Chapter Seven – Angel
I ended up telling Alexa that I’d agreed to a trial relationship with all three guys—though I still didn’t tell her who or why I had to keep it a secret—and my sister. Though, the latter I had to make her promise that she wouldn’t tell Mom a thing. Cleo was so excited and thrilled that I was following her plan that she agreed without being too smug or making a big deal about it.
“You have to make it work,” she’d told me once I’d called and relayed the news. “You have to. My future happiness depends on you.” Her future happiness was apparently in my hands. No pressure at all.
Turned out, life wasn’t much different with three boyfriends, considering I was already living with them and spending nearly every waking hour with them. We spent a lot of time in the studio, recording for the upcoming album that we were simply calling Double Feature.
It was a double feature because it’d have older songs re-done with Priest’s and my vocals, and newer music, too. I’d actually come up with the Double Feature title, and the guys loved it.
After agreeing to a trial relationship, things weren’t very different, and it made me wonder if, perhaps, I’d exaggerated all of my worries. Maybe I’d let myself get so caught up in my concerns and the possible what-ifs that I’d been blind to the fact that dating them all might be the easiest thing ever.
Maybe I was just stupid.
Deacon did start cooking dinner for us more often, and he actually ate with us instead of waiting until eleven at night to cook himself something in the microwave. He never went out and got drunk anymore, either.
It was one Wednesday night when we all sat in the living room with our plates—meatloaf and loaded baked potatoes—that Priest quipped, “You know, Deacon, at least you always have a backup career. You could be a chef.” We had some stupid comedy show playing on the TV. It wasn’t my favorite, but I was a sucker for reruns. Something about reruns made my brain shut off.
Deacon sat on the floor, sprawled out as he used the coffee table as an actual table. The rest of us were on the couch, balancing our plates in either our hands or on pillows on our laps. He glared at Priest. “Shut up.”
“What? I’m just saying, your food is good.” Priest shrugged his wide shoulders. “I don’t know what I’d do without Black Sacrament. Oh! I could be a model.” Okay, at that, everybody looked at him like he was crazy. “What? I could. With this body, this hair—” He swept a hand through his messy blond hair. “—and this chiseled face?” He pointed at himself. “I could definitely be a model. Don’t be hating because you ain’t as pretty as me.”
I didn’t want to laugh at his silliness, but I couldn’t help it. If there was one thing I’d learned about Priest other than how flirty he was, it was that his ego was sky-high. No one could ever hope to match it.
“I think I’d still like to work in the music scene,” Bishop said. His brown hair was getting a little long; it needed a trim soon. It was long enough to hang over his eyes and hide their pretty hazel hue. “Be a producer or something? What would you do?” That was asked to me.
Sitting in the middle of Priest and Bishop, I felt strangely at home, not like I wanted to crawl out of my own skin just to put some distance between us. I was growing more and more comfortable being close to them.
And kissing them.
“I don’t know. Probably go back to school… although, I always did want to be on stage. Broadway might be fun, if we’re able to pick anything.”
“Are you even a good dancer?” Priest asked, leaning closer to me. “I could picture your adorable face on stage, singing your little heart out, but I just can’t picture you doing jazz hands.”
I rolled my eyes. “Deacon, what would you do? Would you really be a chef, or is there something else you’d want to do?” I didn’t think any of us could forget the fact that Deacon had thought a lot about leaving the band. I wanted to make him see that he didn’t need his brother here to be happy.
And I think, lately, he’d been happier. But don’t quote me on it. Out of the three of them, he was still the hardest to read.
Deacon shook his head, and he quietly muttered, “I don’t really know.” That’s all he said, and I could tell he wanted to be done with this conversation. The guys must’ve sensed it too, because Priest started talking about how he wanted more tattoos.
After a while, Deacon got up to put his plate away, and I followed him. I set my plate on the counter near the trash can, where he was currently scraping off his, and watched him. There was at least thirty feet between us and the guys in the living room; not exactly private, but private enough with the TV going.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Conversations like that must be hard for you.”
“It’s fine.” He set his plate down and then grabbed mine to scrape mine off for me. He’d never outright claimed he wanted to leave again, not after the guys found out, but sometimes I felt like he was still hanging on by a thread. Maybe that was just his personality, but I didn’t want to take a chance.
I took a step closer to him and set a hand on his lower back. Being comforting wasn’t something I had much practice with, but I wanted to try.
Deacon set my plate on top of his, slow to turn toward me, his green eyes heavy. His six foot tall frame was a little hunched over, and it made him appear downtrodden and a little sad.
“It just makes me think about Pope. I… I haven’t talked to him in months. I don’t even know if he’s still in the city. I don’t know what he’s doing, if he got another job, or if he went home. Ramona didn’t want me talking to him after… after everything. I was supposed to cut contact cold turkey back when we kicked him out. I couldn’t do it. But then he kept trying to weasel his way back in, so I had to ignore him. Eventually he stopped messaging.”
Everyone had it hard; Pope had been their friend too, but Deacon had it worse, I’d say. Pope was his brother. They were near in age, only separated by a year. They had to have been close. I couldn’t imagine it myself, since Cleo and I had seven years in between us, but severing ties so suddenly had to hurt, and clearly that hurt hadn’t healed with time.
He shook his head. “It just makes me wonder if I could’ve done more for him, if I could’ve had his back better, then maybe he’d still be here—but then I realize if he was here, you wouldn’t be, and I feel shitty for not being grateful for you.” He sighed, leaning his back against the counter.
I stepped in front of him and rested into him, giving him a sort-of hug. I leaned my face against his chest, the fabric of his black shirt soft on my skin. “You can’t change the past. All we can do now is make the most of things.”
