1. Kyle
KYLE
Sweat trickled down the back of my neck. It beaded across my forehead and dripped into my eyes, until I undid a couple of the buttons on my flannel shirt and rolled the sleeves to my elbows.
With a little more skin exposed, at least the breeze had a chance at touching me.
I swear it hadn’t been this hot when we’d left Saint View.
Kiki paused from inside the “tent,” though I used the term loosely. When she’d told me we were going camping, I’d expected a two-man dome that would only be tall enough for me to crawl into at night. I’d expected a sleeping bag on the ground, a campfire, and maybe some s’mores.
Then Kiki had smiled at me in that way she always did when she thought I was being cute, and I’d realized, yet again, I was making it obvious how sheltered I’d been before I’d come to live with the Slayers.
Living with a cult for your formative years would do that to you.
And camping at the Riot Valley Music Festival was nothing like what I’d imagined when she’d told me where we were going.
Kiki paused in setting up the little makeup table she’d created inside the canopy I’d pegged down so the wind didn’t carry it away.
She crossed the space and undid the rest of my buttons as she grinned up at me.
Patting my bare chest, she dragged her fingers between my pecs and over the top ridges of my abs.
“That’s better. You’ll be cooler, but still look good. Who would have thought your whole farm boy aesthetic would actually fit right in here? All you need is some glitter.”
I frowned, but caught her hand, liking the way it lingered on my chest and not ready to give that up yet, even if her makeup table was only half unpacked. “Glitter?”
She winked at me. “You’ve really never been to a concert like this before, have you?”
“Unless you count Sunday morning hymns at Ethereal Eden, no,” I said honestly. It was one of the things that had drawn me to Kiki when I’d first arrived at the Slayers’ clubhouse. She had never made me feel stupid for all the things I didn’t know about the real world.
She just patiently taught me.
So much of my “education” had involved the two of us naked and horizontal, so I’d been a pretty eager student.
She just smiled at me, pressed up onto her toes and kissed my cheek. “You’re going to love it.”
I pulled her to me, unable to get enough of the way her hair smelled like strawberries and her skin was so soft it may as well have been silk. I lowered my head and stole a proper kiss. “I love you.”
She smiled against my mouth. “I know you do.”
She kissed me back but didn’t say I love you back. She never did, and though I tried to act like it didn’t bother me, because that’s what all the other guys would have done, a part of me was disappointed.
I brushed it off and let her go.
I wasn’t little Kyle from Ethereal Eden, who lived with his parents and went to church daily anymore. I was a man who had escaped that life, who’d joined a biker club, and had the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen sleeping in my bed each night.
I was the one whose dick she sucked. It was my hands on her tits and ass. I was the one who got to sink my cock inside her and watch her ride me while she moaned my name.
I didn’t need her to say she loved me.
Much.
“Jesus Christ, Herb! You just put it on my toe! How hard is it to put up a canopy? Can’t you see it’s lopsided?” Amber hopped on one foot for a second, grabbing at her apparently squished toe, but then must have decided it actually wasn’t so bad because she stomped over to us.
Herb had his head cocked to one side, like an untrained golden retriever trying to figure out what his master meant when told to sit.
Amber sighed loudly and took my hammer, going over to the pole Herb was trying to figure out. She pushed in a little silver button on the side, and shoved the pole up to its correct height. She waved an agitated hand at it. “See? Not difficult!”
“Amber,” Kiki said gently. “Ease up.”
Amber shot her a look. “You didn’t have to drive here with him while he got baked and talked on an endless loop about which animals would win in a fight.”
Herb looked over at her. “Terrain matters! You can’t just say gorilla versus bear without specifying the terrain!”
Amber shot Kiki a dirty look, as if to say, see what I’m dealing with here, just because you and your boyfriend wanted some time alone?
Kiki tried not to laugh. She put her arm around the other woman. “Do you want to sleep in here with me and Kyle?”
I shot Kiki a look, because although I actually really liked Amber, I did not particularly want to sleep in such close quarters with her, especially because I knew Kiki slept naked, and I wanted to take full advantage of that later.
Amber scoffed, “And watch you and Kyle go at it all night long? No thank you. It’ll be bad enough hearing you moan about how big his cock is and how good it feels from the next campsite, I don’t need the live show to go with the soundtrack.”
My cheeks heated at the mention of my dick, and I was sure I’d flushed bright red.
Kiki just winked at me.
Amber had already lost interest and gone back to bossing Herb and Chirp around.
I knelt back down in the dirt and resumed banging in pegs when I could get my hands on my hammer, and Velcroing the walls of the canopy in place to give us a bit of privacy.
But even with them up, there was little privacy to be had.
The enormous campgrounds filled by the second as more trucks and four-wheel drives arrived, the excited occupants spilling out and setting up their own campsites around us.
