soda-water-with-lime guy?” Echo asks me, leaning casually onto the bar to order the first round.
“Definitely coke,” I say drily, then flush when Josha catches my eye. “Too soon?”
He gives me a tight smile and rests his hand on the small of my back. I’m sure it’s meant to be reassuring, but his tension is palpable in the set of his shoulders and the way his thumb rubs restlessly over my hip.
Am I already fucking this up?
Dick’s is about as close to a dive bar as it gets in a kitschy, overpriced tourist town like Mendocino.
At this time of year, the crowd is only about half locals, and I unfortunately notice plenty of regulars.
Studiously avoiding eye contact, I pray that the haircut and the tats keep anyone from recognizing me and trying to make conversation.
Or worse, buying me a drink. A quick, surreptitious scan of the corners doesn’t reveal any of my old dealers, at least, so that’s one bullet dodged. For now.
But stronger than the vague shame-flavored unease is a low thrum of excitement.
Josha looks hot as fuck, and if I can get him to relax enough to enjoy himself, another piece of our future will click into place.
I want to be able to take him out and show him off.
I want to get him shirtless on a dance floor and grind up against him under sweeping lights.
I don’t want us to miss out on any of the fun of being young and beautiful and in love because I can’t get my shit together.
“How about you, Josha? Stella on tap?”
“Coke is fine for me too.”
Both Echo and I fix him with unnervingly identical flat stares.
“Is this because of your dad or because of me?” I ask softly. “Because one isn’t here to haunt you, and the other thinks you should do what you want. I’m not gonna freak out and relapse because you have one beer in front of me.”
“Listen to your man, Josha. He’s a big boy. I’m thinking he can handle himself,” Echo chimes in, and I send him a silent thanks.
“Last time Josha got drunk, it worked out pretty well for me.” Maybe I can tease him into a lighter mood. Echo arches an eyebrow.
“That sounds like a story I need to hear.”
“Turns out, Rocket has a thing for wetsuits.”
“Don’t those, like, cover all the good bits?”
“Not the way—”
“I’ll take the damn beer,” Josha interjects, shooting me a warning glare. “And don’t you dare pop that tongue ring at me. Jesus. I’m not sure I’m gonna survive the two of you.”
The bartender, thankfully, is new and doesn’t blink at my tame order. Although that might be because she’s too busy smiling at Echo to waste a bat of her eye on me.
Drinks in hand, we make our way to one of the booths against the far wall while we wait for an open pool table.
I scoot to the far side and slouch against the paneling, sipping my Coke and keeping a wary eye on the crowd, while Echo regales us with tales of his adventures with the rope company he and Byrd have been touring with since his graduation.
His eyes dance from me to Josha while he talks, the neon blue bright with curiosity.
I keep expecting him to launch into another interrogation, since it’s obviously killing him to hold his tongue, but he never does.
Josha keeps one hand on my knee under the table, stroking up my thigh every time I start to jitter, and I don’t realize how much it’s grounding me until he excuses himself to hit the bathroom.
The second he disappears, my gaze drifts to the bar, automatically calculating how long it would take me to order and knock back a shot or three.
The best of intentions can’t rewire the pathways of habit in less than a month.
When I drag my attention back to the table, Echo is appraising me with a shrewd expression, and I sigh. Sliding my watery soft drink to the side, I lean in, propping my elbows on the table.
“Well. Get on with it. I know you must have some big warning speech prepared.”
“Do you need to hear it?” He cocks that damn brow at me again. Smooth bastard.
“I can’t argue against it if I don’t.”
“If I thought you were using him to fuel your sobriety or weasel your way back into Big Top, I’d definitely kick your ass.
Or—” He eyes my tattooed biceps. “I’d try.
But I’ve been on the other side of a similar speech, and I know how much good it would do.
I’m also not an idiot. You might hurt him, but it won’t be because he’s some experiment to you.
You’re not a curious straight boy noticing a hot ass for the first time. ”
“How can you tell?” I ask.
