Ever After (Dirtshine Book 3)

by Roxie Noir

  “Who?”

  Liam just laughs.

  “Who the fuck do you think?”

  “You don’t want to be my secret, sexy side piece?”

  I’m teasing, but Liam’s tapping his thumb in a rhythm against my shin bone, his face serious.

  “I’d rather not,” he says, then arches an eyebrow. “Though by now it’s a bit late, isn’t it?”

  “I really did,” I say, sitting up. “Promise. All my shit’s in the car outside that I kinda stole and I’ve got a fuckton of figuring out my life to do once I decide to stop ignoring it all and go face it.”

  He looks at me for a long moment, and there’s a second where I think he’s going to say something like stay here for a while or don’t go back just yet or something like that.

  Something infeasible and unimaginable, something I can’t possibly do. Not here, not now. I can stay in his bed for a couple of hours, drink his whiskey until I feel better about all this, but I can’t make any promises.

  “You know what helps with that, don’t you?” Liam asks.

  “I’ve got the feeling the answer is going to be either whiskey or sex,” I say.

  “Well, you’ve drunk nearly all the whiskey,” he says, nodding at the nightstand.

  “I’ve drunk all the whiskey?”

  “It’s almost gone, isn’t it?”

  I sit up, leaning back on both hands. A curl bounces directly in front of my face, bopping me right in the nose, and I shake my head.

  It comes back. I shake again, try to blow it out of the way, but all that does is shake up Liam’s bedroom and Liam’s laughing face as he leans in toward me while I can’t figure out how to get my hair out of my face.

  “Tell me again how you haven’t drunk all the whiskey,” he laughs, pushing it out of my face for me.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Liam

  “It’s, ah,” the kid standing outside my door says, turning several shades of red behind his spots. “I mean. That’ll be fifty-six quid eighty pence.”

  For a split second I stare at him, wondering what the fuck kind of Chinese takeaway I’ve bought that cost fifty quid. He’s only carrying one bag.

  But then my drunk brain remembers, and I nearly laugh at the terrified-looking delivery kid.

  “Bollocks,” I mutter, looking down at myself. I’ve got my wallet in one hand, but this is a two-handed operation. “Turn around for a moment, won’t you?”

  He does it without argument.

  I drop the pillow I’ve got covering me, grab sixty quid from my wallet while trying not to laugh, swaying a bit from side to side. It’s cold as hell out here and I think my bollocks might have just retreated back into my body, so I grab the pillow again and cover the bits quickly.

  “All right, there we are,” I say. “Safe again.”

  He turns, looking terrified that I might show him my John Thomas, and I hand over the money.

  “Keep the change,” I say.

  Just as I grab the bag of Chinese delivery, the kid’s eyes nearly bug out of his head, and I turn just in time to see Frankie, wearing nothing but a shirt of mine, disappear into my kitchen.

  “Right,” I say, grinning. “Cheers, mate!”

  I close the door in the poor kid’s face.

  “I think you just made the delivery boy’s week,” I call out.

  Frankie’s standing in front of my kitchen counter, pouring us two more drinks, and she looks over her shoulder lazily.

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure he’s ever seen a nearly naked woman in the flesh before.”

  Frankie looks down, like she’s only just realized she hasn’t got pants on.

  “Oops,” she says, grinning. “Sorry. Drink?”

  I take it from her, and we clink glasses, sip. I lean in and kiss her, just because I can, her cool lips tasting like brandy. Frankie bites my bottom lip, and even though we’ve had sex three times already today and I’m positively wasted, my cock twitches.

  “Dinner’ll get cold,” I murmur.

  “You’ve got a microwave, haven’t you?”

  “Microwaves are for fancy lads.”

  She nuzzles her face against mine, sighing.

  “All right, you win,” she says. “I’m hungry.”

  We don’t put it on plates, even though I do own a few. We don’t even take it all out of the bag at once, we just dive to the first container as we pull it from the bag. I’m twice as hungry as I realized, slurping down beef with broccoli, fumbling with the chopsticks.

