In the Band

by Jean Haus

  “Later Riley,” Romeo brusquely says from behind.

  I wave a hand but don’t turn around. “Um, some crazy action thing. I can’t even remember the name of it.” Admitting Romeo and I went to some chick flick spells date clearer than us standing close in the parking lot.

  Romeo’s van starts and his lights shine over us as he backs out. A long honk sounds before he drives off.

  Marcus’s eyes turn to slits. “Hey Don, could you give me a minute here.” He holds out his keys.

  “It’s late. I need to get home,” I say, desperately not wanting to have the coming conversation.

  Marcus shakes the keys. “I just want to talk to you for a few minutes.”

  He steps closer after Don takes the keys and walks off. “How long has this been going on? Is he the reason your shirt was backwards that morning? Did you make up that shit about him wanting you to quit?” He swallows tightly. “Is this why you’ve been ignoring me?”

  I want to snap who I date is none of business but the hurt etched into his usually amiable features stops me. “You know why I haven’t called you. It has nothing to do with Romeo. Have you even thought about what I told you about Chloe?”

  “Chloe was a mistake,” he says firmly.

  “Really?” I cross my arms and give him a sardonic look. “Because half of our high school could have slept with the other half, but the only person you seemed to ever notice messing around was Chloe.”

  His head rears back as if I slapped him.

  “It’s true. You’ve been obsessed with Chloe’s sex life or at least the rumors of it since sophomore year. Why is that, Marcus?”

  “B-because I was worried about you.”

  I shake my head but let it go. Hopefully, my words will get him to face his feelings about Chloe, but I decide to be honest with him about Romeo. Hiding a relationship is one thing. Lying about it feels very wrong. Like the dirty little secret thing is true.

  “Listen Marcus, Romeo and I just started dating. It’s kind of complicated with the whole band thing so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything to anyone.”

  “You’re the last person I would expect to fall for some band asswipe,” he sneers.

  “There’s a lot more to him than who he is on stage,” I retort. “I have to go.” I hit unlock and whip open my door.

  Marcus’s fingers wrapping over the window stop me from closing the door. “We’re still friends, right?”

  I sigh. “Marcus, we’ll always be friends. I just think…we should take a break from each other for a while.” I pull on the door and he lets go. His face is a mournful picture through the glass.

  Driving home, my thoughts jump from Romeo to Marcus then back to Romeo. I’m trying not to hurt Marcus, but I don’t know how to deal with his misplaced crush. But I may have hurt Romeo by jumping away from him and acting like there was nothing between us. I’m not sure if Marcus will keep his mouth shut, and I’m starting not to care.

  I pull into the garage but instead of going inside right away, I text Romeo. Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to go down like that. I did tell him the truth.

  I’m two steps into the house when he texts back. It’s alright. Total ambush. I hate to admit it, but thinking that he was your boyfriend for the last three months had me jealous more than anything else.

  It’s stupid how his jealousy has butterflies swarming in my stomach. I’m thinking of what to text back when the light flicks on and Jamie wanders into the kitchen. I almost drop my phone. “What are you doing up?”

  Still wearing jeans and a sweater, she opens the fridge. “Watching TV.” At least she’s wearing bright pink princess slippers with crowns over the toes.

  “Do you know what time it is?”

  She shrugs and reaches for a can of pop.

  “Put that back. It’s after one in the morning. Where is mom?”

  “Sleeping,” she says snottily, dropping the can with a thud. She’s hardly every snotty, but then she rarely stays up past eleven.

  “Mom went to bed while you were watching TV?”

  Jamie shrugs. “She was tired.”

  Unfucking believable. I’m so mad it takes every bit of control for me calmly to say, “Go brush your teeth and get dressed for bed. I’ll be up in a second to tuck you in.”

  She frowns but scampers out of the kitchen, which is a mess. Dirty dishes cover the entire back counter while food boxes and papers cover the island. Crap. I’m going to have to clean that up tonight or it will be there until tomorrow afternoon.

