by Kole, Lana
Two hours later, the sun was down and the stars were sparkling, or at least they seemed like they were sparkling. It was probably just a mixture of his tired, watery eyes and the alcohol fuzzing his vision.
He wiped the sleep away and yawned, swirled the whiskey and ice together, and then swallowed the last sip.
“This is good,” Nohen murmured quietly, staring down at his own glass as if it held the answers to whatever question he’d been contemplating since joining him on the cottage-esque porch.
He was lying, and Henry called him out on it.
“Okay fine, you’re right, it’s not. But thanks for sharing, even if it is from the quick stop down the street. It’s for convenience, not taste.”
“What? You have more expensive tastes?” Henry teased.
“Maybe,” Nohen said with a shrug.
The door behind them scraped open loudly, announcing its age in the squeaky protest of movement.
“What are you guys doing out here?” Lyric asked as she shut the door with both hands and a soft grunt.
It shattered the illusion of a quiet night, but it also stomped out the awkwardness that had bloomed in the silence between him and Nohen. The beta was lost in his thoughts, and Henry was too tired for thoughts.
He turned toward her, glancing over his shoulder as she paused just outside the sliding doors of the tiny bed and breakfast.
Henry was rocking in one of the porch chairs, and he rested his foot against the planks to stop the back and forth motion.
“Enjoying the night air. Drinking,” he said, tipping his empty glass at her.
“Whatcha having?”
“Convenience,” Nohen muttered dryly, and Henry huffed out a laugh.
“Sounds… convenient?” she guessed with a half smile.
“Tastes like it,” Nohen complained, but tilted his glass back and finished off his drink.
The plastic bottle clinked against the glass as he refilled it.
Henry frowned up at Lyric as she drifted closer. Alone.
Does the woman ever follow rules?
“Where’s your buddy?” he asked, knowing damned well she hadn’t brought one.
“What buddy?” she questioned.
It was dark outside, the light from the moon and stars their only illumination, but somehow he knew she was blushing.
As endearing as her embarrassment was, Henry growled, “Your buddy. Because of the buddy system. You know, where you don’t travel anywhere alone.”
Lyric crossed her arms, the fabric of her long-sleeved shirt covering her hands and whispering her frustration like a secret. “I didn’t need a buddy because you’re down here. Look, there are two of you.”
“Did you know we were down here?” he countered, already knowing the answer.
“No…”
At least she hadn’t lied.
“The rules are in place for a—you know what, never mind. I’m too tired tonight,” he said softly.
His words might have scraped past his lips a little harshly, leaving a bitter taste and chapped flesh behind.
“I’m sorry, that sounded harsher than I meant it to,” he apologized, but it did little to erase the aftertaste of her bruised feelings. Especially as silence descended over the porch. Nohen’s and Lyric’s gazes latched onto him with twin glares.
He blamed it on the lack of sleep. The stress.
She’d be fine out here, and his bed was calling his name anyhow.
He watched Nohen’s gaze trail from Henry to Lyric, his shoulders relaxing a notch just from her presence. Maybe she could pull the beta from his troubling thoughts, whatever they might be.
“I’ll turn in, you guys feel free to share the rest of the bottle,” he said, pulling himself from the chair slowly, the weight of the silence almost too heavy.
“Your generosity never ceases to amaze me,” Nohen drawled.
“Don’t get used to it,” he retorted, setting his glass on the banister. The condensation raced down the sides to leave clear streaks in the mosaic of water beads and pool around the base. That was how Lyric’s presence felt. Refreshing. Clearing away the chaos of the day to make room for things that didn’t hurt his brain.
It made him want to stay, but he wasn’t one to linger where he wasn’t wanted.
Henry looked up the long, winding driveway hidden by the trees and nodded to himself. They’d be safe enough out here alone. There were no neighbors for a while, at least according to the host, and the trees would do well enough to protect their privacy.
