Chapter 33
(Kit)
Stepping into the kitchen to see Rebel using a wooden spoon as a microphone as he sang along to Escape was instant photo material. I snapped several and forwarded them to Steel so he could see what I’d walked into when I came to check on the status of supper.
He rocked to the beat while he flipped something in a pan, added a splash of something from a bottle and a dash of seasoning, then danced over to me and pulled me further into the kitchen so I could dance with him.
I’d offered to cook when I came back from wandering the beach to discover that Steel and Rebel were still elbows deep in the engine of the Impala, cursing a bolt they couldn’t quite get to.
He’d chosen to clean up instead and rush in to take a quick shower because he knew just what he wanted to make us for supper.
I joined in on the singing when we got to the chorus because those were the only words I knew, while Rebel sang all the way to the end before telling the smart speaker to pause.
It was a good thing too. With as high as he’d set the volume, I’d have had to shout to have a conversation with him.
“How’s it coming?” I asked.
“Just about done,” he replied. “Just need to find the other container of potato flakes, because I don’t think that will be enough.”
The narrow container on the counter held less than three inches of dried potato bits when Rebel picked it up and shook it before peering through the glass, like he’d hoped shaking it would suddenly manifest more flakes.
“Nope, not going to cut it,” he declared and opened a cabinet door. “I know I have another one around here somewhere. Give me, like, ten more minutes.”
“Sounds good,” I replied, sliding a hand up his back and leaning to kiss his neck before returning to the garage just in time to hear Steel yell gotcha!
My timing for picture-perfect moments was perfect today as I snapped a few of him triumphantly waving the bolt around after he’d extracted it and quickly sent them to Rebel before tucking my phone back in my pocket.
“Thought you were slick, didn’t you,” he said to it before setting the bolt aside in a tray.
“Are you done menacing the hardware now?” I asked.
He chuckled as he turned around and reached for an oil-streaked rag to wipe his hands on.
“Perhaps,” he said. “Depends on how the rest of the engine wants to act.”
I leaned over the hood and stared into an ocean of parts I knew nothing about. “You guys better behave,” I mock whispered. “He sounds serious.”
“I’ll show you serious,” he said, waving greasy fingers at me.
“Nope,” I replied, evading the hug. “Rebel said to give him ten minutes. That was about two minutes ago.”
“I’d better hurry up then,” Steel said, and hit the button to close the garage door.
I followed him in, turning to go back to the kitchen while he headed upstairs to get a shower.
This time, I wasn’t met with dancing. Rebel stood by the stove, a substance that was somehow both gloopy and chunky dripping from the whisk he held. Rebel cocked his head and studied one of the chunks before tasting it.
“Fuck me,” Rebel groaned and turned the stove off.
“Problem?” I asked as I stepped closer to get a better look.
Never in all the times I’d made instant mashed potatoes had I ever had any look like this. Instead of being fluffy, they looked like glue, but it was the color and the sheer number of chunks that completely threw me.
“What happened?” I asked as Rebel studied the contents of a canister.
Every few seconds he turned it a different way, frown growing as he opened it and tasted what was inside.
“A slight mishap,” Rebel said. “You wanna know what’s truly fucked up? That when they’re in canisters, mashed potato flakes and coconut flakes look almost exactly alike. It’s diabolical.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in, as the image of him rummaging in the cupboard for a second canister of potato flakes popped into my head. “You didn’t.”
He just turned, looking sheepish as he set the canister back on the counter. “Oops. Definitely coconut.”
No wonder it was an odd cream color. “Dude! Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“I was wondering why they weren’t melting into mashed potatoes like the first batch,” he mused, leaning against the counter now and stroking his chin. “There were so many lumps I switched from a fork to the whisk, and when that didn’t help, I dumped more in and still couldn’t get it to thicken up.”
“Why wouldn’t you label the canisters?”
“I don’t know, I think the better question would be why did I have coconut flakes in the first place,” Rebel said, scratching his head. “I can’t think of a single thing I’d use them in.”
