Chapter 24
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Tatum
Tobias slept through the worst of his withdrawals, and once the last of the shows in Tallahassee closed out, I had to admit I was happy to be back on the road.
We left Mike, the withdrawal nurse Ruby had put us in touch with, in Florida with a good luck and a contact number in case we needed him in the future. He was good people, and I’d studied the recovery resources he left with us like it was an exam that would determine the rest of my life.
Calix had handled the situation with his usual churlish flare for alienating everyone around him.
While we’d been distracted with Toby, I’d noticed a shift between Harvey and Otis.
For one thing, there had been no protest when we’d decided to clear all alcohol and drugs out of the bus.
Otis seemed to be somewhere closer to the man I first met, while Harvey had withdrawn.
Instead of being the first to needle Calix or give an opinion just to get a reaction, he had taken to sitting quietly at the front of the bus, practicing on his guitar or scribbling in a notebook.
As far as I was aware, Harvey wasn’t usually much of a songwriter, but the dynamic of the entire band seemed to have shifted recently, so who knew?
As the bus pulled into another parking lot that we would call home for the length of time we were in Atlanta, I slipped into the seat beside him.
“We’re going out this afternoon,” I said without waiting for acknowledgement.
“Where?”
“Somewhere fun.” I grinned at his confused look and headed toward the back of the bus to find some comfortable shoes.
“This is your idea of fun?” Harvey looked around the huge indoor space, cataloging the webbed netting that separated each of the cages, the pitching machines, the gloves, and wooden bats and helmets for hire decorating the walls like trophies.
“Have you ever been to a batting cage before?” I asked lightly, smiling at the woman behind the desk.
“I can’t say that I have. It looks dangerous.”
I laughed. “That’s why you wear protective gear. Come on, didn’t you play baseball as a kid?”
“Not when I could help it.”
I refused to be discouraged by his reticence, so I gave my attention to the woman who handed over two helmets, two bats, and two pairs of gloves, then directed us to the nearest cage.
We started with slow pitches, getting the feel for the pace and angle of the machine. The first time Harvey’s hit connected, he grinned like he’d won the World Series.
It occurred to me that we’d probably grown up very differently. My dad had taken me to baseball games religiously every summer. My heroes were my contemporaries in college ball, like Farrah Hall and Cami Morales.
Harvey didn’t seem to have the same kind of memories.
After a few balls, Harvey tapped out, arguing he’d prefer to go out on the win and watch the master get her ass kicked by a machine.
He seemed lighter here, away from the others. As I wound up and felt the solid connection of bat and ball, I wondered again what he was carrying, and if he’d trust me enough to open up about it.
My shoulders burned, muscles that had long gone unused waking up in the way that only comes with deeply ingrained memory. I lost myself in the rhythm. Swing. Hit. Swing. Hit.
“Can you go faster?” Harvey asked, eyeing the dial on the pitching machine.
“Hell yes.” He stepped toward the nets, ready to help with the speed, but I stopped him with a quick gesture. “No, I need to—Oof.” I cut off with a grunt of pain as the next ball connected with my shoulder, unaware of my distraction.
Harvey swore, making another move to enter the nets.
“Don’t. That was my fault. Maybe it’s time we stopped for lunch.
” I gave him a weak smile, rubbing my throbbing shoulder as I met him outside the nets and walked toward the hot dog van out the front of the venue.
He hesitated but fell into step beside me as I greeted the man and ordered two hotdogs with cola.
“I don’t eat this stuff,” he grumbled as we climbed up and sat on the picnic table set up beside the van.
“What, hot dogs and soda?” I asked, slurping the sugary bubbles up my straw.
“It’s fattening.”
I let my eyes wander over his lean frame. “I don’t think you have a problem. Besides, you exercise religiously. It’s actually why I thought you’d like this. You seem like a sporty kind of guy.”
