22. Dallas
NICKY
Ian sat up, too, and flicked on one of the gooseneck reading lights.
“Look,” he said. “Let’s not make this into more than it is, okay?”
He pulled a pillow onto his lap, and I realized the hard cock I’d dreamed about was probably right there, hard as iron, under a boring square of fabric and some padding. But he didn’t want me to know about it. Or expect me to deal with it.
“I think you know I had a . . . physical reaction yesterday,” he said. I blushed. “You had one today. It’s no big deal. It happens, right?”
He was waiting for my reply. “Right,” I said, wreathed in embarrassment.
“Archer is my best friend. Practically my brother. I’m not going to get between you and him. Promise. But I really, really like sleeping, and you really, really like not having nightmares.”
“Now I don’t want to have any dreams at all,” I admitted, and he had the decency to laugh.
“So we agree. Sometimes physical reactions happen, but you and I are friends. Right?”
“Friends?”
“Friends. And we’ll deal with any physical stuff when it happens. Or better, we’ll ignore it.”
“Ignore it. I vote for ignoring it.”
“Good. I like that too.”
I couldn’t meet his eye. He was being so decent and kind, and it would have been a lot easier to buy into the just-friends philosophy if my exceptionally erotic dream had really continued to be about Archer. Unfortunately, the longer I dreamed, the more the object of my lust was sitting a foot away from me, behaving like some unattainable stereotype of how gentlemen were supposed to behave.
The skin around my eyes felt too narrow. I was still half trapped in the dream, in which I’d been about to roll on top of Ian and spear myself on his cock, at last filling the emptiness at my core.
“Friends,” I croaked again.
“Friends. Do you want a moment?” He shifted as if he was going to get off the sofa and then paused. “Or do you want to go back to your bunk for the rest of the night? I’d understand.”
“Ugh,” I said, and maybe that was a little rude in the face of his kindness. “I think, um, I don’t want to go back to the bunk.”
“Good.” He seemed relieved, which was more than I would have expected after waking up to find me clinging to him like a suction cup. “Okay. I’ll be back in a bit.”
He left the lounge in a strange crouch. Against the movement of the bus?
No, I realized. To spare me the evidence of his arousal. Which he was probably dealing with right now in the bathroom.
I blushed even harder, unsure if my reaction was from embarrassment or lust. I lay down quickly and covered myself to my chin, thinking of anything other than Ian’s hand grabbing his cock and tugging until he came, muffling his groan of release.
No, now I was thinking exactly of that. What would distract me?
How about: Why was the thought of making Ian groan causing my breath to come faster while the same situation with Archer had made me want to roll my eyes?
Archer, who even now was probably off with some stranger he’d just met.
I tried hard to care. Archer was the one I wanted. The one I deserved. We’d looked so good together in the elevator’s reflection.
“You still awake?” Ian whispered.
“I am.”
“Want a bottle of water?”
“Hey. Thanks.” His hand smelled of soap and Ian. Always a gentleman. “Thanks, friend.”
He chuckled. “Yep. Friend.”
He lay beside me, and I capped the bottle and tucked it into the pillows. “Now what?”
He flipped the light off. “Sleep. Can you?”
“You’re not afraid I’ll attack you again?”
I heard the smile in his voice. “You’re not afraid I’ll poke you again?”
Suddenly, it was funny. I got to snorting, and he was chuckling. And then it was okay. I relaxed.
When I woke up again, Mal was standing in the doorway.
“So this is how he’s getting to sleep,” he said quietly when he saw my eyes were open. “God bless you, Nicky.”
“It doesn’t worry you?” I crawled carefully over Ian and pushed Mal to the forward lounge. I sat at the banquette while he brewed coffee.
“What, that you and Archer are a thing and yet you’re curled up with Ian? I guess it might look a little funny to some people. But I know both those guys.”
“Hmm.” I studied Mal, who had rapidly become a brother to me. “And what do you know about them?”
He thought about it while he went about making us both a mug. “Ken, you want coffee?”
“You read my mind, kid. We’ll be in Dallas in an hour.”
“’Kay.”
Once everyone had the Essential Wake-Up Brew, Mal sat across the table and studied me. “What do I know about Archer and Ian. Well . . .” He traced the rim of his coffee cup with a long finger before inhaling deeply. “I know Archer hasn’t had a relationship that lasted more than three weeks since he started dating. And three weeks was a record. Mostly because he had the flu and didn’t meet anyone new during that time.”
I thought about it. “Maybe you think you’re telling me something I hadn’t already assumed.” I tried to sound cool. That was to hide the little girl inside me who was insisting that my relationship with Archer would be different. It would last.
“Maybe I did think that,” Mal said. He nudged me with his foot, and I grimaced at him. Annoying brother.
“What about Ian?” I asked.
