Chapter 23 Roxie
Roxie
We crossed back into the United States without any passport trouble, then sat in traffic for an hour before arriving at the concert venue in downtown Detroit. As soon as the bus was parked, Cash got up and said, “I’m meeting an old friend for lunch. I’ll be back in an hour.”
Milo hopped out of his seat and said, “I’ll come with you.”
“You weren’t invited.”
“Yeah, but I need to get out of the van.” He covered his mouth with the back of his hand so he could whisper, but his voice carried. “I want to give them some alone time. On the tour bus. So they can—”
“You’re over-explaining things,” Cash muttered. “I don’t care what you do, but you can’t join me for lunch.”
Violet sighed and gave Milo a little push toward the bus door. “I’ll find something to do with you. I don’t want to be the only one left on the bus to play cockblocker.”
“You’re all making this a much bigger deal than it actually is,” Riot said.
“This is a gift, so use it wisely.” Violet glanced at her watch. “Milo and I will be back in exactly one hour. As much as we enjoy being voyeurs, please be fully dressed when we return.”
“Voyeur’s fun, but not as fun as participating,” Milo told her.
“Maybe I can be your wingman, big guy.”
Milo threw his hands up in the air. “The last time you said that, you ended up making out with the woman I was trying to hook up with!”
“I can’t help it if I have more game than you.” She gave me a wink while shoving him toward the bus exit. “Besides, that was before Dana and I became exclusive. It was my last chance to get it out of my system before settling down.”
“You two have fun,” Cash said as he exited.
All the attention was making me blush. As soon as they were gone, Riot cursed and shook his head.
“Sorry about that. They’re a lot.”
“It’s not really fun if we’re being told when we can hook up,” I said. “It’s like my sex life is being decided by committee.”
“I agree,” Riot said dryly as he prowled toward me. “But I can make it fun.”
As he kissed me and pulled off my shirt, I stopped caring about what our bandmates thought.
“Okay, I’m grateful we didn’t have to wait until Chicago to fuck again,” I said after.
“I wasn’t going to wait until Chicago,” Riot whispered into my hair. “I would’ve found a way. I’ve needed to feel your pussy for days. I wouldn’t have been able to wait another day.”
Even though we had half an hour before they all returned, being nude in the public space of the tour bus felt wrong, so we quickly got dressed.
“So…” I cleared my throat. Now was the best time to ask him. “Violet told me something else. Another secret involving the four of you.”
Riot tensed with his shirt halfway-on. “Oh. That.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That.”
“It’s a day for confessions, I guess.” He pulled his tight T-shirt on and then turned to face me. “I wasn’t trying to hide it from you.”
“I wasn’t accusing you.” I sat on the loveseat and sighed happily. “I don’t blame you for not divulging that immediately. What was it like?”
“To be clear, you’re asking me what it was like for the three of us—me, Cash, and Milo—to basically share Vi for three months?”
My mouth went dry. “Yes. That.”
He sank into the loveseat next to me and let his hand rest on my thigh. “Honestly? It was hot.”
“Yeah?”
“Extremely hot. Like, hotter than anything I’ve ever done before.”
“So you guys… um, what I’m trying to ask is if all four of you… uh…”
“Did we have sex with Vi at the same time?”
“That’s what I was wondering, yes.”
He stared off and nodded. “That was what happened most nights, yeah. The three of us shared Vi at the same time. Usually after performing. We’re all straight—me, Cash, and Milo, I mean.
We never touched each other, aside from, like, incidental contact.
We were paying for our own hotels at the time, and could only afford one, so we were usually all in one big queen-sized bed.
So it was impossible not to brush against each other sometimes.
But we generally tried to avoid it while… doing what we did.”
My mind raced. I couldn’t believe this was a real thing that they had done. I had a million questions I wanted to ask.
“You didn’t get jealous?” was the first one that came to mind.
Riot shook his head. “The four of us were already friends. More than friends. Bandmates. There’s a certain kind of intimacy that comes from making music together.
Compared to that, having sex wasn’t that big of a deal.
If it was some random dude, maybe I would feel differently, but I never felt any jealousy about Cash or Milo being with her, too. ”
“It’s just so wild to me,” I said. “I’ve never heard of anyone who has done this before.”
He smiled at the memory. “It was totally different from any other relationship I’ve ever been in. It was great, while it lasted. If Vi hadn’t met Dana…” He trailed off.
“What?” I prodded.
Riot shrugged. “It’s all speculation. We don’t really know what might have happened. But if she never met Dana, and didn’t realize she liked women more than men… I could’ve seen our little group relationship continuing for a long time. Maybe even forever.”
“What, like all three of you would marry her?” I asked skeptically.
“Plenty of people stay together and never get married,” he replied. “All I’m saying is that what we had, as crazy and unorthodox as it might have been, was special. Really special. Hey, I’m starving. Want to get some food?”
“I’d kill for a burrito,” I said. “You made me work up an appetite.”
As we walked through downtown Detroit, holding hands, I thought more about what he’d said. The whole thing still seemed legitimately insane to me, but now I was curious. The idea was rolling around in my mind like a loose Pringles can in the aisle of the tour bus.
We found a Mexican restaurant and took our burritos to a park bench to eat. While we dug in, Riot said, “Hey, FYI, go easy on Cash while we’re here.”
“Go easy on him? Implying that I’m ever tough on him?”
He gestured with his burrito. “I just mean… give him a wide berth. He’s always extra sensitive when we’re in Detroit.”
“Because of his parents?”
Riot confirmed my suspicion with a grimace. “They’re such assholes. Especially his mom. He says it doesn’t bother him, but I know Cash.”
“It’s such a sad situation. What kind of parents don’t support their son?”
“The shitty kind.” He patted me on the thigh. “Fortunately, Cash has a better family now. Vi’s really good about being nice to him when we’re here, and Milo always finds ways to make him laugh to take his mind off it. I just wanted to warn you.”
The subject shifted to dinner plans, but I was only half listening to Riot. I kept thinking about Cash, his parents, and whether there was anything I could do about it.
That was when my bad idea took hold.