12. Dean
DEAN
It was two in the morning before I left Landon’s place.
I could’ve stayed. Landon said as much, and his heavy-lidded eyes said he’d like me to. Tempting as it was, I was—
Well, I was worried that we were rushing things, both of us in need of a distraction and the assurance that we were there, with each other, in this.
As much as I meant to be, I didn’t think the way to handle a relationship I meant to last was to demand every second out of him.
Nice as it would be to slide into something serious, relationships were built over time, when both people kept showing up and putting in effort because they chose to, not because we’d refused to spend an hour apart.
So when Landon bit his lip and suggested that I stayed, I cupped his cheek and kissed his plump lips.
“Why don’t you text me in the morning and we’ll make plans for tomorrow night?”
He smiled up at me, his eyes twinkling, and I wondered if I was making a mistake.
But no, if I stayed, we’d fuck. I wanted to fuck him.
His high, trapped moans as I’d sucked his cock were all too tempting, but I wanted to see what happened when I worked my dick into him, spread him wide, and he stopped trying to control himself.
I wanted to watch his lips fall open, hear every cry as I licked and nibbled his neck while I sank into his tight ass.
He was just coming up for air from all that shit back in Boston, and I’d suck it out of him before he had a chance to catch his breath.
I was still figuring out how to manage my grief while also continuing to live, and the last thing I wanted was to use Landon to dull the edges of that loss.
We’d forge something new, and waiting a single night wouldn’t kill me. Fuck, if it would, we already had issues.
“You mean tonight?” Landon asked. He glanced significantly at the clock.
I snorted. “I guess I do. Seriously though, I’m free.”
Him standing there, biting his lip, was just about the hardest thing I’d ever had to walk away from. “Me too. I’ll text.”
When I got home, I couldn’t sleep. For the first time in a while, it wasn’t swirling doubts that kept me up, but excitement.
It felt good—something on the horizon that was just . . . fun. Talking to Landon was fun, and I couldn’t wait to hear from him again.
He texted me early, and I grinned as we made plans to meet up that night after I had band practice. Clearly I wasn’t the only one lost in the sauce.
That buoyant mood carried me through the whole day—through lunch and an afternoon spent at a cafe trying to come up with lyrics. Even the words not coming wasn’t that annoying, and when I sat down that afternoon in the studio to play, I had a moment of inspiration.
Okay, not lyrically, but I was strumming something on the guitar that I’d never played before when Craig came in.
I’d gotten there early because I’d just felt like playing something, and I didn’t expect Craig or Riley for at least another half hour—maybe forty-five minutes in Riley’s case.
But Craig got there early, met my eyes, and gave me the strangest grimace before setting up his amp.
“You okay, man?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Craig said, his back to me. “Sounds good. That something new?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” I wanted to grow it into something, if I could find the words. Words had just never been my specialty. “Honestly? I was just in a good mood. You think there’s something there?”
Craig flinched before he turned to look at me. “Yeah, it sounds great. Can I—um, can I talk to you about something?”
I waved to the amp across from me and he perched on the edge of it.
Something was wrong. Craig’s brow was bunched in the middle. His lips twisted to the side.
Finally, he took a deep breath.
“Becky’s pregnant.”
Time stopped. My heart did a little flip in my chest.
“Really?”
He nodded.
“That’s great, man!” I leaned over and squeezed his knee. “That’s so awesome. Everyone good?”
Some of the tension went out of his shoulders.
“Oh yeah. So far, anyway. It’s technically a high-risk pregnancy, but that’s just because—well, we’re getting up there, you know?
I don’t think there’s anything specific they’re worried about, but it’s still scary when ‘high-risk’ comes out of a doctor’s mouth. ”
“Absolutely. That’d freak me the fuck out, but Becky’s good, and you’re good. It’s gonna be good.”
I sounded like a doofus, but what the fuck did I know about having kids? I was just happy for them.
Craig still nodded, like he needed to hear those words, even from someone who didn’t know what the hell they were talking about.
“Yeah,” he said. “Thing is, I—”
His tension was back, and even though he kept his head down, I could see it in his neck and shoulders, smell the anxiety in the air.
I held my breath while he struggled to get it out.
“I don’t think I can do this anymore.” He was staring down at his knees, at my hand still there, squeezing his leg.
“I just mean the, like, practices multiple times a week and shows and—man, I still want to play with you, but I’ve got to pick up the slack with Kimmy, and I want to be there, you know?
I don’t want to mess this up, or stress Becky out, or—”
“Craig?”
He flinched, but he looked up at me, his eyes swimming with tears. It was all too familiar to me, that feeling when you were scared you were letting someone down.
Was he letting me down?
Maybe a little, but not in any way that mattered. I wasn’t his first responsibility, and I’d be damned if I tried to get in the way of what was.
This was one of my best friends, and I didn’t want to be the reason the good shit in his life made him so nervous.
“Yeah?” he croaked.
“This is amazing. I am so happy for you.”
He blinked fast. “Really?”
“Yes! Kimmy’s fucking awesome, dude, and niblet number two is going to be just as cool. I cannot wait to meet them.” I didn’t know what I was going to do without Craig. That was half the band, gone, and it felt . . . wrong to replace him. I didn’t want to replace him.
“I still want to play with you,” Craig rushed to say. “I mean, for fun. I might not be able to go as hard, but I still want to—”
I held up a hand. “Anytime. Seriously.” There didn’t have to be any conditions to our friendship. We could still have fun and make space for him to be where his family needed him. “But I get it. This is your life, man. You have to be there for it.”
Craig looked at me and leaned back. His expression softened. His eyes searched my face. “Yeah, but the band is yours.”
I sucked in my cheeks. The tip of my tongue ran over the sharp edge of my front teeth.
After a few seconds, I nodded.
It was. Music was everything to me, and I couldn’t imagine what my life would look like without it.
Maybe I’d use Crescent company pizza nights to slide into a desk job and—and what? I wasn’t sure I had the skillset for anything but this.
“Part of it,” I admitted. “But you’re part of it too, whether you’re in the band or not, and this is awesome.”
“And you’ll be okay.” His voice raised at the end, like he wasn’t quite sure.
That was fair enough. Lucky Black Cat was down to two, and I didn’t know where we went next, but that wasn’t Craig’s problem to solve. He needed to be there for his family.
“I’ll be fine,” I promised.
I just had to believe it myself.