“No, it’s okay,” Lyric finally said just as he stepped away from the banister. “I’ll go back inside. Didn’t plan on staying long anyway… Just figured Desi wouldn’t want me creeping on her conversation with Amber.”
Nohen’s smile, lit dimly in the lamplight from inside the home, remained perfectly at ease, except for the minuscule tightening around his eyes. Not surprisingly, he didn’t want Lyric to leave either.
“No, it’s okay. Really. Stay,” Henry insisted, turning to face her.
She was already half turned toward the door when his words registered, and she paused.
That tiny tell of hesitation made him reach for his glass, fingers smearing the honeycomb of condensation as he offered it to her.
“Have a drink. You can share with Nohen.”
“What he said,” Nohen interjected, and scooted the plastic container with amber liquid across the planks of the porch.
“Really?” she asked suspiciously. “Why does this feel like a test?”
Henry’s lips twitched, and he leaned one elbow on the banister, still holding the glass out. “On any other night, maybe it would be. But you’re safe. For now,” he added.
The flush on her cheeks was too much fun to put there.
Nuh-uh. Don’t go there.
His subconscious was always the smarter one.
With suspicion narrowing her gaze, Lyric took the glass from his hand, her warm touch ghosting across his skin chilled from the ice.
“Thanks,” she murmured, and a carefree smile drew her lips up as she took the bottle from Nohen.
The ice gently clicked against the sides of the glass, but in the silence that preceded it, the sound might as well have been an avalanche.
Lyric wasn’t one for silence.
“So what were you guys talking about down here?”
“Nothing,” Henry answered honestly and shrugged.
“Just… nothing?” she echoed, tracing her gaze over Nohen for confirmation. “Cool.” Lyric glanced down at the glass of amber liquid. “Hmm… looks convenient alright.” Her eyes watered when she lifted it to her nose to sniff. “Oh god.”
“It’s for drinking, not sniffing,” he teased, overcome with the urge to smooth out the bridge of her nose as she wrinkled it in distaste.
But even in the haze of his buzz, he recognized that small gesture would be too much. At least compared to the boundaries he’d set thus far, the professional relationship he’d carefully blueprinted out and pasted to the inside of his brain.
That didn’t stop him from staring as she lifted the glass to take a sip.
Henry tried not to think about the fact that her lips were touching the same spot his had.
Instead of parting her lips and letting liquid flow from the rim of the glass into her mouth, she slurped.
Oh look, he was thinking about it.
She winced, rolling a shiver off her shoulders as her expression tightened. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and he followed the movement with his gaze.
“Gross,” she hissed, holding the glass out as if it offended her.
Henry chuckled and reached out a hand to take it from her, but she curled her arm back into her chest and swatted his hand away.
“I’ll still drink it,” she promised, exasperated.
Lifting his hands into a pose of innocence, he shrugged. “Okay, okay. It’s all yours.”
He’d stalled enough. It was time to go in.
“Where are y
ou going?” she inquired as he pushed off the banister and took a step toward the doors.
“Inside?” he replied.
From her expression, it was the wrong answer.
“I didn’t mean to chase you off,” she said. “If you stay, I’ll stay.”
Part of him recognized that he should have argued with her. It was he who’d begun chastising her as soon as she’d stepped one dainty foot out the door. If anyone was scaring anyone away, it was him.
Maybe it’s better that way.
But, like usual, he didn’t listen to the much smarter voice inside his head, and he turned to face the both of them. Nohen looked less than thrilled by her ultimatum, and worry snagged onto his chest. Like a clothespinned note on his ribcage stating, “jealousy risk.”
“You guys sure?” he asked, though he wasn’t as eager to leave Lyric’s presence as he projected.
“Yes. Today was… a lot. Let’s unpack.”
Henry arched a brow in surprise before he took a seat beside Nohen, the wood of the bumpy banister against his back less than comfortable. One chair remained, and he wasn’t putting Nohen out more than necessary by sitting above him.