  “Just stab it,” Frankie says.

  “I can use chopsticks,” I say. “I’m just bloody drunk, it’s hard, they’re all strange and confusing.”

  Frankie lifts a piece of broccoli to her mouth, watching me as I carefully replace the chopsticks in the correct position.

  “Bloody motherfuckers,” I mutter.

  Frankie eats another piece, watching me with a smile in her eyes.

  “D’you want me to get you a fork?”

  “I’ve been to bloody China,” I say. “I can use the chopsticks.”

  “You went to China?”

  Shit. I frown, concentrating on the chopsticks, finally managing to snag a piece of beef.

  “That’s where Hong Kong is, right?”

  “You went to Hong Kong?”

  I think I did. I know we toured Asia after Lucid Dream came out, though the particulars are fuzzy. They’re fuzzy in particular right now, but they’ve always been fuzzy, because the only thing I was concerned about then was scoring in each new city.

  It’s exhausting, being a junkie, the way that the drug rules your life, the way that the only thing you ever think about is your next hit. It’s a horrible trap, a maze of desire, an endless hamster wheel that’s near impossible to get off because it feels so fucking good.

  And it is. Was. Every single fucking day I still think about it, still wonder what scoring one really last, really final hit would feel like: sunshine crawling through your veins, everything that’s ever been bad made better and everything that’s good fucking ecstatic, never-ending.

  “Is Hong Kong in China?”

  “I think so. You went to Hong Kong and didn’t know what country you were in?”

  Pretty much.

  “We went to a lot of places. It was easier than you’d think to lose track, after a bit everything looks the same.”

  I grab some more food, shove it into my mouth. Frankie leans on her elbow on the table, slowly listing to one side like she’s a boat going over in the ocean.

  “What’d you do in Hong Kong?”

  Lie. Tell her you were on holiday or studied abroad or went on a gap year that turned into a lifestyle or something. Tell her some half-truth.

  “The band toured Asia,” I say, hoping my drunk voice sounds as casual as possible. “It was a terrible idea, no one came to our shows, the label hated us, and then we broke up.”

  Frankie sticks her chopsticks into her mouth, digs into the bag again with both hands, wrestling for a bit with another container.

  “Ooh,” she says, opening it. “Noodles!”

  She shoves a bunch into her mouth, slurping them past her lips, giggling while she does. I reach over and grab some again, only to lose them onto the table before they reach my mouth.

  “Apparently you weren’t in Hong Kong long enough,” she teases.

  I give up, grab the noodles with my fingers, dump them into my mouth.

  “You never told me Rhinoceros was big enough to tour Asia,” she says. “Tell me a song, maybe I’ll recognize it.”

  Or you could tell her that the band wasn’t Rhinoceros, it was Dirtshine. You could tell her that you’re not sure Hong Kong is in China because you don’t even remember if it was Hong Kong or not, all you remember is a series of arenas and hotel rooms, faces in the crowd all blurring together.

  “Black Lotus Petal?” I say, pulling a song title out of my ass. It’s not a Dirtshine song. I doubt it’s a song at all.

  She
chomps more noodles, looks thoughtful even though she’s got a bit of carrot stuck just above one nipple.

  “Sing it,” she says.

  “I’m not a singer.”

  “Oh, come on, sing it.”

  I grab a piece of broccoli with my fingers, shove it into my mouth.

  “I don’t sing,” I say around the mouthful.

  “Bullshit.”

  I sigh, leaning back in the chair, trying my best to think, though my brain feels like its wheels are clogged with mud. All I can think of are songs off Lucid Dream, and half those are still in heavy radio rotation today.

  Frankie points her chopsticks at me.

  “Sing,” she commands.

  My brain’s frozen, stuck, the only things coming to mind massive hits that I’m certain she’s heard.

  Or you could tell her. Just come clean right now, tell her who you really fucking are, what you’ve done.