His chest rose and fell evenly, and I swore I could hear his heart beating. He wrapped an arm around my lower back, and we stood there for a while. “When I first met you, I had no idea this was where we’d end up,” he whispered, and when I tilted my head back to meet his stare, he used his other arm to tuck some of my hair behind an ear. “I thought you were so annoying, and I really wanted to hate you.”
“But,” I said, starting to smile, because I knew this tune already.
“But,” he acknowledged what we both already knew, “it’s impossible to hate you.” A warmth replaced the sorrow in his eyes, and the hand that had swept back my hair dropped to my neck as his tall frame bent over. His lips pressed against mine in what I’d consider a chaste kiss.
Because, yes, I now knew the difference between a chaste kiss and a kiss no one else should see. I never knew all the different ways a kiss could set a fire inside you, but boy, once that flame caught, the rest was history.
And Deacon had a habit of holding onto my neck in one way or another as he kissed me. I melted every single time.
I was so lost in the kiss and the feeling of his hand on my neck and his arm locked around my lower back that I neglected to hear the others get up and venture into the kitchen to get rid of their plates.
“Whoa,” Priest’s smooth, lush voice filled my ears, “my turn next?”
Deacon begrudgingly pulled his mouth off mine to glare at the intrusion, and I merely gave the flirt an unimpressed look.
“What? I’m just saying,” Priest went on, either oblivious or choosing not to address the looks he received from us, “I’m next. Speaking of, Angel, I’ve been dying to know—” He leaned on the island opposite us as Bishop snuck through with his plate. “—who’s the best kisser? I don’t want to pat myself on the back, but, well, if the shoe fits.”
Deacon’s arm was slow to drop from my back, and his hand fell away from my neck, allowing me to turn to fully glare at Priest. “What makes you assume you’re the best?” I questioned, mocking tilting my head at him. “Just because you’ve kissed a lot of girls before?”
“Uh, and a few guys,” Priest admitted. “So, yeah, I think I have more experience than all three of you combined. And that’s not even getting into sex. When it comes to skill, love, you’ll find I’m the best suited for your pleasure.” He bowed, as if finished presenting his case.
“I don’t even know how to respond to that,” I admitted, mostly because it was true. Priest had kissed guys before? I had no idea. Did that mean he was bi?
It didn’t matter, of course, because you liked who you liked and you wanted to kiss whoever you wanted to kiss. I couldn’t judge anybody. I mean, look at the situation I was in now with these three. I was one of the last people on earth who could ever judge someone for who they wanted to kiss.
Bishop said as he loaded our plates into the dishwasher, “I think it’s best if you ignore him completely. Giving attention to him will only make him keep going. Think of him like a puppy you’re trying to train.”
I chuckled at that, but Priest wasn’t amused. “A puppy, eh? Can a puppy do this?” Without a word of warning, he grabbed me, picked me up, and threw me over his shoulder, like I weighed nothing to him. Like I was light as a feather.
After I’d giggled at the suddenness and randomness of what he’d done, I swatted at his back and said, “Put me down.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said. “I have to prove to you I’m not a puppy.” Priest turned his head, “I’m going to need some alone time with our girl, thanks.” Holding onto my butt with one hand so I didn’t slip off, he saluted the others as he marched us out of the kitchen.
Priest brought me all the way down the hall, to his bedroom, where he kicked the door shut and promptly deposited me onto his bed, and my body bounced once before I managed to prop myself up on my elbows and say, “Okay, you’re not a puppy.”
He pounced on me, not like a puppy, but more like a cat. His tall, strong body pinned mine down in a way only a man’s could, not a cat and definitely not a puppy—and he knew it, because as his face hovered over mine, he grinned that lopsided smile, his sense of satisfaction evident.
Oh, he was so full of himself, but I was too head over heels to be annoyed about it. Maybe that would change with time, but right now I just found it endearing.
His hands held my arms down, and I struggled a little. “Let me go.”
Priest’s nose grazed mine as he whispered, “Do you really want me to let you go, Angel?” Angel might’ve been my fake name, but the way he said it made it sound like a pet name, something that rolled so easily off his tongue and yet held such deep meaning it was a prayer.
I could’ve said yes. I could’ve told him that I wanted him to stop, and he would. Priest might be a flirt, but when things got serious, he could be as gentlemanly as the next guy. And that was why I said, “No.”
His chest hummed with approval, and his mouth lowered to mine, though he never let my wrists go. He kept them tight in his grip, pinning every part of me down as he kissed me. He licked my lower lip and murmured through the kiss, “Your lips are so soft, Angel. They drive me crazy.”
All I could whisper out was a breathless, “Yeah?”
“They do,” Priest murmured as he nuzzled my neck, showering it with heated, slow kisses that made me shiver against him. “I think about them all the time. I dream of them. I wake up at night and wish you were here with me, in my bed, so I could steal kisses from you while you’re fast asleep.”
I was too worked up to think about how creepy that might sound. Right now, it only came off as sweet. His lips were on mine again, swallowing up any reply I might’ve had. Priest could take hold of me so effortlessly, make the butterflies in my stomach go nuts and my heart beat erratically.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not with him, not with any of them. I wasn’t supposed to fall for them. The realist in me told me time and time again this couldn’t last, that it would blow up in our faces, and picking up the pieces would be the hardest thing I would ever have to do.
But even logic couldn’t stop me from growing weak to these guys, from wanting things I’d never wanted from another guy before. I wanted their mouths, their hands… other body parts. I wanted everything .
I mean, that’s what you were supposed to want when you were dating someone, right? Even if you were dating three guys at the same time.
This was my life now. How crazy was that?