“Ian. He’s a different story. He went through a groupie phase when we first got some attention, but he got over it faster than I did. Ian’s more likely to have a girlfriend.” He watched my reaction, which I tried to mask.
“Does he have a girlfriend now?” Did it come out as casually as I’d hoped?
Mal gestured. “You see anyone here with us? All three of us are currently unattached.” He leered at me comedically, and I was unable to control the grin.
“Lucky me,” I said.
“Take your pick,” he said. “We’re all footloose and fancy-free. Pretty sweet, right?”
Ian appeared in the hallway. “I smell coffee,” he said.
Mal pointed at the coffeemaker. “Help yourself.”
“Ahh.” Ian’s hair was still too short to look rumpled, but that was the only part that didn’t proclaim that he’d just woken up. He shoved me over bodily by attempting to sit in my seat, and I giggled as I moved to the middle. “Coffee good,” he said.
“Coffee good. Og like,” Mal agreed.
“Og make coffee,” I tried, liking the caveman talk. “Og make coffee good.”
They liked me joining in. “Og like girl,” Mal said. “Og like girl and coffee.”
“Good,” Ian grunted. “Good coffee. Good girl.”
The strange version of dialogue gave me a fizzy, light feeling. Friends. These were my friends.
“What do in Dallas?” Mal asked. “Girl get coffee in Dallas?”
“Girl get laundry in Dallas,” I corrected.
“Laundry? Og no know laundry.”
“Laundry bad.” Ian nodded. “Coffee good. Laundry bad.”
“No, no,” I said. “Og and Og Friend, laundry good. Laundry have good smell.”
“Girl say Og smell bad?” Mal sniffed himself. “Og smell like coffee.”
“Og smell good,” I reassured him. “Og clothes, not so good.”
“Og all good!” Mal protested. “All good! Girl smell. Girl smell good.”
Overcome with the ridiculous juvenile dialogue, Mal grabbed my neck and pulled me into his side, where he rubbed my head in the classic noogie.
“Og a brat! Og get fist in testicles!” I was laughing and snorting, and Mal let me go immediately.
“Girl bad. Og like coffee.”
I was snorting, and Ian was smiling. And that stopped me short.
“Ian!” I cried.
“What?” He and Mal both looked to me in surprise.
“Ian, look at me! Smile—go on, smile. Give me a grin. Mal! You see it?!”
“Dude!” Mal reached across the table and swatted Ian’s shoulder. “Your cheek!”
“Shut up. What? Are you?—”
Ian was back in the bathroom, peering into the mirror. Mal and I crowded into the doorway. Ian was smiling.
And then he was turning away, brushing at his eyes.
“Your cheek nerve is healing,” I said happily.
“You still look like an asshole,” Mal reassured him. “Don’t worry. It’s not a full smile yet.”
Ian turned back to the mirror and tried again. “It’s better, isn’t it?”
Mal and I agreed. And then Ian reached past me to pull Mal into a hug. Since I was sandwiched between then, I looped my arms around Ian’s waist and hugged him back.
“This is what regular sleep will do for you, Ian,” Mal said, and Ian laughed. He let go of Mal and dropped a kiss on my head before nudging me gently into the hallway.
“All right. Let’s not get too excited about something so stupid.”
Mal and I rolled our eyes at each other and went back to our coffee. “You’re not really going to spend your one free day in Dallas doing laundry, are you, Nicky?” Mal asked. We were ignoring the fact that Ian was still examining his face in the bathroom.
“Well, a few hours of it, anyway. I need clean clothes. Don’t you?”
“It’s part of our contract. Every hotel we come to, we put our dirty clothes in the little bag thing, and then it comes back the next day, all clean. By fairies who come in the night.”
“That sounds expensive,” I said.
“Not our problem.” Mal grinned. “Part of the package. Plus, they fold my shorts. It’s wild.”
“Sweetie,” I said with a motherly tone, “I’ll teach you to fold your own shorts. You guys can do laundry with me this afternoon, and then we’ll find a place to have dinner. Okay?”
Ian took his place at the table, trying to look stern. “That sounds fine.”
“No way!” Mal protested. “Nicky, you give your dirty laundry to me, and we’ll all go out and find some cool place to hang!”
“Sure. And no one will notice that you suddenly have women’s clothing in your laundry bag,” Ian teased.
“I could be a cross-dresser. They don’t know.” Mal was built like a tank. In a pinch, he might have been able to force one of my socks onto his foot, but it would have cut off his circulation.
“We do laundry,” Ian announced, “and then dinner. Someplace where we can take our girl.”
Charlotte had slid bonelessly from her bunk and was now licking Ian’s leg. She wanted her breakfast and deserved a pit stop.
The day proceeded in easy warmth and friendship. We did laundry in the hotel basement while Mal and Ian teased me and Charlotte chased her boot across the laundry room. Nobody said a word when my clean laundry ended up in Ian’s room and not in the double I was sharing with the invisible lighting tech.