  I unclench my fists and stuff my phone in my pocket. I don’t really have time to text. On my way upstairs, I pass piles of stuff loaded on the stairs waiting for someone—me—to take up. I grab a stack of towels, rush up the stairs, and then pause in the bathroom door. The mess inside halts me in the doorway. Dirty towels are piled in the corner because the hamper is overflowing. Toothpaste smears the sink and spots the mirror. The trash basket in the corner is bursting to the brim with tissues and empty toilet paper rolls.

  I didn’t grow up like this. I grew up in a clean, organized house.

  Jamie should too.

  This disaster of a house didn’t happen overnight. Five dates in nine days and I get a sister up in the wee hours of the morning and a house in shambles. I stuff towels in the bathroom closet as the realization I need to slow things down with Romeo hits me full force. I love being with him, but my mother and sister need me more than I need a budding romance.

  I already agreed to Tuesday then Saturday the entire band is going out for my birthday, but after this week, Romeo and I are going to have to slow things down for real. But there’s always the phone and the computer and school.

  Calculus III never sounded so good.

  Chapter 25

  Under the soft light from a study lamp on his desk, Romeo sits on the edge of his bed and plays his antique fiddle. I sit on the desk chair. Just like last time I’m mesmerized by the picture of him wrapped in the delicate, haunting melody. The smooth movement of his deft fingers. The shadow of lashes on his skin. The tilt of his defined jaw cradled against the instrument. And the dark angle of his hair, swaying over his forehead as he pushes the bow. He’s actually sexier playing the fiddle than the guitar.

  He holds the final note before opening his eyes then grins at my look of awe.

  I unwrap my arms from around my knees. “What was that?”

  “Annie Laurie. I don’t remember all the words. I was always more interested in the tune than the text, but it has something in the refrain about how the singer would lay down and die for her.” He sets the fiddle and bow back on the shelf.

  I drop my knees and stand. “Well I might want you to lie down, but the dying seems rather wasteful.” Sometimes I shock myself with the things I say to him. I’ve never been a bold person. Guess my response to him proves that wrong.

  His eyes darken while his jaw tightens. He reaches out, catches my wrist, and yanks me forward until I fall against him. My knees dig into the bed on each side of his thighs while my fingers grip his shoulders.

  He reaches up and releases my ponytail. “Seems like my initial opinion was right. You do have a dirty mind.”

  “Just with you,” I say a little breathlessly as he fans out my hair.

  “It better be only with me,” he says roughly, as his fingers wrap around the back of my neck. He pulls me down toward his lips. “Your dirty little mind is making me crazy,” he says in breath that warms my lips. Inside the curtain of my hair, his mouth brushes against mine until he kisses me fully, exploring my mouth with the slow glide of his tongue.

  The next kiss is long and bottomless and has me falling onto his lap. Those full lips move to the corner of my mouth and slide around the curve of my chin. Knuckles brush my ribs as fingers lift the edge of my shirt. “This okay?” he asks against the skin of my neck.

  I clench the front of his t-shirt. “Only if you take off yours.”

  His quick breath echoes in the room then he reaches b
ehind his head and jerks his shirt off in one quick motion. My hands reach for his skin.

  “What about yours?” he says lowly.

  I lift my arms willingly then gasp at the contact of skin against skin as a palm to my lower back nearly slams me to his hard chest. He catches my lips in a hot kiss that has me moaning into his mouth. Delicious trembles quake the arms holding me before shaky fingers unclasp my bra.

  We stare at one another as I help pull the garment away. His eyes lower and darken to a definite black as he stares at my chest. One hand slowly slides to the center of my back. The other sprays across my stomach and pushes until I’m bent back over the floor. I’m suspended in air between his warm palms.

  My eyes round and my breath catches as his mouth descends on a breast. The shine of the lamp spotlights his movement. Holy hell. Romeo’s mouth on me is hot as hell. The muscles of his shoulders ripple under my palms. The tug of his mouth has my breath coming out in pants. I’m shocked, but too turned on to be embarrassed at my heavy inhalation. When he moves to the other breast, my lower body instinctively scoots forward until I’m pressing against his erection. He shudders at the contact and groans against my skin. I feel that groan to the tips of my toes.