See? He knew how to be polite.
“Do we have to?” he questioned with a wince. “I only just finally got my mind off everything.”
Finally. After the buzz had chilled him out enough to exhaust his brain from chasing the what-ifs around the track of his mind.
“That’s fair,” Lyric conceded, and tilted the glass at him. “Tell us a story of another tour, maybe a day with a little less… chaos.”
Henry leaned his head back against the porch rail and hummed. How strange that he suddenly couldn’t recall a peaceful day of tour besides the ones he’d had on Lyric Ceran’s bus.
“Or we could ask Nohen how he got so good at video games,” Henry suggested.
Anything to turn the spotlight on someone else before his lips got looser.
“Or we could ask Henry what his tattoos mean,” Nohen retorted with a brow arched in challenge. Or annoyance. He suddenly couldn’t tell the difference.
Before his exhaustion-ridden brain could come up with anything better, he pulled the sleeve back on his right arm, revealing the permanent ink shaded canvas of his flesh.
“Nothing fancy. New tattoo for every tour. Well, some of them. The others are just from visiting different states,” he explained casually.
Lyric leaned forward in the rocking chair to stare, and the ice in her drink clinked against the walls of the glass.
When had she finished it?
Her voice softened as she asked him about the simple ones, intrigued by the ink.
“You probably get tired of this question, but…” She nibbled on her bottom lip. “Do they hurt?”
Henry shrugged. “The first one hurt the worst, but I think it’s because I was anticipating it so much. After that? I mean, it’s still a needle penetrating your skin three thousand times a second.”
“Whoa, really?” Nohen asked, finally seeming interested in the conversation past the fact that it got the spotlight off himself.
“Yeah.”
Lyric’s nails dragged across her upper arm as she scratched. She had no way of knowing, but the place where she rubbed her arm was where Henry’s largest tattoo ended. It was one of the few he hadn’t done himself. “That’s a lot of needle pricks.”
“They all blend together after a while.”
“Oh, so it’s just like one giant needle, huh? So much better,” she teased with an eye roll.
The subject changed, the night went on, and Henry’s buzz faded as Lyric’s and Nohen’s progressed.
“I think I want a tattoo.” She rolled her head on the back of the chair to face Henry. “Ooo, can I get a tattoo for every tour too? I mean, after today, I’ll be lucky if they let me out of the studio after another two years, but…”
“They’ll let you tour again,” he assured her. “The venues are sold out. You’re making them money.”
A frown pulled her features down. “I know you’re right, but you don’t have to make it sound so… business-y.” Her lower lip extended in a cute little pout.
“Sorry,” he said, brushing his palm along his jeans to wipe away the urge to lean forward and thumb the plump flesh.
“So can I?” Her voice invaded his thoughts, and he pushed the inappropriate images from his mind.
“Can you what?”
“Get a tattoo? Oh my god,” she said suddenly, sitting up straight like she’d been electrocuted with her genius idea. “We should get one while we’re stuck here. It’d be a perfect way to memorialize the shit show of today.”
Henry imagined the tiny tattoo parlor they’d passed while dropping the rental car off. The convenience store in the plaza, located next to the shop with the busted open sign. The ‘p’ and the ‘e’ had been burnt out.
Which left ‘o’ and ‘n.’
His lips rearranged those letters into the only answer he could come up with. “No.”
Lyric’s lips parted in indignation. “What do you mean no?”
“I mean no. That’s a terrible idea.”
He tried to picture Lyric walking across the cracked and pot-holed asphalt of the parking lot into the dimly lit tattoo parlor, the ‘no’ sign flickering at her like a warning.
“It is not!” she replied, her words drenched in defiance.
If the building and the art posted in the dingy windows were any sign of the artists that waited behind the walls… then yeah. It was a terrible idea, and Henry would only let her step into a place like that and let someone shove a needle into her skin over his own damned dead body.