“I have pretty good gaydar, and I see the way you watch him. Plus, you’re here, drinking shitty Coke from a soda gun, hanging out with a guy you don’t like in a place that’s got to have some complicated history for you, because you want him to have fun.
” His wide mouth breaks into a grin. “I’ve also heard a few things you probably wish I hadn’t about how you take his dick. ”
I decide not to be embarrassed. I do love taking Josha’s dick, and I know Byrd well enough to guess who’s usually on the receiving end in that equation.
“But seriously,” he continues, tilting his pint glass at me in warning. “That man saved everything for you. Even when he was pissed and heartbroken. Even when I told him he was crazy for holding on. You fuck that up, and you’re an even bigger ass than I thought you were.”
“Thanks,” I murmur drily. “I’m doing my best.”
“I think you are. And I think he always knew something the rest of us didn’t.”
“He’s always been a lot smarter than me,” I agree. Before he can make another snarky comment on my intelligence, I continue: “Thanks for inviting us out tonight. It’s nice to feel, I don’t know…normal for a few hours.”
A frown mars his features. “I’m not a big fan of the word normal. Too many people use it as a weapon, or to discriminate against anyone whose lifestyle they don’t agree with. The human condition is all over the place. Just be yourself.”
“I’m still trying to figure out who that is.” My eyes drift up, homing in on my boyfriend walking back across the bar. “It’s getting easier every day, though.”
“Someone puked in one of the urinals,” Josha informs us with a grimace, snatching up his beer and downing the last few swallows like he can erase the memory. “But a table opened up if you want to play.”
Eager for something to do with my antsy energy, I slide free of the booth, before standing directly in his space so our chests brush and my mouth ghosts next to his ear.
“I’m ready to show you what I can do with my stick.”
His groan is not the kind I usually like to elicit, but the shiver that runs through him makes up for it. The scent of beer wafts on his breath, and if I kissed him right now, I could suck the hoppy flavor from his tongue.
The unwanted thought makes me pull back, tarry guilt flushing over my skin. I won’t let myself use him like that—our kisses marred by the sketchy ulterior motives of my sins.
“You two play,” Echo says, biting back a smirk. “I’m gonna get us another round.”
Josha opens his mouth like he’s going to start up about the beer again, so I loop my fingers through his belt and tug him toward the back of the bar.
I already know my sweet spot for pool is three-to-five drinks in—too sober, and I overthink every shot.
Too drunk, and my hand-eye coordination goes to shit.
Josha has always been better at the game, but that’s never stopped us from enjoying the competition, and my pride is only a little at stake with Echo watching.
“What are we betting?” I ask while I chalk my cue and Josha starts to rack.
“Blow jobs,” Echo suggests, sliding into a high table against the wall and sloshing beer across it as he sets the three drinks down. “That way, no matter who sinks the most balls, you both win.”
“Is he always like this?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Echo laughs gleefully in the background as my eyes meet Josha’s, and warmth blooms in my chest at the sight of his easy smile.
Maybe normal is whatever we want it to be. Maybe all that matters is us.
As expected, sober Gem sucks at pool. After losing the first game, I’m more than content to watch the muscles play over Josha’s back and shift in his thick thighs while he runs the table by himself.
It’s not the first time I’ve spent half the night checking out his ass every time he bends over, but it’s the first time I haven’t tried to hide it.
Nursing his third beer, Echo draws me into a conversation about his duo rope act with Byrd, and how they’ve been playing around with some pole moves, trying to convert them to their apparatus.
Before I know it, he’s convinced me to take him back to the tent to help him workshop his flag.
After sharing the plan with Josha, Echo drags me to the bar to pay our tab.
“He still throwing knives?” he asks, tossing a card on the bar and jerking his chin to where Josha is studiously lining the balls up by number in their tray to return.
“Yep.”
“Does it make your dick hard?”
“Yep.”
He signs the receipt with a careless flourish, and I think I might have made a new friend.
And I didn’t even have to get drunk.