We were packed in like sardines, almost no room to walk in between and bodies everywhere.
Music started up somewhere in the distance, and Kiki squealed excitedly.
“It’s starting! We need to hurry up and finish setting up so we can get out there and get a good spot. ”
There was a light in her eyes and excitement in her tone that was infectious.
She danced around our space, setting up our bed with sheets and a comforter, putting down a color coordinated mat, and unpacking copious amounts of water and snacks she’d brought along.
In the space of minutes, she turned our ten-by-ten foot space into a cozy bedroom.
I stared at her. “How did you do that?”
She looked up at me, confused. “Do what?”
I didn’t answer, because this was just her. Nothing was ever too much trouble or not worth the effort. She made everything better just by being there.
“I’m going to get my first outfit on.” She waved me toward the front of our tent. “Go on. Out.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I’ve seen you naked, Keeks.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ve spent weeks planning my outfits! I want to see your expression when you see me in them!”
I didn’t understand what the big deal was, but I understood it was important to her and that was enough for me. I kissed the top of her head as I passed and slipped out through the front of the tent.
Amber looked up with her arms full of clothes. “If you’re out, I’m in. I need somewhere to get dressed. I’ll miss all the bands playing tonight if I wait for Herb to get our site organized.” She shot him another dirty look and disappeared inside the tent with Kiki.
Herb just grinned at me and shrugged. “She wants me.”
I patted him on the shoulder, because he was the most oblivious person I’d ever met. I was pretty sure if Herb was the last person on earth, Amber still wouldn’t want him.
I found Chirp sitting on the tailgate of his truck, dusty work boots dangling in the air, his long legs covered in denim that matched mine. He’d already cracked open a beer from a cooler at his feet, and he held it in my direction.
I stopped to grab one for myself and took a seat next to him.
He clinked his bottle against mine. “Cheers to getting away and listening to some music.”
I took a sip of the cold, bubbly liquid, and swallowed it down. I still wasn’t fully in love with the taste, but all the other guys seemed to like it, and it had grown on me enough that I could have one just to be sociable. “Are you popping up a tent beneath Herb and Amber’s canopy?”
He shook his head and jerked his thumb toward the stuff in the back of the truck behind us. “I’m good here. Got a sleeping bag. That’s all I need.”
I glanced back at his things and spotted a guitar case amongst a case of water and a bag that I assumed held fresh clothes. “You play?”
Chirp shrugged. “A bit.”
“How come you never play at the club?”
“Who has time?”
I knew what he meant. As prospects, the new guys, we were bottom of the rung members.
We were working day jobs on the side of everything we did behind the Slayers’ gates.
We were the ones who poured drinks during parties, who cleaned up after them, who did menial jobs, like babysitting the entrances or doing the grocery shopping.
I never minded. I was just grateful to have a roof over my head and something to belong to.
I think that’s how most of us felt. Not that we were in the habit of having deep and meaningfuls, but none of us complained about being the club’s shitkickers.
We would do our time, and then we’d be patched in as full members, and some other dumb newbies would take our places.
That was the circle of life in a club and right now, guys like me and Chirp and Herb were in our infancy.
We had dues to pay, experience to gain, and then if we were lucky, we’d have a brotherhood to belong to for the rest of our lives.
I wanted that with every fucking breath I took. I saw what War and Hawk and Fang and the other longtimers had, and knew deep in my gut this was where I was supposed to be. That all the shit we’d gone through escaping Ethereal Eden had been necessary because all of it had led me here.
I leaned over and dragged the guitar case up between us. “Ain’t nothing for us to do right now. Play something?”
Chirp shook his head, his almost black hair falling over his eye. “Maybe later, when I’m drunk enough to not feel stupid about it.”
That was fair enough. I wasn’t in the habit of pushing people to do things they didn’t want to do and if Chirp didn’t want to play, I wasn’t going to badger him into it.
I sat back and sipped my beer instead, each mouthful tasting a little bit better than the last, and watched the sun sink, casting pink-and-purple light across the canopies and people around us.
There was no need for Chirp and I to make idle chitchat, there was plenty going on, with people all finishing up with their campsites, and emerging from them in every sort of clothing imaginable.
My eyes widened at some of the choices, and Chirp laughed at me. “You’ve never been to one of these, huh?”
I shook my head. “That obvious?”
“You look like a deer caught in the headlights. Have another beer.”
It seemed like good advice. In the distance, a gigantic Ferris wheel started turning and I watched it go round and round, while the music and excitement around us seemed to swell.
The wind picked up again, lifting the hair off the back of my neck and bringing welcome cool relief with it. Chirp noticed too, and swirled his finger in a circle. “Windy. You know what that means.”
“A break from the heat?”
Chirp just shook his head and grinned at me. “The wind brings out the crazy. Welcome to Riot Valley, Kyle.”