“Nothing’s stopping me from leaving right now and getting a tattoo.” She huffed and crossed her arms.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t get a tattoo ever,” he corrected. “I said you couldn’t get a tattoo there.”
The promise that parted his lips and slipped out was one he knew he’d regret the next day. Or at least a part of him would. It was the same part that told him to shut his mouth, but the tiny flicker of hope and excitement that made her eyes sparkle was too much to resist.
Henry excelled at telling people ‘no.’ It was his favorite thing to do.
Except for when it came to Lyric, apparently.
“Tomorrow, once you’re sober, if you still truly want a tattoo, I’ll do it for you.”
Her mouth popped open, forming a small ‘O’ shape, her blue-green eyes darting toward Nohen and back to him.
“You know how?”
He possibly enjoyed her surprise too much and waggled the fingers of his left hand. “I did most of these.”
Her mouth dropped open even wider, and she reached out to snag his hand. She pulled it closer, studying the ink on his wrist and forearm with all the intensity of a detective with a magnifying glass.
If her simple touch and that intent focus could make his heart race like it did just then, how the hell did he expect himself to sit still and lean over her with a tattoo gun buzzing in his hand for an hour or more?
See? Told you you’d regret it.
Shut up.
Nohen lifted his glass to his lips and sucked down the last bit of liquid. It burned his taste buds and scorched the back of his throat, leaving a nice, fiery trail to his belly.
He winced and sat the empty glass to the side, pushing it out of reach before he leaned back against the porch rails and stared enviously at Henry and Lyric.
She had his wrist gripped in her tiny hand, her eyes roaming his skin as if the ink in his flesh was a map to treasure she had to memorize before time ran out.
It was pretty cool that the guy could use a tattoo gun. And knowing he’d inked himself, sitting not only through the pain of the needle but doing it all with his own hand?
Fine. It was badass.
But did Lyric have to fawn over him?
Nohen forced a neutral expression and closed his eyes as he listened to their murmurs. Let himself fade
into the background.
“Doesn’t that sound great, Nohen?”
Lyric’s voice wrapped around him and pulled him into the moment again. “What sounds great?” he asked, cracking one eye open.
A comfy haze fogged his brain, his thoughts, but he could still pick out every strand of hair that was out of place in all the right ways. It gave her a cute, disheveled look, exactly how she should look after a few drinks on a porch while they were stranded in the middle of some podunk town waiting for their bus to get a new axle.
It made her seem… more real. Less like the rising pop star he’d idolized in his mind months before ever meeting her. Less like the badass professional singer that went out on stage every night and bathed in the shouts of excitement from the crowd.
Her lopsided smile made his heart ache.
“If I got a stained glass music note?”
Nohen could easily picture her smooth, creamy skin decorated with a kaleidoscope of colors, all compacted in the shape of a music note to represent what she loved most. Then his mind chased the thoughts right to the gutter. Where would she put the ink?
“I think you could pull off anything,” he admitted.
In the low light of the moon, her cheeks flushed pink.
“Where would be the best place to get it?” she asked Henry.
Nohen almost chuckled, watching Henry’s brain short-circuit at the question. He was probably seeing the same images Nohen was in his mind.
A thigh piece, her ribcage, maybe even her hip.
Fuck.
Nohen shifted lightly, the slats of the porch rails digging into his shoulder blades. He welcomed the discomfort as a distraction, but his eyes widened at Henry’s answer.
“Well, if you’re looking for the area that will hurt the least…” He cleared his throat, his arm rising to swipe his hand over the back of his neck as he avoided Lyric’s gaze. “The shoulder, calf, ass cheeks, and outer arm have the least nerve endings, and therefore are the least painful.”
Nohen blinked. Did their tour manager just tell Lyric to get her ass tattooed?
His lips parted, but any response he might have come up with was drowned out by the disbelief, and his mouth closed without making a sound.
It started with a slight shake of Lyric’s shoulders, and Henry’s cheeks bloomed bright red. “Ah…”
