4. Chapter 4
PRESENT
HERO
Three months. Three fucking months with Onyx right here in Fall Crosse?
I try to wrap my head around it while he picks at his fries and grins at me across the table every time he catches me staring.
I’ve hardly touched my food. I’m not even sure if I’m hungry anymore or not.
I’m not sure of anything. Starting with why exactly he wants to spend three months here .
“Is your apartment in Seattle being renovated or something?” I finally pick a fry off my own plate and stuff it into my mouth.
“No.” He laughs, picking up his burger to take a bite.
“Did you do something scandalous and now you need somewhere to hide out so the paparazzi can’t harass you when the story breaks?” I take another stab at his possible motivations.
“I mean, there was that multi-gender orgy that got out of hand a few weeks ago,” he deadpans, then kicks me under the table.
“Ow,” I yelp. “What the hell was that for?”
“If you don’t want me here, just say so.” The humor is gone and something vulnerable dances in his eyes instead.
“Shit, no, that’s not what I’m saying.” I inch my hand across the table to brush my fingertips against his. “I’m just confused. Why the hell would you want to spend three months in Fall Crosse?”
“The tour is over, and my contract says I don’t have to be back in the studio to record anything new yet.” He shrugs, but there’s something cagey about the way he avoids eye contact. There’s something he’s not saying, I just don’t have the first clue what it could be.
“Okay, but there have to be a million other places in the world more exciting than here. Don’t get me wrong, I love Fall Crosse, but…” I shake my head and chuckle.
“But what?”
But I’m not a thirty-year-old rockstar . I don’t say that out loud, just shake my head again and creep my hand another inch closer so I can properly twine my fingers around his.
“Nothing. No pressure though, okay? If you’re bored next week and want to take off, no hard feelings.” That’s reasonable, right? I’m not trying to pin Onyx down—I’m not that fucking stupid. I’ll take whatever amount of time he feels like being here though.
“Sure, no pressure.” He licks the salt and grease off of his lips, and I follow the path of his tongue with my eyes.
“Good. Do you have somewhere you’re planning to stay?” There’s only one motel in town and it’s not exactly the Ritz. It’s barely even a Motel 6.
“I was kind of hoping there would be room in your bed. But if you want me to get a hotel room, I can.”
“No.” I answer quickly, not wanting to give him any time to entertain the idea of staying anywhere else. “You can stay with me.”
Three months of waking up next to Onyx every morning?
Three months of falling asleep together every night?
Three months of having him there when I get home from work, watching movies, going for motorcycle rides…
It sounds too fucking good to be true. A needy feeling swells in my chest and almost makes me reconsider letting him stay.
I could get pretty damn attached to him in three months.
I could easily make a fool of myself when it’s time for him to leave again.
“I have no clue how to take that scowl. Are you trying to figure out how to break it to your boyfriend that you’re going to have a rockstar sleeping over or what?” He chuckles, but the tightness around his eyes makes me think he’s actually worried about it.
I relax my face and squeeze his fingers. “No, sorry, just overthinking shit. I want you to stay with me. I hope you’re not expecting my place to be anything fancy though.”
“You forget I grew up here. Your place is probably exactly like the house I lived in. I’m excited to see it.” He nudges my foot with his and squeezes my fingers back.
I’m sure I could easily sit here and come up with at least a dozen other potential issues or roadblocks, but Onyx seems chill about this whole thing, so I’m just going to follow his lead and try not to overthink it.
What kind of fucking idiot would stress his way out of three months of sex with the most gorgeous man alive? Couldn’t be me.
I force every last bit of worry to the back of my mind and finally dig into my food properly.
“So, tell me about the tour,” I say around a bite of my burger.
“Not much to tell. Gray and Jade are on again, so they’re back to being fucking unbearable to the rest of the band.
Jett deals with it by smoking massive amounts of weed, which is fine, but I wish he’d switch to edibles because the smell gives me a migraine.
And I’m pretty sure Ziggy, our manager, is two seconds from quitting.
So, all in all, business as usual.” There’s always a little growl of frustration in his voice whenever he talks about his bandmates.
I don’t know if I watched too much Behind the Music growing up or not enough, because I thought bandmates were supposed to be bonded for life, but as far as I can tell, Black Sheep are more like dysfunctional coworkers than anything else.
“That sucks,” I sigh sympathetically.
“It does. But hey, all their drama can’t take the music from my soul, right?”
“Hell yeah.”
Their most recent tour included Canada, so once he’s done complaining about his bandmates, he tells me about some of the cities they stopped in while we both finish eating. Onyx grabs the check as soon as the waitress drops it off, and I try not to grumble too much about letting him pay.
It’s still raining by the time we race back to the car. I was too focused on Onyx earlier to notice his guitar, a duffle bag, and a laundry basket with a few other odds and ends in it in his back seat, like he really does plan to stay for three months.
I’m not going to get my hopes up. If he stays the whole three months, great. If not, that’s cool too. I’ll do my best to keep my heart out of it so it doesn’t break when he goes. That’s really the only part of it that’s in my control.