  At the rock of his hips in tune with the suction of his mouth, a delicious friction grows between us causing me to gasp, “You’ve got a condom here, right?”

  His mouth lets go of my skin and presses to the center of my chest. He breathes heavily against my skin, causing tingles to ripple through my body. “I have this one month rule thing.”

  “One month rule?” I repeat dumbly.

  “I’ll explain later,” he says in a ragged voice. The palm on my back presses me up until we face one another. His thumb circles around the button of my jeans. “Right now I want to touch you. Can I touch you?” The question comes out in a harsh breath.

  The intensity of his dark eyes and the slow circle of his thumb leave no question of where. Just the thought of him touching me has me melting. His eyes hold the question until I slowly nod.

  He lets the button loose and together we tug my jeans off. He lifts me into a straddle over the spread of his legs as soon as my jeans hit the floor. My feet tuck behind his calves and I reach for his shoulders to steady myself. Our eyes lock while his hand moves past the band of my underwear. Then as his fingers glide against me, his eyes close. The lines of his face are strained. He draws in a deep breath and I tremble from both the slide of his hand and the look of wonder and ecstasy on his face. He leans forward, resting his forehead on my shoulder. My own eyes close as my hips move to the rhythm his touch creates.

  Pants fill the room like the growing beat of a drum. His knowing fingers apply pressure, move deeper, and circle my skin. It’s evident he knows exactly how to play my body. His fingers move over me as dexterously as they did the fiddle. His palm adds pressure above, and a strangled moan bursts from my throat. My back bows and my fingers firmly grip his shoulders so my melting body doesn’t collapse into liquid lust on the floor.

  I’m startled and slightly embarrassed to find him watching me when I open my eyes. Nearly naked and sprawled across his lap with his hand still cupping me, I recall my strangled frog-like moan.

  “Fuck Riley,” he says in a hiss and slowly removes his hand. “I never thought I’d see anything as beautiful as you playing the drums, but that was fucking gorgeous.”

  My growing blush instantly dies as his words warm me a different way. I’m not beautiful like April or Kendra, but I do believe Romeo sees me as beautiful. I glance at his obvious need under the denim of his jeans. “What about you?”

  He smirks painfully. “Cold shower?”

  Bolstered by his words, especially gorgeous, I trail my fingers along the dark trail of hair above his belt buckle. His entire body jerks from my touch. I unclasp his belt and unbutton his jeans in seconds.

  Just as my fingers dip under the band of his boxers, his hand covers mine. “Ah Riley—”

  “Let me. I want to,” I say and cover his mouth in a kiss. I’m not entirely a novice. I’ve done this once for Aaron, but then I did it out of girlfriend obligation. Now my hands reach for Romeo with a surge of eagerness.

  ***

  With his head on my chest, his eyes closed, and his fingers making patterns on my hipbone, Romeo appears relaxed. Twenty minutes ago, he’d looked tense, almost in pain, and just like he said about me, fucking gorgeous with his neck muscles straining and a fine sheen of sweat covering his chest as he came in my hands.

  I’d never been a prude with Aaron, but I’d never been so sexually blatant either. Something about Romeo weakens my inhibitions. Well most of them. Though my bra and jeans still lie on the floor, I tugged my shirt on before he laid me across the bed and curled against me. Languid and close, contentment flows between us.

  I give his Celtic knot necklace a tug. “So what is this about a one month rule?”

  The fingers stroking my hip pause. “The accumulation of my past.”

  “I’m listening.”

  He sighs. “It’s a long story and it isn’t pretty.”

  His response has me begging. “Tell me. I want to know. Tell me everything.”

  Leaning on his elbow, he props his face up with a palm. “I’ve never told it before. Let me think of where to begin, how to begin.” His fingers draw an invisible pattern on my stomach while he looks across the room. His face tightens in thought. The scruff on his jaw is harsh in the dim light. And the glitter of memory in his dark eyes is far away as his past pushes into our cocoon of contentment.