  I can’t. I can’t see the look in her eyes when she finds out, I can’t see the way she’ll look at me, at the alcohol, we’re drinking, at the surprise I’ve got in the bottom of the takeaway bag.

  Right now, here, with her, I’m someone new, or mostly new at least. I’m well aware that I’m not perfect and I’ve got the distinct feeling that I’m teetering in a canoe at the edge of a waterfall, that I might be just about ready to go over, but I just want this.

  Frankie’s not here forever. I’m drunk but not stupid, and I know that she’s leaving for New York again probably as soon as she sobers up, and for however long that is I just want to be Liam, the bartender who used to be in a band, not the junkie wreck who killed someone.

  “All right, all right,” I say, stalling for time, trying to think.

  Frankie raises both eyebrows, and at last, a memory strikes. Something we used to play in Yorkshire when we were nineteen, something that only ever made it out as a B-side on our first album.

  I clear my throat.

  “Without a plan, going down in the end...”

  It’s bad. It’s off-key, not in the correct time, and I started on the wrong note by accident so the whole things sounds unrecognizable anyway. It’s well enough.

  I get through a couple more lines, Frankie leaning on one hand, chomping away thoughtfully as I trail off.

  “You’re really not a singer,” she says.

  “Told you.”

  “I don’t know that song,” she says, fishing in the takeaway bag again.

  “Told you that, too,” I point out.

  “Sing me another one.”

  “I can’t subject you to that.”

  Frankie pulls out another container, opens it.

  “I can take it,” she says. “You got noodles and rice?”

  “If you knew a song you’d know that one,” I tell her, standing from the table. “Promise. I’m getting a fork.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Frankie

  The lights aren’t on in the kitchen, only the hall and the bedroom, and now that it’s gotten dark there’s only the reflected glow of the other lights and the deep orange of the space heater blasting away in the corner.

  I put my feet on another chair, lean back, drain the last of whatever the hell concoction I was drinking when the food came. Across the table, Liam’s just about out as well, so he finishes, slides me his glass.

  “Your turn to get refills,” he says lazily.

  “We should probably put the leftovers in your fridge or something,” I say, not moving a finger, the kitchen spinning slowly, lazily.

  Liam’s not wearing a stitch of clothing. He answered the door with nothing but a pillow held over his dick, so I don’t know why he thinks I’m the one who scandalized the delivery boy, but it sure is nice to look at.

  I hit that, I think fuzzily. Like three times. And I’m definitely gonna hit that again.

  You’ve been drunk all day, having sex with someone you barely know instead of sorting out the mess you’ve made, a tiny voice says. What if instead, you sobered the fuck up and got home?

  I hold my glass up to my lips again, hoping to drown that stupid voice once and for all, but it’s empty.

  “Dammit,” I say, heave my feet off the chair, grab the glasses, and stand.

  The bottle of brandy’s nearly out, so I empty it into our glasses and put it back on the counter.

  “You drank all the brandy,” I tell Liam over my shoulder, opening the freezer for ice. I nearly hit myself in the face with the door.

  “We’ve already gone over this with the whiskey,” he says. “It was you, because you’re a very bad influence.”

  I reach into the freezer. The door half-shuts on me, and I breathe in frost, the chilly air puckering my nipples even through the shirt I’ve stolen from Liam.

  “I’m not,” I call, my voice echoing through the cold as I finally locate the ice cubes, way in the back of the freezer, standing on my tiptoes.

  I grab them, plunk a few into each glass, brandy splashing out. The freezer door shuts.

  “There, I made you a drink,” I say, and boost myself onto his counter top. “But you have to come get it.”

  Suddenly Liam grins.

  “Don’t you want dessert?” he asks, while I’m mid-sip.

  I laugh into my brandy, splashing some of it on my face, and I’m about to tell him just say dick, I know that’s what you mean, but instead he pulls a small cardboard container out of the takeaway bag.

  “Did you mean actual dessert?” I ask, shocked.

  He doesn’t answer, just winks at me. I take another sip, and he opens the box and takes out something white and cylindrical, a little smaller than a cigarette.