“Well, you had to have bought them at some point,” I said. “Otherwise, you have coconut manifesting cupboards and might want to do something about that before there are more coconut flakes than sand around here.”
He just laughed and reached for the pot, peered inside, and laughed harder before pulling out his phone and taking a picture of the mess.
“The guys will get a kick out of that,” he said. “What should we title it?”
“A hot mess,” I offered.
“Hey guys,” he muttered aloud as he typed. “I just invented an all-natural alternative to wallpaper paste.”
It didn’t take long before his phone started blipping, then mine vibrated, alerting me to a concerned text from Johnny asking if I needed him to send Door Dash my way.
It was followed a few seconds later by a text from Dash. “Dude, do not eat that! I’m just getting used to you.”
Snorting, I text back, “Ditto.”
Sometime between when we’d entered the studio and when the final track was laid down, it clicked for me that I was truly a part of the band, with all the snark and brotherhood that went along with it.
A one-word text from Ozzy simply said run.
“Dash asked what the hell it was,” Rebel said and showed me the giant puke emoji Dash had sent after Rebel told him. “It’s honestly not that bad. I mean, it tastes like potato, just a little on the sweet and nutty side.”
“Just like you,” I replied, shaking my head at him. “Now throw that shit away.”
“Fine…” Rebel grumbled, muttering something about creative vision and how we could have been on the verge of starting a whole new trend in instant potatoes.
He was just scraping the mess into the trash and having a hell of a time doing it now that it had started to solidify when Steel emerged, took one look at what was taking place, and chuckled.
“Do I want to ask?”
“Probably not,” Rebel said as he finally got the last of it out of the pot.
I crossed the kitchen to the grocery list Rebel had clipped to the fridge and added labels right under grape juice.
“Apparently potato flakes and coconut flakes look exactly alike,” I explained.
“No worries,” Steel said, crossing the kitchen to the container that was still sitting on the counter. “There’s still plenty of potato flakes left. I’ll whip us up a new batch.”
“No, you won’t,” I said, snickering and nudging the canister out of his grasp. “Those are the coconut flakes.”
“And that is vindication!” Rebel declared.
Groaning, I just smacked my hand over my eyes while Rebel tapped a message into his phone, no doubt telling the rest of the band what had just happened.
“Don’t they sell mashed potatoes at the gas station down the road?” Steel asked. “I swear I saw some in there the other day.”
“Yeah, in their take-and-bake section,” Rebel replied, still typing away.
“Perfect. I’m going to go get some; you just stay here and refrain from putting coconut flakes in anything else,” Steel said, before turning to look at me. “You can hogtie him if you need to, just no more coconut-flake abominations.”
“Sorry, I’m fresh out of rope,” Rebel declared, smirking at me.
“No, you’re not,” Steel said. “You’ve got three different kinds on the top shelf of the utility closet, right next to the zip ties.”
“He’s got zip ties?”
“Seems to have a fascination with them, with how many are in there,” Steel replied.
“It’s called being prepared,” Rebel declared. “I forgot about the rope, though.”
“Surrrreeee you did,” Steel teased.
“Next you’ll tell me the utility closet spawns rope the way the cupboard mass produces coconut flakes,” I pointed out.
“It’s chaos gremlins,” Rebel said. “Has to be.”
“The only chaos gremlin here is you,” Steel said, tugging him into a kiss to muffle his protests.
“I’m just going to put this over here before it hurts somebody,” I said, removing the coconut flake container from the counter and skimming the room for an out-of-the-way place to stash it so it wouldn’t accidentally get used again.
“You can just pour those out,” Rebel said. “I don’t even like coconut flakes.”
“Which brings me right back to the question of why you have them,” I said.
Rebel just shrugged and shook his head. “Fuck if I know.”
“And on that note, I’ll be going now,” Steel declared. “Try to keep him out of trouble while I’m gone.”
“Who’s gonna keep him out of trouble?” Rebel asked as I dumped the coconut flakes in the trash.