He huffed a laugh and lifted his hotdog for a closer inspection. “Actually, I’m a former fat kid who is pathologically terrified of being an outsider.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. Given the way he took a small, tentative bite in the silence that followed, maybe he felt the same.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
He shrugged, chewing hard.
“Is that…?”
“The reason I’ve been fucking up Otis’s life since the first day I met him? Probably. Or maybe I’m just an irrefutable asshole with no redeemable qualities.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
That shoulder lifted again, and he took a deliberate bite of his bun.
A car rolled past, windows shaking from the bass pumping out of their speakers.
“If they’re going to play music that loudly, they could at least put something good on,” I muttered and startled at Harvey’s chuckle.
“No accounting for taste, I guess.” He took a small sip of his soda.
“Can I ask what’s going on with you and Otis?”
The morning after Tobias’s overdose, I’d checked the tabloids, terrified the news had somehow got out, only to find photos of Otis kissing a fan center stage at the concert I’d missed.
We’d released a statement declaring love is love, and we wouldn’t be answering any questions at this time, but I hadn’t wanted to disrupt Otis’s newfound sobriety with difficult questions until it was necessary.
“I’m not gay.” The statement was a closed door. His knuckles whitened where he gripped his knee, and his body seemed to lock down, braced for an attack that wouldn’t come from me.
“You know, the first time Ruby hooked up with a girl, she was ecstatic. I’m talking, dancing down the street, commissioning T-shirts that read Pussy-Licker, screaming about girl love from the rooftops, kind of happy.
She refused to answer to anything but Queen of the Lesbians for a week because she was so proud she made a girl come so hard she forgot her own name. ”
Harvey huffed a laugh, and I grinned.
“Yeah, it shouldn’t surprise you that my girl has a dramatic streak.
You know she gave me one of those damn T-shirts for my twenty-first birthday?
She’s a menace. Anyway…a couple of months go by and she meets this guy.
He’s rough around the edges, rides a motorbike, and treats her like a goddess—which means he can fuck her into oblivion and back.
Her worldview shifted, and she realized that she wasn’t one hundred percent a card-carrying lesbian.
Before you ask, yes, there were tears and a few bottles of wine before she realized that she didn’t have to choose.
Sexuality is a scale, not a binary. Ruby is further toward the lesbian side of bisexual, but she will still enjoy the right cock.
She isn’t defined by the person she’s spending time with in that moment; it’s about who she feels happiest with.
If Otis makes you happy, then fuck what anyone else wants to label you. Be you. Be happy.”
“But what if I enjoy the arrangement we have?” he asked his feet.
“Do you?”
His smirk was as dangerous as ever as he finally looked me in the eye.
“Yeah, I really fucking do.”
“But you want to be with Otis?”
His confirmation came slower this time.
“Then maybe you’re bisexual. Or maybe it’s more about the person and less about the parts, in which case you might be pan or hetero-flexible. The point is that you don’t have to choose a label if you don’t want to.”
An airplane rumbled overhead, breaking through the silence of the street around us as Harvey seemed to process my words. To give him space, I picked up my hotdog and focused on devouring the whole bun before finishing my cola. After a moment, he did the same.
“Would it put an end to our arrangement?” he asked softly as we dropped our trash in the can.
I should have said yes. Stepped aside and let them work through what they needed to, but selfishly, I’d enjoyed my time with Harvey.
“No. I’d still be available as long as both of you were happy with the arrangement.”
He nodded and climbed into the passenger seat of the hire car I’d organized for our outing.
The drive back to the bus went quickly, and we pulled up as the twins stepped out of the bus.
“Angel!” Tobias’s face lit up as he bounded over and swept me into a hug.
His energy had come back with a vengeance in the last couple of days, just like Mike had warned it would. The honeymoon period, he’d called it. Basically, a whole heap of happy brain chemicals had taken the wheel. I was just glad to see him feeling better.
“What have you guys been up to?” I asked, looking between the brothers.
“Mischief, of course,” Toby said, smacking a kiss on my cheek.
Calix hummed, eyes narrowed on me in an assessing way.
