Chapter 26
(Steel)
As soon as Rebel let me in with the pizza, I plopped it on the first king-sized bed I reached and snatched him into a hug.
“Wh-what was that for?” Rebel asked as I drew back, but only enough that I could grab Kit and haul him close too.
“Was worried about you guys today,” I admitted.
“We were fine. Never in any danger,” Rebel replied, eying me like he’d never seen me before.
“Doesn’t mean I liked the idea of you guys stuck on the side of the road where anything could have happened.”
“We were only stuck for a few minutes,” Kit explained. “After that we got to put a serious dent in the convenience store’s inventory.”
“And left with your wallets smoking, I’m sure,” I replied before turning them loose.
“You were really worried?” Rebel asked as Kit leaned close to the box and inhaled the aroma that had been making my stomach growl since they’d handed it to me at the pizza parlor.
I slid an arm around him, tugged him close, and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Yes. I was. Why does that surprise you so much?”
I felt him shrug and squirm in my embrace, so I reluctantly let go and peered down into confused green-gold eyes that damn near broke my heart.
“I-I guess I-I figured, you know,” he stammered.
“No, I don’t know, so I’m going to need you to spit it out,” I told him while Kit carried the pizza box to the coffee table.
“He’s so used to random hookups he doesn’t recognize when someone actually gives a shit about him,” Kit supplied. “It might take some doing to get him over that.”
“So, he’s like that with you too?” I asked, glancing over to see that Kit had broken out the stash of paper plates they kept in the room and was busy setting the table for us.
“Seems like the only ones he isn’t like that with are the other original band members, but they’ve known each other for like, twenty years, so I guess they’ve worn him down by now,” Kit replied.
“Personally, I’m hoping it won’t take us that long to get through to him, but I guess we’ll just have to stick around and see what happens. ”
“I can do that,” I said, pressing my fingertip beneath his chin to raise his head so he’d look at me fully. “Even when he’s being stubborn.”
“Same,” Kit declared as I brushed a kiss over Rebel’s lips and felt him relax as he deepened it. “Looking a little less stubborn now.”
“Feeling that way too,” I murmured as we broke the kiss.
We’d apparently rendered Rebel speechless, because he just glanced between us, a pink tinge creeping across the bridge of his nose.
“Thanks,” he muttered, the pierced tip of his tongue poking out to lick his lips. “And thank you for bringing the pizza.”
“The pizza you two will pay for, and don’t even think of reaching for your wallets,” I replied, grateful to take the conversation back into more comfortable territory for him.
Seeing his reaction was eye-opening, though.
When I’d lectured him on his behavior and gotten all over him for his balcony stunt, he’d struck back with defiance and snark.
It hadn’t dawned on me then that all he’d taken it as was me ragging on him.
He hadn’t understood that it had come from a place of concern.
Still didn’t. I’d have to do a better job of showing him going forward so he’d never have a reason to question that the only thing I wanted was for him to be safe so I could have him back in my arms.
On the couch, I sat on one side of him while Kit sat on the other; he and Rebel immediately reached for pizza slices and shoved the tips in their mouths.
“Mmmmm,” Rebel sighed dramatically around the food in his mouth as he bit off a piece. “This is heaven.”
The words were slightly garbled by the food and half drowned out by Kit’s obscene moan on the other side of him. This was food porn at its finest, and my jeans were already growing tight.
“What’s it going to be tonight?” I asked, since the guide channel was already open on the television, like they’d been in the middle of choosing what to watch when I’d arrived.
“Fuck if we know,” Kit replied. “We were still trying to scroll past all of the reality television to find the movies.”
“I’ll never understand why someone would want to have cameras following them around, poking into every corner of their lives,” Rebel said.
“But it's especially mind-blowing when I see musicians doing it. Like, dude, what the fuck? After all the time we spend dodging cameras and trying to stay out of the dirt rags, why would you sign up for that shit?”