ONYX
I can’t stop glancing over at Hero with a stupid smile on my face as he gives me directions to his place.
Whether he realizes it or not, I’ve spent the last four years hoarding all the little details he’s given me about his life, and finally getting to see some of them firsthand feels like getting to take a tour behind the scenes of a movie set.
We pass Wooley’s bar, where I know he likes to play pool with his buddies, and a coffee shop he mentioned liking a few times.
I’ve been back to Fall Crosse a couple times over the years to see him, but I haven’t driven around much beyond going to Ink Slingers.
The town has changed so much since I left over ten years ago that I barely recognize some of it.
Once we turn into his neighborhood though, things feel a lot more familiar.
Even in the dark and the rain, a wave of nostalgia washes over me, the twang of an old song playing in my head as we pass houses where friends of mine used to live.
Do their parents still live there? Or did they move somewhere warmer where they wouldn’t have to shovel snow in their golden years like mine did?
“It’s that one, up ahead on the right.” He points to his place, and I slow down so I can turn into the driveway.
His house looks just like I expected it to—a cute one-story with an attached garage.
I can’t tell for sure in the dark, but I’d put money on it having pale yellow siding with white trim.
I pull right up to the garage, and he shifts in his seat to fish his keys out of his pocket.
I grab my guitar and my duffle bag. It’s not much, but it’s not like I need a lot anyway.
A few changes of clothes, my notebook, and my guitar are all it really takes to keep me happy.
Well, that and a stupidly hot tattoo artist.
The rain has finally started to slow down a little, but we jog up the sidewalk to the door anyway.
I shake the water out of my hair again while Hero unlocks the door, and then I follow him inside.
He flips on the light and we both toe off our shoes.
There’s a faint smell of motor oil and something warmer and homier that I can’t put my finger on, but it weirdly makes me think of brown, the same color as Hero’s eyes.
Fun with synesthesia, as my mom always loved to joke when I was growing up and would tell her things like “dinner tastes like Tuesday.” And no, I could not elaborate on that.
There’s a faint jingling sound and the patter of little feet. I drop my bag next to the door and try not to gasp too loudly with excitement.
“Is that Diva? It has to be Diva, right?”
Hero chuckles. “That’s Diva,” he says, then he makes a clicking sound with his tongue against his teeth. “Come on, baby girl. Don’t be shy.”
It only takes a second before a little brown and white cat comes trotting into the foyer.
He’s shown me pictures of her, but that doesn’t stop me from laughing with glee at how delightfully ugly-cute she is, with uneven bald patches, a squished face, and one of her ears scarred and crumpled.
Hero told me he rescued her from a hoarding situation last year, and I can definitely see why she was the one he just had to take home.
“That’s so mean. You can’t laugh at her,” Hero scolds me, but he’s chuckling, so it’s hard to take the admonishment too seriously.
“Come here, Deevs, my pretty little girl.” He scoops her up into his arms and she immediately starts to purr loudly enough for me to hear, kneading her paws into his beard as he nuzzles the top of her head.
“It took three rounds of treatment before we managed to cure her mange, but her vet, Porter, isn’t sure if the fur will grow back or not.
There might be too much scarring in the follicles. ”
“Aw, poor baby,” I coo, reaching over slowly to pet her. She gives me a grumpy glare but keeps nuzzling Hero’s beard. “The patchy hair is kind of rock and roll if you think about it.”
Hero chuckles, kisses her head one more time, then sets her back down to scamper away.
I follow him down the short hallway into his living room, my eyes roaming greedily over everything along the way.
Pictures of him and his friends with their Harleys hang on his walls, random tools and hasty sketches litter some of the surfaces, and the bookshelf is full of an eclectic mix of motorcycle mechanic manuals, sci-fi novels, and World War II books. I gobble it all up greedily.
“I told you, it’s not much.” He rubs the back of his neck and looks around his own living room sheepishly.
“Not much? I feel like I’m in a celebrity’s house or something.” I pick up the wrench on his coffee table, getting the familiar metallic squinch in my ears from touching it.
He chuckles. “You’re really fucking weird, you know that?”
I set the wrench back down and put myself right in front of him with a smile stretching across my lips.
“Life’s more fun when you’re weird.” I shrug. “Oh, shit, that would make a great tattoo.” I twist my arms around, looking for leftover space where it might fit.
Hero tugs my shirt up an inch and drags his index finger along the skin just above the waistline of my jeans.
“I could tattoo it right here for you,” he offers.
I bobble my head in agreement. “Yeah. Tomorrow?”
He drops my shirt and slides his arms around me. My hands end up on his chest, feeling the rhythm of his heartbeat and the warmth of his skin through his damp shirt.
“Is that why you’re here? To see how many tattoos I can give you in three months?” A teasing grin dances on his lips, and he bumps the tip of his nose against mine.
“Yup. Tattoos and sex. Lots and lots of sex,” I purr.
A horny sound rumbles in his throat, and he flicks my lip ring with his tongue.
“In that case, maybe we should get out of these wet clothes.”