Steel looked between us, lips pressed into a tight, grim line before lobbing Rebel’s line back at him. “Fuck if I know.”
His laughter trailed behind him as he left the room, leaving me to study Rebel as he stood there fiddling with his phone.
“Ya know, it would be one hell of a sight for him to walk back in here and find you zip tied to a chair with me riding you,” I said.
Rebel barely caught his phone before it hit the ground, and even then, he bobbled it and had to lunge to secure it.
“And I’m the one whose supposed to be trouble,” Rebel said, depositing the phone on the counter. “Why is it you only show your true colors when we’re the only ones in the room?”
“Can’t have any eyewitnesses,” I said. “Now, how about those zip ties?”
“I’ll get them,” Rebel said. “You go pick a chair.”
He joined me in the living room, his clothes discarded sometime during the trip, to line zip ties, lube, and condoms along the edge of the coffee table.
“Thought you were hungry?” he said as I pointed to the only chair that could conceivably work for what I had planned.
The sturdy wooden wing backed one that looked like it had been carved from the trunk of a tree.
“Are you fishing for a cheesy line right now?” I asked.
“Maybe.”
“Fine,” I said as I wrapped the first zip tie around his ankle. “I’m hungry, just not for food.”
“You can do better than that,” he replied, stroking my hair while he still had the chance.
“I’m always hungry…for you,” I said, wagging my eyebrows at him.
He completely cracked up at that, making it difficult for me to secure his other ankle until he settled down.
“Now that was just terrible,” he declared.
“Quit being judgy,” I murmured, lips pressed to the inside of his thigh, making his breath hitch.
“Wasn’t judgy,” he sighed. “Was facts.”
“Uh-huh.”
I drew my tongue up the underside of his cock as I stood, two more zip ties in hand.
“So, when are you going to feed me?” I asked as I secured his wrist to the arm of the chair.
“Mmm,” he hummed when I grazed my teeth over his nipple. “That was almost cheesy.”
“See…judgy,” I grumbled as I moved to capture his other wrist.
He tangled it in my hair first and tugged me into a scorching kiss that left me eager to climb into his lap.
“I’m starving,” I growled as the kiss ended, “for another ride on that cock!”
“Now that was classic cheese,” Rebel said and yanked me into another kiss.
Fucker just, I don’t know, he was so uniquely Rebel that there were no words to describe what it felt like to be with him. The playful snark, the patient encouragement, those Zen moments when he brought calm to the chaos.
Our eyes met when we broke the kiss and my head was suddenly filled with every cheesy analogy for a fireworks moment I’d ever heard. Second hand secured, I stripped, wishing I could take my time, but the gas station was only four miles away, and Steel’s foot was made of lead.
It wasn’t until I started prepping myself that I realized what a truly amazing idea this was. Handsy, impatient Rebel had to watch and squirm until I was ready to climb in his lap.
And I made sure he could see everything I was doing to myself.
“Fuckin’ tease,” he hissed.
“I think I just found my new favorite pastime,” I declared as I straddled him.
“What, tormenting me?” he groaned.
“Precisely,” I said as I sank down on his cock.
“F-fuckkkkk.”
“That’s the plan,” I said and nipped his ear just to feel him shudder beneath me.
Between the zip ties and me in his lap, he couldn’t flex his abs or roll his hips; all he could do was wait while I set the pace, a slow lazy one punctuated with kisses.
I heard the door close and the jangle of keys as Steel came up the hall, the plastic bag rustling with every step.
“They were just putting a fresh batch out,” Steel said, and then the keys hit the floor as he caught sight of us.
“Fuck it,” Steel growled, the bag hitting the ground next. “We’re ordering in.”
~ End ~
Ozzy’s up next. See what life has in store for him when he’s finally forced to step away from the band, and into a certain tattoo artist’s life, when he drops in to visit with the guys at The Lizard Lounge, and leaves with more than just fresh ink on his arm.