“Damn, I think it would be fun to follow you around with a camera all day,” Kit snarked.
“You I’d be fine with; you’re not going to share everything you see with the fucking internet.”
He hesitated then and shot Rebel a shit eating grin. “I mean, if the price is right...”
“If you weren’t holding a slice of pizza, you’d get a pillow to the face,” Rebel declared.
“Yeah, no pillow fights with the pizza involved,” Kit replied. “This is too damned good.”
“How about no pillow fights until after the pizza has settled unless we want to see it paint the walls,” I offered, cringing because once again, I sounded like their bossy babysitter instead of their…
Their?
Well, shit.
It was clear they were a package deal, even if they hadn’t outright said it yet.
It hit me that I was fine with that. When I was with them, I was at ease.
Laughing with them came without thought; everything was just effortless.
It didn’t matter if we were watching movies together or one was playing on mute while they worked; their presence had a soothing effect on me, keeping old memories at bay.
“I’m good with that,” Rebel said. “It wouldn’t taste half as good coming up.”
“How does Point Break sound?” I asked, pausing on the movie.
“Original or remake?” Kit asked.
“Mmmm,” I leaned to get a closer look at the tiny-ass print beside the title. “Original.”
“Works for me,” Kit said.
“Me too," Rebel added, a loud crack sounding when he turned his head. “Ahhh, nice, I’ve been trying to do that all day.”
“Owe!” Kit moaned. “How does that not hurt?”
“Because my neck was tense before and now it’s not,” Rebel said. “I kept worrying that something else was going to happen after we got back on the road.”
“That blowout really triggered you, didn’t it?" Kit said, reaching up to cup the back of Rebel’s neck and slowly rubbing it.
“It was more like the spin,” Rebel admitted.
“There was a spin?” I asked because nothing in the texts I’d received had mentioned anything about the bus spinning.
“It was more like a rapid 180-degree turn, not a complete spin,” Rebel said, “which is probably a good thing, or we’d have probably flipped over.”
Something in the tone of his voice gave me pause, and I set my pizza down so I could run my fingers up the back of his t-shirt.
“All I could think about was us clipping someone and them getting hurt,” Rebel admitted. “I wasn’t even scared for us. Just didn’t want to see another innocent bystander get hurt.”
“You do know that you and Johnny were innocent bystanders too,” I reminded him. “I know what the press was like before the truth came out and all the questions that were being fired at you, but in the end, you guys weren’t responsible for that accident.”
“But it was my fault we were on the road,” he muttered.
“What do you think would have happened if you'd left alone?” I asked.
“I knew I was too drunk to drive,” he replied. “So, I’d have walked until I found a motel to crash at until morning. There were a couple nearby; I should have just done that and gone back for my car in the morning.”
“But you didn’t. Dwelling on the facts won’t change them,” I told him. “What happened today would have rattled me too. I’ve been in my share of rollovers. They aren’t something you just get used to.”
“I’ve been in one,” Rebel said. “But I was a kid and buckled up in the back. My aunt passed out at the wheel; it wasn’t her fault; her blood pressure crashed, and then so did we. The EMTs got there in time to save her, and she’s still giving my uncle hell.”
“Were you hurt?” Kit asked.
“Cut up some from flying glass; otherwise, I was fine. My booster seat was buckled in the middle, so I wasn’t close to the doors when the car rolled.
It turned over three times before it stopped at the bottom of this hill.
It was probably a good thing we went off the road when it happened instead of swerving the other way into traffic.
I remember yelling wee at first because we were suddenly going really fast, then it wasn’t fun anymore. ”
“Damn. How old were you?” I asked.
“Seven. One more year and I wouldn’t have been in the booster seat and probably would have gotten more cut up than I did.”
“Good thing you were still in it,” Kit said. “I’d have taken any kind of protection I could get when I had my wrecks.”
“Did you flip too?” Rebel asked.
“Both times, neither of which I was driving. I just happened to be an unfortunate passenger in two bouts of epic stupidity.”