  “Since I can remember, my mother and I lived with my grandfather. My dad took off before I even turned one. My grandfather was old even for a grandfather. My mother was from his third marriage.” He chuckles lowly. “He liked the ladies, used to take old biddies on dates to the bingo hall. And he always had one or two at the local bar when he played. After she completed night school, my mom worked as a secretary in an insurance office. My grandfather owned and ran a rundown gym. We didn’t have a lot of money. But I had boxing and music and both of them. Then the summer between sophomore and junior year, everything fell to shit.”

  He drops his head to my chest and his fingers halt their trace on my stomach. “My grandfather had cancer. It was in stage four by the time they found it or maybe by the time he decided to go to the doctor. It was like one day he was there and the next dying in the hospital.”

  His words reverberate against my chest as a lump forms in my throat at the obvious pain of his grandfather’s death. Hoping to offer comfort, my fingers move to his head and trail through the silk of his hair. But I don’t interrupt. The tightness of his tone reveals how difficult this story is for him. I’m thinking it’s easier for him to tell it with the top of his head tucked against my chin and his face hidden from me.

  “I always worked at the gym more during the summer, but that summer I worked all the time. Nights were spent at the hospital. A girl came in one warm June day. Though I didn’t know her name, I recognized her from school. Some popular cheerleader a grade ahead of me. She just worked out and flirted that first day. The next day, she corned me in the office, and before I knew what was happening we were having sex on the desk.”

  My fingers pause before I grip his hair too hard. Instinctively, I understand this girl is the lifetime of lust he was talking about that night in the hotel.

  “She came to the gym every day. Sometimes we’d go to the office. Other times I’d take a long break and we’d slip next door to the house for an entire afternoon. I’m not sure how, we didn’t talk much, but there was nothing she didn’t know or want to do. And I was eager to try everything. I fucked my way through the summer while my grandfather lay dying. There were even nights that my mother went to the hospital alone while I bent my new obsession over the kitchen table.”

  My mind is screaming too much information but I have a feeling that he’s keeping the reality of their relationship mild for me.

  “Like I said we nev
er talked much, but I took the things she did with her hands and lips and body to mean something beyond lust. What kid at fifteen wouldn’t?”

  My fingers grip the short strands of hair at the back of his neck. I try to imagine him at the age of fifteen. He’d be shorter and his face not as defined, but still handsome, still intense. “Wasn’t that a bit young?”

  I feel his shrug against my shoulder. “I turned sixteen midsummer.” His fingers trail on my skin again. “Late summer my grandfather died. Between the funeral and the first day of school, I didn’t see her. Yet, over the summer she had become my world. That summer with her kept the grief of my grandfather dying from being real to me, which at the time meant everything to me.” His thumb circles my belly button.

  “What happened at school?” I ask when he pauses, even though I have an idea.

  “She ignored me.” He lets out a sad laugh that pains my heart. “I must have looked like an idiot standing by her lunch table waiting for her to acknowledge me. I was never in the circle of popularity, but I did have a reputation and respect from boxing. Blew it to hell in one lunch hour. Later that day, she did corner me and made it clear the summer had only been a fling.”

  I want to beat the nymphomaniac to a bloody pulp even now.

  “My world stopped. The pain she kept at bay throughout the summer overcame me. And every day I saw her with her quarterback boyfriend, I died a little more inside. I quit going to the gym—even working there. I ignored my friends. I missed my grandfather. My grades dropped to awful. Then I began to hate her and her popular goody act. But I started hating myself more because as the days went on, I realized what an idiot I’d been to think there was anything between us. And yet I still wanted her. It was like all that sex had me addicted to her. Or maybe I thought if she took me back, the pain would end.”

  He never says her name. As if saying it, gives her memory power.

  He pushes up, lies on his side, and rests his face against his palm. His troubled eyes meet mine. His expression is a long, sad melody. “The more I isolated myself, the more I sunk into depression. The pain of losing my grandfather pulled me into a black hole and her rejection anchored me there.” He takes a deep breath and exhales with the words, “Until one fall evening, my mother found me in the basement with a gun pressed to my head.”