And nobody mentioned the missing person in our group. Archer’s absence was not discussed, and I was grateful for it.
The evening had gotten purple by the time we ended up at a Texican restaurant with a crowded patio and grossly oversized margaritas. A live band (notable, as Mal said, more for their enthusiastic volume than their skill) inspired the surrounding neighborhood, and a surprising block party spilled into the street near midnight. Buoyed by just one (absolutely enormous) drink and a day of laughter, I danced with the crowd, all three of us whirling and singing together as we made room for wiggling, delighted Charlotte between us.
“What a great night,” Mal said as we walked back to the hotel. Charlotte was draped over his shoulder, resting with her head hanging down his back. The baby really could sleep anywhere.
“It was a great night,” I sighed happily. “Wherever Archer is, I hope he had as good a time.”
Mal patted my back. “Amen,” he said. “I’m going to keep this baby tonight, okay? No, I know how to feed her. She’s sleeping with me. Yes, I’ll hide my shoes. Good night, you guys. See you tomorrow. Sound check at two, Ian.”
“Night, Mal.”
We didn’t even discuss it as we moved to his room, except Ian asked if I needed to get anything.
I shook my head. “I brought my stuff when I took my laundry up.” I had my toiletries. My sleep clothes. Clean clothes to change into. We simply didn’t discuss the fact that I’d be sleeping in Ian’s room.
As his friend.
The magic held as we got ready for bed. There wasn’t going to be any sex. No physical reaction. No hot dreams. We were friends.
“How come Mal’s not out with some groupie like Archer?” I asked as I got into Ian’s bed.
He was pulling off his sneakers and was left holding one black shoe as he considered his reply.
“Mal’s an interesting guy,” he said. “He’s, like, the defender of the downtrodden.”
“What’s that mean?” Ian had a nice back. Not that I was noticing.
He got up to empty his pockets and put his life away. “He’s really into fairness and justice. And he told me once—he said the groupies were there for free hookups, right? And for him, that’s all it was. Some fun, some sex, nothing to it.” He plugged his phone into the charger and slid into bed on the other side. Miles of space between us. “But he discovered that the groupies didn’t necessarily think it was going to be a one-night stand. They were wanting something more than that. So he decided he was taking advantage. No more groupies.”
He turned out the light, and we both turned to face each other across the vast emptiness of the bed. “That’s nice of him,” I said.
“Well, to be sure, there are women who really want to say they’ve fucked a musician, and he’ll oblige them. He’s no saint. But there aren’t many of those at our level. We don’t really count for star fucking.”
I reached out a foot as far as I could go before nudging his thigh. “Your level is going up pretty high lately. There might be more star fuckers out there for you guys.”
“Hmph,” he said.
And then that was the end of that conversation.
When I woke up, Ian was lying on his back, watching daylight come through the vast window. He saw I was awake.
“I slept all night,” he said calmly. “And when I woke up, I had an entire melody in my head. I mean, the whole thing. Verse, chorus, bridge. I’m working on the intro now.”
“While you’re lying here?”
“I wrote down a bunch of it.” He nodded at the sofa and table at the foot of the bed.
“Like that other song,” I marveled. “That is so cool. How did that first one turn out?”
He sighed happily. “Better than I hoped. Did you like it?”
I was confused. “Did I like it? Have I heard it?”
He turned, the question on his face. “‘Charlotte’s Lullaby’? You didn’t hear it?”
I sat up in bed. “You wrote that? I thought Archer?—”
“He helped,” Ian said. “He cleared up some of the rhyme scheme.”
“I thought he—” I tried to review my conversation with Archer while he’d been licking my neck. Had he said he wrote the song? Or did I make a stupid assumption?
Ian was watching me, his forehead wrinkled in confusion. “I thought it was absolutely gorgeous,” I told him. “It made me cry.”
He shook his head hopefully. “No, it didn’t. Did it really?”
“It was so beautiful. And bus eight has had such bad sleep issues.”
Except that wasn’t quite right. Only Ian and I had sleep issues. Issues that we fixed by sleeping together.
Light dawned. “Charlotte’s Lullaby” was a lullaby he’d written while I was sleeping in his bed. A lullaby that ended with the promise of being wrapped up in his love.
It wasn’t for the dog. It was for me.
“Yeah,” I breathed, wondering how I could’ve been so stupid. “Yeah, I loved it. It’s amazing.”
His face lit up, and the right side of his smile was definitely higher. He saw my smile and felt his face with his fingers. “It’s still working?”
“Maybe better than yesterday. You just needed sleep, Ian. Sleep and time.”
“Yep.” He looked at me, and I thought he was going to say that he just needed me, but he didn’t. “Some breakfast? What do you say? We’ve got two hours, and I want to see if Mal has some thoughts about the chorus.”
Just friends. Friends who had sleepovers. Who could object to that?