Rebel snickered and snagged another slice of pizza. “Didn’t learn the first time, huh?”
“Apparently not,” Kit replied. “In all fairness, I was a bit of an asshole at that point in time, and my friends were assholes too, so I brought it on myself.”
“Don’t we all at some point?” I asked.
“So how many rollovers have you been in?” Kit asked. “Something tells me it’s more than two.”
“Five.”
“Shit. That’s…. I don’t think I’d want to ride in anything on wheels ever again.”
“If they’d happened on the highway, I’d agree,” I replied. “But that wasn’t the case with any of them. With that chapter of my life closed now, I hope the universe doesn’t have any more rollovers planned for me.”
“One can only hope,” Rebel mumbled around the pizza he chewed. “You know what we need?”
“What?” Kit asked.
“A Wii,” Rebel said. “For when we stay in hotels. With three controllers, so we can play Mario Kart. That way you get to watch rollovers without having to be in the damned things.”
“In that case we’ve got to get Need for Speed, too,” Kit said. “And Sonic Racing.”
“Wait, Sonic has a racing game?” Rebel said. “How did I not know that?”
“Shocks the hell out of me too,” Kit said. “You missed a good one.”
“Not for long,” Rebel declared. “We’ll get all three and any others we can find. That way we can have private game nights, just the three of us.”
“You had me at Mario Kart,” I admitted.
Kit cheered and fist-pumped. “Yes, another gamer!”
“I’ve been known to waste hours of downtime trying to work out how to defeat a damned rogue tomato.”
“Final Fantasy 7?” Rebel asked.
“Yup.”
“Dude. That tomato kicked my ass!” Rebel declared.
“Seriously?” Kit said. “That's, like, a baby level; it’s so early in the game.”
“And now we know what game not to play with Kit,” I chuckled. “He’ll be cussing us out for dying all the time.”
“No bull,” Rebel said.
Kit snickered. “You’re damn right, especially if you’re getting merked by the fucking tomato. Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I wish we were,” Rebel said. “But it sounds like Steel and I are in the same boat when it comes to that one.”
“Now we’ve got to get at least one of the Final Fantasy games,” Kit insisted.
“Why? Are you waiting to see what else we can’t get past?” I asked.
“It would be a source of endless amusement,” Kit hedged.
“I’m about to revisit the pillows and pizza rule,” Rebel said.
“Keep your pillows to yourself!” Kit demanded, scooting as far away from him as he could get.
“Nice, easier aim,” Rebel teased as he reached for the one he’d tucked behind his back. “It would have been harder to hit you when you were right beside me.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Kit immediately scooted back.
“Thought so.”
“Stop sounding so pleased with yourself,” Kit said. “I can practically hear your smirking.”
Huffing, Rebel immediately protested. “How is that even a thing?”
“Trust me, it’s a thing,” Kit said.
“Steel?”
Had he seriously just looked to me to settle their debate?
Shit.
And with puppy dog eyes?
There was no end to how endearing he could be when he wasn’t going out of his way to try and get a rise out of someone.
“I can’t say with any certainty that it’s a thing,” I said, "but your voice does have a certain smirky quality to it when you’re pleased with yourself.”
“Come on, ganging up on me already?” He complained as a chunk of sausage rolled off his pizza and landed on his lap.
Kit dove after it, treating me to one hell of a view of him with his head on Rebel’s thighs, licking his lips as he peered up at him. “Wouldn’t want to waste it.”
“Uh-huh,” Rebel muttered, his free hand coming to rest on his cheek.
In a moment both tender, touching, and as hot as a live wire, Kit slowly sat up, never losing eye contact with him until their lips met.
I snagged Rebel’s half-eaten slice from his hand before it wound up in Kit’s hair as Kit pressed him back against the side of the couch.
While I impatiently waited to get in on the kissing, I couldn’t help but feel like things would always be interesting as long as I had the two of them in my life.