“What’s wrong with your arm?”
“Nothing,” I said too quickly, tugging on the sleeve of my T-shirt.
“Bullshit.” Knocking my hand away, he revealed the darkening bruise on my shoulder.
Toby’s arms dropped, and he took a step back to assess the damage. “Did you do this to her?”
“What…?” I realized a second too late his eyes were firmly on Harvey, who was looking extremely guilty for someone who was not at fault.
“You fucking hurt her?” Toby took a menacing step forward, and I hurried to get between them.
“It was an accident.” Wrong thing to say.
With gentle hands, he moved me aside and took two running steps, catching Harvey around the middle and taking him down to the ground.
“Calix, do something,” I demanded as the guys rolled around on the ground, throwing punches and swinging elbows.
“Did he hurt you?” he asked, making no move to step in.
“No! It was a genuine accident. I got distracted, and the pitching machine got me with a fastball. It was my own fault. Now, please stop them before someone gets hurt.”
Calix sighed, like the whole thing was a huge inconvenience, and hauled his twin to his feet.
Toby’s hands shook as I steered him onto the bus with a worried glance back at Harvey, but Otis was there, pulling him to his feet.
I gave him a soft smile as they wandered off, hopefully to have a long overdue talk.
“I thought he’d hurt you,” Toby murmured, pulling me close to inspect the bruise.
“He didn’t do it. I promise, it was one hundred percent genuine Tatum King clumsiness.”
He hummed, slipping a hand beneath my T-shirt to draw small circles on my back. “Does it hurt?”
I shrugged as he steered us farther into the bus, toward the back bedroom.
“Want me to make it better?” His smile was wicked as he slid his palms up my ribs, taking my T-shirt up over my head until I stood before him in just a bra. He groaned, taking his time to look me over.
This Toby had none of the spaced-out fog of the man I’d known since day one. He had the same intensity as his twin but without the dark cloud.
He dipped his head and pressed his teeth into my neck, sucking gently until a shiver of need weakened my knees.
“I’ve been dreaming of making you come with my mouth. Will you let me?”
The sound that left my throat wasn’t close to anything in the English language, but my intent must have been clear. Without further discussion, he stripped my pants and panties off me, hooked his hands behind my thighs, and lifted me onto the bed.
“You are so fucking beautiful, Angel,” he muttered, tracing a hand from my throat down my sternum. His other hand gripped my thigh, tightening slightly like he was imagining hitching it over his hip so he could fuck me deeply.
I cupped his cheek as he dropped a quick kiss to my lips, then he wriggled down the bed and settled between my thighs.
“Perfect.” The word floated across my sensitive flesh, and I shivered, lifting my hips in invitation.
Instead of diving in, he pressed a gentle kiss to my pubic bone and ran a finger along the length of my slit, gathering my wetness.
He held the finger up for my inspection, holding eye contact for a long minute, then slipped the digit into his mouth and sucked.
His eyelids fluttered closed, a hum of approval rumbling out of him as he repeated the action.
“You taste better than any high I’ve had in the last ten years, Princess. You’re going to be my new favorite addiction.”
Before I could respond, he dropped his head and speared his tongue into my soaking wet pussy.
I cried out, grasping at his hair as he used his tongue and teeth to bring me to a dizzying climax faster than I would have thought possible.
Before I could catch my breath, he pushed two fingers inside me and sucked hard on my clit, forcing me into a second orgasm.
I lasted two more before I had to press a shaking hand to his head and force him to stop. That tongue ring was a weapon of pussy destruction, and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to walk if he continued. Then again…maybe I didn’t need to.
“You’re officially the King of Orgasms, but now I need a rest. Can we just cuddle for a while?”
He retrieved a blanket from the floor and climbed onto the bed beside me, spreading it over our bodies.
“This is my favorite thing,” he said, wrapping an arm around me and pulling me tightly against him.
“Mine too,” I agreed and fell into a deep post-orgasm sleep.