  I blink. My brain doesn’t catch up right away, probably because I’ve been drinking steadily for hours now.

  “Is that one of those candy stick things you get sometimes?” I ask.

  He walks over to me, opens a drawer, pulls something out.

  “You think I’d be bragging about getting candy stick things for dessert? What the fuck are you even on about?”

  I giggle, because when I’m drunk I’m suddenly a giggler, and lean back against the cabinets.

  “You know those mint things you get sometimes, and they’re sort of stick shaped and they’re pretty gross but I don’t know, maybe you like them?”

  “Candy canes?”

  “No, not candy canes.”

  “I think you’re talking about candy canes,” he says, bringing it to his mouth.

  He doesn’t eat it. He lights it. Inhales, holds his breath for a long moment, lets the smoke stream out of the side of his mouth, fucking smirking at me.

  “It’s not a candy cane,” he says, which is fucking obvious by now, the acrid, herbal smell of pot hitting me full-on.

  I’m still leaning against the cabinet, and he comes up to the counter, pushes my knees apart, stands in between them.

  “Thought you might like a different kind of fun,” he explains, holding the joint out toward me.

  I don’t take it. Thinking is kind of difficult right now, but I’ve got the strong feeling that I probably shouldn’t be smoking right now, not when I’m already tanked practically to the moon already, and not when I should be leaving and getting my shit together starting tomorrow.

  I’m not opposed to smoking pot, I just rarely do it. Meaning that I might be stoned until this time tomorrow, since I’ve got almost no tolerance for the stuff.

  “I’ll be stoned forever if I do,” I say, not moving.

  He’s got one hand on my thigh, slowly inching it up. I bite my lip, wiggle toward him a little.

  “Frankie,” he says, blowing smoke again.

  “I—”

  Suddenly he covers my mouth with his hand, leans in. Even in the near-dark he’s got that dangerous grin in his eyes.

  “Wait, let me do the work for you,” he says, and affects a high-pitched voice with a terrible American accent. “I shouldn’t smoke any marijuana right now because I’m already drunk, and I have all sorts of shit that
I ought to do like getting my life back together instead of relaxing for a couple of days and getting high with the sexiest man in all of North Britain.”

  “Mmph,” I protest.

  He’s still got his hand still over my mouth.

  “Have some fucking fun, Frankie,” he says, his voice normal again, low and growly, shivers running up my spine. “You deserve it.”

  He slides his fingers from my mouth, kisses me slowly. His tongue slides along my lower lip, into my mouth, the soft nicks of his teeth against my lip. It feels like he’s exploring me for the first time again, my body fizzing with the combination of nerves and anticipation.

  He’s not wrong. There’s no reason I can’t get my shit together the day after tomorrow, or the day after that.

  Fuck it, I think.

  Liam pulls away slowly, hand on my leg, thumb stroking the inside of my thigh. Without saying anything I grab his other hand, the one with the joint, hold it up to my lips and inhale deep.

  He grins, takes another small hit himself as I hold my breath. I can feel it working before I even exhale: the sensation that the air is suddenly tangible, sliding through my fingers, every inch of my skin sensitized.

  I exhale, finally, coughing a little.

  “There,” I tease, leaning in. “Now you’ve dragged me down with you.”

  We kiss again, slowly, my hands working their way over his neck, his shoulders. Time feels like it’s getting stretchy, pushing and pulling, not that I mind because I’m happy to just do this forever. He pulls away, his mouth on my throat, my neck, one hand squeezing my ass.

  I take the joint from him and take another long drag, inhaling as deep as I can because this — right here, right now — is all I want. I want to make questionable decisions with someone I barely know, and I want it to feel so fucking good that I nearly go out of my mind.

  I hold my breath, smoke burning my lungs, and then Liam bites one nipple through my shirt and I moan, smoke escaping my mouth as he drags me forward, to the edge of the counter. It’s cold beneath me — I’m not wearing underwear — and I gasp at the sensation.